IVR vs. Message Designer

Hi. Your help is appreciated… Are the two functionalities (Message Designer and Response Logging) the same in both Appointment Reminder and Broadcast By Phone? I’m not seeing the same TTS feature in the message designer?, but do see the ability to create a voice file with TTS

Not exactly the same. The items in Message Designer is a reflection of the graphical user interface (GUI) interface. For example, the notes field is only available in AutoReminder, and you won’t be able to access it from the Message Designer of BroadcastByPhone. But there are common items, such as license holder’s name and phone number. The main difference of the two products is that AutoReminder is designed for single call interface and BroadcastByPhone is for a call list.

I will not be using Integrated voice response, just touch tone responses (to several survey type questions), so is there any reason I should consider IVR? and I assume maybe it’s the branch logic piece? Perhaps more flexibility in message design, or more flexibility in log/report format?

The difference of Message Designer and IVR is the level of interactions: Message Design is for single level of interaction (one question and one response, whether touch tone or voice command), and IVR is for any level of interaction and branching. Message Designer is easy to use and almost anyone can design a message using Message Designer. IVR Studio requires some initial learning and is not for everyone.

Is IVR available with Appointment Reminder? If not, any plans for it to be? I’m looking to make scheduled/recurring survey type calls using Appointment Reminder, and if there would be any advantage adding IVR if I’m not going to be using voice response.

No and we do not have plan to do so. IVR and BroadcastByPhone together can handle almost all cases, and we get no request so far for that.

When using Appointment Reminder, do you just leave the server running all the time, but do they queue if the server goes down or if there are multiple calls to make at the same time?

Voicent Gateway has a builtin outbound call scheduler, so it will take care of calls scheduled at the same time. You can leave the server running or shutdown at night, either way should work. Each scheduled call can specify a range of time for the call.

I still need to review your response log reports (for Appointment Reminder), but I’d eventually need them separated by recipient and date(s/time stamp), and with secure web access. I assume I’d need SW development for this? I’d also want to set up a redundant server at some point, should one fail. Assume it’s possible? Thank you very much for your help.

The current AutoReminder web (HTTP) interface and gateway web interface use regular HTTP, not secured HTTPS. You have two choices, one is add a wrapper web page under HTTPS or use VPN. Your SW developer should be able to help you select the best solution. Redundant server is more complicated to setup, but it is outside the scope of Voicent products.