IVR Studio supports SIP

Posted on July 10, 2009 | By Voicent

Santa Clara, Calif. – July 10, 2009 – Voicent Communications, Inc , a provider of comprehensive business phone software, has announced the support for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) among all its current product lines, including IVR Studio, Flex PBX, Agent Dialer (predictive dialer and force dialer), BroadcastByPhone Autodialer, and Voicent VoiceXML Gateway. With SIP support, customers can now manage and automate their incoming phone calls and outbound campaigns without any telephony hardware, making Voicent software easy to setup and maintain, and making Voicent solution ideal for large enterprises and small businesses alike.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an emerging standard real-time communications for Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). It allows enhanced voice services to high speed internet users, over DSL, ADSL or cable modem. Being an international standard that is fast becoming mainsteam, SIP allows businesses to achieve huge savings in their telephone operating cost – made possible by more competitions among VOIP service providers.

For enterprises that already deployed SIP based solution, such as SIP compatible PBX system, Voicent software can be easily configured to use the exising infrastructure. For example, a customer can create a powerful IVR application that is fully integrated with existing customer database and company website, by simply using point-n-click operations in the intuitive development environment of Voicent IVR Studio.

For businesses that are adopting SIP and VOIP technology, Voicent provides a complete solution for managing both inbound and outbound phone calls. Voicent software can be readily configured to work with any SIP-based service providers.

“Nowadays, there is absolute no need for a business to purchase a traditional phone system.”, said Jeff Larson, vice president of product development, Voicent. “By adopting VOIP, which utilizes an existing internet connection for phone calls, a business can avoid costly hardware installation and maintenance, and in addition, enjoy low nation-wide caling rates. With SIP support, Voicent products are well positioned to provide our customers all the necessary tools to operate in this new and exciting environment.”

Pricing and Availability

SIP support is availabe in release 7.0.2, currently in beta. Besides SIP, Voicent software also supports Skype and traditional phone lines.

Trial version can be downloaded from Voicent website. Customers who purchase now can upgrade to any future 7.x production release for free. Products can be purchased from Voicent online store

Posted in IVR General |

Setup IVR for calling cards

Posted on July 6, 2009 | By Voicent

We are are interested in your IVR platform. Basically we want to create an IVR application that by using premium numbers it will be able to deliver calling cards to the users. i.e.

1. User calls a premium number 900xxxx.
2. He then selects the calling card of his preference and hungs up.
3. The application sends him an SMS with the PIN number. (He then calls the 800 number to use his card)

This is a fairly easy application but must provide accountability and be very reliable. Calls will be sent to you via SIP in case of hosted version.

Yes, it is an easy application but nonetheless has both inbound application and outbound application. The IVR Studio tutorial has an sample like that, so you should be able to tailor it to your application.

One thing that is not included in Voicent gateway is SMS. But many mobile phone companies provide email to SMS service. All you need to do is send an email to a special address, and the mobile phone service provider forwards the email as SMS message to the subscriber’s cell phone. But you should also be able to use other SMS service to send the message, and link that with Voicent IVR application.

You have total control of the IVR application. Voicent does not provide hosting service, the gateway and IVR application are installed on your servers. You could add any reliability measures to your application, such as using multiple servers. (We also have customers use Voicent outbound application to test and make sure their IVR applications are up and running)

Voicent does not provide SIP services, so calls will not be forwarded to us. But you can select any SIP based VOIP providers or use any SIP compatible PBX system with Voicent software. The best way to test the software is download the IVR software and give it a try.

Posted in IVR Usage |

Create my own IVR program

Posted on July 2, 2009 | By Voicent

I am looking for a software that will allow me to create my own IVR program e.g. when consumers dial the telephone number provided it would say the following …. Welcome to my company, press 1 for sales, press 2 for accounts, press 3 for promotions or press 4 to speak to an operator.

You can start with Voicent Flex PBX software. The usage of the product is described in the product walkthrough (from program main menu > Help > Product Walkthrough…). It should be easy to set up an auto attendant as you described above.

If you need more flexibility, such as to read the promotions information from a database or website, then you can use Voicent IVR Studio. You could also import your Flex PBX design to IVR Studio. For details, please take a look at the product walkthrough also.

I would like to know once the program has been created using your software, what other product or service do I require in order to activate this service onto my phone line.

Voicent software works with 1) any SIP based VOIP service (Voicent release 7), 2) Skype, and 3) Traditional phone service. SIP and Skype should be pretty easy to setup since they do not require any additional hardware. With traditional phone service (PSTN), a voice modem is required to connect the phone line to the computer. There are limitations of using voice modem, for example, it works only on system running Windows 2000/2003/XP.

To learn more, just download the IVR software and give it a try. It should be easy to setup the whole application and test it out.

Having downloaded the trial version of IVR studio software & then created the auto attendant program, I was still unable to get the designed program implemented onto the phone line. The voicent gateway displayed the following error message:

Error No phone line. Cannot make phone call

What I don’t understand is why did it display the above error message because I have 2 telephone lines, which are stated below:

PSTN BT line
Sipgate account on the computer system.

Both of the above come with 2 separate telephone numbers, but its still displaying the same error message (Error No phone line. Cannot make a phone call). Please can you advise me on what I could do in order to rectify the problem.

In order for a computer to make and receive phone calls, a voice modem is need to connect the computer to the PSTN line. So if you do not have a voice modem, the gateway is not going to be able to use your PSTN line. For more information about modem, please see Modem FAQ

In your case, it is easier just to use your sipgate account. To setup sip for Voicent Gateway, please see SIP setup. Please note, only Voicent release 7 has SIP support.

Once you configure the gateway with modem or SIP, the gateway should be ready to answer incoming phone calls.

Posted in IVR Usage |