4.4 Test Lesson 4

You must have Voicent BroadcastByPhone program installed in order to test this sample. This sample assumes the program is installed (choose typical install) under C:\Program Files\Voicent\BroadcastByPhone.

Prepare Call List File

This sample also assumes a folder named C:\Call List is used to hold BroadcastByPhone call list file. Create this folder using Windows Explorer.

Now open BroadcastByPhone and create your call list. (To learn more about this program, please select Help > Product Walkthrough from the program main menu.) Save the call list as mylist.voc under the folder C:\Call List.

Validate and Deployment

Validate the application and submit it to Voicent Gateway as show in Lesson 1. Use the same application deployment name. When prompted, choose to overwrite the previous deployed application.

Test Lesson 4

Once deployed, you can call in to test the application. The following is a typical session:

• Caller: call in
• IVR: answer the call
• IVR: "Welcome to my broadcast service. Please enter your password followed by the pound key"
• Caller: 123#
• IVR: "Please record your message after the beep. When you are finished with the recording, press the pound key"
• Caller: "this is a test message..." (#)
• IVR: "this is a test message..." (play recorded caller message)
• IVR: "Press 1 to continue and press 2 to record again"
• Caller: 1
• IVR: BroadcastByPhone program launched
• IVR: disconnect call

What's behind the scene

The following explains how the IVR application controls the interactions. The first few steps are skipped. They are the same as in lesson 3.

• ...
   
• IVR: "this is a test recording..." (play recorded caller message)
• IVR: "Press 1 to continue and press 2 to record again"
  
  Listen to Message element is active. Actions are executed first. The set variable value action sets the variable message_file to be the recorded file name (__VG__LAST_RESULT__).
  
  There are two prompt items defined for this element. The first one is play the recorded voice message. (__VG__LAST_RESULT__). The second item is a text-to-speech prompt item.
   
• Caller: 1
   
• IVR: BroadcastByPhone program launched
  
  Message OK element is active. The Run Program action is executed. This action invokes BroadcastByPhone program, with the call list file C:\Call List\mylist.voc and teh recorded voice message file (variable message_file) as the audio file.
   
• IVR: disconnect call

Possible Problems

If you are using Windows Vista or later, you will not be able to launch the program. The reason is that under the newer Windows, Voicent gateway, which runs as a Windows service, cannot launch an interactive program. As a workaround, the included sample utilizes Windows Task Scheduler. The gateway first schedule to run BroadcastByPhone with Windows Task Scheduler, which in turn launches it to the current user who is logged in.

If BroadcastByPhone is invoked by command line, it automatically exits after broadcast is finished. This might not be desirable. For example, it is better to keep the program running if there is error messages. To keep the program running, add option -noexit to the command line.

Another problem is that the first outbound call might always fail, especially if you have a single line system. This is because when the broadcast is launched, the incoming call is still active and there is no phone line for the outbound call. We'll solve this problem in the next section.

The application

The application: Lesson_4_Launch_BBP.zip

Video: Run External Program From IVR Application