I am trying to add a 5 sec pause in my text-to-speech. According to your knowledge base it can be done by embedding a string of periods/dots separated by a space (ie. “. . . . . . “) into my xml file. I have tried this as well as the following: commas, commas with space, <break size=”large”/>, <break time=”5000″/> and many others. Is there really a way to create a pause of about 5 or 10 seconds using the tts engine? Can you provide some example code for my jsp/xml file?

Not all TTS engine behave the same way, so the best way to control the pause is actually not using the TTS engine for the pause. If you create/generate the VXML files yourself, you can add an audio file with 5 second silence. Actually, Voicent gateway contains a silence audio file under C:\Program Files\Voicent\Gateway\webapps\ROOT\audio\si_05.wav. This file contains half second silence.

Been working w/VB.net code in an ASP.net webpage. I have successfully placed 3 ‘simultaneous’ calls and want to get the status of each call – to make sure they either went out or failed or was rescheduled. I have put MULTIPLE break points in strategic places inside my code (your code, actually) and the only statuses I seem to see are:
“Your call is scheduled for Thu Jan 13 20:38:33 EST 2011. [ReqId=1294969113125] ” and (after I hang up and I know the callis complete)
“ERROR: no such call record: 1294965402796″
The other status I seem to get are these 2 characters []
I see inside the code the following:
If (rcstr.IndexOf(\”^made^\”) > -1) Then Return “Call Made”
If (rcstr.IndexOf(\”^failed^\”) > -1) Then Return “Call Failed”
If (rcstr.IndexOf(\”^retry^\”) > -1) Then Return “Call Will Retry”
I place breakpoints on each Return & they never hit…
Is there someway of telling the status of each phone call I make – either programatically or by some kind of log file kept by your server?

It looks like the call is successfully submitted with the ReqId=1294969113125. The error code indicates that the call records are deleted by the gateway.

Check the call submit code, there is an argument for ‘selfdelete’. If this is set to true, the gateway will delete the call record after a call is complete. To fix the problem, all you need to do is set it to false, and after the call status is fetched, delete the call record using CallRemove command.

1. Is there a setting to limit the number of times a phone number is re-tried?
2. I don\’t understand the meaning of the setting ‘firstocc’. Not very clear in the other entries I have read.

Yes, there is control over the retry time. For all available parameters for submitting calls, please see the Outbound Call Scheduler Reference. Click the link labeled other parameters for more info.

The ‘firstocc’ means the system should not schedule a call after this time. For example, if a call is scheduled for 8:00 am, and all lines are busy at that time, the system will put the call in a queue, or if a call is attempted and there is no answer, the system may reschedule the call for a later time. When the call is at the top of the queue, the system will check the ‘firstocc’ time to see if it is still valid. If it is not, the call will be marked failed. The name of firstocc is a little confusiong, but it is set to make the system backward compatible.

3. I’ve been dialing a phone number I used to have that has since been disconnected. I have set the checkbox for ‘Check for disconnected numbers…’, but see no difference when I see the response coming back from the gateway.

The detection depends on a few factors. The main thing is to detect the standard frequencies of the disconnected beep. Some phone companies, especially mobile companies, may not provide the standard beep, so the detection will not work. It may also related to the clarity of your phone line. But in standard environment, the detection should work