Setup call transfer

Hi i wanted to know how to set up the incoming call transfer on broadcast by phone, My client has your 12 line package and currently was going through the product walkthrough, however, it says to go to the gateway and click call transfer but when i go to my gateway and click call transfer i dont get the same screen shown in the product walkthrough, mine only says transfer to ythe following number(which I already entered) and use screen popup which i did not select. Your prodcut walthrough shows I am supposed to get a screen saying new confirmation & response time…i have the messages playing and tested all 12 lines out and it works, just wanted to know how to set up the press 1 feature so I can recieve incoming, also on my gateway on inbound it is automatically checked on the box reading do not pick up incoming calls, is that supposed to be like that? because I bought this system to have press 1 transfer…thanks

First, Choose the Call Transfer Option

The screen figure is captured from an older release. Sorry for the confusion. But the idea should be the same – there are basically two call transfer modes: one is to transfer call to another telephone number, and the other is to transfer the call to another computer using screen popup. If the people to whom the call is transferred are expected to sit in front of computers all the time, then it is better to select the second option (use screen popup). With the second option, you also need to install Voicent RemoteAgent software (included in the installation package) on the remote computers. You can get more information on the setup by select Windows Start Button > All Programs > Voicent > Enterprise Setup Guide.

To transfer call to phone numbers (agents do not have to sit in front of their computers), choose the first option and enter the full phone numbers (11 digits in the US) in the box below. If you use Skype, you are done; if you use SIP based VOIP service, make sure your SIP line supports multiple channels; if you use modem, click the button labeled setup call transfer for voice modem

You are done with the setup for Voicent Gateway. Do not worry about the “Do not pickup incoming call” option, it is used to control calls that are not initiated by Voicent gateway.

Second, design a message that use call transfer

Open BroadcastByPhone or AutoReminder software, select Message Designer, which is used to design your call message. In the call message, you can select call confirmation and response. The product walkthrough should have more information about using the Message Designer.

Third, select the designed message for your broadcast

Choose from BBP’s main menu > Broadcast > Select Message . Then choose the message you just designed for your broadcast. Start the broadcast…

Posted in Auto Dialer |

Support Skype 4.x

I checked Q & A and know that bp does not fully support skype v4.1. When are you planning to support Skype 4.1 officially?

Whenever Skype supports SIP officially.

SIP is the standard for Voice of IP (VOIP). Nowadays, almost all VOIP services use SIP. The only notable exception is Skype, which uses its own proprietary technology. The good news is that Skype is going to fully support SIP soon, and the Skype for SIP program is currently in beta.

Once Skype supports SIP, you can use your Skype SIP credential (your skype SIP user name and password) to configure Voicent to use Skype directly – meaning Voicent software can make and receive phone calls throught the Skype network without running any Skype instance. So regardless of the Skype version (whether 3.8 or 4.1 or later), you should be able to use Voicent through Skype SIP. And since the current Voicent release already supports SIP, there is no need to change Voicent software when Skype for SIP is ready.

Also, if you only need one line (one skype instance), you may still be able to use Skype 4.x with Voicent software. Just ignore the warning related to using Skype 3.8

Posted in Auto Dialer, Gateway, Skype, VOIP |

Improve autodialer result

I provide Technical support for Incarnate Word Church and we recently purchased an 8 line Enterprise Edition of Broadcast by Phone. We tested using the shareware for a month or so and are very pleased with the results. We purchased the Enterprise edition last week and ran a full calling list message as a test yesterday. The list contains 322 phone numbers. Things went well but we do have a couple of questions that can help us fine tune our list and methods. We are using 1 Voicent modem and 7 Unlimited Skype lines. I have searched the Troubleshooting help and FAQ’s and didn’t find any answers to these questions.

1) The first number seems to fail about 50% of the time with this status; “Line disconnected, call did not go through.” What does this mean and what can we do to correct it?

This is likely related to the first modem line. Whenever you have that error message, it means somehow the system think the phone number called is disconnected. The detection is done by analyzing the incoming audio from the modem line. This could be misleading, especially when the line is not clear. To improve the accuracy, make sure the phone line does not have call waiting, or voicemail signal, and use a short phone cord to connect the modem to the wall jack. Basically, the clearer the line, the better the detection.

2) We received about 38 failures out of the 322, so about 12%. Not bad, but these failures returned 4 different status.

Failed. No Answer
Failed. No Answer. Auto Disconnected after 8 rings.
Failed. Line Occupied.
Failed. Line Occupied. Misc Error

Can you explain the difference for each of these statuses? If we can understand what each mean then we can address the issue.

The first two are actually not failures.

“No answer”: no one picks up the phone and the line is disconnected by the phone company. It is likely there is no answring machine
“No answer: auto disconnect after 8 rings”: no one picks up the phone, and after 8 rings, Voicent software hangs up the call

“Line Occupied”: Voicent software cannot get dial tone from the phone line. You may want to increase the hangup time (gateway > Setup > Options &Outbound tab) so the line can be properly disconnected.

“Line Occupied: Misc Error”: This error is from Skype. For more details, you need to take a look at the Skype window. It should give you more info on the error.

3) We are using the WebApps to make our recording and start the calls. It works well and is easy for our School Principal. However during our testing we once started calls using the incorrect list. Is there a way to stop the calls? I tried to open Broadcast by Phone app locally, but the Stop Broadcast was not enabled. I also reviewed the command Line help and I don’t see a command to stop calls, only startnow. Any thoughts are appreciated?

Thank you very much for you help. We are all very pleased with the Broadcast by Phone system, thanks.

The only way to stop the broadcast is to kill the BroadcastByPhone process (vcast.exe). For that, you should use general Windows facilities/commands to do that. The WebApps included with BroadcastByPhone is no longer supported but it is open source, so you can change it anyway you want.

Posted in Auto Dialer |