Gateway API for cloud service

Hello! I’ve signed up for a trail of your services, and hoping that it can do what we need. Basically we have our own internal scripts that send us an email when one of our services is down, but we want to have it call us as well. I found this and it looks like we should be able to do this with your solution: https://www.voicent.com/devnet/docs/phpapi.htm I started setting this up but noticed a few things, first this script is trying to call localhost and I don’t have nor want to install any software there. Can I use this script to send through your server? Next I noticed that it wants the recording to be on your server. Can I add a recording through the control panel and call it through the PHP script? Please let us know, any help with this is appreciated.

Yes, you could use the API with our cloud service. Actually the same API can be used for sending text messages also.

Since the service/gateway is not on your premise, you will need to add authentication tokens to the API. For details, please open a support from your cloud account for more details.

If you have a large API volume and the usage is affecting other users on the same server, or if you have other security requirement, we will require you to get a dedicated cloud account. Please note a dedicated cloud account also has many other features.

Regarding audio files

You can upload your audio files to the cloud server and use it as your call message. However, you first need to create a calling message template (ivr app) using Voicent IVR Studio software. Once the ivr app is created, you can then use the call_ivr function to trigger a call.

IVR Studio Tutorial is the best place to start. For your simple app, you do not need to go through the whole thing.

Posted in Developer |

Multiple call transfers

If multiple end users press 1 to be transferred to an agent, and not enough agents are available, what happens? Are they placed in a queue? Are they informed about that, and the waiting time?

It all depends on the call transfer mode you set for your press-1 message template. There are basically two transfer modes: 1). transfer to a phone number, or 2). transfer to a computer. The latter one also has four sub modes.

Transfer to a phone number

When transfer to a phone number is select, the dialer will call that phone number when someone presses 1. If other calling lines also choose pressing 1 to transfer, all these lines will call the phone number. If the transferred number is a simple landline or a cell phone, then most of these transferred calls will result in busy tones. If the number belongs to a corporate PBX system or IVR system, then depending on the auto attendants and call queue settings, the transferred calls could be answered and put into a queue to be answered.

Transfer to a computer

You can transfer calls to Voicent’s PBX / inbound call features, such as transfer call to an agent or an agent group. An agent must run Voicent Agent Dashboard software (softphone) on his computer and use computer headset to talk to customers.

The transfer can be a direct transfer or a queued transfer. A queued transfer is first answered by a queue (listening to queue music during waiting) and the call will be answered when an agent selects it.

If all agents are busy, 1) if it is a direct transfer, then a transferred call will be sent to voicemails, or 2) if it is a queued transfer, then a transferred call will be put in a queue. If there are more transferred calls than the queue capacity, then later calls will get busy tones.

Posted in Auto Dialer, General, Product Usage |

Automated calls to contact parents

Hello, we are looking to setup an automated call to contact parents automatically without us having to call individually all of the time at our school campus. Can you give us more information on regarding to this?

This should be pretty easy to do with our auto dialer tool. To make automated calls, all you need to do is upload a calling list, select a calling message, and click the start button.

It is not necessary to upload a list all the time. Our service contains a full database to manage lists. For example, a contact/student in the database can contain parent names, grade, home addresses, etc. You can search the database, such as all third grade students, and use the search results for automated calling.

A more useful feature of the auto dialer tool is that it is capable of collecting responses. For example, if you want to know how many parents will come for a school event, you can set it to collect touch tone key responses, such as press 1 for yes, and press 2 for no. All the yes answers can then be easily seen the the report page.

The service is extremely affordable, starting at $19 per month plus phone bills. For a small school, the monthly cost is likely to run below $50.

Our service also offers other tools, such as bulk text messages and emails. Both can be used to communicate with parents.

Posted in Product Usage |