Develop outbound application to test IVR systems

Posted on December 18, 2007 | By Voicent News

I am considering using your “Broadcast by Phone” software for abusiness application. I need to customize a outbound application that will callother IVR systems, make sure the proper greeting is spoken (speech recognition) and enter a account number (via DTMF) to validate their database is working. In the event that the system is not working, I need to send a email to the proper support.

At the lowest level, Voicent Gateway is a development platform based on VoiceXML standard. You can use it to implement pretty much any interactive phone applications. For samples, tutorials, and document, please see http://www.voicent.com/devnet

Also, when you buy BroadcastByPhone product, an outbound gateway license is included. (same price if you just buy the gateway license)

BroadcastByPhone is a higher level application that is based on Voicent Gateway. It will be relatively hard to customize the application to the way you want. So interface with Voicent Gateway is your best choice.

Optionally, we have IVR Studio which can be used to customize your application in a GUI environment. This can simplify your VoiceXML developement. Actually you do not need to understand VoiceXML when using IVR Studio It is all hidden from you.

Also, there is an article about one of our customers using Voicent telephony platform to test IVR system.

Thanks for your response. Please correct me if I am wrong… To accomplish the application I have mention, I would need to purchase “BroadcastByPhone” and the “IVR Studio”… correct?

If you want to develop using raw VoiceXML, then you only need Voicent Gateway/BroadcastByPhone.

If you want to take advantage of higher level development platform, we strongly recommend you get IVR Studio. It is a GUI IVR development environment with both HTTP and Java extension built-in.

What Speech Recognition engine do you use?

The built-in Speech Recognition engine is Microsoft Speech Engine.

Is Speech Recognition only available when making the phone call only? or can Speech Recognition can be done anytime within the application?

Any time within the application. And it is available for both inbound and outbound IVR applications.

Are you able to send emails from the application? If so, how would you send a email (high level)?

If you are using Voicent Gateway, then you can implement it within your application. Usually, it is implemented in one of your dynamically generated VoiceXML files. Voicent Gateway has a built-in JSP web server, so you can implement your VoiceXML application files using JSP. For details, please see the gateway tutorial and samples.

If you are using IVR Studio, you can use the Java extension method. There is a sample included in the IVR Studio program called “Voicemail to Email”. It shows how to send an email from an IVR application. The Java code for sending email is also included in the sample. To access the sample, please select Library, then Voicemail to Email from the IVR Studio program main menu.

Does this system provide logging of what phone calls were made? If so, can I customize the logging to fit my needs?

Yes. The answer is similar to the answer for the previous question. Also IVR Studio has a information logging sample.

Does your scheduler provide flexibility to dial the same number every 15 minutes (for example)?

Yes. You can set the call time, retry time, latest call time for each phone call.

Posted in Auto Dialer, Developer, Gateway, IVR Studio |

Failed to connect to email server

Posted on December 12, 2007 | By Voicent News

Why does my email broadcasting keep not sending my messages.? This is what it keeps saying:
Failed to send message: Failed to connect to: homerental.com
Failed to send message: Failed to connect to: bellnet.ca
Failed to send message: Failed to connect to: hotmail.com
…
What am I doing wrong? I am using Internal SMTP server.

The error message means a connection from your computer to the remote email server cannot be established. You can take a look at:

1). Is anything changed on your firewall settings?
2). Is anything changed with your ISP? Do they start to block certain email port, like port 25?

No firewall is fine – I double checked to make sure it can go through. I don’t know about 25, but my email is set at 587 and I use that.

It will send it to myself, but ever other one in the system says the same thing I sent you below.

It looks like your ISP is block port 25. That means NO software can send email directly from your computer using internal SMTP. All SMTP protocol use port 25. That is why the software failed to connect to hotmail.com etc. This is like your telephone service has a block on all 900 number, so no matter what telephone you use, no call to a 900 number will be ever connected.

Port 587 is used for your ISP to let you send/forward email to it’s SMPT server, and then relay your email to other domain. Your ISP SMTP server still use port 25 to relay your emails. But that port 25 is not accessible to you. That explains that email to yourself went through. It went through from a backdoor.

If your ISP does not block port 25, internal SMTP is not going to worrk. There is no setting you can change on the software that will make internal SMTP work. However, the good news is that you should be able to send email using external SMTP. The external SMTP referred here is your ISP’s SMTP server.

When using external SMPT, the email is first sent to that external SMTP server (through port 25 or 587), then your email is forwarded to the destination domain by the external SMTP server.

Okay, if I can still use the external SMTP – how do I set that up?

1). First, you need find out the SMTP host name from your ISP.

If you have Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express working, you can check the setting from these programs to determine you SMTP server settings. Please note, each ISP has its own way of connecting to its SMTP server. When in doubt, call your ISP’s support and ask them how to set up Outlook for outgoing emails.

2). Select Broadcast Configuration… from the program main menu. Uncheck internal SMTP and check external SMTP. Enter the rest of information provided by your ISP.

OK, thanks. That worked.

Posted in BroadcastByEmail |

Runtime error when installing on Windows 2000

Posted on December 7, 2007 | By Voicent News

Just bought your modem 3025. While installing the software, I get an error message – “C++ runtime library runtime error! C:\Program Files\Voicent\Gateway\bin\vxengine.exe” “The application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.”

I am using: IBM Netvista M41 RAM 256, Windows 2000. I only tried installing ‘BroadcastByPhone’. The gateway service can’t start because of the error.

Please make sure you have the latest update for your Windows 2k.

Thanks for your help. I installed Service Pack 4 and it worked. In fact, I just ordered the software for our church.

Posted in Auto Dialer, Installation |