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AutoReminder: appointment reminder integration
Question:
How can I setup a centrally located (co-located) dialer that will confirm appointments for multiple doctors offices (different locations)? Can I accomplish this with the Voicent Auto reminder. Or do I need to buy the SDK? Each office will have its own unique message. How can I integrate with SQL / MySQL?
Answer:
Yes, you can accomplish that with AutoReminder. Here is a few suggestions:
1). Run Auto reminder in a central location. Turn on the web access interface so the software will
act as a web server. Details are listed in the following web page.
http://www.voicent.com/devnet/reminder_integ.htm
2). You can use the Message Designer to design a customized message template for each location. When a new appointment reminder call request is created, specify the message template name (Message ID).
3). You can keep track of all appointments in your own application that uses mysql. For example, a new appointment from one of the location is sent to your own application, and data are saved in mysql. You then send the information to auto remidner through the http interface. After the specified call time, you can query the auto reminder for the call status. Save the status in the mysql database.
Question:
How do I receive the key presses the caller made? How can I use these functions to
gather a touch response number and possibly transfer them to a live operator on key press? Do any of the integration methods (Perl, JS, whatever) support the described features?
Answer:
4). With Auto Reminder integration, you do not directly gather touch tone responses. The touch tone response is handled by the Message Designer. For example, if you designate “press 1″ as “confirmed appointment”, you can query the appointment confirmation status to see if an appointment is confirmed.
5). For call transfer with a touch key, it is accomplished the same way as 4). You desinate a key for call transfer, and when the person received the call presses that key, the call is transferred. Your program can query the confirmation status to see if the call is transferred or not.
6). As you can see, you do not directly control the key and how the message is played. Your program simply sends new appointment call request to autoreminder, and later on query the call status and confirmation status. It is very much language independent.
7). What you designed with the Message Designer is a message template. The template might contain variables such as the person’s name, appointment time, etc. These variables will be substituted by the actual values of each phone call.
If you want further customization, then you should consider using the Voicent Gateway directly. You will need to write your own VoiceXML files, and handle key press status, etc. For more information, please see:
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