IVR Tutorial Lesson 4: Test Lesson 4
You must have Voicent BroadcastByPhone program installed in order to test this sample. This sample assumes the program is installed (choose typical install when installing Voicent software) in the folder C:\Program Files\Voicent\BroadcastByPhone.
Prepare Call List File
This sample also assumes a folder named C:\Call List is used to hold BroadcastByPhone call list file. Create this folder using Windows Explorer.
Now open BroadcastByPhone and create your call list. (To learn more about this program, please select from the program main menu.) Save the call list as mylist.voc in the folder .
Validate and Deployment
Validate the application and submit it to Voicent Gateway as shown in Lesson 1. Use the same name for the application deployment name. When prompted, choose to overwrite the previous deployed application.
Test Lesson 4
Once deployed, you can call in to test the application. The following is a typical session:
- Caller: call in
- Caller: answer the call
- Caller: "Welcome to my broadcast service. Please enter your password followed by the pound key"
- Caller: 123#
- Caller: "Please record your message after the beep. When you are finished with the recording, press the pound key"
- Caller: "this is a test message..." (#)
- Caller: "this is a test message..." (play recorded caller message)
- Caller: "Press 1 to continue or press 2 to record again"
- Caller: 1
- Caller: BroadcastByPhone program launched
- Caller: disconnect call
What's behind the scene
The following explains how the IVR application controls the interactions. The first few steps are skipped. They are the same as in lesson 3.
- Caller: "this is a test recording..." (play recorded caller message)
- Caller: "Press 1 to continue or
press 2 to record again"
Listen to Message element is active. Actions are executed first. The set variable value action sets the variable message_file to be the recorded file name -__VG__LAST_RESULT__.
There are two prompt items defined for this element. The first one is play the recorded voice message. __VG__LAST_RESULT__. The second item is a text-to-speech prompt item. - Caller: 1
- Caller: BroadcastByPhone program
launched
Message OK element is active. The Run Program action is executed. This action invokes BroadcastByPhone program, with the call list file C:\Call List\mylist.voc and the recorded voice message file (variable message_file) as the audio file. - Caller: disconnect call
Possible Problems
If you are using Windows Vista or later, you will not be able to launch the program. The reason is that under the newer Windows, Voicent gateway, which runs as a Windows service, cannot launch an interactive program. As a workaround, the included sample utilizes Windows Task Scheduler. The gateway first schedules to run BroadcastByPhone with Windows Task Scheduler, which in turn launches it to the current user who is logged in.
If BroadcastByPhone is invoked by command line, it will automatically exit after the broadcast is finished. However, sometimes it is better to keep the program running if there are error messages. To keep the program running, add -noexit to the command line.
Another possible problem is that the first outbound call always fails, especially if you have a single line system. This is because when the broadcast is launched, the incoming call is still active and there is no phone line for the outbound call. We'll solve this problem in the next section.
The Application:
The application: Tutorial Lesson 4
Video: Run an External Program From IVR Application