More Issues With Outbound Dialling

[ktruk]

Guys, as a follow-on from my (as yet unanswered) post (http://voiceguide.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4995), here are some different issues:

 

1. Playing the welcome announcement via XML: When I use the following "outDial_New.XML" file (listed in the debug log) I don't get the welcome anouncement played at-all. It doesn't show up in the logs either. (However the escalation problem in my earlier post does work in this XML mode correctly - its is just very inconvenient to use - I really want the module fixing please).

 

141510.34 12 dial [73,10,705311415,0,2359,MoTuWeThFrSaSu,,12,,0,c:\outbound\success.wav,c:\outbound\test1.vgs,c:\outbound\test1.vgs,none,10,0,0,c:\outbound\noconnect.vbs,

 

>> See attached Call2-XML.txt

 

2. Playing the welcome announcement via Send Voice Module: The same wav is specified in the "Send Voice 2 Phone" module in the "welcome" field, again, it doesn't show up in the logs.

 

>> See attached Call1-module.txt

 

Perhaps these two 'announcements' are suppressed by VG for some reason, (I'm not using dialogic cards but eicon) but even so, I would like to option of using this looping intro even if I was using Dialogic. The documentation states that If I leave this setting blank it should default to the standard system message. In my case it dos not. Just no welcome plays.

 

3. Specifying Start CallTime in XML: The online help states that for the callTime, specify any valid date. This isn't quite true. If you include commas, you get a default year of 2009 Dec 30th, also if you just specify time as say "12:45" you get this default date at 12:45 ie: 912301245 in the outdial database (which won't dial for another 2.5 years!). Can you tell me what date-processing/conversion process you use to derive this time? If you base your processing internally on the "CDat" in VisBasic or VisBasicScript then it would be helpful to see what formats we can employ. Dates such as "12:45 31 may", do work, but you could confirm your internal process, I can work it out from there.

 

4. Specifying RetryDelay as zero: If I set this to zero, I get a default of 1 minute. Can this be set for truly zero? Or can it take a fractional part, eg: 1.5 minutes? (No big deal if not!)

 

Now its time to take a look at the VBS/COM method....

 

Please let me know if youy are looking at these 2 posts, even if you can't do much in the short-term. Many thanks - Tim.

call1_module.txt

call2_xml.txt

OutDial_New.xml

[SupportTeam]

We are looking into this now and should have a further response available mid next week.

[ktruk]

Thank you. I will look forward to hearing from you.

 

By the way: Playing the 'modem' welcome prompt/announcement is not a major problem. It seems easy to simulate this in the answered script by just adding an extra play module with a high repeat count and a 'press 1' path. (Unles I'm missing something here!).

 

Also, I got the COM/VBS method working but I have noticed that the escalation string is strored in the outdialque.mdb (QDB) database in the escalation field. Since paths can be quite long, I am worried that the 255 field length of the QDB is not enough for than one or two escalations. It would be wise to look at this limitation and consider making this field 'bigger' like the recent improvements to the RV field?

 

Finally, the escalation string looks like a limited form of the "comma-separated" Text file format. But there is no option (that I can see) to specify LineSelection in this string. Adding extra values to the end of string seems to cause confusion? I will do some more checking on this and post an update later. Your online help files are a bit vague about this escalation string for the COM method.

 

PS: I would also like to make the point that the Dialler add-on is quite an expensive addition to VoiceGuide and I would really want it fixing in v5 product line. Aiming to fix this in the next v7 release would not be fair to those of us who are using v5.

 

PPS: The outbound dialling (when it calls), works very well with BRI ISDN - The calls are always flawlessy connected quickly, works with POTS and Mobiles well and instant hangups (even using TAPI!).

[ktruk]

Oops - Checking the QDB design, I see that the escalation field is already defined as a memo type field. (scratch comments above about this!) Sorry!

[ktruk]

We are looking into this now and should have a further response available mid next week.

 

Okay, its been a while and you indicated a response would be due before now, so, I would like to know if you can fix the script-module problem posted here:

 

http://voiceguide.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4995

 

And reply to the points in this post above?

 

Many thanks.

[SupportTeam]

Please try running the Send Phone Message module while using the attached .exe

 

 

The welcome announcement only plays if a voice modem is used to make the call. It would probably not play when a CAPI card is used as the hardware.

 

In the TAPI version the CDate() function is used to interpret the date/time specified in the <CallTime> field.

 

I think you may also use something like this:

 

now+X

 

which would mean "in X minutes time. eg: now+25 would mean "in 25 minutes time".

 

 

Also:

This new attached .exe uses the same Dialer_OutDialQueAdd COM function format as the Dialogic version - you need an extra string parameter (as described in the paramter list in the latest version of Help file)

 

set vg = CreateObject("VoiceGuide.CommandLink")

vg.Dialer_OutDialQueAdd "0,5551234", 0, 0, 0, "", "", 1, "c:\sendinfo\announce.wav", "c:\sendinfo\InfoMenu.vgs", "c:\sendinfo\CallBackDetails.wav", "", 0, 2, 5, "", "", ""

set vg = Nothing

VgMulti_5.2.5053.zip

[ktruk]

Okay, thank you very much guys... I will give this a go and report back next day or so. Just a quick couple of responses:

 

1. Suspected that a CAPI interface may suppress the welcome announcement. As stated, no problem, easy to simulate. (Oh and by the way, I tested out using a record module to do answering silence detection and this works a treat too, so I have the choice of repeating welcome, or doing dialogic-type answer detection - awesome - although obviously not quite true PAMVD!)

 

2. I thought as much! Probably explains why the date/time is bit platform dependent too! I would still like the date/time process to be a bit more intelligent about the date/time though. I think you could/should force "todays" date if missing, and why not support "today/tomorrow" while you are at it. I already tried the "now+x" and that works okay by the way.

 

3. Strictly speaking this is the "Options XML" field as added in the second-to-last parameter - yes? Whats it for? what can it do (or not do for TAPI?).

 

Thanks a lot again - I always appreciate your efforts.

[ktruk]

Okay: This update fixes the call escalation problem using the built-in scripting module "Send Phone Message" Module. Calls now seem to escalate through the 3 options: main contact > alternative > 2nd alternative correctly. I will test out the other stuff over the weekend.

 

Just one quick thing: when this version creates a new OutDialQue.MDB it doesn't create a 'memo' type field on the RV field, just a basic 255 char-limited text field. can this be fixed in this version too? (pretty please)

[SupportTeam]

Are you able to open that DB in MS Access? If yes then you could just change that field to be a Memo. VG will not change it back - it will just use the extra space...

[ktruk]

Yes, I could do this, but don't want to have to do this everytime VG recreates the MDB as I intend to kill this file regularly to keep it neat and up-to-date. Is it such a big deal to adjust the code to do this automatically?

 

Thanks!

[SupportTeam]

This version uses Memo for the RV field as well.

VgMulti_5.2.5054.zip

[ktruk]

Great, this fixes the RV memo field issue. Virtually all seems to be working well now. Many thanks.