Interactive Voice Responses (IVRs)¶
IVRs are the most common way to make audio menus where the caller must choose the destination of the call by pressing codes based on the locutions instructions that will be played.
IVRs¶
IVRs support specifying actions for dialed digits, but also they can be also be used to route any existing client extension.
IVRs have the following fields:
- Name
- Descriptive name of the IVR that will be used in other sections.
- Timeout
- Time that caller has to enter the digits of the target extension.
- Max digits
- Maximum number of digits allowed in this IVR.
- Welcome locution
- This locution will be played as soon as the caller enters the IVR.
- Success locution
- In case the dialed number matches one of the IVR entries or extension exists in the client (and allow extensions is enabled), this locution will be played (usually something like ‘Connecting, please wait...’).
- Allow dialing extensions
- When this setting is enabled, the caller can directly press the extension that must previously know (or the welcome locution suggests) and the system will automatically connect with that extension.
- Excluded Extensions
- When Allow extensions is enabled, you can exclude some extensions to be directly dialed adding them to the exclusion list.
- No input process
- If the caller does not input any digit in the timeout value, the no input process will trigger, playing the configured locution and redirecting the call to another number, extension or voicemail.
- Error process
- If the dialed extension does not match any IVR entry, any client extensions (when allow extensions is enabled), or it matches one of the extensions in the excluded Extensions list, the error process will trigger, playing the configured locution and redirecting the call to another number, extension or voicemail.
IVR Entries¶
Consejo
The most common usage for IVR is combining them with a welcome locution that says something like ‘Press 1 to contact XXX, Press 2 to contact YYY, ...”
The process of each entry of the IVR can be defined in the following button:
In this example, the caller can dial 1, 2 or 3 (the rest will be considered as an error and will trigger the Error process):
- 1: Call to the internal extension 200, created in previous section that routes to hunt group Reception.
- 2: Call to the internal extension 101.
- 3: Route this call to the external number 676 676 676.
Nota
Each of the IVR entries supports a locution that, if set, will be played instead of the IVR success locution. This way, you can configure a generic locution (like ‘Connecting....’) or a custom one for a given entry (like ‘Connecting reception department, please wait...’).
Entries are regular expressions
You can specify IVR entries as Regular Expressions. If entry is just a numeric value, it will be handled as a sequence of digits, otherwise it will be handled a regular expression. This can be handy if you have the same behaviour for a group of dialed numbers.