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Switchvox - How Do I create a service announcement which is changeable by users without admin access.

Switchvox - How Do I create a service announcement which is changeable by users without admin access.

This can be accomplished using IVRs, there is a bit of setup required first.

  1. First we will need to create at least three sounds manually.

    1. Go to Tools -> Sound Manager, Select Sound from the Create Dropdown and Click Go.

    2. Name the sound: AnnounceMsg

    3. Use Record Over Phone with a nearby extension

    4. Record and Save a Temporary Message (This will be Recorded Over)

  2. Create another sound, named AnnounceMsgRec and this time Record something similar to the following:

    1. "After the Tone, Record a New Announcement"

    2. Save the AnnounceMsgRec Sound.

  3. Create a third sound, named AnnounceMsgPin with the following:

    1. "After the Tone, Enter Your Access Pin"

    2. Save the AnnounceMsgPin Sound.

 

Now we can create our IVRs, 3 total.

  1. From the IVR Editor, Create a New IVR called Announcer.

    1. Add a Play Sound action, and select the AnnounceMsg you created first.

    2. This Sound may be set to interruptible if you want callers to be able to bypass it, but we will not need it to be interruptible for this example.

  2. Back in the IVR editor, Create a new IVR menu and name it AnnounceRec.

    1. Add a Play Sound action, and select the AnnounceMsgRec sound you created earlier.

    2. This Sound MUST NOT be interruptible.

    3. Now Add a Record Sound action.

    4. Set the Max Length settings as desired for your recording, I used stop after 5 seconds of silence or 1 minute total length.

    5. For variable name, we will create a new variable and call it AnnounceSave

    6. Next add the action "Store Recorded Sound in Sound Manager"

    7. Select to save the sound as AnnounceMsg , the sound we created in the beginning.

    8. Select which recorded sound to store -> AnnounceSave, the sound we just recorded.

    9. At this point we can also add an optional 'go to IVR Menu Action -> Announcer IVR' to allow the caller to review the message after recording.

 

Now we have to make sure only authorized people can do this.

  1. Returning to the IVR editor, Create a new IVR menu and name it AnnounceGetPin.

    1. Create a new Play Sound Action and select the AnnounceMsgPin sound recorded earlier.

    2. This Sound MUST NOT be interruptible.

    3. Next create a new Record Digits Action to record 4 digits and store them in a variable we will create named AnnouncePin.

    4. Make sure to leave Beep Before Recording set to Yes.

    5. Now create a new Conditional Clause Action with the following values:

    6. IF AnnouncePin EQUALS 1234 then Go to IVR Menu -> AnnounceRec (IVR Menu Beginning)

 

Now the only way to reach the Recording portion is to enter the correct pin (in this case we used '1234').

  1. Now go to manage extensions and create a new extension of type IVR and assign an extension to the AnnouncerGetPin IVR you just created. For my test example I chose extension 9988.

 

Now we can dial into 9988, enter the pin number, and record over the announcement.

 

Important Points:
The Announcer IVR currently only Plays the Announcement, but you could add an action after this to send it
into a queue, another IVR, or simply hang up. If you wanted the Announcer to play on all the incoming calls
before the callers reach a queue, you would simply assign an extension to it, make that extension the incoming
callback extension and then add an action to send the call into the main queue or IVR system after the play sound action.

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