Passing information to the IVR system
When the DialCall command obtains a connection, it passes a DTMF string to the IVR system. This may contain one or more of the following:
▪the 16 tone generating symbols 0–9, *, #, A–D
▪a comma for a one-second pause
▪a dot (period) for a five-second pause.
In interviewing terms, you can put anything in the DTMF string as long as it has some meaning to IVR. Enclose the DTMF string in double quotation marks. You can type it directly into to DialCall command or you can place it in a constant and then name the constant in the command.
Typically, a DTMF string might contain the following:
▪The serial number that the interviewing program has allocated to this respondent. Always pass at least this information as it ensures that you will be able to combine the IVR data with the rest of the UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server data for the interview later on.
▪Questionnaire data from the UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server portion of the interview that you want to be available in the IVR interview or in the IVR database. This might include some screening information such as age or gender. In theory, you could pass all the UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server data to IVR so that the whole interview is stored in the IVR system. However, while this approach may be satisfactory for short surveys or surveys that are mainly done using IVR, the time required to transfer the data makes it unsuitable for longer surveys.
▪Special symbols to force a pause in the data. This can be necessary if the set-up of the audio path is slow, for example, on intercontinental connections.
▪Special symbols such as # to mark the end of one question’s data, or to jump to the next unanswered question in the script.
See also
‘Passing an interview serial number or sample record key’ on page 1126
‘Passing answers to IVR’ on page 1127
‘Writing an IVR hand-off function’ on page 1121