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Telephone: Dialing settings
The Dialing settings allow you to configure autodialer related parameters.
The Dialing options are only available when a dialer is installed on the server.
You can configure settings for:
Dialing: Autodialer
Dialing: Predictive
Dialing: Answering Machine Detection
See also
Qualification timers
Calibration mode
Summary of AMD modes and parameters
AMD parameter for call progress analysis
Call progress events
Activate Current Project: Telephone settings
Dialing: Autodialer
The Autodialer settings allow you to define settings that relate to the use of an autodialer. The autodialer settings are only valid when IBM SPSS Dialer (Extension) - Power dial for the interviewer screen or IBM SPSS Dialer (Group) - Dial for the interview in a group (with optional predictive dialing) is selected as a Dialing option in the Interviewer settings (see Interviewing: Interviewer).
The Dialing options are only available when a dialer is installed on the server.
Send caller identification
When selected, the caller's telephone number is displayed to the called party when the autodialer makes a call.
Phone number to send (leave blank to use dialer's settings)
Enter a valid phone number. The phone number should contain only the digits 0 to 9, * and # (optionally preceded by a plus (+) to present the international access code). In addition, the phone number can contain the visual separators SPACE, (, ), . and -. Visual separators are not allowed before the first digit.
Error if login position is not in configuration
When selected, the Phone Participants activity will not open on a station with an unrecognized position and an error message will be displayed instead. When not selected, stations with unrecognized positions can be used to conduct interviews (the Phone Participants activity will still open), and manual dialing must be used on those stations.
Ring time
Enter the minimum length of time (in seconds) that an unanswered phone call must ring before the autodialer terminates the call. Make sure that you set a value that allows participants plenty of time to pick up the phone. In addition, local laws might specify the minimum value that you must use. The default value is 15 seconds.
Name of silent call announcement file
(Leave blank to use dialer's settings.) Enter the name of a wave-sound (.wav) file that contains a message that will be played to the participant when a silent call occurs (for example, SilentCall.wav). Silent calls can occur when an autodialer generates more calls than there are interviewers available to handle the calls. The .wav file must be in the autodialer's "audio" folder, the location of which is defined in the autodialer's dialer.ini file. You can also specify a .wav file that is in a sub folder of the audio folder by including a relative path (for example, Projects\MyProject\SilentCall.wav).
Time to try connecting to interviewer
Enter the numbers of minutes that interviewers must wait to be connected to a participant before the autodialer cancels the connection attempt, allowing interviewers to leave their stations if they need to. The default value is 10 minutes.
Percentage of calls to record
Enter the percentage of calls that the autodialer will record. Both individual questions and entire calls are recorded, and the recordings are saved as sound files in the autodialer's file system. To record calls, enter a whole number from 0 to 100. To record no calls or all calls, enter 0 or 100 respectively. The default value is 0.
If you enter any other value, that percentage of calls will be selected at random for recording, with the following exceptions:
All subsequent calls to a participant whose previous call was recorded will also be recorded. This includes calls to keep an appointment or calls to complete an interview that was interrupted by a disconnection.
Calls to participants retrieved by the Specific Contact button are recorded only if that participant was called previously and that previous call was recorded.
When you change this setting, there might be a delay of up to a minute before the new value takes effect.
For more information, search the UNICOM Intelligence Developer Documentation Library documentation for “Recording Calls and Interviews”.
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings
Dialing: Predictive
The Predictive settings allow you to configure the predictive autodialing parameters. When using predictive dialing, the autodialer dials participants before interviewers are available to answer the connected calls. That is, the software predicts when interviewers will become available. This mode can deliver the highest interviewer productivity, but might result in silent calls.
The predictive settings are only valid when the Dialer (Group/Predictive) - Show Start Dialing button on the Interviewer screen option is selected as the Dialing option in the Interviewer settings (see Interviewing: Interviewer.
The Dialing options are only available when a dialer is installed on the server.
Initial dialing aggressiveness
The initial “aggressiveness” of the autodialing system when it calculates the number of predictive calls to make. A higher aggressiveness setting can lead to less wait time for interviewers, but might result in more silent calls. Enter a whole number between 0 and 100. The default value is 0.
To stop the autodialing system from dialing predictively, set Initial dialing aggressiveness to 0. In this mode, the autodialer dials participants only when interviewers click the Start Dialing button in the Phone Participants activity, which is unlikely to result in silent calls.
Maximum percentage of silent calls
The maximum percentage of silent calls that are allowed to occur in the 24 hour period (since midnight). If the actual rate of silent calls approaches this value, the autodialing system reduces the current rate of predictive calls to ensure that the maximum percentage of silent calls is not exceeded. Enter a decimal value between 0 and 100. The default value is 0.
Target percentage of silent calls
The target percentage of silent calls that should occur at any time. The autodialing system attempts to keep the actual rate of silent calls at this value by continually adjusting the current rate of predictive calls. Enter a decimal value between 0 and 100. The value must be less than the value of Maximum percentage of silent calls. The default value is 0.
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings
Dialing: Answering Machine Detection
The Answering Machine Detection settings allow you to configure parameters relating to answering machine detection.
The Dialing options are only available when a dialer is installed on the server.
IBM SPSS Dialer supports a simple answering machine detection (AMD) that can be useful when dialing residential numbers. It is based on the observation that human greetings are usually short, whereas answering machine messages are long. When an auto-dialed participant record is dialed, and IBM SPSS Dialer detects that an answering machine picked up the call, the call is automatically ended with the Answering Machine call outcome when the UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server Admin is properly configured to support the feature. Answering machine detection is currently configured through the DPM Explorer tool.
Mode
The answering machine detection mode. Possible values include: Disabled, Filtering, and Calibration.
Parameters
The table lists the current answering machine detection parameters. All of the optional parameters (off, max, on, db, and so on) are encapsulated in this property. For example, max:4.5,on:11 (using commas as the delimiter).
Announcement file
The name of the sound file to play for an answering machine, including the pathname (relative to AudioDir on the IBM SPSS Dialer). You are not required to provide a value for this setting.
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings
False positives
False positives are humans that were misinterpreted as answering machines, in which case the dialer hangs up the call, or plays the amfile. The main causes of false positives are:
The human speaks a long greeting (> max). This typically happens when reaching a business number. If an amfile file is specified, the respondent will hear it.
The human has loud background noise (permanently higher than the db threshold). This typically occurs with car phones. The playback of amfile starts when the AMD algorithm has waited for end-of-greeting for off seconds. However, this timer needs to be longer than the longest AM greeting (~30 seconds), so it is unlikely that the respondent will wait long enough to hear amfile.
Humans can also be misinterpreted as “No audio”. This occurs when:
There is no audio connection (for example, because the battery in the respondent's phone is running low). After on seconds without start-of-voice, the dialer hangs up (call outcome: No audio).
The human picks up the phone but does not start speaking immediately (for example, the respondent is busy, or due to a disability). After on seconds, the dialer hangs up.
The greeting was spoken very softly (below the db threshold). Usually the respondent speaks up louder, but if the voice is not raised the dialer hangs up after on seconds. The dialer plays the amfile to “No audio” numbers unless the setting is disabled by option cp:-S (hangup immediately if silence).
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings
Qualification timers
Spoken words contains short gaps in the audio due to articulation. The dialer ignores gaps that are shorter than a qualification timer qoff; that is, the end-of-voice is asserted when qoff expires.
The dialer utilizes two qualification timers:
qoff, for humans, determines when a call is connected to an interviewer. The settings should be short (<0.8 seconds); otherwise the respondent might become impatient and hang up. However, a qoff that is too short causes many false negatives because the timer fails to bridge well-articulated greetings.
qam, for answering machines, determines when amfile is played. It should be long (>2 seconds), otherwise the playback might start before the answering machine is ready to record it.
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings
Calibration mode
Calibration mode is a means to determine the optimum AMD parameters. In calibration mode, all calls are connected to interviewers (just as when AMD is disabled). The AMD measures the duration of the respondent's initial greeting. During this phase, the interviewer can hear the respondent, but cannot talk. When the AMD measurement is finished (end-of-voice), the interviewer hears a short beep (WBeep) and audio is connected in both directions.
In cases of long initial silence (longer than coff seconds) or persistent voice (longer than con seconds), the AMD measurement is aborted and audio is connected in both directions. This makes it possible to try out different values of db and qoff without losing the contacts.
The greet time measured by AMD is sent to the application and recorded in call.log. To determine the reliability of a given max setting for the AMD call dispositions, make a frequency distribution of the call outcomes according to the following table:
Interviewer's disposition
AMD Reported greet value
 
greet = 0
greet ≤ max
greet > max
Human (proceed, appointment, refusal, and so on)
False positive? [1]
Correct (human)
False positive
Answering machine
Semi-correct (AM) [2]
False negative
Correct (AM)
[1] greet=0 can be an artifact from using a too small coff value, such that the AMD measurement was abandoned before the greeting started.
[2] greet=0 starts playback of amfile, but possibly too early, before the answering machine is ready to record it.
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings
Summary of AMD modes and parameters
Syntax
mode , param1 : value , param2 : value2...
Example
amd = 1,qoff:0.40,log:1
Mode
Meaning
Description
0
Disabled
No AMD analysis (but the Call Progress parameter cp is used).
1
Filtering
Only “live” calls are through-connected to an interviewer; otherwise the amfile is played.
2
Calibration
Calls are connected in listen-only mode during AMD analysis; the result is reported in greet.
Name
Default
Unit
Description
Action if exceeded
Applies to
off
6.0
seconds
Max silence at start of call
Hangup QSAMP_NO_AUDIO
Filtering
coff
4.5
seconds
Max silence at start of call
Connect two-way audio
Calibration
max
1.15
seconds
Max greeting from human [1]
Hangup QSAMP_ANSMC
Filtering
on
60.0
seconds
Max greeting from AM
Play amfile to AM
Filtering
con
3.0
seconds
Max greeting measured
Connect two-way audio
Calibration
qoff
0.35
seconds
Qualification timer for end of voice [2]
Connect QSAMP_CONNECTED
Both
qam
2.9
seconds
Qualification timer for starting playback
Play amfile
Filtering
db
-34.0
dBm
Silence threshold (range -46 to -34 dBm) [3]
Start max timer
Both
log
0
0 or 1
If =1, report greet and silence times (milliseconds) in call.log [4]
 
Both
cp
 
 
Override dialer.ini call progress analysis completion criteria CpComplete [5]
 
All
[1] max recommended range from 0.9 seconds (aggressive, many false positives) to 2.1 seconds (conservative, many false negatives).
[2] qoff recommended range from 0.3 seconds (many false negatives) to 1.1 (detects most AM, but connects humans very slowly to an interviewer).
[3] db should be high (insensitive) to avoid detecting people in noisy environments as answering machines (false positives).
[4] log times are measured on the dialer PC and can differ slightly from the greet times measured by the DSP.
[4] log times are measured on the dialer PC and can differ slightly from the greet times measured by the DSP.
[5] cp should normally not be applied for AMD; the only relevant parameter is cp:-S. If persistent silence is detected, hangup call without playing amfile.
See also
Telephone: Dialing settings