CCXML Call Recording

*** NOTE: This functionality will only work on the Prophecy 8 platform ***

One of the more sought-after features in CCXML is call recording. Well, we're pleased to announce that it is now available, and documented. This tutorial will jump right into recording a fairly straight-forward call, consisting of a pair of dialogs, and eventually a two-party bridged call. Unfortunately, the ability to record a conference in CCXML is not yet available, however it will be available in a future version of Prophecy.

Please note that call recording in a Production capacity is subject to a per-minute surcharge. Please contact sales@voxeo.com or your dedicated account manager for additional details.

Recording a pair of dialogs

So, lets get to it. First we'll set up our CCXML with a text-to-speech dialog, followed by a standard "hello world" VoiceXML dialog.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ccxml version="1.0" xmlns:voxeo="http://community.voxeo.com/xmlns/ccxml">

<meta name="author" content="Jeff Menkel"/>
<meta name="copyright" content="2008 Voxeo Corporation"/>
<meta name="maintainer" content="YOUR_EMAIL@HERE.COM"/>

  <!-- variable declarations -->
  <var name="state0" expr="'init'"/>
  <var name="connid"/>

  <eventprocessor statevariable="state0">
      <transition event="connection.alerting">
          <accept/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="connection.connected">
        <!-- launching first dialog -->
          <assign name="state0" expr="'tts'"/>
          <assign name="connid" expr="event$.connectionid"/>
          <dialogstart src="'null://?text=Hello and welcome to Voxeo C C X M L one oh re cord call test.&amp;voice=English-Female4'" type="'application/x-texttospeech'"/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="connection.disconnected">
        <log expr="'*** call disconnected, exiting now ***'"/>
        <exit/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="dialog.exit" state="tts">
        <!-- launching second dialog -->
          <assign name="state0" expr="'vxml'"/>
          <dialogstart src="'http://127.0.0.1:9990/helloworld.xml'" connectionid="connid"/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="dialog.exit" state="vxml">
        <!-- dialog exited normally -->
          <log expr="'**** PASS ****'"/>
          <exit/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="dialog.exit">
        <!-- dialog exited abnormally -->
          <log expr="'**** FAIL ****'"/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="error.*">
        <!-- standard error handler -->
          <log expr="'Houston, we have a problem: (' + event$.reason + ')'"/>
          <exit/>
      </transition>
  </eventprocessor>
</ccxml>

Now, let's take a look at what we will be adding into our CCXML application, before we actually do so. Implementing call recording is as simple as doing a simple assignation.

Inside a connection event:

<assign name="filename" expr="event$.connection._RecordCall(100,'TestRecording')"/>

Outside a connection event:

<assign name="filename" expr="session.connections[connid]._RecordCall(100,'TestRecording')"/>

Here's a basic overview of the arguments involved:

z = _RecordCall(x,y)

The 'z' variable is equal to the file name being used. In the above example, this is the "filename" variable.
The value of 'x' equal to a number between 0 and 100. This is the probability that the call will be recorded. Setting this to 0 means call recording is turned off. Setting this to 100 means all calls are recorded. Setting this to 10 means 10% of calls will be recorded. Here we set it to 100, telling CCXML to record every call.
The 'y' value will be used to add any additional text to the file name. In this case, the additional text is "TestRecording".

Implementation

Next, the implementation phase begins, and we add the call recording functionality to our application.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ccxml version="1.0" xmlns:voxeo="http://community.voxeo.com/xmlns/ccxml">

<meta name="author" content="Jeff Menkel"/>
<meta name="copyright" content="2008 Voxeo Corporation"/>
<meta name="maintainer" content="YOUR_EMAIL@HERE.COM"/>

  <var name="state0" expr="'init'"/>
  <var name="connid"/>
  <var name="filename"/>

  <eventprocessor statevariable="state0">
      <transition event="connection.alerting">
          <accept/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="connection.connected">
        <!-- launching first dialog -->
          <assign name="state0" expr="'tts'"/>
          <assign name="connid" expr="event$.connectionid"/>
          <assign name="filename" expr="event$.connection._RecordCall(100,'TestRecording')"/>
          <log expr="'Recording to filename '+filename"/>
          <dialogstart src="'null://?text=Hello and welcome to Voxeo C C X M L one oh re cord call test.&amp;voice=English-Female4'" type="'application/x-texttospeech'"/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="connection.disconnected">
        <log expr="'*** call disconnected, exiting now ***'"/>
        <exit/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="dialog.exit" state="tts">
        <!-- launching second dialog -->
          <assign name="state0" expr="'vxml'"/>
          <dialogstart src="'http://127.0.0.1:9990/helloworld.xml'" connectionid="connid"/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="dialog.exit" state="vxml">
        <!-- dialog exited normally -->
          <log expr="'**** PASS ****'"/>
          <exit/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="dialog.exit">
        <!-- dialog exited abnormally -->
          <log expr="'**** FAIL ****'"/>
      </transition>

      <transition event="error.*">
          <log expr="'Houston, we have a problem: (' + event$.reason + ')'"/>
          <exit/>
      </transition>
  </eventprocessor>
</ccxml>

In a nutshell, this records a TTS string launched via CCXML <dialogstart>, then transitions to the dialog.exit event, which in turn launches a second dialog, which is also recorded, and is a basic 'hello world' VoiceXML application that looks like this:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<vxml version = "2.1">
  <form>
    <block>
    <prompt>
      Hello World. This is my first telephone application.
    </prompt>
    </block>
  </form>
</vxml>

Recording a two-party join

Ok, so now we know how to utilize call recording in our CCXML application. But, what if we want to record an actual conversation between two parties? No problemo!


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ccxml version="1.0" xmlns:voxeo="http://community.voxeo.com/xmlns/ccxml">

<meta name="author" content="Jeff Menkel"/>
<meta name="copyright" content="2008 Voxeo Corporation"/>
<meta name="maintainer" content="YOUR_EMAIL@HERE.COM"/>

<var name="initState" expr="'state_1'"/>
<var name="call1"/>
<var name="call2"/>
<var name="filename"/>

<eventprocessor statevariable="initState">

  <transition event="connection.alerting" state="state_1">
    <assign name="call1" expr="event$.connectionid"/>
    <accept connectionid="call1"/>
  </transition>

  <transition event="connection.connected" state="state_1">
    <log expr="'***** CALL WAS ANSWERED *****'"/>
      <assign name="filename" expr="event$.connection._RecordCall(100,'TestRecording')"/>
          <log expr="'Recording to filename '+filename"/>
      <assign name="initState" expr="'calling2'"/>
      <send name="'CallOut'" target="session.id"/>
  </transition>

  <transition event="CallOut">
      <createcall dest="'tel:+14075551212'" connectionid="call2"/>
  </transition>

  <transition event="connection.connected" state="calling2">
        <join id1="call1" id2="call2"/>
  </transition>

  <transition event="connection.disconnect">
    <log expr="'****** DISCONNECTED ******'"/>
      <exit/>
  </transition>

  <transition event="error.*">
    <log expr="'Error: ' + event$.reason"/>
    <exit/>
  </transition>
</eventprocessor>
</ccxml>

There you have it, folks. You can now utilize recording in CCXML without having to launch a VoiceXML recorder dialog. You will, of course, still need to do so if you are wanting to record a conference. As this functionality is not yet readily available, one must still join in a VoiceXML recording call leg into the conference.

Tired of reading and want to start coding yourself? Download the source code, here!

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A: All Things Audio

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