So you're ready to build a sophisticated IVR application. Prophecy Designer is here for you.
What is Prophecy Designer?
Prophecy Designer is a simple front-end for designing robust IVR applications without having to dive into tons of code. Designer has all the tools you'll need to start writing and deploying production-grade IVR applications at the touch of a button. Well, maybe a few button clicks, but who's counting? For those of us that have neither the time, nor the inclination to hand-code a VoiceXML application, Prophecy Designer is a natural choice for doing so. No previous IVR experience is required to use it. It is designed to be the most user-friendly, robust GUI-based design tool in existence for IVR applications.
We can't start a tutorial without a Hello World application now can we? So let's dive in and create and publish our first Designer project.
Step 1: Create a New Project
After opening Designer, the first thing you'll see is the Quick Start screen with a few different options. If you'd already started work on a project you can return to your project here by clicking "Open an existing project." For now, though, you'll want to select "Create a new project."
From here select New Project and click Next.
Step 2: Creating Your App
Go ahead and name your new project "Hello World." You can also enter a description here if you like. Once you're done here, go ahead and click Save.
Now you'll see the Call Flow diagram. This screen lays out your call flow in an easy to manage way. If you click the pull down menu next to the Views option, you can also set a "Tree view" if that suits you better. For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll stick with the "Graph view."
While you're here, go ahead and check out the Outline window. This will let you manipulate the Call Flow view to your liking, a really helpful feature when you've amassed quite a few steps in a complex project. Go ahead and play around with it for a minute. We'll wait...
Now that you've got that out of the way, go ahead and set a greeting for your callers. Whenever you create a new project that's not based on a template, you'll see this initial call flow. The Initial Step is a very special step in every very special project that let's us set our entry point into the IVR. Go ahead and click it, and you'll notice it has only one setting - the step at which the project will start. For now we'll leave this at its default setting, Start, and click Save.
So what IS a Step?
If we were writing VoiceXML, we'd be using a bunch of forms, fields, and blocks to define our call flow, but Designer makes this simple by providing you with steps that give you a simple and easy-on-the-eyes call flow diagram. With these, you can build a sophisticated IVR application simply, and see how the changes effect your project immediately in our call flow diagram. A Step represents a single dialog with a caller or back-end system. In some cases these dialogs require several back-and-forth interactions. For example, the Choice Step allows the caller to pick from a menu of options. If the caller selects an invalid option, the Choice Step can be configured to re-prompt the caller; possibly providing a more detailed listing of valid responses. Other Steps (e.g. the Integration Step) can be configured to gather information from a back-end system. By linking these Steps together we can build some pretty sophisticated Call Flows in a fraction of the time compared to hand-coding VoiceXML.
Here are some quick definitions of each available step ripped straight from the Designer Quick Start guide. If you're ever unsure about what a step can or can't do, simply load up Designer and click the Quick Start Guide link in the initial Getting Started window.
Prompt
Plays your prompt to the caller but doesn't expect anything back. This is useful when you don't want to allow the caller to barge-in, or when you are just speaking information.
Input
You'll need this for a wide range of purposes. Want a date? That is, do you want to capture a date? Use the Input Step. Want a phone number? Use the Input Step. Obviously, this is where you capture information from the caller and leave the information in a placeholder that we call a variable. You can use the variable later to make decisions or send to your database.
Integration
If your data has a Web Service front-end, you will find accessing it incredibly easy with Designer once you understand the terminology. This step provides the powerful tools that enable you to send and receive information to other computing systems through the Web Services standards. Web Services have become the preferred method for easily and securely enabling different computing systems to collaborate.
Decision
Sometimes you will have collected information and will need to make decisions. Use the data from your caller and/or your database to take your application in a different direction. This step allows you to create rules.
Loop
This step is for repeating a group of steps or for going through a piece of data rather than having to copy the same thing over and over. You will typically use this in conjunction with data integration where you want to sequence through items in a list.
Choice
Listen for multiple inputs and branch to one of the items the caller selected, or end up at a default destination if nothing is selected properly.
Time
Like it says, you can set rules for where to go in your project based on the time of day. This is especially useful near the beginning of a project to get callers to the right place as fast as possible.
Transfer
If you cannot fully automate the call, it can be transferred to someone, to another VoiceXML application, or to a phone number with a voice mailbox. Transferring between applications is a useful way to break a large project into smaller pieces.
Yes/No
Asking yes/no is usually a lot faster than giving options with numbers in an IVR (keypad-based) system. You will use this often.
Next, you don't want to be rude, so you'll want to set a greeting for your callers. Click on the Start icon and we'll see something similiar to the illustration below. Right now it's populated with a preset message that you'll want to change.
If you double-click on the first prompt item your Audio Builder will open. You now have the option of entering text for the Text-to-Speech engine to render to your callers or you can specify an audio file. Any audio files you use will need to be 8khz 8bit uLaw format WAV files, and you may use Windows Sound Recorder for this task, or any number of freeware audio editing programs (such as Goldwave). For now, you'll just fill in a TTS greeting for your callers. Once you've entered the greeting, click OK then Save. This will return you back to your familiar call flow diagram.
Step 3: Publishing Your New App
All that's left now is to publish your new project and map it to a number in our Management Console. In the Project Menu and click Publish. As long as there are no errors - and there shouldn't be because we are pretty savvy developers - you should get a Publish Succeeded message.
Now you just need to return to the Management Console and add your Designer project as an application. Your project is now ready for you to call in and test it.
All that's left is to call your new application. Start your favorite SIP Phone. Under dial string, change the current dial string, e.g. sip:user@127.0.0.1 to the route you just created, e.g. sip:designer@127.0.0.1 and click "Dial."
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