Unique client requirement

[TanSG]

Hi all

I have an unique requirement from a client.

They wanted their caller to ring in to listen to recording that they will update on a daily basis

Currently they are using traditional pbx to achieve what they need and they looking to move to Cloud

They wanted the caller to call in and press 1 to listen to the first part of the recording. They have 8 part of the recording.

If the caller dont press any key it will start from part 1 all the way to part 8 .

I'm thinking to introduce 3cx. I have no idea how this will work in 3cx as it is a unique needs.

I plan to use 3cx hosted but if i need to use cfd then i have to host it for them which i dont prefer this route as i want 3cx to do the hosting.

Any ideas?

 

[Evolute IT]

You can use CFD in Hosted now. So you should do that.

 

[TanSG]

Cool, thanks! Will explore further.

 

[fxbastler]

There are several ways to implement the requirement with 3CX.
The question is: How is it planned that the daily changing announcements are integrated into 3CX? Can this be automated somehow?

So many possibilities...

 

[TanSG]

As I understand that CFD can poll remote URL for wav file, i plan to setup a FTP server, let user upload the wav file into the system. Use a CDN to cache those wav file, and once user uploaded the wav file to the FTP, click on a link to purge the cache in CDN side. That's my idea for now.

Open to any suggestion too!

 

[VoIPTools]

Can you explain your need in greater detail? What is this "recording"? Is it one recording and you need to jump to different parts of a single recording? If so, is each part the same length? How are these recordings created? Is it a recording of a phone call, or a recording intended to be a prompt? Please provide more information.

 

[TanSG]

The client shared that the recording is a daily sermon designed for elderly individuals to call in and listen to. The audio is divided into 8 parts, and if no input is provided, it will automatically play sequentially from part 1 through part 8.

If the call gets disconnected, the caller can redial and resume listening from the part where the call dropped. For example, if the call was dropped during part 5, the caller can redial and press 5 to continue from that point.

 

[VoIPTools]

Ah, that is very helpful. I assume then that each part is a separate recording, or could be manually split into separate recordings.

Generally, a CFD can implement most of the requirements. One concern, however, is the number of simultaneous calls. Keep in mind that every person that calls this CFD is going to count as a simultaneous call, so depending on the number of people that use this service at the same time, it could significantly increase the size of your 3CX license.

I cannot think of a straightforward way of keeping track of where the caller is in a given section, so I'm thinking if they hang up in the middle of the recording, they would likely need to start the section over. Keeping track of when a section was started and completed is feasible, so calling back in an restarting the last section is possible.

The other part of the process is uploading the recordings. As long as the recording file names are always different, we can update the sermon without having to restart the CFD service. But you will need to inform the CFD that the file name has changed. The CFD could read a text file, or a database to get this information. We have done a similar project years ago for a job-line where an administrator needed to update an IVR prompt without access to the 3CX console.

By the way, perhaps an IVR would be a simplified approach? Without question, it could not meet all the requirements, but it would be easy to implement. I don't know if there is a limit to the length of an IVR prompt, but perhaps you could have a digital receptionist play the 8 parts, but the caller would have to select which part to play and it would not automatically play each section one after another.

In order for all of this to work, you will need some type of administrative interface to upload the recordings, and configure the CFD. In the end, hosting this with 3CX is probably going to be challenging given they don't allow FTP access (for uploading files). It is all possible, but not simple. We can help if needed.

 

[TanSG]

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed response.

Yes, each part of the recording is on its own. Yeah, am aware of the concurrent call. Currently it seems to be fine for them.

My idea is to fetch the wav file using URL so that i just need to update the WAV file remotely will do.

Hmmm it will be a problem for me if there is a limit to IVR prompt.

I think not a big issue since im going to configure CFD to poll via URL because my plan is to host the URL external from 3CX

 

[VoIPTools]

You will need to inform the CFD that the audio file has changed otherwise it will see the same file name and the cached version of the recording will play.