Self-care IVR applications

Accounting

Access code

This allows you to apply a special rating to outgoing calls made by customers from their voice mailboxes.

For example, if an administrator specifies the VOICEMAIL access code in the application settings, then PortaBilling will use a rating entry with this very access code from the account’s product to authorize outgoing calls from users’ voice mailboxes.

Prompts & notifications

Credit accounts balance announcement

You can configure your IVR applications to announce the current balance for credit accounts in one of two modes:

• Funds/balance – for prepaid customers (those who have a credit limit of 0 or less), announce “available funds” (calculated as credit limit minus balance) and announce the current balance for others (postpaid customers);

• Balance – always announce balance (this is the classic mode, ideal for typical postpaid customers).

Note that the third mode, Backward compatibility mode is enabled by default. It preserves the announcements exactly the way they worked in releases prior to MR35.

Announce credit limit

If enabled, the balance announced to the end user will be followed by an announcement of the credit limit. This allows you to separate cases where credit limits are assigned only as a precaution (and so the end user should not really know about them) from cases where they are an integral part of the service (e.g., loyal customers are rewarded with an increased credit limit the longer they stay with you).

Full mailbox notification

Select this checkbox to play a notification during voicemail access when a mailbox is full.

Play welcome message

If this option is enabled, the IVR will play the welcome message to the user once he reaches an access number.

Language

Select languages

This option allows the user to select the language(s) to be used for voice prompts.

Click Select languages to open the language selection dialog box and define languages in a specific order, and then upon reaching an access number, the end user can choose one of these languages.

Prompts customization

Brand prompts

IVR prompts can be customized per access number. Specify the directory where the custom prompt files are located. The Media Server will look for the prompts in that folder first and if found – use them. Otherwise, it will use default files.

For example, put customized English prompts under the directory /porta_var/psmsc/custom-files/prompts/brands/my_company/en and specify “my_company” in this field.

Confirm by pound

If this option is enabled, the IVR suggests confirmation of multi-digit input by pressing the ‘#’ key.

Default prompt timeout, sec

The maximum number of seconds the system waits until a user dials a key before playing a prompt. By default: 3.

Follow me timeout

This option specifies how long the IP phone will ring before the call goes to follow-me numbers.

Authentication

Use account information provided by PortaSIP

If this option is enabled, an IVR application securely identifies a user if his account was originally authenticated by the PortaSIP server instead of attempting to authenticate the customer’s phone number (ANI).

Only enable this option for access numbers dialed from SIP phones connected to PortaSwitch (calls within your VoIP network).

This feature is useful in cases when normal ANI authentication by the IVR application can either be very difficult or unsafe (as the calling account may be mismatched):

• The end user makes a call from his / her IP phone with a CLI that is either hidden or different from the authenticated account ID;

• The account ID is an internal ANI number (e.g., 000999123) or even a non-E164 identifier like an email address that can’t be used as a normal CLI for outgoing calls.

Translation rules

ANI translation rule

Caller identification (ANI or CLI number) is usually delivered in the “local” format, without the country code, etc., e.g., “021234567.” In this case, you need to translate the number into a unified format so it will match the ID of the billing account. The recommended format is a non-numeric prefix followed by an E164 number.

For example, assuming that the country code is 44, we can apply ANI Translation Rule s/^0/ani44/ to obtain “ani4421234567” as the authorization ID.

This allows you to manage numbers from different countries (so they will not overlap) and the “ANI” prefix will ensure that these accounts are not confused with the actual phone numbers provisioned for on IP phones.

Prompts & notifications

Early media announcement

If this option is enabled, the IVR will announce the account’s balance without establishing a call so the end user is not charged by their telco.

Language

Select languages

This option allows the user to select the language(s) to be used for voice prompts.

Click Select languages to open the language selection dialog box and define languages in a specific order, and then upon reaching an access number, the end user can choose one of these languages.

Prompts customization

Brand Prompts

IVR prompts can be customized per access number. Specify the directory where the custom prompt files are located. The Media Server will look for the prompts in that folder first and if found – use them. Otherwise, it will use default files.

For example, put customized English prompts under the directory /porta_var/psmsc/custom-files/prompts/brands/my_company/en and specify “my_company” in this field.

Confirm by pound

If this option is enabled, the IVR suggests confirmation of multi-digit input by pressing the ‘#’ key.

Default prompt timeout, sec

The maximum number of seconds the system waits until a user dials a key before playing a prompt. By default: 3.

Application specific

Template account

Specify the account ID here to use its configuration properties as a template for all accounts.

Brand prompts

IVR prompts can be customized per access number. Specify the directory where the custom prompt files are located. The Media Server will look for the prompts in that folder first and if found – use them. Otherwise, it will use default files.

For example, put customized English prompts under the directory /porta_var/psmsc/custom-files/prompts/brands/my_company/en and specify “my_company” in this field.

Confirm by pound

If this option is enabled, the IVR suggests confirmation of multi-digit input by pressing the ‘#’ key.

Default prompt timeout, sec

The maximum number of seconds the system waits until a user dials a key before playing a prompt. By default: 3.

Prompts & notifications

Language

Select languages

This option allows the user to select the language(s) to be used for voice prompts.

Click Select languages to open the language selection dialog box and define languages in a specific order, and then upon reaching an access number, the end user can choose one of these languages.

Prompts customization

Confirm by pound

If this option is enabled, the IVR suggests confirmation of multi-digit input by pressing the ‘#’ key.

Default prompt timeout, sec

The maximum number of seconds the system waits until a user dials a key before playing a prompt. By default: 3.

Application specific

Minimum duration, sec

To ensure that stored messages are long enough to judge their sound quality, an administrator can set the required minimum length for a message to be stored. If the value is 0, then the IVR application stores messages of any length.

Maximum duration, sec

The maximum length of a message. The IVR application stops recording a message after this number of seconds and immediately plays it back.

Authentication

Maximum login attempts

Specify the maximum number of attempts for a user to enter a card number. By default: 3.

Use account information provided by PortaSIP

If this option is enabled, an IVR application securely identifies a user if his account was originally authenticated by PortaSIP instead of attempting to authenticate the customer’s phone number (ANI).

Only enable this for access numbers dialed from SIP phones connected to PortaSwitch (calls within your VoIP network). This option is useful in cases when normal ANI authentication by the IVR application can either be very difficult or unsafe (as the calling account may be mismatched):

• The end user makes a call from their IP phone with a CLI that is either hidden or different from the authenticated account ID.

The account ID is an internal ANI number (e.g., 000999123) or even a non-E164 identifier like an email address that can’t be used as a normal CLI for outgoing calls.

Translation Rules

ANI translation rule

If ANI authentication is turned on, the voice application will attempt to authenticate the customer’s phone number (so he does not have to enter a PIN). Unfortunately, caller identification (ANI or CLI number) is usually delivered in the “local” format, without the country code, etc., e.g., “021234567.” In this case, you need to translate the number into a unified format so it will match the ID of the billing account. The recommended format is a non-numeric prefix followed by an E164 number.

For example, assuming that the country code is 44, we can apply ANI Translation Rule s/^0/ani44/ to obtain “ani4421234567” as the authorization ID.

This allows you to manage numbers from different countries (so they will not overlap) and the “ANI” prefix will ensure that these accounts are not confused with the actual phone numbers provisioned for on IP phones.

Prompts & notifications

Credit accounts balance announcement

You can configure your IVR applications to announce the current balance for credit accounts in one of two modes:

• Funds/balance – for prepaid customers (those who have a credit limit of 0 or less), announce “available funds” (calculated as credit limit minus balance) and announce the current balance for others (postpaid customers);

• Balance – always announce balance (this is the classic mode, ideal for typical postpaid customers).

• Note that a third Backward compatibility mode is enabled by default. It preserves the announcements exactly the way they worked in releases prior to MR35.

In Balance announcements section, there are balance announcement examples for different IVR configurations.

Announce credit limit

If this option is enabled, the IVR will announce the credit limit as well as the account balance (applicable when Credit accounts balance Announcement is set to “balance” or “funds/balance”).

Language

Conf Language list is preferred

If this checkbox is selected, the language list defined on this page has a higher preference than the account’s preferred language.

Select languages

This option allows the user to select the language(s) to be used for voice prompts.

Click Select languages icon to open the language selection dialog box and define languages in a specific order, and then upon reaching an access number, the end user can choose one of these languages.

Prompts customization

Brand prompts

IVR prompts can be customized per access number. Specify the directory where the custom prompt files are located. The Media Server will look for the prompts in that folder first and if found – use them. Otherwise, it will use default files. For example, put customized English prompts under /porta_var/psmsc/custom-files/prompts/brands/my_company/en and specify “my_company” in this field.

Confirm by pound

If this option is enabled, the IVR suggests confirmation of multi-digit input by pressing the ‘#’ key.

Default prompt timeout, sec

The maximum number of seconds the system waits until a user dials a key before playing a prompt. By default: 3.

Application specific

Customer center number

Specify the number where a user may reach an operator.

Minimum card length

The minimum length of a card number. By default: 11.

Maximum card length

The maximum length of a card number. By default: 11.

Minimum voucher length

The minimum length of a voucher number. By default: 11.

Maximum voucher length

The maximum length of a voucher number. By default: 11.

Minimum sum

Specify the minimum amount of funds to be transferred from a customer’s credit card.

Authentication

Maximum Login Attempts

The maximum number of attempts for a user to enter a card number. By default: 3.

Prompts & notifications

Play welcome message

If enabled, the IVR will play the welcome message to the user once he reaches an access number.

Language

Select languages

This option allows the user to select the language(s) to be used for voice prompts.

Click Select languages to open the language selection dialog box and define languages in a specific order, and then upon reaching an access number, the end user can choose one of these languages.

Prompts customization

Brand Prompts

IVR prompts can be customized per access number. Specify the directory where the custom prompt files are located. The Media Server will look for the prompts in that folder first and if found – use them. Otherwise, it will use default files.

For example, put customized English prompts under the directory /porta_var/psmsc/custom-files/prompts/brands/my_company/en and specify “my_company” in this field.

Confirm by pound

If this option is enabled, the IVR suggests confirmation of multi-digit input by pressing the ‘#’ key.

Default prompt timeout, sec

The maximum number of seconds the system waits until a user dials a key before playing a prompt. By default: 3.

Application specific

Minimum card length

The minimum length of a card number. By default: 11.

Maximum card length

The maximum length of a card number. By default: 11.