SIP Caller | Create your Callflows

What is a Callflow

A Callflow is the definition of how SIP Caller will interact with your contacts, once the call is established. But usually the interaction should not be the same if the call is answered by a human or an answering machine. This is why we perform real time speech analysis, to identify the answering endpoint, and let you configure a different Callflow for the case of human answer, and answering machine. By doing this, for example, you can run a survey when a human answers the call, and just leave a message if a voicemail is detected.

Creating a Callflow

You can create callflows in 2 ways:

Using templates - easiest method
Using the designer - advanced method, requires Professional or Enterprise Edition

The easiest way to do this is using templates. We provide templates for the most common use cases, which you can use from a step by step wizard. And when you have a scenario not supported by the standard templates, you can use the designer to create it according to your needs.

Create from template

To create a Callflow using templates, go to “Callflows” > “Create from template”. You can choose any of the following templates:

Select Callflow Template

Create with designer

To create a Callflow with the designer, go to “Callflows” > “Create with designer”. You will be asked to provide a name for the callflow, and then you can start adding actions. Actions are executed from top to bottom.

The issues indicator in the toolbar shows whether the callflow has any problems while you’re designing it. Click it to see the list of issues, and click an issue to jump to the action that has it. Actions with issues are also marked with an error icon on the canvas. Campaigns using a callflow with issues won’t start until they are solved.

Add an action

To add an action, click the plus (+) button on the canvas where you want to insert it, and choose the type of action you want. The new action is selected right away, so you can configure it in the Properties panel.
Create callflow with designer The available actions are the following:

Text Prompt: play a prompt by specifying the text, so SIP Caller automatically converts it to speech.
WAV Prompt: upload a WAV file to be played.
DTMF Input: collect 1 or more DTMF digits from the user.
Transfer Call: transfer the call to the number you define.
Drop Call: hang up.

Configure & Delete an action

Configure & Delete an action To configure an action, click it on the canvas. Its settings are shown in the Properties panel on the right (at the bottom on small screens), and every change is applied to the action as you type. Press Escape or close the panel to clear the selection.

To delete an action, select it and click the delete button at the top of the Properties panel, or press the Delete key. You will be asked to confirm before the action is removed.

You can also collapse and expand an action with the arrow on its upper right corner, to keep large callflows easier to read.

Actions details

Text Prompt

Text Prompt This action requires 1 setting:

Message: this is the text of the prompt to play. The message can be static, or have variables, to play a different prompt on each call, for example an appointment date, a due balance, and so on. Variables are specified in square brackets:

Hello [CustomerName], you have an appointment with us on [AppointmentDate].

You will be able to provide variable values for each call when uploading the numbers for the campaign.

The message can be plain text, or SSML to customize the generated audio by providing details on pauses, and audio formatting for acronyms, dates, times, abbreviations, or text that should be censored. More information here, here and here.

WAV Prompt

WAV Prompt This action requires that you upload a WAV file with the following format:

Format: WAV
Channel: Mono
Bit rate: 8 kHz
Sampling: 16 bit
Maximum size: 5Mb

Once the file is uploaded, you can play it from the Properties panel to check that it sounds as expected. To replace it, click “Upload” again and select a different file.

DTMF Input

DTMF Input This action performs the following steps:

It plays the prompt specified as “Main Prompt”.
It waits for DTMF digits during the specified timeout.
When no DTMF digit is received, or when the DTMF digits are not valid, the “Error Prompt” is played, and then the “Main Prompt” is played again.
This cycle is repeated until the maximum number of attempts is reached.

You must specify the minimum and maximum number of digits to collect, and a name for the input. This name is used in reports to show how your users are answering to this action.

DTMF Input branches

Each DTMF Input action has outputs, which let you run different actions depending on what the user enters. Outputs are managed from the “Outputs” section of the Properties panel: to add one, enter the value in the “Match” field and click “Add”, and to remove one, click its delete button. Select an output, in the Properties panel or in the tabs at the bottom of the action, to show its actions on the canvas, and add the children actions there. For example, if you want to play a prompt when the user presses “1”, you need to add an output for the value “1”, and then add children actions to it. If the input is considered valid but there is no specific child branch that matches it, then the actions from the “Valid” branch are executed. If the input is invalid or no input is detected, the actions from the “Timeout / Invalid” branch will be executed once all attempts have been consumed.

Transfer Call

Transfer Call This action requires 3 settings:

Destination: this is the number to which the call must be transferred. You can specify a static number here, for example the extension number of a queue where all your agents are waiting for these calls, or you can also use variables, for example to transfer the call to the agent associated with a particular customer. Variables are specified in square brackets:

[AgentExtension]

You will be able to provide a value for each call when uploading the numbers for the campaign.

Display Text: when using 3CX Phone System and the call is transferred to an agent while running a campaign in predictive dialer mode, or initiated by an agent in progressive dialer mode, SIP Caller can show custom text to the agent using the 3CX Web Client. The text specified here can have static and dynamic parts, using variables.
Display URL: when using 3CX Phone System and the call is transferred to an agent while running a campaign in predictive dialer mode, or initiated by an agent in progressive dialer mode, SIP Caller can show a custom URL to the agent using the 3CX Web Client. The URL specified here can have static and dynamic parts, using variables.

Drop Call

This action has no configuration parameters, and will drop the call when executed.

Drag & Drop

Actions can be moved around. To do this, click on an action and drag it. You can drop it on any plus (+) button, when you hover this button you will see that it’s highlighted, indicating that it’s ready to accept the action.

Listing Callflows

The Callflows section lists by default all the callflows which are not archived. A dot on the left of each name shows whether the callflow is ready to be used:

Green: the callflow is ready.
Red: the callflow design is incomplete. Campaigns configured with this callflow will not start until all the issues are solved.

From the Actions column, or by selecting a callflow in the list, you can:

Duplicate: create a copy of the callflow, which you can change before saving it.
Duplicate & edit with designer: only for callflows created from a template. Creates a copy of the callflow that you can edit with the designer, so you can go beyond what the template allows. The original callflow is not changed.
Archive and Unarchive: archived callflows are not shown in the list by default (except when you apply the “Archived” filter), which keeps the list short.
Delete: delete the selected callflows. A callflow can’t be deleted while it’s used by a campaign.

Editing a Callflow

Callflows are editable as long as they’re not being used by a campaign. Once a campaign is started, the Callflows being used by it are automatically switched to read-only mode. This is to avoid issues with statistics.

If you need to create a campaign using a slightly different Callflow, you can always duplicate an existing Callflow, and make the changes to the copy. Then you configure your campaign with this new Callflow.

Create your Callflows