SMS & Voice

Ignition
1

Hi Colby,

As much as I am looking forward to having a play, I am really hanging out for some voice or at least sms support.

I guess that the functionality of the call roster in the background is similar for all notification methods and I will set this one up on my test server and run it through its paces anyway.

Any chance you could hint at your release schedule or even target release dates for those functions?

I can understand that the text to voice (and hardware support for various modems) makes these functions significantly harder to implement/support but they are still primarily what I am interested in for after hours notifications.

2

Hi,

First off, I split this post off just so that we can keep that topic related to download links.

Anyhow, I totally understand- I think many people are probably interested above all in the new notification options. We’re not far off at all. On the SMS side, we got pushed back due to hardware issues, but on the voice side, things are coming along as planned, it’s just that the development of that module was shifted so that it wouldn’t hold up the beta of the platform.

SMS
This requires some sort of SMS gateway, and unfortunately there isn’t a standard protocol for these. So, we found a small box that you could put a SIM card in, and were going to sell those. Then we found out they didn’t work. So we found a different box. :laughing: We have 5 of these coming in soon, so if you post your interest, we might be able to get you a test box within the next week or two.

We may also put together a module to use a web hosted gateway. Not sure about the timeline on that yet.

Voice
Unlike what people might expect, this is actually not going to use a voice card at all. Instead, it is implemented purely with SIP (in other words, VOIP). So, you’ll need a sip gateway. Many many companies already have a SIP compatible PBX (such as one based on Asterisk). For those who don’t, we’ve found a small all in one box. Ethernet on one side, phone on the other, asterisk in the middle, all for <$200. We should have some of these coming in for testing as well. OR, if you’re so inclined, it also works with Skype Connect, Skype’s business SIP integration option.

I’d say we’re at least 14 days out before a beta on this module, though.

Hope this answers your question, feel free to post with your thoughts/comments.

3

Can you use something like the Multi-Tech MultiModem Cell MTCBA-G2-U to send SMS messages out?
It uses the AT command set for sending messages and hooks up via USB connection.

Is there going to be a voice annunciation system with the voice system? Either canned messages or user defined messages?

Our company has a voip pbx system using Cisco voip phones. Will I need a softmodem type software running on the gateway or just an ethernet connetion to talk to the pbx system?

Thanks, looking forward trying out the new features.

4

[quote="linktdi"]Can you use something like the Multi-Tech MultiModem Cell MTCBA-G2-U to send SMS messages out?
It uses the AT command set for sending messages and hooks up via USB connection.
[/quote]

No. The SMS package will come with a cellular modem we've chosen. We actually originally started with Multi-Tech modems (using serial, not USB, because the USB can't be done cross-platform very easily from Java) but ran into a number of issues with them, so we went with something else.

We're not planning on supporting other SMS hardware than what comes with the package right now. There's too much hardware with too many variations in what AT commands they support and how they support them.

Yep.

I think you'll just need the ethernet connection to your voip system. I believe the way it works is the voice module comes with (optionally) a hardware voip box, which in your case you wouldn't need.

I'll need to have Colby step in and verify this though.

5

Can I put my hand up for an SMS box?

6

We've basically implemented the "softphone" directly in Ignition, so it should be able to hook up to any system that supports SIP. So far we've only tested it with Asterisk based systems, and Skype's SIP service, but so far everything looks good.

Regards,

7

I am not expecting positive answers here but any chance it is going to communicate with CISCO callmanager software. I think ours uses SCCP (skinny something or other)

Sorry, IP telephony isnt my thing but im happy to learn a bit more if it helps.

8

Hi,

SCCP, as far as I understand it, is a slightly more proprietary counterpart to SIP. However, I think CallManager probably supports both… I did a quick search and found this “how-to” guide for hooking up a different SIP product to CallManager. It takes a few steps, and since the callmanager appears to be licensed by endpoints, might require an available license, but nothing in there looked too foreign to me.

Regards,

9

Does the voice call support text to speech as well as a pre-recorded message? I have a scenario where I may want to call our answering service and give them a nice, human recorded message.

Also, I have an Avaya IP Office that I would be doing the SIP integration with. I can help provide some setup instructions on this when the time comes.

Is it going to be possible to read the status of the SIP call? For example: if my phone system is down and I can’t call out, can I detect this and fall back to SMS or some other method of communication?

Also, will the user be able to acknowledge an alarm by pressing a key, or perhaps take a different action by pressing different keys (press 1 to acknowledge and indicate you are looking at it, press 2 to acknowledge receipt, but you cannot respond and pass it on the the next caller)

10

Hi,

The system that manages the “script” for the phone call can support both TTS and wav files, though we’re still working out how flexible the configuration will be. The text to speech works very well, so it should be sufficient, but no matter what, I know people are going to ask for wav :laughing:

As for the rest:

  • That will be helpful, to have another voip system to document.

  • If the notification profile is “down”, it will fail over to a backup pipeline. So yes, you can fall back to a different method.

  • Currently we have three options: Acknowledge, Ignore (basically what you describe, don’t acknowledge, but move on), and Repeat. There’s probably room for some additional advanced options, such as one that would set a property on the event, which could then be used in the pipelines to direct the event (for example, “Press 4 to escalate to management”).

As soon as we wrap up one more small licensing issue we should be able to get the voice module out for testing.

Regards,

11

Hi Colby,

You say that text to speech works very well, but I assume it refers to english language. What about other languages? Of course there always be the wav solution, but would be nice to have both things. By the way, our client is from Spain, so our main concern is about Spanish language.
Thank you,

12

Hi,

There will be many voices available. We’ll have samples up eventually. For now, you can just go to the website for the engine we’re using and test out the demo there: Ivona TTS

Regards,

13

Hi,

@Colby.Clegg, when we install the Voice Notification Module can we use with script/or SDK the TTS engine feature ?
We need to generate some voice message from text input in ignition.

Regards,

14

Hi,

It might be possible. I definitely remember having that option as an idea, but I’m not sure how hard it would be to access right now. I’ll try to look into it and see if I can give you some ideas.

15

Do you know if Twilio offer SIP compatible PBX? I am trying to use twilio without a modem