Plum IVR Support

Hi all, new to the forum and XML/IVR.
I'm having a problem with a long delay (14 seconds) at the beginning of my IVR message.
I'm using the voice IVR provided by Plum, not a wav file.

The code begins thusly:

----------------------------------------------------

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<vxml version="2.0">

<property name="inputmodes" value="dtmf"/>

<form>
<block>
<goto next="#ChooseTrack"/>
</block>
</form>

<menu id="ChooseTrack">
<prompt bargein="true">

Hello and Welcome to the........
Brought to you by.......

To hear TRACK ONE, press one now.
To hear TRACK TWO, press two now.
To hear TRACK THREE, press three now.
To hear TRACK FOUR, press four now.
To hear TRACK FIVE, press five now.
To hear TRACK SIX, press six now.
To hear TRACK SEVEN, press seven now.
To hear TRACK EIGHT, press eight now.
To hear TRACK NINE, press nine now.

---------------------------------------------------

Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks very much.

Darcy

Actually, the code goes thusly:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<vxml version="2.0">

<property name="inputmodes" value="dtmf"/>

<form>
<block>
<goto next="#ChooseTrack"/>
</block>
</form>


<menu id="ChooseTrack">
<prompt bargein="true">

<audio src="http://audio.plumgroup.com/root/9561184 ... 842_24.wav"/>

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Now down to a 7 second delay, but still bad.

OK, sorry about all the repeat posts, here is the full description of the probs I'm having:

I have a texting promo I'm trying to code that begins first thing with an IVR. Someone texts into our promo on their mobile and they get an IVR call to promote a new album for our client.
The user will then select among several audio preview tracks.
Everything is working fine except for the initial IVR. It takes a full 7 seconds after you pick up the phone to hear the IVR.

This is the code I've begun with:

------------------------------------------------

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<vxml version="2.0">

<property name="inputmodes" value="dtmf"/>

<form>
<block>
<goto next="#ChooseTrack"/>
</block>
</form>


<menu id="ChooseTrack">
<prompt bargein="true">
Something
<audio fetchhint="prefetch" src="http://audio.plumgroup.com/root/9561184 ... 842_24.wav" fetchtimeout="25s" maxage="0"/>
</prompt>

------------------------------------------------

We ran several similar promos like this recently, and the quickest any respond with is about 5 seconds.

As you might notice, I put a text-to-speech "Something" ahead of the wav file to see if it's the wav file - it's not, it still takes a full 7 seconds to start making any noise.

I precached the audio file as best I could in the code above, but it doesn't seem to be a problem with the audio file. I would greatly appreciate any advice I can get.

- Darcy

Hello,

Are you still having this IVR problem? We just ran the fragment of IVR code above and the recording played instantly.

If you're still having trouble, please post your entire XML script (or a link thereto) so that we can have a look; there might be some other IVR code on the page that is causing the delay.


Regards,

Plum Support

Hi, thanks for responding.

I shortened my code to only include this:

--------------------------------------------------------

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<vxml version="2.0">


<property name="inputmodes" value="dtmf"/>

<form>
<block>
<goto next="#ChooseTrack"/>
</block>
</form>


<menu id="ChooseTrack">


<prompt bargein="true">
<audio src="http://audio.plumgroup.com/root/9561184 ... 842_24.wav"/>
</prompt>


</menu>

</vxml>

--------------------------------------------------------


It still takes a full 7 seconds for the wav file to load. Since this ran immediately on your server, I assume it's a problem with the fetch to our server.
Does plum host XML as well? If our server is the bottleneck here, we need to find something faster before our promo launches next week.

Thanks very much for your help, it's appreciated.

- Darcy

Hello,

If you are referring to hosting one or more static XML files then you can use the scratchpad tool provided on the IVR hosting site. You should be able to paste your IVR code into a scratchpad and set it as your default IVR application for your DNIS. If you are referring to hosting a dynamically generated page then you would need to speak with your sales rep about IVR hosting options.

Regards,
Plum Support

Thank you so much for responding.

I do hate to be a pest, but I'm a newbie. When you say,

" You should be able to paste your code into a scratchpad and set it as your default application for your DNIS"...

I pasted my code into the scratchpad, but I don't see how to set it as my default application for the DNIS. I might eventually figure this out, but any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks again, you've been most helpful.

Hello,

It wasn't clear initially that you are talking about delay in an outbound IVR call. If you are experiencing this during an outbound IVR call it is unlikely that the delays are caused by application latency. The majority of the delay you are hearing is actually our IVR system trying to determine if the call has been answered by a human or an answering machine. This delay is currently variant and can take up to 6 seconds. We have a version of the IVR platform in testing that will reduce this delay to approximately two seconds with no loss in detection accuracy.

As an interim solution we can disable the "callee type detection" on your account, this should give a near instantaneous response to your caller. Please send an email to support@plumvoice.com with your customer number and hosting account login and request "callee type detection" be shut off. All customers who request this be shut off will receive an email when the delay has been reduced.

In order to set the scratchpad as the default application for a given DNIS you must first paste the IVR code into a new scratchpad, name it and click "Save". Once you have saved it you can click the "E" associated with you DNIS and from the drop down menu select the name of the scratchpad you just created and click "Commit". Now calls for that DNIS will be handled by your scratchpad rather than a remote URL.

Regards,
Plum Support

Thanks very much.

TECH NOTE:

This IVR feature has been implemented. The delay required to detect the callee is 2.5s at that point the user's VoiceXML document is retrieved and processed. Any delay beyond the first 2.5s is caused by the fetch time of the developed IVR application. This feature can still be disabled to remove all delay caused by callee type detection. Please send an email to support@plumvoice.com with your customer number and IVR hosting account login and request "callee type detection" be shut off.

Regards,
Plum Support