When a Twilio number receives an incoming voice call, what TwiML can I use so that the phone continues ringing indefinitely?
In certain circumstances, I want to pretend that the phone is ringing but there's nobody around to answer it and there's no voicemail configured. I thought the Reject verb could help. It appears to support only a busy signal or a "number disconnected" message.
One can use the Pause verb to have Twilio delay pickup. By specifying a sufficiently long delay, the call effectively rings "forever". For example,
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Response>
<Pause length="600"/>
<Hangup />
</Response>
Probably the easiest way to do this is going to be to get an mp3 recording of a ringing phone, one that is very long (you can find them by googling) and setup twilio to <Play> the mp3 when someone calls it - I've done it and its very convincing.
Doing this will give you the extra benefit of letting you track who calls that number and how long they let it ring (of course you get billed for this).
Related
We've got a basic twiml set up that sends a call to multiple destinations, it looks something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
<Play loop="10">https://xxx.xxx.xxx/assets/MoH.wav</Play>
<Dial>
<Number>+1800XXXXXXX</Number>
<Number>+1912XXXXXXX</Number>
</Dial>
</Response>
The problem with this is that the <Dial> doesn't happen until the <Play> finishes. We want to play music to the caller while waiting for the call to be answered by one of the destination parties.
We've tried <Enqueue> to play the music but it still doesn't dial simultaneously.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
You are right that TwiML expects to finish one verb before it starts the next, so in your example code it will play the <Play> all the way through before starting to dial the numbers.
If you want to play music to the caller while the dial happens, then you will need to use <Enqueue> to put them into a holding pattern while you dial the other numbers. However, you will not be able to use TwiML to dial the numbers, instead you will need to make the outbound calls using the REST API.
Once one of the outbound calls connects, you can then connect it with the original call by <Dial>ling in to the <Queue> that you placed the caller in. You will also want to end the other calls using the REST API.
I'm trying to simulate a typical phone behaviour, where a call comes in and "rings" until someone picks it up, however I'd like to problematically control this pickup action.
Initially, when the call comes in, I throw the following TwiML at the call:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
<Pause length="300"/>
<Reject reason="busy"/>
</Response>
This delays answering the call by up to 5 minutes while the app waits for user input. The caller hears ringing during this time. If there's no input within 5 minutes, the app will disconnect the call as busy. Once the user or program has decided what to do with the call, I'd like to be able to send a new TwiML instructions.
However, when I use the method described here to modify the call, I am given an error by Twilio that the call can't be modified as it's not in-progress.
Is there any way to send new instructions towards the call at this point to have it answered and redirected during the Pause?
You cannot modify the call until you answer it (in-progress), as the error message suggests. You must wait for the <Pause length="300"/> to complete, as it is the first verb in the returned TwiML and the call will remained unanswered until it completes and a TwiML Verb which answers the call is reached.
TwiML™ Voice: Pause
I am building an Interactive Voice Assistant using Twilio. My goal is to record parts of the conversation, process the recorded audio and
This is the answer to the /voice webhook (the one will receive Twilio's call)
<Response>
<Play>./welcome</Play>
<Record maxLength="10" action="/processing" recordingStatusCallback="/getRecording"></Record>
</Response>
Processing the audio and providing an answer may take a long time, so I added a Pause at the end of /processing:
<Response>
<Play>./ok</Play>
<Pause length="10"></Pause>
</Response>
This is the answer when finished with /getRecording
<Response>
<Play>./answer</Play>
<Record maxLength="10" action="/processing" recordingStatusCallback="/getRecording "></Record>
</Response>
/welcome, /ok and /answer lead to corresponding audio files.
So I was able to execute all steps, I can check in my logs that /getRecording is actually executed to the end and the twiml sent back again, but the /answer after /getRecording is never executed by Twilio (and the call just ends).
Do you have any guidance for it? Does Twilio accept multiple recordings on the same call?
Note: For some reason, if instead of using the 'recordingStatusCallback' I use /getrecording as 'action' it does work... but then we wouldn't be sure the recording we are using is really generated, right?
Thank you for your help!
Twilio developer evangelist here.
Your /getRecording endpoint is called, however that is an asynchronous webhook in the context of the call. Returning TwiML to the recordingStatusCallback will not affect the current call.
Instead, you should use the REST API to modify the call by redirecting it to the next TwiML you want to execute based on the response to the recording file.
Hopefully the recording does take less than the 10 second pause that you are using, but you may want to add a loop into your /processing endpoint so that the call won't hang up on your caller. You can do this by redirecting the caller back to the start again:
<Response>
<Play>./ok</Play>
<Pause length="10"></Pause>
<Redirect>./processing</Redirect>
</Response>
Then, when you get the recording callback you redirect your caller out of this loop.
Let me know if that helps at all.
I am new to Twilio and to programming in general.
I have a simple Arduino based App running on an ESP8266. Basically it rings an alarm on a scheduled basis, and requires the user to press a button to silence the beeping alarm.
If the alarm beeps 10 times, it then places a voice call from Twilio to a specific number and announces "the alarm is ringing".
Everything is working great to that point.
I would like the voice call to say "The alarm is ringing. Press 1 to silence the alarm."
I have no clue as to how to 'accept' the buttonpress . Everything that I can find seems to be about routing internally within Twilio (forwarding, voicemail, etc), but nothing about Twilio posting a response outside.
Any guidance? Any PHP sample code anywhere that does this kind of thing?
You'll want to use a gather in your TwiML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
<Gather timeout="10" numDigits="1">
<Say>The alarm is ringing. Press 1 to silence the alarm.</Say>
</Gather>
</Response>
https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/gather#attributes
once the user presses a digit then your server will be hit with another request with the Digits param set, check if it equals 1
I am using twilio's call screening / whisper example. So basically when we use the Dial verb to call the number, we want to play a message when the receiver picks up the phone and give them the option to accept/reject the call. While the caller should keep hearing the ringing tone until the receiver makes a choice.
Most of this works as expected if we follow what's described in the call screening example https://www.twilio.com/docs/howto/callscreening
The problem is as soon as the receiver picks the phone, the caller can no longer hear the ringing tone, and the call goes silence until we have a response back from the receiver. This is a huge problem, because the caller will probably hang up once the ringing tone stops and there is no answer.
I have already had a look at the following two answers.
Twillio Call Screening silence on answer
Detecting when call had been answered using Dial verb
I personally don't want to go down the conference route.
In Number verb's documentation its clearly mentioned that the caller will continue to hear ringing tone.
https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/number#attributes-url
The 'url' attribute allows you to specify a url for a TwiML document that will run on the called party's end, after she answers, but before the parties are connected. You can use this TwiML to privately play or say information to the called party, or provide a chance to decline the phone call using Gather and Hangup. The current caller will continue to hear ringing while the TwiML document executes on the other end. TwiML documents executed in this manner are not allowed to contain the Dial verb.
The same issue happens with the Find Me Twimlet as well.
twilio.com/labs/twimlets/findme
Contacted Twilio support, you'll need to set "ringTone" attribute on like this:
<Dial answerOnBridge="true" ringTone="us">
I have tried that and it worked for me.