I'm trying to see if this is even possible in twilio. I'm hoping maybe someone's had a similar challenge and came up with a creative solution...
Our company has a unique phone number that's only displayed on our website. I've been asked if it's possible to find out not only how many calls we're getting (which is simple enough to track in twilio), but also who's calling. Basically, they want to follow the details of a users activity. From website to phone call.
Theoretically, they'd like something like this:
A user, lets call him John, comes to the website & is assigned a unique id of "12345". The id is stored in a cookie for returning users (this I can already handle).
If John calls the phone number displayed on the website, we...somehow through the use of twilio...know it's user #12345.
We can then create monthly reports stating user #12345 called the phone number 7 times this month for a total of 18 minutes.
There's so many "what if's" that go into this, that I'm just not sure it's even possible, but perhaps someone knows of a creative way this can work? A few things I've considered, but none of them are foolproof:
Tracking a combination of John's geographical location while browsing the website and the time of web browsing, then using twilio voice to track the geographical location & time of the phone call, to make a best guess. The problem is it sounds like twilio voice isn't always great at providing geo location.
Tracking mobile click to calls on the website, then matching the time of the click to the time of the phone call. Several problems with this, including multiple users calling at the same time, and we'd only be tracking those who browsed the website via mobile, then clicked to call.
For mobile click to call, passing the user's id via a phone extension, which twilio then reads (not sure if this is even possible in twilio). But again, this would be limited to mobile users.
So, I'm just not sure if this is even possible. Any idea's on how this could be implemented?
Thanks so much for any help.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
Have you considered making it possible to make the calls through the website itself? If you implemented Twilio Client you would be able to directly track users who called from the website and they'd be able to do so without picking up the phone too. That direct connection would allow you to make the calls more personal too, as you'd know exactly which user was calling.
Check out the tutorial on implementing browser calls in Twilio and let me know what you think.
I can't think of any straightforward ways to connect a user's browsing session to a phone call made with a different device though. You could ask the user to input their ID in order to start the call, using <Gather> to receive the input and tie that call to the user and whether they currently have a live session on the site. That might be an unnecessary barrier to people calling though, so you'd have to weigh up that option.
Related
I was just wondering if there is any endpoint in the Twilio API to get the usage filtered by Active Phone Numbers.
I've been going through the docs but can't seem to find a solution other than checking the calls endpoint for each one of the phone numbers in my account which is not ideal.
If I check the usage endpoint and filter by category phone numbers since the account was opened it says I've had 300 phones so far, but I can't seem to find how many of those are active or not.
Updated
Also, is there a way to filter the usage per phone number? For example I'd like to see the usage for a specific phone number but I don't want to call the Calls endpoint I just want the Usage.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
You can check how many currently active phone numbers you have with the Incoming Phone Numbers resource.
I'm afraid there's no way to separate your usage records by phone number within the one account.
However, you can do this by subaccount. If you are trying to measure different users' usage within your system then the best thing to do is to create subaccounts for each of those users. Your main account can still view usage records for all subaccounts, but the subaccounts can also be viewed individually.
Let me know if that helps at all.
I'm trying to establish the recommended way to connect two numbers via Twilio and get the pricing of that call before hand.
The scenario is that a user on my system will call one of his/her contacts. The user's own number is predefined before hand, and they are using a specific sub account.
The way I'm doing it now, is to first call the user's phone, then use a Dial verb to call the target. That way, the user answers first, is announced that we're calling "Contact X" and the contact's phone rings. This avoids a lag which would occur on the contact's phone if I called them first. Is there a better way to do it?
As well, I'd like to establish the cost of the call before hand (the cost per minute). I can use the pricing client to get a cost for specific countries, but how do I determine the SOURCE country? The user might be in the UK or the Middle East, calling a contact in the US. The pricing API lets me see the cost to the UK or US but how does the API call knows which country we're calling from?
Twilio developer evangelist here.
The way you are setting up the call seems fine to me.
As for the cost of the call, you are actually making two outbound calls in this situation, so the costs are that of an outbound call to each country that you are calling to. In the case of a user in the UK that initiates a call in the way you describe to the US, your cost will be an outbound call to the UK and an outbound call to the US.
There is one different way you could set up the call. If you make your system aware that the next call to a number will be forwarded onto the user you want to call, then your user can make an inbound call to the number and you can return TwiML to forward onto the call recipient. That way you would pay for an inbound call leg from the country the user was calling from (the UK, in the example) and an outbound call in the country the user called to (the US in the example).
Let me know if that helps at all.
On my work place, we have some (PBX)Business Communications Manager 450 Telephone System and some (PBX)BCM50 also. The BCM450 is hybrid, which mean it can use digital lines and at the same time VOIP phones.
Right now, for example a user can have a Nortel Avaya 1120E or a Nortel T7316 Norstar in their desk.
I would like to know if there is a way in which way I can get the phone number of the caller, so I can use that number on a custom software for the company. In other words I want the phone number of the person calling me (maybe the extension if that is the case).
What I'm looking for, is that when a customer calls, the information associated with the telephone number can be seen on the screen programmatically (without input from system operator).
I can see there is someone talking about TAPI API, but i believe this is only for analog lines? Maybe somebody can put me on the right path or maybe somebody can provide an example of how it is done using any programming language.
If the VOIP phones are SIP based then you'd sniff eth. ports of the phones. SIP messages contains caller Id and called Id.
You can google like "SIP sniffer" for source code example...
My client is providing an international / long distance call service at cheap price to people if they make such calls via his company (Yes. It's like an international phone card)
The following is what my client wants to make.
Let's assume I have bunch of international / long distance / local phone numbers to call stored on my iPhone. If I tap one of the local phone numbers, iOS just lets me directly call the number. Not a problem. However, if it's an international or long distance number, iOS makes a call to the company instead so that the user can use the service at cheaper price.
Of course, this should happen only in the application. I'm not trying to tweak how iOS works by default.
I wonder if it's technically possible on iOS.
Update
I just came up with an idea that popping up a msg box if the tapped number is an international / long distance number before the following msg box by iPhone pops up.
Yup. before this one.
Can I show my custom msg box before the deafult one?
It sounds technically possible. The user can grant access to the contacts to the app which would allow the app to read names and phone numbers. The app could analyze the numbers and determine which ones are international and dial a LD service instead.
I would think that as long as the app is being completely clear to the user which service is being called and charges that may be incurred, I would think Apple would be okay with that.
The only other rule might be if the app looks too much like the built-in phone app or if it is determined the the functionality is redundant to the phone app. Good luck, Apple policy is sometimes a bit mysterious.
As for the alert, you can show any message, or even none at all.
Twilio newbie here. Is it possible to integrate with a customer's existing VoIP (or even landline) number? I've searched, but haven't been able to find substantial information on the topic. I'm interest in grabbing call data from the API for use with an existing SaaS application I've built, but my customer base cannot change their phone number. Thanks for your time.
You do have the option of transferiing your phone number to Twilio if you client is open to that idea:
https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/phone-numbers/i-already-have-a-phone-number-i-love-can-i-port-it-to-twilio
Painless and free process.
and, almost as important, if you need to, you can take the number back with you to another carrier:
https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/porting/how-do-i-port-my-numbers-away-from-twilio