A flow determines what happens to an incoming conversation before an agent takes it over: greeting the customer, asking what they need, setting skill and language, observing opening hours and placing the conversation in the queue — or offering a callback, recording a voicemail, answering an email automatically. For calls, the term IVR is also common.
You draw flows in the flow designer of the Administration from nodes and connections. They are run by the Routing Service, separately for each conversation.
Four types
| Type | Triggered by | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound call | the dialed phone number | voice menu, announcements, callback, voicemail |
| the address of an email mailbox | confirmation of receipt, presorting, forwarding | |
| Fax | the address of a mailbox that receives the faxes as emails | as for emails |
| Chat | skill and language sent by the website | greeting, selection menu |
You choose the type when you create the flow; it determines which nodes the toolbox offers. Web callbacks do not need a flow — they go straight to the virtual queue. Voicemails are created in a call flow.
How a conversation finds its flow
Every flow has one or more mappings: phone numbers, mailboxes or, for chat, pairs of skill and language. When a conversation arrives, the active Routing Service looks for the matching mapping and starts its flow. The mapping also gives the conversation its first skill and its first language — see Mapping.
What a flow consists of
- Nodes are the building blocks: an announcement, a keypad prompt, setting a skill, a decision. Each node has one input and one or more outputs that lead to the next node — see Nodes.
- The main path begins at the Start node and ends in an end node, usually Queue.
- Event nodes start further paths when something happens: the queue does not accept the conversation, an agent takes over, a timer expires — see Events and timers.
- Variables hold values per conversation, for example a customer number that was entered — see Variables and attached data.
- When an agent takes over the conversation, the main path ends.
In this chapter
| Page | Contents |
|---|---|
| The Flows list | creating, opening, exporting, importing, deleting; the lock while editing |
| The flow designer | layout of the window; inserting, connecting and setting up nodes |
| Flow properties | name, voice, waiting music, error behavior |
| Mapping | phone numbers, mailboxes, chat |
| Variables and attached data | custom variables, system variables, placeholders, attached data for the agent |
| Events and timers | Start, Queue Exit, State Change, End, Timer |
| Checking, saving, versions | the error list, all messages, earlier versions |
| In operation | when a call is answered, when changes take effect, what happens on errors |
| Nodes | every node with its properties, outputs and effect |
| Examples | typical flows step by step |
C# code in flows — script code, functions and expressions — is described in Code in flows.
Permissions
You work with flows through the Routing configuration permission: See lets you view them; Change lets you create, edit, export, import and delete them. Flows do not need a license of their own. Speech synthesis, speech recognition and translation run via Microsoft Azure and require the AI Key.