Escalation Call Lists are needed when an emergency alert must be received and acted upon. EmailToVoice.Net provides the customer the ability to create a list of recipients that will be called sequentially until a person is reached and listens to the alert message.
We have added an additional feature to our Escalation List. The customer can now set a default amount of time that occurs between the sequential calls. The customer signs into the Customer Portal and goes to MY Details. The field is called ‘Escalation List Delay’. This field sets the time between each call that was not answered in an escalation list. The setting is the delay duration in minutes.
List Management
EmailToVoice.Net has long provided List Management so that a customer can send a message to multiple recipients, such as an email to a voice phone call. This is done in the Customer Portal under the menu item Manage Personal Lists.
Escalation Lists are a feature of the List Management capability in EmailToVoice.Net.
Escalation Lists are used to sequentially send a text-to-speech (TTS) message to a list of phone recipients. The messages are sent one at a time until a person answers or takes an action to accept the call. The acceptance of the call is based upon specific criteria set by the administrator that created the list. This is unlike the standard list type, where the message is sent to all the recipients at one time.
The purpose of an escalation list is to find a recipient who can act on the message. Examples of such a message might be:
Perform an urgent maintenance job for a piece of equipment that has failed
Fill a shift vacancy for someone who has called in sick
Get a courier to urgently pick up a package and deliver it
Send a Message to an Escalation List
You send your TTS message using this list in EmailToVoice.Net. For example,
send the email message TO dmy@tts.message-service.org
in the body of your message, include:
<Lists>*My New Escalation List Name*</Lists> (* * replace with your list name)
The message must be picked up (not by voice mail) and listened to for at least 10 seconds, otherwise, the next recipient in the list is called. Once someone listens to the message for the required length of time, the job stops there.
If you send a two-way TTS, the recipient must press 1 on the phone’s Dialpad to accept the message. Otherwise, the next recipient in the list is called. In this case, it doesn’t matter how long the person has listened to the message. Making a TTS message a Two Way is done by merely adding the tag <TwoWay> on a separate line in the content of the email.
More Features
EmailToVoice.Net is rich in features while being simple and effective to use for business communications and alerts. We transform an email message into a phone call or enterprise Text Message with no need to program APIs or install any hardware or software. You can send a voice phone call (TTS), Enterprise Text SMS, FAX or prerecorded Voice Message from any email program interface through your monitoring software, CRM, or Dispatch System. Contact Us and let us assist you in meeting your mission-critical business communications needs.
Author
Director at EmailToVoice.Net: CISSP – Solutions Architect for Industrial IoT Alerts and Business Communications. LinkedIn
Sending formatted text messages for industrial communications can be done easily with just a simple email interface using EmailToVoice.Net. SMS Messaging is a reliable means to get important information to employees or business partners immediately. However, the limitations of SMS text messaging often keep it from being used in mission-critical business processes. Text messaging is limited by the lack of formatting and low text character limit, which is necessary to convey detailed information. MMS and RCS attempt to address this issue. However, they too have limitations that cause barriers to wide adoption for mission-critical applications.
EmailToVoice.Net Provides Enterprise Text
EmailToVoice.Net provides the ability to send formatted data to a cell phone using SMS from monitoring software or business applications. Messages with the formatting requirements of an HTML Web Page can be automatically sent to just about any cell phone in the world as easily as sending an email.
Enterprise Text is a feature of EmailToVoice.Net, which creates a custom HTML Web page from your business email alert and then delivers it as a simple SMS message. For each SMS recipient, a custom web page is created and inserted in their SMS text message, allowing viewing of the page of HTML with a simple tap. This allows a single text message to communicate large amounts of formatted data.
To send an Enterprise Text message,
the TO field merely needs to have the recipient’s phone number and specific email domain provided by EmailToVoice.Net.
Our cloud-based messaging service will convert the email content into a custom web page and insert the link of the automatically created Web page into the text message.
The recipient can then tap the link in the text message and see the entire email content formatted as a Web Page on their smartphone.
The Email Fields would look like this:
TO: 5551231234@linkinsms.message-service.org (The recipient’s cell phone – no preregistration required)
FROM: emailaddress@yourcompanydomain.com (Subscribed to EmailToVoice.Net)
SUBJECT: Anything (Used as a job name for reporting purposes)
The content of the email is converted to an HTML Web page. The Web page of data is hosted by our service and a link to the Web page is substituted into the outgoing SMS text message so that the recipient can easily view the data with a tap.
Integration with Business Applications
The implementation of industrial communications is critical for premier customer support, business continuity, and process efficiency. However, integration projects can become a major effort. Sending large amounts of data with special formatting from monitoring software or directly from an IoT device to a phone could require program development with specialized hardware and software. Connections to smart devices, CRM, PCS or ERP systems need to go through complex API’s or propriety software gateways.
Enterprise Text is a feature of EmailToVoice.Net that creates a custom HTML Web page delivered through a simple SMS message. For each SMS recipient, a custom web page is created and inserted in their SMS message, allowing viewing of the page of HTML with a simple tap. This allows a single text message to communicate large amounts of specific data.
Enterprise Text is excellent for automating labor-intensive, time-sensitive tasks generated from monitoring software, ERP, or CRM applications. The messages can be two-way and integrated with complex workflowprocesses. EmailToVoice.Net allows a single text message to communicate large amounts of data. For example, a text message could deliver detailed technical information for device repair or financial data accessed by a simple click in their SMS text message.
Features of Enterprise Text from EmailToVoice.Net
Enterprise Text provided by EmailToVoice.Net is rich in features to meet any business requirement. Below are some examples of these features that can be set up in the Customer Details in the Customer Portal.
You can add a Header and a Footer that will be used in all Text messages from your account. For example, you can add a logo, an introductory message, disclaimers, and links using HTML
You can specify a specific SMS Sender ID so the recipient can recognize the sender of the text message.
You can enter a default email address for SMS replies. So, if the recipient replies to the text message, the reply will go to this email address. You can then alternatively use Microsoft Flow to continue a complex business workflow process without any coding. (Contact us for assistance in developing workflow processes)
There are many more features of the Enterprise Text Messaging feature in EmailToVoice.Net. Let us know if you would like to learn more. Contact us. We love to share our experience in industrial communications, workflow, and alerts.
Making a phone call has become a critical requirement for alerts and notifications from monitoring systems and customer service applications. The challenge is these applications often can only send emails. In addition to that challenge, an email has a lot of stuff that is not necessary for a phone message. The solution for this challenge is to parse the content of the email into a succinct voice message that gets the important message across quickly and effectively.
Microsoft Flow and EmailToVoice.Net work well together. We have written about this integration in past articles in our Blog. In this post, we are going to delve deeper into the script used to parse the email content into a sensible phone message.
Workflow Definition Language
The Microsoft Workflow Definition language is at the center of extracting relevant information from an email and passing only what is applicable to a voice phone call. The Microsoft Workflow Definition Language is available in Microsoft Flow. You also find this powerful language in Azure Logic Apps. Actually it is better documented in Azure Logic Apps.
Sample Script for Parsing and Email
In our previous posts about using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net, we have shown sample scenarios of forwarding a message that arrives in a customer service email inbox and then passes that message on to a phone. In this post, we are showing a simple example of parsing the content of an email into shortened text that would be more applicable for a voice phone call.
Sample Incoming Email
Let’s use a simple email for our example. From this email, all we want for the phone call is what has been ordered. In this case, it is ‘One Pizza’.
Initialize Variable with the Body of the Email
First we will initialize a new variable with the content of the Email. This grabs all of the text of the incoming email. If the email is HTML, then all the HTML formatting is also present in this new variable.
Discard beginning text of the email
Next we want to discard all text before the part of the email that we want to have as the content of the voice phone call. To do this we used the following expression:
last(split(variables(‘Email Text’),’This is the order </div><div><br></div><div>’))
It is important to note that when the email is HTML, then you need to look into the source to see exactly how the email content looks.
Discard bottom part of the text of the email
Now we want to discard everything after the part of the email that we want to keep as the voice phone message. in this simple case, the only part we want to keep is ‘One Pizza’. To do this we used the following expression:
first(split(variables(‘Email top part’),'</div>’))
Pass the remaining content to a Phone Call
As the final step, we use the variable that now has only the part of the email that we want to be converted to speech (TTS) for the phone call. This text will be passed to EmailToVoice.Net.
This is a great independent Youtube video to further explain this type of process using Workflow Definition Language.
Can We Help Further
If you have a business process that would be enhanced by using voice phone messages, contact us. We can help you integrate phone messages into any mission-critical business flow.
EmailToVoice.Net is rich in features while being simple and effective to use for business communications and alerts. We transform an email message into a phone call or an SMS message with no need to program APIs or install any hardware or software.
For making a voice phone call, you merely make the TO field in the Email you are sending to look something like 5551234567@tts.message-service.org (international calls require a +CountryCode in front of the local number). The recipient will receive a call on their phone. The text in the email is converted to a nice-sounding voice. If the recipient answers, they will hear the message right away. If they do not answer, the message will be left on their voice mail system. You can even leave a different message if the call goes to voice mail.
You can also send an SMS, FAX or prerecorded Voice Message from an email program interface, like from an application, Internet of Things device (IoT / M2M), or through your CRM and Dispatch System.
Microsoft Flow works well with EmailToVoice.Net. And now, Microsoft has made licensing changes that make Microsoft Flow even more convenient for routing and parsing emails while EmailToVoice.Net converts the emails into voice phone calls.
As recently announced by Microsoft, Office 365 is now Microsoft 365. Included in that change, Microsoft Flow is now available in most Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Microsoft Flow and EmailToVoice.Net are great companions. Microsoft Flow has email connectors that enhance business flows. These email connectors can seamlessly invoke the abilities of EmailToVoice.Net. EmailToVoice.Net provides the ability to integrate Text to Speech and SMS communications with enterprise business flows.
Customer Service Scenario
To provide an example of how Microsoft Flow and EmailToVoice.Net can work together, the following is an example of sending a voice message to customer service staff when an email arrives from the enterprise’s customer. The prerequisites for this example are a subscription to EmailToVoice.Net (can be a free trial) and a paid subscription to Microsoft 365. This example uses the GMAIL connector. Microsoft Flow has many connectors.
When Microsoft Flow detects an email message arriving in the customer service general email address Microsoft Flow will trigger an email to be sent (forwarded) to EmailToVoice.Net that will then generate a phone call to the customer service representative.
Images below are from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365 Updated versions may change the views.
Select All Apps
Select Flow
Go to Connectors and connect to Gmail
Select Trigger
In this example, the trigger will be a new email coming into the customer service email mailbox from a customer.
Choose the “Forward Gmails that meet a certain criteria” action for this example. But there are many templates and you can also just choose to create your own without using a template.
Provide Assurance to Microsoft Flow that you own the email account
Sign-in to the Gmail account that will receive the alerts that need to be forwarded to EmailToVoice.Net, as Microsoft Flow requests you to do.
Set the Flow
This is where you specify which emails are entering your email mailbox that are to be forwarded to the EmailToVoice.Net.
Set Flow Part 1
The From criteria specifies the customer service email address that will receive the customer’s email message.
Set Flow Part 2
Set the SEND criteria. The TO field should be like: nnnnnnnnnn@TTS.MESSAGE-SERVICE.ORG For more information, refer to How Email to Voice Works
Conclusion
When a message comes in from a customer to the customer service email address, a Microsoft Trigger will occur, which will forward that message to EmailToVoice.Net from your email address. EmailToVoice.Net will convert the content of the email to a nice sounding voice, dial the phone number, etc. Learn more at EmailToVoice.Net
Additional Considerations
The Subject Field of the message being forwarded to EmailToVoice.Net for conversion to a voice can be preset in Microsoft Flow. The Subject field can then be optionally read as part of the message to the customer service representative by selecting the following setting in the Customer Portal.
Customer Portal / My Details / Email To Broadcast Subject Field Behaviour
The number of characters of the email being sent to EmailToVoice.Net can optionally be limited by selecting the setting in the Customer Portal.
Customer Portal / My Details / TTS character limit
Additionally, a Header Message can optionally be set in the EmailToVoice.Net account for every message. The Header message will be converted to voice and read every time at the beginning of every voice message.
Customer Portal / My Details / TTS Message Prefix
How EmailtoVoice.Net works
EmailToVoice.Net is rich in features while being simple and effective to use for business communications and alerts. We transform an email message into a phone call or an SMS message with no need to program APIs or install any hardware or software.
For making a voice phone call, you merely make the TO field in the Email you are sending to look something like 5551234567@tts.message-service.org (international calls require a +CountryCode in front of the local number). The recipient will receive a call on their phone. The text in the email is converted to a nice-sounding voice. If the recipient answers, they will hear the message right away. If they do not answer, the message will be left on their voice mail system. You can even leave a different message if the call goes to voice mail.
You can also send an SMS, FAX or prerecorded Voice Message from an email program interface, like from an application, Internet of Things device (IoT / M2M), or through your CRM and Dispatch System.
Contact Us if we can provide further assistance in helping you meet your business communications requirements.
Supply Chain communication is critical to the success of the Supply chain and its stakeholders. The importance of effective communications for internal stakeholders and external suppliers cannot be overstated. An enterprise must have a well-planned communication strategy to ensure the resilience of the Supply Chain.
A chain of communication is as straightforward as it sounds, but it is important to establish the expected flow of information within a business. The chain can be as simple as the chain of command, but all members must understand what is expected of them when they receive a message — including what messages should be forwarded, who they should be forwarded to, and how they should be delivered.
As part of a Supply Chain communication plan, multiple channels and methods should be taken into consideration,. As an example, Social Networks should be explored as a ubiquitous alternative in the exceptional case of normal communication channels being interrupted during the time of a crisis. The resilience and variety of Social Networks is an excellent complement to ensuring the resilience of a Global Supply Chain. During recent global catastrophes, we have seen Social Media technologies effectively used in grassroots disaster response. These successful grassroots efforts have brought the value of global social networks to the attention of governments and global enterprises.
Effective Voice Phone Call
An additional communication channel is a voice phone call. This is an effective communication channel in regular Supply Chain processes because phone calls get the participant’s attention. SMS text messaging can also be an effective method of alerts or regular dissemination of timely information.
The challenge to incorporating a voice phone call as part of the regular Supply Chain processes is the cost and effort to have business applications integrate with PSTN phone communications.
In the past, implementation could be a major effort. Sending a message from an application to a phone required specialized hardware and software to be installed. Connections to CRM, PCS or ERP systems were through complex APIs or software gateways.
Providing a voice phone call as integrated communications channels is now easy. With our cloud messaging service called EmailtoVoice.net, all that is needed to send a voice message from an application is the ability to send an email. Email communication is common in enterprise applications; and also can be found in many IoT devices.
EmailToVoice.Net can make a phone call as easy as sending an email. Mission-critical processes that exist in all stages of the Supply Chain already have an email capability.
How EmailtoVoice.Net works
We transform an email message into a phone call.
You make the TO field in the Email you are sending to look something like 5551234567@tts.message-service.org (international calls require a +CountryCode in front of the local number)
The recipient will receive a call on their phone. The text in the email is converted to a nice sounding voice. If the recipient answers, they will hear the message right away. If they do not answer, the message will be left on their voice mail system. You can even leave a different message if the call goes to voice mail.
You can also send an SMS, FAX or prerecorded Voice Message from an email program interface, like from an application, Internet of Things device (IoT / M2M) or through your CRM and Dispatch System.
Multiple Communication Channels is Critical
Supply Chain Communications is critical to the resilience of critical processes. Using multiple channels during the process is imperative to success. The communication channels of the voice phone call and SMS messaging should be incorporated for mission-critical real-time alerts and informational messaging to the stakeholders.
