Setting Message Delivery Times In EmailToVoice.Net

Setting Message Delivery Times In EmailToVoice.Net

EmailToVoice.Net provides the user with the ability to set a window of time for the delivery of voice phone calls and SMS messages using any email interface.

This feature is extremely useful for departments that need their staff to be alerted by voice or SMS when they are off their primary working hours. When staff are at their desks, they may not need voice and SMS alerts. However, when the staff is not on their primary shifts, the messages must get the attention of the staff members. To get that attention, the messages should be delivered as a telephone call and/or SMS text message. Email is not an effective way to get the attention of essential support staff.

We created a user option so an active window of time can be designated for voice phone calls or SMS text messages to be delivered by EmailToVoice.Net.

Although setting a window of time for voice or SMS messages to be delivered can be accomplished by using no-code alternatives like Microsoft Power Automate, we provide this ability without the need for any third-party capability. The customer merely needs to sign-in to the Customer Portal and modify these parameters in the ‘My Details’ section.

Easily configure your delivery start time and end time

Email to Voice Active Window

The parameters in Customer Portal / My Details provide the ability to block or allow the messages to go through. The parameters allow the user to set different rules for the Weekend (Saturday and Sunday) and the Weekdays (Monday through Friday). The time can either be blocked or allowed. The time is according to the timezone set in the account under My Details.

If you have any questions about this feature of EmailToVoice.Net, please contact us so we can help you meet your mission-critical business communications requirements.

We have recently added other features that assist our customers in adding workflow processes to their business communications needs. An example is designate the beginning and the end of a voice or text message sent using email. This is valuable when you want to send only the pertinent information in your alerts and mission-critical messages.

The customer can designate the beginning and end of all messages by logging into the Customer Portal and then going to My Details / Change My Details. The fields in the account details are

Email to Broadcast-Start of Message Text:

Email to Broadcast-End of Message Text:

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 Enterprise 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.

Parse Email into a Phone Call Using Microsoft Flow and Workflow Definition Language

Parse Email into a Phone Call Using Microsoft Flow and Workflow Definition Language

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.

Microsoft Flow Power Automate

 

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.

Using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net to Improve Customer Service Business Processes

Using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net to Improve Customer Service Business Processes

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.

To set up the Microsoft Flow script, sign into your Microsoft 365 Account.

Images below are from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365 Updated versions may change the views.

Select All Apps

Microsoft 365 All Apps

 

Select Flow

Microsoft 365 Flow app

Go to Connectors and connect to Gmail

Gmail Connector Microsoft Flow

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.

Gmail Microsoft Flow Forward trigger

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.

Create the Flow part one

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

Create the Flow part two

 

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.

 

How to Parse Text from an Email into a Voice Phone Call

How to Parse Text from an Email into a Voice Phone Call

There are business processes that require parsing important information from the text of an email and then creating a voice message for making a phone call.

When We Need to Parse an Email into a Voice Call

Using the EmailToVoice.Net service, you are able to make a phone call by using any commonly available email interface. EmailToVoice.Net provides the ability to convert the content of an Email to voice using text-to-speech (TTS) and call a phone number. This is extremely useful when monitoring software or a business application can only send an email; but a phone call is necessary to be an effective alert.

But, the content of a voice call can sometimes need to be quite different than an email. For example, the signature section of an email is not needed in a phone call and may sound quite unusual to the phone recipient.

The email signature can be excluded from the voice conversion process. This can be done at the Account level by making the request through the contact us form, or by inserting the EmailToVoice.Net tag called “<End Message>” into the text of the email. Thereby, the email signature is not converted to voice. This makes the call sound more natural for a phone call. And, this also helps in reducing the size of the voice message.

Sometimes Email needs to be parsed into a voice message

Eliminating the email signature can sometimes not be enough. The text of the email may need to be parsed to make an intelligible voice communication, if the original email has tables or is inherently cryptic.

There are several alternatives to parse content of an email into a voice message when using EmailToVoice.Net. One solution is Microsoft Flow. We discussed this service in our Blog post call Using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net to Forward an Alert to a Phone. In that post we explain:

So, what is the solution to the dilemma of needing to make a phone call from a general purpose email monitoring service.

One solution is to use Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net. Following is an example of steps to set up a Microsoft Flow that will accept the alert from the Monitoring Service from a general purpose email address into the customer-owned email address that is authorized to send messages to EmailToVoice.Net. When Microsoft Flow detects an arriving alert message into the customer’s email, Microsoft Flow will trigger an email to be sent from the customer’s email (forwarded) to the EmailToVoice.Net with the same alert message generated by the Monitoring Service.

However, Microsoft Flow can be used for even more than what we discussed in our previous blog post. Flow can be used to parse the content of the email into a smooth flowing message. When the message is converted to a voice by our service, this parsed text will sound natural for the person listening to the voice call. In the U2U blog there is a post explaining the Definition Language used in Microsoft Flow: Using the Workflow Definition Language in Microsoft Flow

What I would like to show in this blog post is how you can extend your flows with a bit more advanced behavior by using the Workflow Definition Language.

In addition to Flow, there are other alternatives to parse an email before it is sent to EmailToVoice.Net such as MailParser and Parserr.

EmailToVoice.Net Staff Can Help

So, there are several effective methods to parse information from an email coming from monitoring software or a business application into a smooth sounding voice call delivered through EmailToVoice.Net. Do not hesitate to contact us if we can assist you further in meeting your business requirements.

 

Using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net to Forward an Alert to a Phone

Using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net to Forward an Alert to a Phone

Using Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net answers the challenge of sending phone alerts from a general-purpose email address. EmailToVoice.Net can send voice phone calls as alerts from any Monitoring Service or application. A phone call is necessary when the alert is urgent. Or, when it is not appropriate to send a text or email to the person needing the information. This is the case if the person is in a vehicle or traveling, for instance.

EmailToVoice.Net converts the content of an Email to a nice sounding voice and calls a phone number. This is possible with no need to install special APIs, hardware or software. So, EmailToVoice.Net works well with Monitoring Services when a phone call is needed, rather than just an email.

Most of the time, a Monitoring Service will send the email from a customer assigned unique email address. If this is the case, a customer can merely set the Monitoring System’s email address as a Send-Only email address in their EmailToVoice.Net account.

The Challenge of a General Purpose Email Address

Sometimes, however, the Monitoring Service sends the email from a general purpose email address, which is the same for all of the Monitoring Service customers. For strict security purposes, EmailToVoice.Net restricts messages to come from only an authorized customer-owned email address. The customer of EmailToVoice.Net must have the exclusive rights to sign-in to this authorized email address. You can learn more from this short How-To video.

So, what is the solution to the dilemma of needing to make a phone call from a general purpose email monitoring service.

One solution is to use Microsoft Flow with EmailToVoice.Net. Following is an example of steps to set up a Microsoft Flow that will accept the alert from the Monitoring Service from a general purpose email address into the customer-owned email address that is authorized to send messages to EmailToVoice.Net. When Microsoft Flow detects an arriving alert message into the customer’s email, Microsoft Flow will trigger an email to be sent from the customer’s email (forwarded) to the EmailToVoice.Net with the same alert message generated by the Monitoring Service.

The setup is straight forward, as is shown below. The steps used in this example are using the Microsoft Flow features of the free Web-based product. Here are the different pricing plans for Microsoft Flow.

Acquire Microsoft Flow

If your company does not have a license for Microsoft Flow, then sign up for a free Microsoft Flow account. When signing up for the service use the email address that will receive the alert and is authorized by EmailToVoice.Net to be able to send messages through EmailToVoice.Net. Or, when you setup your connectors use the email address authorized by EmailToVoice.Net. For the USA, the URL is https://us.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

NOTE: This is merely an example that uses Gmail connectors and fictitious destinations. The purpose of these steps is merely to give you an idea of how to setup your Microsoft Flow. Contact Microsoft to learn how to meet your specific requirements using Microsoft Flow or Contact Us at EmailToVoice.Net. We will help to the best of our ability.

Microsoft Flow sign up

Go to Connectors and connect to Gmail

Select Trigger

When a new email comes into your email mailbox from the Monitoring Service, Microsoft Flow will be triggered. 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.

Assure Microsoft Flow 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 Flow requests.

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 email address from the Monitoring Service.

Create the Flow part one

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

Create the Flow part two

Conclusion

That is it. When a message comes in from the monitoring Service into your email address, a Microsoft Trigger will occur forwarding that message to EmailToVoice.Net from your email address. This handles the issue of a general purpose email address being used by a Monitoring Service needing to send messages through EmailToVoice.Net. EmailToVoice.Net will convert the content of the email to a nice sounding voice, dial the phone number, etc. Learn more at EmailToVoice.Net

Featured image : Patrick Amoy   – Screen captures of Microsoft Flow