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Telephony

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    If a survey has the CATI mode enabled (go to Survey Settings for more information), the Telephony item becomes available that can be added to the questionnaire. This item is used to control the transmission of the dialing commands to the CATI console for dialing in CATI-enabled surveys. Click on the item in the Survey pane to open its details page.

    Figure 1 - The Telephony item’s details page

    The fields and options are:

    • Command type - the telephony command that this item is to activate.

    1. Dial - causes the system to issue a telephone number dial command. The Telephone Variable drop-down is available.

    2. Telephone variable - select a phone number, or leave blank to use the default TelephoneNumber variable.

    3. Text - When Dial is selected, additional (optional) text (which can include data substitution) can be supplied. This text will be displayed on the CATI interviewer console when dialing is in progress. The open text variable corresponding to the respondent's telephone number is also supplied.

    • Hang up - causes the system to hang up the existing respondent telephone number. The remaining fields in the details page are removed.

    • Allow/Ignore telephony commands - specifies whether or not the dial/hang up commands should be active (used when going back through the survey). When Allow/Ignore telephony commands is selected, check the box to enable "Allow". If Allow is disabled (the box is NOT selected), then when the interviewer passes the next Dial/Hang up telephony command in the questionnaire, the console will not perform the command. This option will be useful if the interviewer needs to move backwards through the questionnaire - there is no point in trying to dial the number if it is already connected.

    • Internal transfer - causes the interviewing agents to see the pop-up menu for internal call transfers, they can then choose a suitable target interviewer group to make the call transfer. This telephony node command type can be used to trigger the transfer process to begin when reaching this part of the survey. The alternative action would be for the interviewer to trigger the transfer by using the call transfer button on the toolbar. Please refer to the CATI documentation for more information about call transfers.

    • External transfer - this telephony node command type can be used to trigger the transfer process to begin when reaching this part of the survey. The alternative action would be for the interviewer to trigger the transfer by using the call transfer button on the toolbar. There are two supported modes:

    1. Mode 1 (default). “Display UI for user to select a pre-defined external transfer number” This causes the interviewing agents to see the pop-up menu for external call transfers (the list of transfer numbers should be defined in the CATI Supervisor UI). The user can then choose a suitable target number to make the external call transfer to.

    2. Mode 2 (optional). “Transfer to a specified number” Provide a number here for the external transfer (this must match with a corresponding external transfer number that is defined in the CATI supervisor UI or it will not be allowed to be dialled). In this scenario because only the specified external transfer number can be used the system will bypass showing the external number transfer list to the interviewer.