A voice based customer survey application that calls a number, asks questions, and collects the responses via Tropo's WebAPI.
This application utilizes Tropo to create a simple telephone survey application. The application takes a phone number and an array of questions. Using Tropo's WebAPI, we create an outbound call to the number provided.
The questions are then asked in sequence to the user, utilizing Tropo's Text To Speech engine to render the question strings as voice prompts. The user's responses are collected, either by DTMF (touch-tone phone), or by voice.
The survey results are then available via a GET call to the application.
The application has two pieces:
Run bundle install to get all the dependencies.
Copy config/config.sample.yml to config/config.yml. You will get your Tropo token in a minute.
You should be able to start the Sinatra app now by running ruby application.rb
Going to http://localhost:4567 should display a welcome message and tell you that you have completed 0 surveys with 0 responses. It will not run yet as you still need a valid Tropo token first.
Make sure that this application is available to the internet and not firewalled as your Tropo application will need to send data to it. Make note of its URL.
A WebAPI Tropo application has to be created. Log into Tropo, create a WebAPI application, and set the callback URL to your Sinatra application: http://your-sinatra-app.com/call_out.json
Your newly created Tropo Application will have an associated Outbound Token, listed underneath the application's phone numbers. Copy and paste this outbound token to the Sinatra application's config file.
Note: The token you see on your application page is not the entire token. Make sure you click the token and copy and paste the entire token from the modal that will pop up.
The Sinatra app communicates with Tropo to initiate the outbound call and manage the process of asking and storing surveys.
The / POST route is basic route for initializing a survey. You can pass it an 11 digit telephone number to dial, and an array of questions to ask. There is a runner.rb file that has an example of a basic survey (be sure to change the phone number to a real number).
Once you've changed the phone number to a valid one, you can see it in action with ruby runner.rb.
This will initiate a POST to your Sinatra App which in turn initiates an outbound call via Tropo. We will ask and collect the responses to each of the questions asked and the results will be available via the GET /results/:survey route.
If you use runner, the URL you can check the results at will be displayed to you.