I am a beginner that has never built an interactive voice response application and was hoping for some guidance before getting started.

My objective is to make an application for a medical office in Huntsville, Alabama (USA) that calls patients about upcoming appointments and ask them to press "1" if they are the person being called or "2" to repeat the message. The portion of the reminder system that creates email reminders is hosted in a Microsoft Access database and I will need to integrate the two reminder systems so that the office secretary can see the status of reminder messages sent, responses from messages, etc.

For the voice message, I considered:

1. Having the secretary make an individual (personalized) reminder calls each morning for upcoming appointments, saved as mp3 files.
2. Using a generic message with date and time inserted from text to speech software
3. Using a generic message with date and time inserted from short voice clips.

All scheduled appointment times are at 15, 30 or 45 minutes after the hour and all reminder dates are between 1 and 31. Including voice clips for days of the week its less than 50 short voice files.

Not knowing which way is best, it would be nice to hear what others have chosen.

After reading comments on this blog I realize I am quite the amateur among a group of sophisticated developers. Hopefully, a few suggestion could be offered letting me know if CT Developer is the right starting point for my simple application of if perhaps there is a more appropriate set of tools for someone working in a Microsoft Access development world.

Selecting a phone interface is also a question on my mind. It seems that both VOIP and a single line phone would both be good choices for our small office. The VOIP approach seems to offer some advantages - but what the experts would advise.

Thanks

Mike
Huntsville, Alabama

I can tell you that you have found the right tool for building automated telephone systems. You should check out this thread: Getting Started in TeleFlow. It contains great advice for all telephony developers, but is specific to TeleFlow/CT Developer.

We do have a product that does exactly what you are trying to do. Before you dive to far into your development, have a look at MedicalRelay. The Appointment Reminder solution is the one that will meet your needs. Having already developed a solution, I can tell you the path your about to tread is long and rocky. It might may more sense to use ours than reinvent the wheel.

If you are interested, email sales{at}engenic.com for more information.

Regardless, I wish you good luck with your application. Welcome to the wide world of telecom development!