Capture phone #

[slamdunk]

Hi,

How to capture the phone# from incoming calls and store it in A5(without advanced knowledge of xbasic)?

I'm looking to do a small app for a pizza shop to give them the ability to automatically find the customer details as they call to place an order.

Thanks!

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Capture phone #

Not sure what

"How to capture the phone# from incoming calls... "

means.

User entered?
Caller_id?
Something else?

[Davidk]

Re: Capture phone #

Do what Pizza Pizza does... ask for the phone #. They already see the number via call display but verify it, that's why you can talk really fast and the operator still gets it, they're just reading the number as you talk. But, they have automated systems that feed calling numbers into their software. I don't know if you'll have that.

The problem here is that many times a call comes in from a number not connected with the account. Actually, that's where you could do one better than Pizza Pizza... Have multiple numbers associated with the same account.

If the operator doesn't get a hit, they'll say so and either take an order or ask for another number. It depends on how much you really want to capture the order with any possible number for one account.

Two tables... Phone #'s and Orders... many to many. Most of the time it will be Many to one, but on occassion many orders with many phone numbers. Although, you'll need xbasic with work with it because A5 doesn't handle many to many without xbasic (I believe).

I would type in a phone number to see if I get a hit.
If so, then display past orders.
If not, then keep that number on screen, but ask for another number.
If I get a hit on the 2nd number, you'll need code to associate the found account with the 1st number on screen. Now you've got 2 numbers associated with the same account.

The Phone numbers table would be made up of Phone # and Account #
The Account table would be Account #, Phone #, and order info.

[csda1]

Re: Capture phone #

Hi,
How to capture the phone# from incoming calls and store it in A5(without advanced knowledge of xbasic)?

I'm looking to do a small app for a pizza shop to give them the ability to automatically find the customer details as they call to place an order.

This is not easy to do within Alpha 5, even with advanced XBasic skills.

Assuming you have a caller ID modem hooked up to the computer and phone line, it requires a serial communication Active X (Alpha does not have one included) to get data to and from the serial port.

The A5 appication must watch for the ring (ideally in a background thread), and bring up a separate dialog box with caller ID, Name and address (If previous customer easy, if using the web, a bit more difficult). You wouldn't want to change from the current record you were dealing with while the phone call came in, which is why you need a separate dialog box for the phone call.

Potentially, Alpha could take the phone off hook and activate a modem based speakerphone/headset and hangup afterwards.

However, it is all doable with Alpha Five. I have written in the past an RFID code handler that acted like a keyboard wedge, that was not significantly different, but it took probably 20 hours or more to write.

[slamdunk]

Re: Capture phone #

This is not easy to do within Alpha 5, even with advanced XBasic skills.

Assuming you have a caller ID modem hooked up to the computer and phone line, it requires a serial communication Active X (Alpha does not have one included) to get data to and from the serial port.

The A5 appication must watch for the ring (ideally in a background thread), and bring up a separate dialog box with caller ID, Name and address (If previous customer easy, if using the web, a bit more difficult). You wouldn't want to change from the current record you were dealing with while the phone call came in, which is why you need a separate dialog box for the phone call.

Potentially, Alpha could take the phone off hook and activate a modem based speakerphone/headset and hangup afterwards.

However, it is all doable with Alpha Five. I have written in the past an RFID code handler that acted like a keyboard wedge, that was not significantly different, but it took probably 20 hours or more to write.

Yes thats what I'm looking to do. The customer details are to be found locally only (if existing customer or enter details manually for new customer). No web integration is required. However my xbasic skills are very basic. Appreciate any help.

[Ed Merritt]

Re: Capture phone #

A Google search turned up this hardware solution:
http://www.sandman.com/callerid.html

I know nothing about this supplier so I'm not endorsing them.