I'm trying to create a phone system where a caller gets enqueued, and ideally, the system will then call out to an agent, who would then pickup and then modify the call to bridge the top of the queue.
What I've accomplished thus far is the dialing loop, where a user calls in, and it dials agents in sequence, until someone picks up, or gives the user the option to leave a message or stay on the line while hearing it ring. And a simple enqueue with hold music.
I just can't seem to figure out how to combine these two systems.
The closest I've found is this post, and it's helpful, but it glosses over how to call out once the caller is enqueued.
Unfortunately, the only Twilio documentation I've found thus far tells me how to dial into the queue, which isn't what I want out of this system. I want this system to place a caller in a queue with hold music, while the system then dials agent numbers until an agent picks up.
Any and all help is much appreciated.
Thanks.
Edit:
Solution
index.php
This is the general IVR tree that the caller initially hits.
<Say>This hits your general IVR tree</Say>
<Say>As the last action, since the caller hasn't pressed anything and should be enqueued, redirect the caller to EnqueueCaller.php</Say>
<Redirect>./EnqueueCaller.php</Redirect>
Since PHP is a preprocessor, there's no real way to sleep or timeout the dialing of the call. The redirect in the IVR tree is necessary so the Agents aren't being dialed when the user is still in the IVR tree.
EnqueueCaller.php
This is where the Caller gets redirected once the IVR tree has finished and the user has chosen to wait for an agent. The call actually happens before the Enqueue, since PHP loads first before the TwiML xml is read (I think?). But since there's an inherent delay when calling, the caller will always be enqueued before an agent can pick up (I hope).
<Enqueue waitUrl="wait_file.xml">name_of_queue</Enqueue>
$call = $client->account->calls->create($from, $to, "http://example.com/DialQueueHandler.php", array( "StatusCallback" => "DialQueueEventHandler.php" );
DialQueueHandler.php
This simply bridges the agent and whoevers at the top of the queue.
<Say>Connecting to caller now.</Say>
<Dial><Queue>name_of_queue</Queue></Dial>
DialQueueEventHandler.php
This script houses the logic for what happens when the dialed agent state changes (answered, complete, initiated, ringing) from $_REQUEST['CallStatus']. In my case, I dialed a single agent from the enqueue script, and in this script, either continue dialing the next agents via setting of a flag.
switch($_REQUEST['CallStatus'] {
case 'answered':
case 'completed':
$next = false;
break;
default:
$next = true;
break;
}
if($next) { $call = $client->account->calls->create($from, $nextAgentNumber, "http://example.com/DialQueueHandler.php", array( "StatusCallback" => "DialQueueEventHandler.php?agentOffset=$num" ); } //same line from EnqueueCaller.php, and track where we are in agent array.
If the call is not answered or completed, then dial the next agent. Otherwise when the call is picked up by an agent, the DialQueueHandler.php file gets hit and the call becomes bridged.
