How to 'run' an IVR saved in JSON? - json

Question

I am working on a IVR solution for small businesses in my local area but I am having trouble wrapping my head around how Node will handle menus. I could make a seperate Node server for each of my customers but I would like to have a single server that pulls each customer's IVR setup from a Mongo database or file when their number is called. I have an idea on how to save the menu structure in JSON but I am lost when it comes to turning that JSON into responses to <gather> inputs. I was thinking I could use a JSON structure like this in the DB (or maybe as a .json file on Amazon S3):
{
"menu": {
"id": 1,
"name": "Main",
"script": "Thank you for calling Local Company. To speak to sales press 1, ...",
"options": [
{
"name": "",
"action": "",
"value": "",
"next": ""
},
{
"name": "Sales",
"action": "dial",
"value": 12345678901,
"next": ""
},
{
"name": "Support",
"action": "dial",
"value": 12345678902,
"next": ""
},
{
"name": "Directions",
"action": "say",
"value": "Our offices are located at...",
"next": 1
},
{
"name": "Mailbox",
"action": "mailbox",
"value": "main",
"next": 1
}
]
}
}

Answer 1

Twilio developer evangelist here.
If you can return the JSON based on the number a user is dialling, then you could do something like this:
const Twilio = require('twilio');
app.post('/voice', (req, res) => {
const dialledNumber = req.body.To;
getIVRObjectFromPhoneNumber(dialledNumber, (IVRObject) => {
const twiml = Twilio.twiml.VoiceResponse();
if (typeof req.body.Digits !== 'undefined') {
// A user has pressed a digit, do the next thing!
const action = IVRObject.menu.options[req.body.Digits]
twiml[action.action](action.value);
} else {
// No digits yet, return the <Gather>
const gather = twiml.gather({
numDigits: 1
});
gather.say(IVRObject.script);
}
res.send(twiml.toString());
});
});
This doesn't quite use all of your object, I'm not sure what the values for next mean, but hopefully it's a start. The getIVRObjectFromPhoneNumber method is my made up, asynchronous method that returns a JavaScript object parsed from your example JSON above.
Let me know if this helps at all.