CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

We've been using Twilio recently within our organization to reach our members with automated calls. I'm thinking that it would be really cool to have a CiviPhone module similar to CiviMail to allow you to do calls directly from CiviCRM.

Using Twilio connect, it is really straightforward to authorize a logged in CiviCRM user to use their own Twilio account, meaning that an organization such as ours with many constituencies could easily pay for their own calls.

SMS messaging servicing could also be integrated as well I suppose, but we currently don't use that feature.

This is currently probably a little beyond my skill level, but I am willing to work on it. Wondering if anyone else has any interest in this sort of module, and if anyone else would be interested in working on it with me.

I'm thinking based on the current CiviMail setup that you would have the following steps:

• Start New Phone Call / SMS from Navigation bar, or from search results
• Select Recipients - identical to CiviMail
• Call / SMS Content - this is where it gets tricky. The current calls we make have several stages of IVR. Intro, Opt Out, Select Language, Message plus invalid options and goodbye. I haven't really thought out how this would look yet, especially as some might just want a straight up message. Maybe it is a series of presets that you can select from a drop down menu. You could upload, type (as Twilio will to Text to Voice), or potentially even Record right in the browser.
• Test - identical to CiviMail. Allow user to enter a phone number to do a test of the call or SMS
• Schedule or Send - identical to CiviMail. Schedule call to start at a certain time. Twilio can call out at a rate of 1 per second. So depending on the number of calls to be made, we could maybe add a stop time in there too so that calls are only made between 6:30pm and 9:00pm for example. Could even look at the area code of the phone and adjust for timezone? Automatically resume the next day at the same time until calls are finished

Reporting statistics can be obtained from Twilio log just like for CiviMail.

Ideally, we could create something that would be flexible enough to allow you to use any Voice / SMS provider - but maybe we can start with Twilio and move from there?

Brian

Thanks Ken. I actually haven't used 4.2 We're in the middle of a 20,000 person event registration and I am waiting until we are done before I upgrade.

I should upgrade our sandbox site though.

I'll post again once I have had the chance to play around with it. I guess we can ignore my SMS part though.

Hi Michael,

I merely that we didn't need to do the SMS part from scratch - just add a new provider.

As for phone, what we want to do is be able to search for a subset of contacts within our database, and then place an automated call to those contacts. It has fantastic applications for political organizations, as well as municipalities (emergency notification potentially triggered by sensors), or school districts (late buses, snow days, etc.)

Right, once the call is initiated, the Civi user could be presented with a call script and survey questions, with a donation tab.

Use Case
A phone center caller initiates a phone call to a constituent. The constituent answers. The caller asks if the constituent's contact information is correct and if they may be interested in completing a short survey. The caller also asks if the constituent would like to donate to an ongoing fundraising campaign.

User Interface
The call center employee clicks a button to call the next constituent in the call center queue. The phone call is connected and the employee is presented with the constituent profile. Once the constituent answers, the caller has an inline editable screen with constituent details, as well as buttons to initiate a survey and/or accept a contribution.