Inbound Calls Quick Start Guide

Connect a Call Without Any Code

This is the simplest demo possible, as it requires no development experience at all. In this demo you will connect two phones on a call - phone A and phone B. Phone A will be used to dial your BlueVia Voice Number and phone B will be added to the call, such that phone A and phone B can speak to each other.

You will need access to host a file on a web server accessible from the open internet. For this demo we have chosen to use Dropbox simply because it’s easy! Other cloud based storage facilities are available :-).

NOTE You will only be able to use Dropbox if you have access to a public folder that can serve content as JSON or XML. Note Public folders have been disabled for new Dropbox accounts. The Public folders in, newer Dropbox accounts - since October 4th 2012, do not let you serve static XML and JSON files directly to the BlueVia Voice API. Instead they provide a link to a Dropbox hosted web page such that you can then download a static file. This is not usable by the BlueVia Voice API. If you don’t have access to a public Dropbox folder you will need to host the command file elsewhere. The static file has to be able to be served as JSON or XML though, which is why you won’t be able to host this on services such as Google Drive

Create the following JSON content in a file and save as connect-call.json, 

{
    "commands": [
        {
	  "dial": {
                "number": {
                    "callerId": "tel:+442012345678",
                    "destination": "tel:+44712345678"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

NOTE:

  • The callerId telephone number MUST be one of the BlueVia Voice Numbers. You can find a number to use by accessing your BlueVia Dashboard.
  • The Number format is always in international dialing format tel:+country code - BlueVia Voice Number.
  • Remember to include the tel:+ prefix
  • The destination number is the number you wish to connect to, i.e. Phone B - the number that you will add to the call. Remembering phone A is used to call your BlueVia Voice Number.
  • The Destination number has the same international format as the callerId attribute i.e. tel:+country code - Phone number you wish to add to the call

Place connect-call.json in you Public Dropbox folder, or host elsewhere, and find the publicly accessible link to the file by signing into your Dropbox account and navigating to the file. Right click on the file and select ‘Copy Public Link’. You can now use this to configure your BlueVia number.

Once you have the web accessible link of the file connect-call.json, you then have to update you BlueVia Voice numbers configuration such that the callback URL refers to the URL to the JSON file in your Dropbox Public folder, or where ever you have hosted the file.

Go to the BlueVia Dashboard to and select the BlueVia Voice Number you wish to update. Copy and paste the URL to connect-call.json into the callback URL for the number and save the updated configuration.

The call the BlueVia Voice Number. Your B Phone should start ringing.

Simple!

The Dial command documentation provides further detail about using this command.

OK, in itself not an awe inspiring example of what you can do with the BlueVia Voice API, however this is simply intended to show you the basics, and show you how to configure your numbers to make them start singing ;-)

Lets try creating conference calls