6 Voice Gateways

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network Voice Gateway enables speech intelligence and AI-powered Bot services to seamlessly integrate with voice services.

Topics:

• About Voice Gateways
• Advanced Call Control
• Call Transfer
• IVA Initiated Hangup
• Speech Services Integration
• Connect a Voice Gateway

About Voice Gateways

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network uses a voice gateway to connect telephony to Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA) to enable any IVA or Chatbot platform to use telephony without the need for businesses to develop and implement a telephony stack as part of the platform.

The Voice Gateway provides capabilities to interwork between the VoIP telephony protocols used by the PSTN and Communications Services with Intelligent Voice Agents through their APIs.

The voice gateway supports Voice Gateway Markup Language to enable more natural sounding and customizable synthesized speech for your IVA system. You can control the pronunciation, intonation, and other parts of speech synthesis to provide a more natural experience for your customers.

The voice gateway also provides text-to-speech capability to enable storing and reusing previously generated speech. Reused speech can speed the verbal response time from the IVA system to provide a better experience for the caller.

The following diagram illustrates how the voice gateway works.

1. The incoming call goes to the carrier.
2. The carrier routes the call to Oracle through a SIP trunk to the voice gateway.
3. The voice gateway translates between voice and text iterations.

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network voice gateway removes the complexity of handling voice-based telephone interactions by converting phone calls into a series of API interactions with the IVA and Bot Platform.

Note:

Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network supports only one configured voice gateway at a time. When you want to use a different voice gateway, you must delete the one in use before configuring the new one.

Advanced Call Control

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network advanced call control supports SIP header Integration and Metadata Persistence.

SIP Header Integration and Metadata Persistence

To support the exchange of call-related metadata with other SIP-based platforms, the voice gateway enables the Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) to retrieve information from, or insert information into, SIP headers exchanged in the call setup and transfer process during SIP signaling.

Inbound Calls

When configured to do so, the voice gateway can retrieve values stored in specified SIP headers in a SIP INVITE during the establishment of an inbound call. The voice gateway can send the values to the IVA at the beginning of a new interaction. For example, you might want to make a specified SIP header available to the IVA for interaction logs, Call Detail Records, or to identify the call when interacting with other systems.

Outbound Calls, Conference Calls, and Transfers

When configured to do so, the IVA can request the voice gateway to set one or more SIP headers to specified values when initiating an outbound call, transfer, or conference. The voice gateway can send the values in the initial SIP message associated with the action and pass information about the call to another platform to help identify the call or to provide call context information. For example, in a call center you might want to insert a unique call identifier and some context information to link the inbound call to the IVA and a call transferred to an agent together and ensure that any context or state information is available in the IVA. The information might inform the agent that the caller has been authorized and what the call is about.

Call Transfer

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network provides the ability to transfer a call to another telephone number or human agent to assist with the interaction.

Overt Transfers

The need to transfer calls often occurs in a self-service or contact center environment in the following scenarios:

• The Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) cannot handle the caller's request.
• The IVA cannot understand the caller due to poor call quality, background noise, or other impediments.
• The caller asks to speak to a human agent.

To support the need to transfer calls, the voice gateway enables the IVA to initiate a transfer to a specified destination with the ability to use SIP headers to send attached metadata to the recipient of the transferred call.

The voice gateway also provides the ability for the IVA to remain an active participant in the call after completing the call transfer. The IVA can continue monitoring the call and perform analytics, sentiment monitoring, or provide the human agent with information to assist with handling the call.

Blind Transfers

The voice gateway supports transferring a call from the initial recipient to another party without confirming the ability of the next recipient to receive the call or providing a verbal hand off to the caller before connecting the call to the new party.

Additional services and support include allowing the IVA to

• send attached metadata to the recipient to help provide an informed hand off.
• specify a secondary action if the hand off is unsuccessful, rather than dropping the call.

IVA Initiated Hangup

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network voice gateway supports the ability for the Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) to disconnect a call at any time during the call.

When configured to do so, the voice gateway can also provide the reason why the IVA disconnected a call.

Speech Services Integration

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network voice gateway can integrate and coordinate the speech services required to convert voice-based interactions to and from text-based Intelligent Virtual Assistants.

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network voice gateway supports major cloud-based speech services, multiple languages, and access to custom speech models that you might already use. Customers may configure the voice gateway to use their own accounts they established with the speech services providers.

Speech to Text (STT)

Speech-to-Text is the process where the voice gateway transcribes a voice stream into a text-based format that contains spoken words. The Oracle voice gateway integrates real-time streaming with supported STT engines to minimize the delays sometimes occurring with Cloud-based STT services.

Grammar and Context Hints

The Oracle voice gateway allows Intelligent Virtual Assistants that provide such support to include metadata in the form of hints to the speech to text engine to aid the recognition process.

Text to Speech (TTS)

The text to speech process Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network provides converts a string of text into a computer generated stream of speech. Intelligent Virtual Assistants depend on text to speech operations to convert text-based output into speech they can use in voice-based telephony interactions.

Voice Gateway Markup Language

The Voice Gateway Markup Language (VGML) is a proprietary mechanism for exchanging information between the Voice Bot and the Voice Gateway, which can include Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) to provide interaction with the Speech to Text (STT) and Text to Speech (TTS) services.

• VGML enables you to tell the Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network to do something.
• SSML enables you to tell the STT and TTS platforms to do something.
• VGML can pass SSML through to the SST and TTS platforms.

Caching

The Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network voice gateway supports the ability to cache text to speech output. Caching enables the platform to use speech previously generated by the text to speech engine for use in common Intelligent Virtual Assistant output. In this way, the platform does not need to request and wait for common output for each use, which can speed up the interaction with the caller.

Voice Gateway Details Page

When you click the Name of a Voice Gateway on the Services page, Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network displays the Voice Gateway Details page. The page displays tables with information about the Voice Gateway with an actions menu for each table.

Each table includes an Add button and the page displays the View Configuration button.

Voice Bots

The Voice Bots table displays the following columns:

Voice Bot Name	The name configured for the Voice Bot.
Provider	The name of the company that provides the Voice Bot.
Platform	The name of the Voice Bot service.
Speech Engine	The name of the speech engine provider.
Voice Channels	The number of channels available for the Voice Bot.
Numbers	The number of number blocks assigned to the Voice Bot.
Status	The life cycle state of the Voice Bot. Active | Paused | Processing.
Date Added	The date when the Voice Bot was added.
Actions	The only action is Delete.

Add Voice Bot button—Click to display the Select Voice Bot page, where you can add a Voice Bot.

Number Blocks

The Number Blocks table displays the following columns:

Starting Number	The first phone number in the number block. Click the number to open the Number Block drawer where you can view all the numbers in the block and their status.
Block Size	The number of phone numbers in the number block. For Mobile phone numbers, the only block size is 1. For Landlines, block sizes include 1, 10, and 100.
Type	The type of telephone connection, either Mobile or Landline.
Site Name	The name of the site hosting the number block. Click the site name to launch the Site Details page, where you can edit the site attributes and perform actions on the number blocks.
Voice Bot Name	The name you configured for the Bot.
Status	The life cycle state of the number block. Active | Inactive | Paused | Processing.
Date Added	The month, day, and year the number block was added.
Actions	The actions available for the number block. Actions in black are available for the number block. Actions in gray are not. Available actions depend on the status. Actions: Pause | Split Block | Merge Block | Move to Service | Move to Site | Remove from Service | Remove from Account.

Add Number Blocks button—Click to display the Select Number Blocks page, where you can select existing number blocks, add new ones, and select a voice bot. Note that the page displays only number blocks not assigned to a service.

View Configuration

When you click the View Configuration button, Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network opens the Voice Gateway drawer where you can edit the Service Name and reset the Number of Voice Channels.

Voice Gateway Management

After you add voice gateways to Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network you can manage them through the Services page.

Use the following procedures to manage your voice gateways.

• Connect the Microsoft Azure AI Bot Service
• Connect the Microsoft Copilot Studio Bot
• Connect the Google Dialogflow CX or ES Voice Bot to a Voice Gateway
• Edit Voice Bots

Connect the Microsoft Azure AI Bot Service

When you want to add the Microsoft Azure AI Bot Service to a Voice Gateway already connected to the Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network , use the following procedure.

Before You Begin

• Review the following procedure in advance, so you can collect the necessary information from your Microsoft Azure AI Bot Service profile before you begin.

Procedure

1. Go to Services and click the name of the target Voice Gateway.
2. On the Voice Gateway Details page, click Add Voice Bot.
3. On the Select Voice Bot page, click Microsoft Azure AI Bot Service and click Continue.
4. On the Assign Number Blocks page, select the numbers you want, and click Continue.
5. On the Configure Voice Bot Settings page, do the following:

   Bot Name	Enter the name of your Voice Bot.
   Provider	The Oracle Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network Cloud Service automatically inserts the provider's name.
   Azure Bot Services Direct Line Secret Key	Enter the Azure Bot Services direct line secret key from your Azure Bot account.
   Azure Bot Services Bot ID	Enter the Bot ID from your Azure Bot account.
   Voice Channels	Set the number of channels reserved for this voice bot. The number cannot exceed the capacity of the voice gateway.
   Use Voice Bot Provider Speech-to-Text Engine	Not adjustable at this time. Is set to enabled.
   Use Voice Bot Provider Text-to-Speech Engine	Not adjustable at this time. Is set to enabled.

6. Click Submit.

Connect the Microsoft Copilot Studio Bot

When you want to add the Microsoft Copilot Studio Bot to a Voice Gateway already connected to the Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network , use the following procedure.

Before You Begin

• Review the following procedure in advance, so you can collect the necessary information from your Microsoft Copilot Studio profile before you begin.

Procedure

1. Go to Services and click the name of the target Voice Gateway.
2. On the Voice Gateway Details page, click Add Voice Bot.
3. On the Select Voice Bot page, click Microsoft Copilot Studio Bot, and click Continue.
4. On the Assign Number Blocks page, select the numbers you want, and click Continue.
5. On the Configure Voice Bot Settings page, do the following:

   Bot Name	Enter the name of your Voice Bot.
   Provider	The Oracle Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network Cloud Service automatically inserts the provider's name.
   Copilot Studio Direct Line Secret Key	Enter the master key from your Copilot Studio account.
   Copilot Studio Bot ID	Enter the Bot ID from your Copilot Studio account.
   Voice Channels	Set the number of channels reserved for this voice bot. The number cannot exceed the capacity of the voice gateway.
   Use Voice Bot Provider Speech-to-Text Engine	Not adjustable at this time. Is set to enabled.
   Use Voice Bot Provider Text-to-Speech Engine	Not adjustable at this time. Is set to enabled.

6. Click Submit.

Connect the Google Dialogflow CX or ES Voice Bot to a Voice Gateway

When you want to add the Google Dialogflow CX or ES Voice Bot to a Voice Gateway already connected to the Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network , use the following procedure.

Before You Begin

• Review the following procedure in advance, so you can collect the necessary information from your Google DialogFlow profile before you begin.
• Confirm that the Voice Gateway you want to add the Voice Bot to is already connected to Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network .

Procedure

1. Go to Services and click the name of the target Voice Gateway.
2. On the Voice Gateway Details page, click Add Voice Bot.
3. On the Select Voice Bot page, click Google Dialogflow CX or ES, and click Continue.
4. On the Assign Number Blocks page, select the numbers you want, and click Continue.
5. On the Configure Voice Bot Settings page, do the following:

   Bot Name	Enter the name of your Voice Bot.
   Provider	The Oracle Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network Cloud Service automatically selects the provider.
   Email	Enter the Google service account address.
   Project ID	Enter the project ID from your Google Cloud console for the DialogFlow voice bot you are connecting. For example, US-East.
   Service Account Key	Enter the Service Account Key from your Google Cloud console for the DialogFlow voice bot you are connecting.
   Region ID (CX-only)	Select the physical location for the DialogFlow voice bot you are connecting from the drop-down list.
   Agent ID (CX-only)	Enter the agent ID from your Google Cloud console for the DialogFlow voice bot you are connecting.
   Voice Channels	Set the number of channels reserved for this voice bot. The number cannot exceed the capacity of the voice gateway.
   Use Voice Bot Provider Speech-to-Text Engine	Not adjustable at this time. Is set to enabled.
   Use Voice Bot Provider Text-to-Speech Engine	Not adjustable at this time. Is set to enabled.

6. Click Submit.
   Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network creates a connection between the voice gateway and your Google DialogFlow voice bot on the Services page diagram, and adds the voice bot to your Voice Gateway list.

Edit Voice Bots

When you want to change certain configuration parameters or edit number blocks used with a Voice Bot, you can open the Voice Bot editing drawer from the Settings page.

1. Go to the Services page.
2. On the services page, under Voice Gateways, go to the Service Name column and click the name of the service that hosts the Voice Bot you want to edit.
   Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network displays the Voice gateway Details page.
3. On the Voice gateway Details page, go to the Voice Bot name column and click the name of the Voice Bot you want to edit.
   Oracle® Intelligent Communication Orchestration Network opens the Voice Bot drawer, which displays the Configuration tab and the Numbers tab.
4. On the Configuration tab, you can edit:
   • Bot Name—Update the text.
   • Secret Key—Update the text.
   • Bot ID—Update the text.
   • Voice Channels—Select a different number of channels.
   • Use Voice Bot Provider Speech-to-Text Engine
5. On the Numbers tab, you can:
   • Assign a number block with the Assign Number Block button.
   • Edit the starting number by replacing it with another one.
   • Delete a number block, which assigns it from the bot but does not remove it from inventory.
6. Click Update to submit the changes.