Testing and deployment
Test a call flow in the browser simulator, publish it, and review calls, recordings and transcripts once it is live.
The simulator
Simulate opens the call simulator, which drives the real call engine rather than an imitation, so what you hear is what a caller gets. Press keys, follow branches, and watch each step.
It exercises flow logic: menus, branching, variables, API calls, retries and timeouts. Simulated calls write no call records, use none of your voice minutes and do not place real calls. How a voice sounds over a mobile network, and how long a prompt feels, still need a phone. See Simulators.
Publishing
Publish compiles the flow into a new version. See Publishing.
Fix the errors the canvas lists before you publish. Publishing refuses a flow the call engine cannot run, for example one with:
- no Incoming Call or Outbound Call node, or more than one of either
- a node type the call engine does not support
- an audio file that is missing or still being scanned
- a Function node with no code
Capability mismatches with your carrier, such as speech input on Africa's Talking, are warnings: the flow publishes, and the call degrades as the warning describes.
Every publish is a version. Version history lets you see what changed and go back if a change misbehaves.
Environments
A project has two: Live (published) and Draft (working copy). Routes bind numbers to one or the other, so a test number can dial the draft while customers reach the published flow. See Environments.
Call records
Every call writes a record, listed in the project's Activity tab: caller, start time, ring time, duration, how it ended, how far it got, the version it ran and the carrier. Filter by status, direction, date and version, or search by number, call id or hangup cause.
Caller numbers are masked in the list and revealed one at a time on request. Open a call for its detail, its transcript, and any recording. Recordings are fetched through short-lived links.
Transcripts
Transcribe a recording from the call's own row, or turn on Transcribe every call in Voice settings.
Transcripts are redacted before storage: runs of five or more digits, which on a phone call are
usually account numbers or PINs, keep only their last two digits, and email addresses lose the part
before the @.
Logs
The Logs tab is the place to look when a call did something you did not expect. See Logs and activity.
Going live: a checklist
- Every muted handle wired: invalid, no input, no answer, handed back
- Every path reaches an End Call
- Business hours handled, if the line is not staffed around the clock
- A way to reach a person, from the top menu
- Maximum call length set in Voice settings
- Prompts heard out loud, not just read
- Tested end to end on a real handset, over a real network