Part III b: Fonebar

This module requires a special voice board of at least 4 lines.

After purchasing the Fonebar module, you will receive information and files to enable the feature in your program.

Overview

The Fone Bar is a special place (phantom box) in the system where callers can hear the names and descriptions of others in the Fone Bar. There is only one Fonebar on the system. If callers are not in the Fone Bar, for example, if they are listening to their messages or playing surveys in a Search box, they will not be accessible to other callers in the Fone Bar, unless you have allowed them to 'roam'. That is set up in the privileges. With that feature, they can 'check in' to the Fonebar, then roam around to hear messages, etc., but still be available if someone wants to talk to them or send them a message.

People in the Fone Bar will be able to connect one on one, and/or send messages to each other. They will not be able to send more than one message to a given person at a time, but they will be able to send unlimited messages to different people.

When people enter the Fone Bar, they will typically answer 1 or more questions to determine who they want to have the opportunity to connect to while in the Fone Bar. They will also record their name and a brief description. The information given by the caller is only temporary and will be deleted when they exit the Fone Bar or if they hang up.

When the caller enters the fonebar, they will hear the following, for example:

Please say your name at the tone: "Joe"

Please give a brief description at the tone: "tall, dark, and handsome"

question #1: "If you are a male looking for females press 1, if you are a female looking for males press 2, if you are a male looking for other males press 3, if you are a female looking for other females press 4." (You will set up the matching table in the question to match the caller who pressed a 1 with the caller who pressed a 2. 3 with 3, and 4 with 4.)

question #2: "If you are looking for casual dating press 1, friendship press 2, etc."

Typically, you would ask at least one question - most probably whether the caller is male or female and if they want to be connected to other males or females who have entered the Fone Bar. However, it is not necessary to have any questions.

You may also then ask additional questions, such as 'press 1 if you are VERY attractive, 2 if you are average looking, etc.' OR 'press 1 if you are looking for casual dating, 2 for long term relationship, etc." You wouldn't want to have too many questions, as that would greatly limit the possible matches. People can make further inquires by sending messages back and forth and/or by directly connecting.

All callers who enter the Fone Bar will answer the questions and each caller will hear how many people there are totally in the Fone Bar, as well as how many match their criteria. They will then hear the name and description of the matches and have the option to connect to them individually or send them a message.

If the person they want to talk with is already engaged in a one on one fonebar connection, or is in a recording state, the inquirer will hear that person 'is busy'. "Joe" will then have the option to leave a message for "Mary". When Mary exits her one on one connection or otherwise becomes available, she will hear Joe's message.

The first person to enter the Fonebar will hear that it is empty and they will have the option to go on hold until others come in.

People are 'busy' if they are in a conference (connected one on one), are about to make a choice to connect to someone, or are hearing a request to join someone. They are available and will hear "'Joe' 'wants to speak with you'" if they are just listening to the waiting message (you would probably record that as music) or are hearing the list of people in the Fone Bar.

If a caller is available and hears "Joe wants to speak with you", they will have the option to immediately connect with him, hear Joe's description of himself, or decline to speak with Joe. The caller will also have those options after hearing Joe's description. If they press the key to connect, the caller and Joe are immediately conferenced together. If they want to decline, Joe will hear that "Mary declines to speak with you". Joe can then continue on to attempt to connect to others on line.

Fone Bar Box:

Fone Bar Intro: the caller hears this first - record what will be happening - for example "You will be asked to record your name and brief description. You will also be asked to answer a couple of questions to see who you want to talk to." If a caller has been through before and they know what's coming they can enter the answer to question 1 at any time during the intro to continue at a faster pace.

Waiting Message:

ending:

questions: matches work as follows: question #1 "If you are a male wanting to speak to a female, press 1 if you are a female wanting to speak to a female, press 2 if you are a male wanting to speak to another male, press 3 if you are a female wanting to speak to another female, press 4"

then match 1 to 2 (the caller who pressed 1 should be matched to the caller who pressed 2) match 2 to 1 (caller who pressed 2 matches caller who pressed 1) match 3 to 3 (callers who pressed 3 match each other) match 4 to 4 (callers who pressed 4 match each other)

'repeat list' in fonebar to allow or not - telling caller there are 5 people and 3 matches when they request to re-list. if set to no they will hear it when they first enter the Fone bar only.

- Privilege fonebar - allow entry to box - only allow match to privilege 2, 3, 4 (for example) (if you perhaps only charge males and allow females callers free access, this eliminates a male being allowed to connect to females without paying (by using a females mailbox,then saying he is 'looking for females')

- Under Privilege, Billing, Boxes, Box Rates: - fonebar, browse, connect, send msg - hold while empty/no matches - hold by choice - see Privileges, Fonebar

If a caller goes on hold in fonebar, by default they will hear \stplus\prompts\music.voi. If you have recorded a waiting message on the fonebar screen, then that will be played.

If you would like the callers to hear multiple random messages played, you may record multiple files in the \stplus\fonebar directory in the following format:

HLD_LX.Y

x = language y = 1 to last

For example, you can have hld_l1.1, hld_l1.2 etc. You cannot skip to hld_l1.4. They must be in order, or the 4 will not be played. The files are looked at when the program loads.

If you have VFEdit, you can simply record files with these names. If you do not, you could create a range of access boxes and record each with a greeting.

For example: create access boxes 201-210, and record a greeting in each box. Then you could copy the \stplus\boxes\201\greet_1.vox to \stplus\fonebar\HLD_L1.1. copy \stplus\boxes\202\greet_1.vox \stplus\fonebar\HLD_L1.2 etc.