To add Twilio Voice as a channel to your Kore.ai assistant, you must get a Twilio phone number and set up a webhook integration to communicate with the VA. 

Important Notes Twilio Voice must be enabled for assistants that are specifically built to work on voice-based channels. Review the following constraints before enabling Twilio Voice as a channel: Twilio Voice does not support enterprise virtual assistants that require user authorization to communicate. Tasks that require the user’s authorization to communicate with external systems must not be included. Webhook Nodes work asynchronously and are not supported on Twilio Voice. Use only dialog tasks for the best user experience. Configured responses for Twilio Voice are only brief and plain text messages. The VA receives the user’s voice response from Twilio Voice only after a few moments of silence at the user’s end, and this can appear as a lag for the end user.

Prerequisites

Log in to your Twilio Voice account to create a new Twilio number to associate with your assistant. You can buy a number by going to the Twilio Account Dashboard > Develop > Phone Numbers > Manage > Buy a Number. If you already have a Twilio phone number that you want to associate with this VA, you can proceed to the next steps.

Step 1: Configure the Integration in Twilio

To set up the integration:

1. Go to Twilio Account Dashboard > Develop > Phone Numbers > Manage > TwiML Apps and click Create New TwiML App.
2. Enter a name for the app and copy the Webhook URL from the Configurations tab of the Twilio Voice Channel page (Deploy > Channels > Twilio Voice) and enter in the Request URL field for Voice Configuration.
3. Click Create to complete the app creation.
   
   

 

Step 2: Associate a Phone Number

To associate the TwiML App with your Twilio Phone Number:

1. Go to Twilio Account Dashboard > Develop > Phone Numbers > Manage > Active Numbers.
2. Select the number you want to associate with the TwiML App from the Active Numbers section.
3. Select the TwiML App from the Configure With dropdown list in the Voice Configuration section.
4. The TwiML App field is displayed. Select the app you have configured in the previous steps.
5. Click Save to complete this app association.
   
   

 

Step 3: Set Up Agent Transfer (Optional)

Optionally, you can also set up Agent Transfer functionality to transfer the user’s call conversation to another Twilio number. For this, you must configure the Kore.ai Agent Transfer SDK. Download the Agent Transfer SDK from the Kore.ai GitHub repository and define data.message, transferCallToAgent and agentPhonenumber parameters.

1. data.message: Define the message to be read out to the end-user when the call is transferred to agent is initiated.
2. transferCallToAgent: Set this flag to True to enable Agent Transfer and False to disable.
3. agentPhonenumber: Provide your Twilio phone number to which the user call conversation is transferred.

Step 4: Enable the Twilio Voice Channel

To enable the Twilio Voice Channel, follow the below steps:

1. In the XO Platform, go to Deploy > Channels > Twilio Voice.
2. To complete the Channel setup, go to the Configurations tab.
   1.  Enter your Twilio Number to associate with the Kore.ai assistant.
      
   2. Select Yes in the Enable Channel section and then click Save to complete the user creation process and channel activation.
      
      
3. From the Voice Call Properties tab, enter the details to configure the channel level voice properties, click here for more details.
4. Once you have enabled the Twilio channel, it is recommended to configure the Telephony Welcome Event for Voice Call Settings. This plays a welcome message for users when they connect to the VA through the Twilio channel. For this:
   1. Go to Build > Intelligence > Events > Channel Events > Telephony Welcome Event.
   2. Click Use Voice Call Properties to open the Voice Call settings section.
   3. Under the Initial Prompts text box, enter the message that needs to be played when the user connects to the VA.

For details regarding the configuration of voice properties at the Dialog Task level, please, refer to Configuring Voice Call Settings for a Node.

After the channel is enabled and all configurations are verified, you can optionally publish the assistant to make it available for end-users, with the new channel. Learn more about Publishing your Virtual Assistant.

To learn more about working with Channels within the Kore.ai XO Platform, please see Channel Enablement.