Need Add-On For Sending/Receiving Calls or Texts

There was (likely still is) an article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base on
initiating telephone calls (but I don't believe it involved recorded
messagesa or voice simulation). It's possible you could put together the
call technique and software for voice simulation or recorded message to do
what you need; I'd guess that, even easier, would be to find some add-on
hardware and control it from Access.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-Author, Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions, Wiley 2010

"Neil" <neil.ginsberg+ wrote in message
news:ji0fue$rm5$

I'm needing a way to make a phone call (with either a pre-recorded message
or a voice simulated message) through Access. Anyone know of any add-ons
that are available? This will be used if there is an emergency in the
middle of the night. The client wants to be able to call people from a
list to make them aware of the emergency situation.

Also, on a separate note, the database needs to be able to receive a
message back from the person. (It will call one person, and, if they don't
respond, it will then call the next person in the list. But only one
person is needed, so it will stop calling when someone replies.) The
message back could either be a text message, or perhaps press 1 or
something if they answer the phone.

Anyway, that's what I'm needing - some way to automatically call people,
and a way for them to indicate (by phone or text message) that they got
the message.

Thanks for any ideas!

Hi, Larry. Do you mean through a dial-up modem? Yeah, that would be an idea
(assuming they could run a phone line to the computer). Was hoping there was
something that perhaps could do it through the Internet, or perhaps some
kind of add-in that could automate Skype or something similar.

Thanks.


"Access Developer" wrote in message
news:

There was (likely still is) an article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base on
initiating telephone calls (but I don't believe it involved recorded
messagesa or voice simulation). It's possible you could put together the
call technique and software for voice simulation or recorded message to do
what you need; I'd guess that, even easier, would be to find some add-on
hardware and control it from Access.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-Author, Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions, Wiley 2010

"Neil" <neil.ginsberg+ wrote in message
news:ji0fue$rm5$

I'm needing a way to make a phone call (with either a pre-recorded
message or a voice simulated message) through Access. Anyone know of any
add-ons that are available? This will be used if there is an emergency in
the middle of the night. The client wants to be able to call people from
a list to make them aware of the emergency situation.

Also, on a separate note, the database needs to be able to receive a
message back from the person. (It will call one person, and, if they
don't respond, it will then call the next person in the list. But only
one person is needed, so it will stop calling when someone replies.) The
message back could either be a text message, or perhaps press 1 or
something if they answer the phone.

Anyway, that's what I'm needing - some way to automatically call people,
and a way for them to indicate (by phone or text message) that they got
the message.

Thanks for any ideas!

Actually, I was just remembering that there were devices that both "did the
speaking" and "made the calls", back in the days when minicomputers still
ranged free in the forest primeval of computing -- and figured that there
were/are such devices for today's computers, as well.

I suspect you are correct, that there is software to automate calling via
VOIP and to generate the voice, but I'm not familiar with it -- if it has a
COM interface, it might even be usable from Access.

Larry

"Access Developer" wrote in message
news:

Actually, I was just remembering that there were devices that both "did
the speaking" and "made the calls", back in the days when minicomputers
still ranged free in the forest primeval of computing -- and figured that
there were/are such devices for today's computers, as well.

I suspect you are correct, that there is software to automate calling via
VOIP and to generate the voice, but I'm not familiar with it -- if it has
a COM interface, it might even be usable from Access.

Larry

Think I may have found something, Larry. This looks like it definitely has
potential. http://www.nch.com.au/ivm/outbound.html

On Feb 21, 10:13 am, "Neil" <neil.ginsberg+ wrote:

I'm needing a way to make a phone call (with either a pre-recorded message
or a voice simulated message) through Access. Anyone know of any add-ons
that are available? This will be used if there is an emergency in the middle
of the night. The client wants to be able to call people from a list to make
them aware of the emergency situation.

Also, on a separate note, the database needs to be able to receive a message
back from the person. (It will call one person, and, if they don't respond,
it will then call the next person in the list. But only one person is
needed, so it will stop calling when someone replies.) The message back
could either be a text message, or perhaps press 1 or something if they
answer the phone.

Anyway, that's what I'm needing - some way to automatically call people, and
a way for them to indicate (by phone or text message) that they got the
message.

Thanks for any ideas!

There's this KB article on dialing phone numbers. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/148857.
It's for Access 95/97. It says it might not work for later versions
as they may need to use TAPI. Anyway, see if this dials a modem
otherwise look at TAPI. Since it just dials the number, playing a
message may be another hurdle to overcome. I'd also consider googling
TAPI.

You might want to look at http://www.tucows.com. Maybe there's a
shareware version where you can pass a string from your Access app to
a dialing folder and another app does the dialing a sending out the
message.

Another alternative is to google "how to robocall in Access" and see
if any of those solutions fit your bill. BTW, I saw alternatives,
nothing for Access.

I think you might need a Digiboard to accept input from a phone
("Press 1 for English, Marque Dos por Espanol). Maybe not. With
Access 2007+ there is an email data collection, maybe texting can use
that option.