| General Product Information | The FAR Voice |
 |
The Ultimate Open Voice Processing System
| What is a FAR Voice System? | top of page  |
The FAR Voice is a powerful system that allows all forms of voice processing and computer telephony to share a single hardware/software platform, without compromise and without artificial limitations. Voice mail, all forms of IVR (Interactive Voice Response), CTI (Computer-Telephony Integration), fax, and host computer connected applications may be combined on one machine. The FAR Voice is a system without limits. When your application outgrows the space available in a single chassis, or the processing power of a single CPU, chassis can be networked to build systems of virtually unlimited size.
The FAR Voice system can connect to multiple networks and to multiple host computer systems. Host computer systems can even be of different types. For example, a single FAR Voice system can communicate simultaneously with an IBM mainframe and with a UNIX mainframe, while at the same time acting as server or node on multiple networks. The system supports fax input and output, and multiple RS-232 links. The data bases supported by the FAR Voice have no practical limits (logically they can be bigger than currently available disk systems). And, the system supports any number of spoken foreign languages.
All of these functions, and all voice applications, including auto-attendant and voice mail, can be supported at the same time in the same physical platform. Thus it is no longer necessary to purchase separate systems for voice mail and for IVR or for multiple IVR applications.
| What can a FAR Voice System do for you? | top of page |
Almost anything. Certainly anything that anyone has thought of for voice/data/fax processing to do at this time. We have not found a system requirement too complex to implement.
Your system is customized to your exact requirements but is built upon standard, thoroughly tested modules. There are many computer telephony functions that are used frequently in voice applications and FAR Systems has standard generalized modules for such functions. The following partial list of modules illustrates the breadth of standard modules used to implement systems:
- Call-Access: A fully featured voice mail and auto-attendant package. This package has every feature commonly found on the best stand-alone voice mail systems. It also has many features that other systems lack, such as true call forwarding, integrated fax mailboxes, phantom extensions, and a variety of mailbox types. It integrates with all common switches (PBXs).
- Record: A standard remote speech file recording utility. This application provides a system administrator with the ability to record or change any speech file on the system.
- Ultra-Record: A secure remote recording application that allows users to maintain speech files in multiple languages, from any touch-tone phone, anywhere. Each person is allowed access only to those files, in those languages, for which they are authorized. Other features include future activation/deactivation of messages and automatic activation of "periodic" files (those that will automatically activate themselves on a periodic basis each year or month).
- Ultra-Info: A powerful application that allows easy maintenance of complex information trees, without programming. Provision is made for such complexities as linear and circular lists of information, and lists whose starting point varies with each caller or by day or date. Provisions to transfer-to-operator and to record voice messages are included in the application.
- Generic Outdial: A module to implement multiple outbound call functions with great flexibility in scheduling and report generation. Several standard applications for the outbound call, with the ability to "jump" to other applications on the system when the caller answers or responds with a touch tone, are included.
- Fax-on-Demand: One and two-call fax-back (fax-on-demand). A very powerful and flexible fax-on-demand application that supports up to 10 million documents (10,000 documents in each of 10,000 partitions).
- Fax Broadcast: An application to address and send faxes to lists of recipients. This application includes network connection for the "ordering" of the faxes and automatic document conversion from various original document formats.
- Q&A/Survey: An audio questionnaire generator. Surveys and other forms of questionnaires can be generated and managed easily from this application. Multiple questionnaires can be active at the same time, either on different phone lines or activated on the basis of initial input. Questions can be skipped based on previous answers. Responses can be touch-tone or free-form (voice recording). Logging and reports are generated automatically.
| Standard Modules Plus Customization | top of page |
Often, requirements for a system are met entirely by one of the standard modules. For example, the Fax-on-Demand Module is frequently supplied without any customization, only installation of the specific options that the customer requires.
When customization is required, your specific requirements are met by combining the appropriate standard modules with the custom additions and changes needed for your application. All standard modules and all custom modules are coded in The FAR Voice Application Generator Language. All applications can be supplied with source code.
Host (mainframe) connected applications are always custom, by their nature. But the considerable library of standard modules, and the considerable experience of the FAR Systems team, guarantee you a system that will work as specified, will perform reliably, will be expandable, and a system that will not become obsolete.
| The FAR Voice Application Generator Language | top of page |
The FAR Voice is both a system and a powerful, very high level, voice application generator language. This language has proven especially useful in allowing persons with very little programming experience to build voice applications. Anyone with a minimum of experience with a language like BASIC can learn to program with The FAR Voice in a few hours. All of the complexities of the voice and telephone world have been condensed to a process of filling in entries in "action boxes." Computations and data base look-ups are done with a simple scripting language. However, in spite of its simplicity, The FAR Voice remains so powerful, that even Call-Access, the voice mail application, is done entirely in The FAR Voice. Most other application generators cannot implement voice mail without invoking a number of specially written 'C' modules that are needed to overcome the inherent inefficiencies of the application development language.
 |