Business Process Elements: Activities

This interactive voice response (IVR) diagram sample depicts the architecture of IVR systems. It was designed on the base of the Wikimedia Commons file: IVR-Systemarchitektur.png. [commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/ File:IVR-Systemarchitektur.png]
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. [creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-sa/ 3.0/ deed.en]
"DTMF decoding and speech recognition are used to interpret the caller's response to voice prompts. DTMF tones are entered via the telephone keypad. ...
Other technologies include using text-to-speech (TTS) to speak complex and dynamic information, such as e-mails, news reports or weather information. TTS is computer generated synthesized speech that is no longer the robotic voice traditionally associated with computers. Real voices create the speech in fragments that are spliced together (concatenated) and smoothed before being played to the caller.
An IVR can be deployed in several ways:
1. Equipment installed on the customer premises.
2. Equipment installed in the PSTN (public switched telephone network).
3. Application service provider (ASP) / hosted IVR.
IVR can be used to provide a more sophisticated voice mail experience to the caller. ...
An automatic call distributor (ACD) is often the first point of contact when calling many larger businesses. ...
IVR call flows are created in a variety of ways. A traditional IVR depended upon proprietary programming or scripting languages, whereas modern IVR applications are generated in a similar way to Web pages, using standards such as VoiceXML, CCXML, SRGS and SSML. ...
In telecommunications, an audio response unit (ARU) is a device that provides synthesized voice responses to DTMF keypresses by processing calls based on (a) the call-originator input, (b) information received from a database, and (c) information in the incoming call, such as the time of day.
ARUs increase the number of information calls handled and provide consistent quality in information retrieval." [Interactive voice response. Wikipedia]
The IVR diagram example "IVR systems architecture" was designed using ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Interactive Voice Response Diagrams solution from the Computer and Networks area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.