The fast-growing customer support industry is witnessing a transition from manual to automated processes. At the same time, there's a growing demand for ticket management solutions that streamline customer support and field service operations, from sending reminders to customers to handling supportive communications.

What is cloud calling?

Cloud calling, also known as cloud telephony or hosted telephony, refers to a technology that allows you to make phone calls over the internet. It moves your business phone system off-premises to be hosted in the cloud. This means your voice, video, and data communication tools are hosted by a provider on their servers and are delivered to your business over the internet.

This system transforms traditional phone systems into a flexible, scalable, and affordable platform. Instead of using conventional phone lines or installing an on-site Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system, cloud calling leverages your existing internet connection.

What are the Benefits of Cloud Calling?

Cloud calling, or cloud telephony, offers a host of benefits over traditional telephone systems, which have positively transformed the way businesses communicate. Here are some of the key benefits of adopting a cloud calling system:

1. Cost Efficiency: Cloud calling systems eliminate the need for expensive on-site equipment, maintenance costs, and traditional phone lines. Companies only need to pay for the services they use, which makes it an economical choice, especially for small to medium businesses.
2. Scalability: Cloud-based systems are highly scalable. They can easily adapt to the growth of a business, allowing for the addition or removal of users without the need for significant infrastructure changes or additional hardware.
3. Mobility and Flexibility: Cloud calling allows employees to access the business communication system from anywhere with an internet connection. This is particularly beneficial for remote teams, as they can make and receive calls using their office number, irrespective of their location.
4. Reliability: Since cloud calling services are hosted on multiple servers, they offer high availability and disaster recovery. If one server fails, calls can be routed through another, ensuring that your business communication remains uninterrupted.
5. Advanced Features: Cloud calling services often include features like call forwarding, auto-attendants, voicemail to email, video conferencing, and call analytics. These features can enhance customer service and increase business efficiency.
6. Integration Capabilities: Many cloud calling systems can seamlessly integrate with other cloud-based applications, such as CRM and ERP systems. This allows for more streamlined operations and better data utilization.

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Clappia is a No Code platform where designing such Ticket Management applications is as easy as working on Excel Sheets. It provides web-based and app-based interfaces to manage tickets, organize agents and users, set up rules and triggers, set SLA, send emails and SMS notifications etc. Clappia also has a powerful REST API integration module which can be used to connect the ticket management apps with any third-party applications.

One of the core problems that a ticket management solution should solve is ensuring  data privacy. While working on tickets, field agents usually have to call their customers over the phone, but without revealing each other's phone numbers. This is where cloud calling can help. Cloud calling is a telephony service provided through a third-party cloud host where calls are placed over an internet connection. Exotel is one of the leading cloud telephony solution providers that also provides the cloud calling feature. In this article, we will see how ticket management apps built on Clappia can be enhanced with the Cloud Calling Feature using the flexible REST APIs provided by Exotel. You can learn more about on Exotel.

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The video below shows the ticket management app in action with the Cloud Calling feature

The following points are covered:

1. The customer enters his personal details, phone number, and describes the problem that he is facing and submits a ticket on Clappia.
2. The field service agent views the ticket on his mobile app and starts the service.
3. The agent places a call request. The call is initiated via the Exotel API, which connects the agent and the customer over the phone without revealing each other's phone numbers.
4. Once the issue is resolved over the phone, the agent closes the ticket.
5. The App Admin can view the entire ticket log along with the call timings and call recording. 

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You can follow the steps below to add the Cloud Calling feature to your Clappia App.

Step 1: Sign up on Exotel

• Visit Exotel and you can sign up for a free trial.
• Provide your company details to complete the signup.

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Step 2: Get API Details from Exotel

• Upon signing up, you will get access to Exotel’s APIs. Go to the API tab from the left navigation bar.
• You will find your API keys. Make a note of the API Key and API Token.
  

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Step 3: Add the "Start a Call" button on the Clappia App

• Visit your Ticket Management App on Clappia in Edit mode.
• Add a Get Data from REST APIs block in a suitable section of your App.
  

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• Configure the block with configuration taken from Exotel’s API Dashboard.

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• Server URL
• Query String: ?From=+91 XXXXXX&To={phone_numb}&CallerId=080-768-86756 (Get the called Id from your Exotel dashboard, From Number is the field agent’s number and To Number is the Customer’s number which is taken as input from the app).
• Headers: Add an Authorization Key with value “”Basic API_TOKEN”. API_TOKEN is the Base64 encoded value of “apikey:apitoken” that you got in the above steps.
• Exotel API also returns a Call Sid parameter whenever a call is placed. You can fetch that and store it in another field of the Clappia App if you wish to fetch the call details and recordings later.
• The Rest API Block is ready. It will appear to the field agent like this on his/her mobile app.
  

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Step 4: Get Call Details for Admins (Optional)

Once the call is placed, the call details like start time, end time, call recording are available against a unique SID. In this step, we will see how to fetch these details using the SID once the agent has closed the ticket.

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• Go to the Clappia App in Edit Mode -> Workflows -> Add a REST API node.
  

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• We will again use the Exotel Rest API to get the call details.
  

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-> Server URL (call_id is the SID received in the previous step when the call was placed)

-> Headers: Same as previous step

-> Fields from API response: Fetch all the attributes that you require - StartTime, EndTime, Duration, RecordingUrl

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• You can send all these details to the Admins over email or store them in the same Clappia app or a different one. The details will look something like this.

References

• Exotel Pricing
• Exotel API Documentation
• How to fetch data from REST APIs while designing apps on Clappia?
• How to fetch/send data from/to REST APIs using Workflows on Clappia?
• How to capture data fetched from external APIs into Clappia apps?