Connect a Call to a Second Person

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Common use cases for this practice include click to call, where a server application directs a call to a person who clicks on a web link, then connects them with a company representative.This guide shows how to code connecting a user to second person on the Plivo platform, either by using our PHLO visual workflow builder or our APIs and XML documents. Follow the instructions in one of the tabs below.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Node.js development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create an Express server to connect calls to a second person

Create a file called connect_call.js and paste into it this code.

var express = require('express');
var plivo = require('plivo');

var app = express();

app.set('port', (process.env.PORT || 5000));
app.use(express.urlencoded({extended: true}));

app.all('/outbound_call/', function(request, response) {
    var client = new plivo.Client("<auth_id>","<auth_token>");
    var resp = client.calls.create(
        "<caller_id>",
        "<destination_number>",
        request.protocol + '://' + request.get('host') + "/connect",
    ).then(function (response) {
        console.log(response);
    },function (err) {
        console.error(err);
    });
    
});

app.post('/connect/', function(request, response) {
    var res = plivo.Response();
    
    res.addSpeak("Please wait while we connect the call to second person");
    var dial = res.addDial();
    dial.addNumber("<second_number>"); // Dial to second number
    
    response.set({'Content-Type': 'text/xml'});
    response.send(res.toXML());
});

app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
    console.log('Node app is running on port', app.get('port'));
});

Replace the auth placeholders with your authentication credentials from the Plivo console. Replace the phone number placeholders with actual phone numbers (for example, 12025551234).Save the file and run it.

node connect_call.js

You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:3000/outbound_call/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch them from the environment variables. You can use process.env to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Ruby development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create a Rails controller to connect calls to a second person

Change to the project directory and run this command to create a Rails controller for inbound calls.

rails generate controller Plivo voice

This command generates a controller named plivo_controller in the app/controllers/ directory and a respective view in the app/views/plivo directory. We can delete the view, as we don’t need it.

rm app/views/plivo/voice.html.erb

Edit app/controllers/plivo_controller.rb and add this code in the PlivoController class.

include Plivo
include Plivo::XML
include Plivo::Exceptions

class PlivoController < ApplicationController
	def outbound_call
		api = RestClient.new('<auth_id>','<auth_token>')
		response = api.calls.create(
			'<caller_id>',
			['<destination_number>'],
			'https://'+request.host+'/plivo/connect',
			{answer_method:'GET'}
		)
		render json: response.to_s
	end

	def connect
		response = Response.new
		response.addSpeak('Please wait while we connect your call')
		dial = response.addDial()
		dial.addNumber('<second_number>') # Dial to second number
		xml = PlivoXML.new(response)
		render xml: xml.to_xml
	end
end

Replace the auth placeholders with your authentication credentials from the Plivo console. Replace the phone number placeholders with actual phone numbers (for example, 12025551234).

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch them from the environment variables. You can use ENV to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.

Add a route

Add a route for the inbound function in the PlivoController class. Edit the config/routes.rb file and add these lines.

  get 'plivo/outbound_call'
  get 'plivo/connect'

Start the Rails server.

rails server

You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:3000/plivo/outbound_call/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Python development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create a Flask application to connect calls to a second person

Create a file called connect_call.py and paste into it this code.

from flask import Flask, Response, url_for
import plivo
from plivo import plivoxml

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/outbound_call/')
def outbound_call():
    client = plivo.RestClient('<auth_id>','<auth_token>')
    response = client.calls.create(
        from_='<caller_id>',
        to_='<destination_number>',
        answer_url=url_for('connect', _external=True))
    return response

@app.route('/connect', methods = ['POST'])
def connect():
    response = plivoxml.ResponseElement()
    response.add(plivoxml.SpeakElement('Please wait while we connect your call to the second number'))
    response.add(plivoxml.DialElement().add(
        plivoxml.NumberElement('<second_number>'))) # Dial to second number
    return Response(response.to_string(), mimetype='text/xml')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', debug=True)

python connect_call.py

You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:5000/outbound_call/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch them from the environment variables. You can use the os module (os.environ) to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a PHP development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create a Laravel controller to connect calls to a second person

Change to the project directory and run this command to create a Laravel controller for inbound calls.

$ php artisan make:controller VoiceController

This generates a controller named VoiceController in the app/http/controllers/ directory. Now, Edit app/http/controllers/voiceController.php and paste into it this code.

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
require '../../vendor/autoload.php';
use Plivo\XML\Response;
use Plivo\RestClient;

class VoiceController extends Controller
{
    public function outboundCall()
    {
        $host = request()->getHttpHost();
        $client = new RestClient('<auth_id>','<auth_token>');
        $response = $client->calls->create(
            '<caller_id>',
            ['<destination_number>'],
            'https://'.$host.'/connect',);
        echo json_encode($response);
    }

    public function connect()
    {       
            $response = new Response();
            $response->addSpeak('Please wait while we connect your call');
            $dial = $response->addDial();
            $dial->addNumber('<second_number>');
            Header('Content-type: text/xml');
            echo ($response->toXML());
    }
}

Replace the auth placeholders with your authentication credentials from the Plivo console. Replace the phone number placeholders with actual phone numbers (for example, 12025551234).

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch them from the environment variables. You can use $_ENV or putenv/getenv functions to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.

Add a route

Add a route for the forward function in VoiceController. Edit the routes/web.php file and add these lines.

Route::match(['get','post'], '/outboundCall', 'App\Http\Controllers\VoiceController@outboundCall');
Route::match(['get','post'], '/connect', 'App\Http\Controllers\VoiceController@connect');

Start the Laravel server.

php artisan serve

You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:8000/outboundCall/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a .NET development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create an MVC controller to connect calls to a second person

In Visual Studio, create a controller called Connect.cs and paste into it this code.

using System;
using Plivo;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;

namespace VoiceApp.Controllers
{
    public class Connect : Controller
    {
        public IActionResult Index()
        {
            var hostName = Request.HttpContext.Request.Host.Value;
            Console.WriteLine(hostName);
            var api = new PlivoApi("<auth_id>", "<auth_token>");
                var response = api.Call.Create(
                    to: new List<String> { "<destination_number>" },
                    from: "<caller_id>",
                    answerUrl: "https://" + hostName + "/Connect/Dial/"
                );

                return this.Content(response.ToString());
        }
    
        public IActionResult Dial()
        {
            Plivo.XML.Response resp = new Plivo.XML.Response();
            resp.AddSpeak("Please wait while we connect your call to the second number",
            new Dictionary<string, string>() { });
            Plivo.XML.Dial dial = new Plivo.XML.Dial(new Dictionary<string, string>(){});
            dial.AddNumber("<second_number>",
                new Dictionary<string, string>() { }); // Dial to second number
            resp.Add(dial);
    
            var output = resp.ToString();
            Console.WriteLine(output);
    
            return this.Content(output, "text/xml");
        }
    }
}

"applicationUrl": "http://localhost:5000/"

Run the project and you should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:5000/Connect/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch them from the environment variables. You can use the Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable method to store environment variables and Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable to fetch them when when initializing the client.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Java development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create a Spring server to connect calls to a second person

Edit the PlivoVoiceApplication.java file in the src/main/java/com.example.demo/ folder and paste into it this code.

Note: Here, the demo application name is PlivoVoiceApplication.java because we provided the friendly name Plivo Voice in the Spring Initializr.

package com.example.connect;

import com.plivo.api.Plivo;
import com.plivo.api.exceptions.PlivoRestException;
import com.plivo.api.exceptions.PlivoValidationException;
import com.plivo.api.exceptions.PlivoXmlException;
import com.plivo.api.models.call.Call;
import com.plivo.api.models.call.CallCreateResponse;
import com.plivo.api.xml.Dial;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import com.plivo.api.xml.Number;
import com.plivo.api.xml.Response;
import com.plivo.api.xml.Speak;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Collections;

@RestController
@SpringBootApplication
public class ConnectApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(ConnectApplication.class, args);
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/outbound_call", produces = {"application/json"}, method = {RequestMethod.GET})
	public String call(HttpServletRequest request) throws PlivoXmlException, PlivoValidationException, IOException, PlivoRestException {
		String hostName = request.getRequestURL().toString();
		Plivo.init("<auth_id>","<auth_token>");
		System.out.println(hostName + "/connect");
		CallCreateResponse response = Call.creator("<caller_id>", Collections.singletonList("<destination_number>"), hostName + "connect")
				.create();
		return response.toString();
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "outbound_call/connect", produces = {"text/xml"})
	public String connect() throws PlivoXmlException, PlivoValidationException {
		Response response = new Response()
				.children(
						new Speak("Please wait while we connect your call to the second number"),
						new Dial()
								.children(
										new Number("<second_number>") // Dial to second number
								));
		return response.toXmlString();
	}
}

You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:8080/outbound_call/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch the values from the environment variables. You can use <a rel="nofollow" href="https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/environment/env.html">System.getenv()</a> to store environment variables and retrieve them when initializing the client.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Overview

You may want to have an application dial out for someone, so that it calls them on their phone, then connects them to the number they want. This involves three tasks:

Make an outbound call to a caller.
When the call recipient answers the phone, place a new call to a different number (second user).
Bridge the calls (first and second user) after the second user answers.

Using XML

Here‘s how to connect a call to a second person using XML.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. You must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number to receive incoming calls; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Go development environment and a web server and safely expose that server to the internet.

Create a Go server to connect calls to a second person

Create a file called connect_call.go and paste into it this code.

package main

import (
    "fmt"

    "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
    "github.com/plivo/plivo-go/v7"
    "github.com/plivo/plivo-go/v7/xml"
)

func main() {
    r: = gin.Default()
    r.GET("/outbound-call", func(c * gin.Context) {
        c.Header("Content-Type", "application/JSON")
        fmt.Println("https://" + c.Request.Host + "/connect")
        client, err: = plivo.NewClient("<auth_id>", "<auth_token>", & plivo.ClientOptions {})
        if err != nil {
            panic(err)
        }
        response, err: = client.Calls.Create(
            plivo.CallCreateParams {
                From: "<caller_id>",
                To: "<destination_number>",
                AnswerURL: "https://" + c.Request.Host + "/connect",
            },
        )
        if err != nil {
            panic(err)
        }
        fmt.Printf("Response: %#v\n", response)
        c.JSON(200, response)
    })

    r.POST("/connect", func(c * gin.Context) {
        c.Header("Content-Type", "text/xml")
        response: = xml.ResponseElement {
            Contents: [] interface {} {
                new(xml.SpeakElement).
                AddSpeak("Please wait while we connect your call to the second number", "WOMAN", "en-US", 1),
                    new(xml.DialElement).
                SetContents(
                    [] interface {} {
                        new(xml.NumberElement).
                        SetContents("<second_number>"),
                    },
                ),
            },
        }
        c.String(200, response.String())
    })
    r.Run()
}

go run connect_call.go

You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:8080/outbound-call/.Set up ngrok to expose your local server to the internet.

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables, to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch them from the environment variables. You can use the os.Setenv and os.Getenv functions to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.

Test

Have your application make a call to a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your answer URL requesting a valid XML response and connect the call to a second user.

Getting Started

Concepts

API Reference

XML Reference

SDKs

Troubleshooting

Voice Tutorials

Migration Guides

Connect a Call to a Second Person

Overview

Prerequisites

Create an Express server to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Rails controller to connect calls to a second person

Add a route

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Flask application to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Laravel controller to connect calls to a second person

Add a route

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create an MVC controller to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Spring server to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Go server to connect calls to a second person

Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create an Express server to connect calls to a second person

​Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create a Rails controller to connect calls to a second person

​Add a route

​Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create a Flask application to connect calls to a second person

​Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create a Laravel controller to connect calls to a second person

​Add a route

​Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create an MVC controller to connect calls to a second person

​Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create a Spring server to connect calls to a second person

​Test

​Overview

​Prerequisites

​Create a Go server to connect calls to a second person

​Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create an Express server to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Rails controller to connect calls to a second person

Add a route

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Flask application to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Laravel controller to connect calls to a second person

Add a route

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create an MVC controller to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Spring server to connect calls to a second person

Test

Overview

Prerequisites

Create a Go server to connect calls to a second person

Test