[ic] Interactive Voice Response (IVR) & Interchange: numerically based usernames & passwords

Dan Browning danb@cyclonecomputers.com
Fri, 17 Nov 2000 02:45:47 -0800


Fellow IC grokkers,

I'm trying to build a catalog with the future ability to integrate
with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.  What's that, you
ask?  It's when you call somewhere and it says "press 1 to order a
hand saw" ... "please dial your account number" ... "press 3 for ups
next day shipping", etc.

Right now I'm struggling with the user authentication issue.  If I
assign username/passwords now that are [a-Z], then when the IVR goes
live, how will the users enter their username over the phone?  (Yes, I
know you can use the 22=b, 333=f, etc. scheme, but that is so ugly).

To solve this problem, here's what I would like to do:
	- Change the "username" to be an "account number".
	- Password is numerical.
	- Assign users their (random) account number and password.

But of course there are other ways to solve the problem.  Like using
one of the values unique to the user for logging into the IVR
system--like phone number and zip code instead of username/pass.  But
then I've forced an even higher level of non-obviousness upon the
user.  (My demographic is not very computer-literate).

I've got some ideas about where to start for doing those kind of
modifications (to the construct template), such as all the login forms
(checkout.html, etc.) and other places.  And I'll probably do
something like the following:

etc/log_transactions:
	username: [data session username]
changes to
	username: [value filter=numeric_only username]
(Idea taken from 'po_number: [value filter=strip po_number]').

Should I add this (IVR integration) to the feature request page or to
Bugzilla?
http://developer.akopia.com/cgi-bin/ic/docfly?mv_arg=wishlist0

Thanks for all the peer-review.  Best regards,

Dan Browning
Network/DB Admin
Cyclone Computer Systems