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Overview

You can use voicemail to capture a caller’s message if a call recipient is unavailable. This guide shows how to set up voicemail, 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 implement voicemail using XML.

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How it works

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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.

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Create an Express server to implement voicemail

Create a file called voicemail.js and paste into it this code.
var plivo = require('plivo');
var express = require('express');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var app = express();

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

app.post('/voicemail/', function(request, response) {
  var r = plivo.Response();
  var params;
  params = {
    'action': "https://<yourdomain>.com/get_recording/",
    'finishOnKey': "*",
    'maxLength': "20"
  };
  r.addRecord(params);
  var second_speak_body = "Recording not received";
  r.addSpeak(second_speak_body);

  console.log(r.toXML());
  response.set({'Content-Type': 'text/xml'});
  response.send(r.toXML());
});

app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
    console.log('Node app is running on port', app.get('port'));
});
Save the file and run it.
$ node voicemail.js
You should see your basic server application in action at http://localhost:3000/voicemail/.

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Create a Plivo application for voicemail

Associate the Express server you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visit Voice > Applications in the Plivo console and click on Add New Application, or use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Voicemail. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example https://<yourdomain>.com/voicemail/) in the Answer URL field and set the method to GET. Click Create Application to save your application.

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Assign a Plivo number to your application

Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Voicemail (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.

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Test

Make a call to your Plivo number and leave yourself a voicemail message.