Interactive Voice Response or simple IVR refers to the interaction of an automated voice communication system with a caller through telephone or mobile DTMF keys. There are plenty of graphical and visual IVR designers commercially available. Some are desktop applications while most recently, web-based IVR designers have been introduced by many communication services and solution providers.

One very notable development in the open-source software is the open-source IVR designer that is bundled with ICTDialer. It is an easy-to-use web-based IVR designer that provides interactive, graphical, drag and drops features to design your custom IVR in minutes. It is built with open source technologies like JQuery UI and RaphaelJS that have already made a way through to developing interactive, lightweight graphical applications. RaphaelJS is an SVG-based and lightweight JavaScript framework. It lets you draw vector graphics in your browser.

In the telecommunication industry, there has always been a great demand for such lightweight powerful tools that can provide clients with a desktop-like response. ICTDialer is an open-source outbound autodialer software. With the IVR designer module in ICTDialer, users can dynamically create their own call flows based on their own requirements.

Does this IVR designer handle Inbound calls? At the moment, it only supports outbound calls. However, with few modifications, it can be used for inbound call handling also. Now it's up to the open-source community to explore it and to use it for that purpose. IVR Designer Tools contains applications such as Call answer, Play audio, Play TTS, Get Digit, Options menu, Call Record, Call Transfer, and Hangup.