Sending tones via a manual process with Twilio

Question

Our call center deals with businesses and we use Twilio to make our calls. However, many businesses have a menu to navigate before we get to talk to someone. How can I create a 10-key pad on our end and use it to send menu selections to the call we are connected with?

I know about the senddigits attribute on Dialing numbers with Twilio, but this sends preprogrammed tones. We have no way of knowing what the tones need to be until we are connected and in the menu, so this won't work.

I've been through the API pretty thoroughly and can't seem to find anything relating to this.

If there is nothing, is there another software that anyone can recommend that allows for making calls out, generating recordings of calls and allows me to send keytones manually after the call has been started?

Answer 1

Check out the digits attribute of the 'Play' tag.

https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/play#attributes-digits

Each 'w' character tells Twilio to wait 0.5 seconds instead of playing a digit.

Answer 2

Assuming I am understanding your problem, could you not us MP3s of DTMF tones (http://jetcityorange.com/dtmf/) and PLAY to send the tones after the call has started?