looking for techniques on navigating automated phone systems with a touch screen

By Troy, 17 August, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello all,
This is probably been touched on before and I apologize but I've got a real complex one. Looking for some ideas or easier ways I could navigate this automated phone system as it can get quite tedious using a touch screen. I'm good with most automated systems but this one by far is the hardest for me. It's a call off system for my employer. Why they just don't let you leave a voice message is beyond me. Anyways here are the steps:
First I have to enter a 10 digit number, second I have to enter my date of birth in M M D D Y YY format, and then I have to enter the date of absence again in m m d d yyyy format and then have to enter the amount of hours I'm going to be absent. As you know with automated systems they hang up on you if you mess up too much and then you have to start over and it gets frustrating. What is the best technique when working with a system like this? are there apps that have come out that are developed spacifically for automated phone systems to make it easier with a touch screen? The only thought that comes to mind for this particular one is to turn off touch typing but then I'd have to double tap every number which would probably take so long the system would hang up.
Thanks

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By Deborah Armstrong on Monday, September 26, 2016 - 02:51

Our para-transit has the same complex phone system.

The solution is really fun. If you place a comma between digits, the phone will pause before dialing the next digit. All phones will do this, even super old Nokia phones.

The trick is to get it in to your contacts.

I will describe how I did it with our para-transit and you can modify for your particular needs.

First I used a Braille writer -- you might want to use any text editor on a computer; whatever lets you write fast -- to log all the steps. I called the system and wrote down the steps. I don't want you to have my real password so I'm making this sequence up:
1 pause 1 pause 132461 pause longer 443296 pause 2 pause 8 pause longer 7.

Now that I have that all logged, I create a contact called Para transit. I made Para the first name and transit the last name, just to help Siri out.

Instead of using work and home fields I created a custom field called Ride.

The phone number for ride was written thusly:
1,1,132461,443296,2,,7

I used double commas for two second pauses, single commas for one second pauses.

If you enter numbers like this on the phone keypad, you need to hit the button labeled Shift below the asterisk. This changes some number buttons to punctuation, the 7 becomes a comma. Or you can just enter it in the edit field.

Once I had it all set up I could tell Siri "Call para transit ride" and it would dial, I'd hear the system answer, I'd hear my tones pressed and I'd hear the status of my ride. I made other entries in the Para Transit contact for Schedule and Late so I could say "Call Para Transit Late" to get right to the the place in the phone system where I could report my ride was not on time.

You could do this for your bank so you could tell Siri "Call Wells Fargo Balance" or call "Bank Of America Cleared" (to hear the last five checks that have cleared.

Best of all it works with Voip systems too, anything that uses your contacts. After the phone connects it just spues out the remaining digits as touch tones.