A small choice. A useful next step.

Plan greetings, phone menus and outbound notifications with spoken prompts and clear branches. Publish and run a Bird-native sequence from your dashboard, or connect the workflow in your SIP application.

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Voice / explore the experience

Press a key. Trace the branch.

Give the caller a small set of choices and a useful ending. Include silence and unmatched input before publishing a service menu.

Workflow owner

Illustrative published version 3

FIELDNOTES / VOICE

ILLUSTRATIVE CALL

Fieldnotes Studio

+1 202 555 0194Choose a menu option

For studio visits press 1. For orders press 2. For support press 3.

No live call or microphone access.

Prompt → input → named branch

Welcome to Fieldnotes Studio

Choose a menu option

Your connected SIP application owns the prompts and branches. The example preserves published version 3; changing a menu does not rewrite an earlier execution.

A telephone answer and a completed menu do not establish a completed customer task. An unavailable fallback keeps the request unresolved.

Fictional example. No calls, audio, workspace changes or business actions are sent.

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Programmable voice

What can a sequence do?

A sequence defines the ordered steps a call follows. Speak a prompt, play an audio asset, collect keypad input, record a response or end the call. Use explicit branches for the caller’s selection and a deliberate path for no input or an unrecognized choice.

Make the menu useful

Keep prompts short and name the available choices. A service menu can offer opening hours or directions, with a useful response for each selection.

Give every choice a clear next step

Branch to a named sequence when a keypad selection completes. Define what happens after silence and an unmatched choice, and give the caller a clear ending. Keep live business actions in the application or conversational runtime that owns them.

A coherent release

Test the change. Publish the whole journey.

Keep related sequences in one workspace version. Edit the shared draft and test its latest saved content. Publish the complete version so a menu and the sequences it references change together.

01
Preview with your team
Use selected test caller numbers to reach the draft through an inbound number. Test choices, silence and missing references. A draft test reads the latest saved sequence at each transition, so coordinate edits while testing.
02
Keep ongoing calls stable
Calls using a published version keep its immutable sequence content. Publishing changes the version chosen for new calls. Draft previews keep their selected draft identity, with later transitions reading its latest saved content.

Inbound and outbound

Use the same behavior in both directions.

With Bird-native sequences, an inbound number can enter a named sequence and an outbound request can select a published sequence or inline entry. Acceptance starts the lifecycle; ringing, answer, execution and the final outcome remain separate observations. Public call-record reads do not originate calls.

Plan the complete result

A recipient may not answer, media may fail, or keypad collection may end without a recognized choice. Follow the telephone outcome and the executed call path separately.

Roll back deliberately

Restore earlier sequence content by cloning it into a new draft and publishing a new version. This does not undo calls already made, external application changes, number bindings or customer actions.

Questions about call sequences

Is a call sequence the same as an automation flow?

A call sequence controls prompts, keypad choices and recording inside a phone call. Author, publish and run Bird-native sequences from the dashboard. An automation flow coordinates a wider business process; keep its publication separate. You can also run call logic in a connected SIP application.

Can I build an IVR menu?

In a Bird-native sequence, combine a spoken or recorded prompt with keypad input and branches for recognized digits, timeout and unmatched input. Otherwise, configure the supported menu in your SIP application. Test the menu and its fallback branches before launch.

Does keypad input mean speech recognition?

No. Keypad collection reads DTMF digits. A natural-language voice agent needs a conversational runtime with its own speech and turn-taking behavior.

What does publishing change for active calls?

Calls using a published version keep that version’s immutable content. New calls use the newly published version. Draft test calls read the latest saved sequence at each transition and can observe draft edits.

Does an accepted outbound request mean the recipient answered?

No. It identifies accepted work. Follow ringing, answer and the final call outcome separately, and keep uncertain retries tied to the same operation.

Explore more with Voice

Call sequences guideFollow the setup, requirements and operational checks.AI VoiceBring a conversational runtime to the phone, with your context, tools and handoff.Recordings and transcriptsReview captured audio and transcripts alongside the call that produced them.Voice pricingReview published destination rates and relevant call components.

Related resources

Continue with the documentation, guides and examples for this topic. Resources are in English.

Implementation guideVoice overview Understand the conceptWhat is a voice API?

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Design a call that finishes the job.

Start with a greeting, an input and a useful next action. Define the timeout and failure paths, then test the complete journey with your team.

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