Smart Phone Caller ID Triggers Customer Search in FileMaker Pro Database

This guy apparently has the same phone number as me.

To get started, download and install Dialectic, a Mac app for phone dialing and Caller ID capture. There is a free 14-day trial version and if you opt to purchase, Dialectic sells for $25 US.

Dialectic also has the capability of dialing out from the database, via AppleScript, but that won’t be the focus of my discussions here.

Options

I also found another similarly priced app called Phone Amego that appears to have many of the same capabilities as Dialectic, but the interface was more confusing for me. It may be very good, but I was able to get going faster with Dialectic. It seemed like it might be able to generate an fmp url without the need for AppleScript, which is good, because it didn’t seem to have the ability to use AppleScript with Caller ID.

The first time you open the app, you will probably see the Configuration Utilities window, if you missed it, it is in the drop down menu.

BT Phone Configuration Utility

Download a Configuration Utility for your particular phone. There are a long list of VOIP and business phones. In this case, we are going to use the one for Bluetooth phones.

I am not sure what the difference between the two BT Phone options is but the first one (HFP) seemed to work with my iPhone 5S. Presumably these will work with any Android phone as well, so long as you are able to pair it with your Mac.

Many Contacts databases will use multiple fields for different telephone numbers. Phone numbers may also be formatted in a variety of ways. To get around this issue, a calculated field lists the various phone number fields stripped of all formatting using FileMaker’s Filter function. This field will be used in the search script in the next step.

The AppleScript that Dialectic is calling will feed the Caller Name and Phone Number into a script variable. The FileMaker script catches the inbound phone number, strip it of any formatting and does a search with it, using the calculated field mentioned above. If no records are found, an error message is displayed.

Obviously your search script may vary depending on how your database is structured, but you can probably figure this part out. The important thing is that you want to have the inbound number search on a raw unformatted number field in your database.

Options

• At this point, the script could open a web browser window and attempt to look up the number using Google or some reverse phone number look up web site.
• Log the call

I wasn’t thrilled with the sample AppleScript provided by Dialectic:

• Most of the logic was in AppleScript and I prefer to control things from FileMaker.
• It appeared to be fragile, causing a loop that kept wanting my FileMaker 14 version to convert the old .fp7 file to the new format. I had to restart to get out of the loop.
• Finally, the Dialectic demo file had to have the AppleScript in the same folder as the database.

I created a new script that employs the fmp url method to call FileMaker. All I need from Dialectic is the inbound phone number and caller ID name. Dialectic has AppleScript functions to deliver these two parameters.

The items to change in the AppleScript, when adding this to your own solution are:

1. the name of your FileMaker Pro database,
2. your FileMaker script name and
3. possibly the version of FileMaker you are running this on.

--This script is for Dialectic, a Mac app designed to call 
--and answer your telephone. 
--it works with VOIP, business and bluetooth phones.
--this script uses FileMaker fmp url method to call a 
--FileMaker script. 
--Edit the properties below to match your FileMaker script
property myDatabaseName : "Contacts.fmp12"
property myDatabaseScript : "Caller ID Lookup Contact"
property timeout_duration : 30
property show_dialogs : true

on handle_incoming_call_action(contact_name, contact_number)
 --the handle_incoming_call_action with the parameters 
 --contact_name and contact_number
 --are properties of Dialectic?

try
 -- modify the application name to 'FileMaker Pro' if necessary.

tell application "FileMaker Pro Advanced"

activate

--FileMaker 13.0v2 and above supports this type of URL 
--to run a script inside 
-- FileMaker, passing a parameter.
--set up your script to accept as a parameter the path of a File.

getURL "fmp://$/" & myDatabaseName & "?script=" & myDatabaseScript 
     & "&param=" & contact_number & " " & contact_name

end tell

end try

end handle_incoming_call_action

• Dialectic is installed and running
• FileMaker has a useable script to call
• The AppleScript is modified to call the correct FileMaker version, database and script.
• The last step is to have Dialectic call the AppleScript.

In Dialectic’s Preferences, under the Notifications panel, set up the AppleScript that the Caller ID will trigger.

1. Turn on ‘Enable Call Detection’ option.
2. Click the ‘Launch Application or AppleScript’ option and you will be prompted to select the AppleScript. Locate the AppleScript in the dialog box and select it. Click OK.

That’s it, test and debug. Remember to add your testing number to the sample data, so that you can have a successful lookup. Hopefully everything will run smoothly and you will be able to start doing Caller ID FileMaker Pro lookups right from your Android or iPhone.

Windows

I did not see many software options in the Windows world. There seem to be some interesting packages, but none of them listed Bluetooth phone support. The two requirements are Bluetooth support and the ability to send out calculated url scheme calls.  If you know of any good alternatives that might work, please post them in the comments below.