- cupy a dedicated server on the LAN. the customer service representative simultaneously. The call will be on the telephone and the record will be on the screen of a ter- minal or PC. There are two possible locations for data storage in an IVR application. One is on the IVR itself, as a local database. The other is on a separate host machine, known as a host database that may be a PC, a mainframe computer (still used by many banks) or, more likely, a server on the LAN. Each of these meth- ods has advantages and disadvantages. The simplest method of accessing data for an IVR applica- tion involves using data that is resident on the IVR machine. The files containing the data are stored on the hard drive of the IVR. Any information that the caller wants to access is already on the hard drive. Information input by the caller is then stored on the hard drive. The information may be imported from another ma- chine or exported to another machine for the purpose of updating The Telecom Handbook - 173 INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE the local database, but all is resident on the IVR hard drive dur- ing the session. The updating may be done via the LAN or using a diskette. It can be done as needed, either real-time (as informa- tion is changing), hourly, daily, etc. There are several ways to make this local database informa- tion available to the IVR applications. Local database access: Some IVR packages have built-in database functions. Applications can access ASCII files (called comma delimited) using built-in commands. This allows the person setting up the IVR to create a file on virtually any computer system. This may be information such as a customer file, a parts file or an area code table. It is imported into the IVR. The file can then be accessed by the IVR and information can be read out or input to this file. The same ASCII files can be exported at a later date and used for information transfer or the generation of re- ports. (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Software programmers are writin