Exam

Overview

An exam asks the caller a series of recorded questions and takes the answers on the keypad. It counts the correct answers, decides pass or fail, saves the result under the caller's name, and routes the call differently depending on how they did.

Use it for a shiur test, a safety quiz, a membership check, or any phone call that has to end with a score. In the sidebar it lives under Advanced → Exams.

How It Works

1. The caller reaches the exam.
2. Your intro recording plays. If Caller must press a key to begin is on, the exam waits for a keypress.
3. Each question is played in turn, and the caller answers on the keypad.
4. Optional feedback plays after each answer, right or wrong.
5. At the end the score is counted. If Announce Score is on, the caller hears it.
6. The result is saved and the call follows the passed or failed route.

If the exam is closed, none of that happens: the caller hears the closed message and follows the exam is closed route.

Creating an Exam

Basic Information

• Exam Name (required) — For your reference. It is never played to callers.

Exam Configuration

• Intro Audio — before the exam — Optional. Played before the first question: a welcome, the rules, or instructions.
• Caller must press a key to begin — Off by default. When on, the intro plays and the exam waits for any keypress before the first question. If the caller presses nothing, the exam starts anyway rather than looping.
• Passing Score — The number of correct answers needed to pass, not a percentage. Leave it blank to require every question correct.
• Default "correct" feedback — Optional. Played after a right answer when that question has no correct-answer audio of its own.
• Default "incorrect" feedback — Optional. Played after a wrong or skipped answer when that question has none of its own.

Questions

Questions live on their own Questions tab on the exam's edit page. Use the create button above the table to add each one.

• Question Audio (required) — The recording that asks the question.
• Correct Answer Audio — Optional. Played right after a correct answer, e.g. "Great answer!".
• Incorrect Answer Audio — Optional. Played after a wrong or skipped answer, e.g. an explanation of the right one.
• Correct Answer (required) — The keypad digits that count as correct, e.g. 1, 42, 123.
• Number of Digits — How many digits the caller types for this answer. Default 1, up to 10.

Questions are asked in the order shown in the table. Click Enable reordering, drag the rows into the order you want, then click Disable reordering. The # column shows the current position.

On My Hotline, questions are edited inline in the exam's ⚙ settings as a Questions & answers list you can drag to reorder. There you set the question audio, the two feedback recordings, and the Correct answer (phone keys); the number of digits follows the answer you type.

Options

A collapsed Options section.

• No Input Action — What happens when the caller answers nothing: Repeat Question (default) or Skip to Next Question.
• Repeat how many times before moving on — Only shown when the action is Repeat. 0 to 10, default 1. After that many silent tries the question counts as unanswered and the exam moves on. 0 means do not repeat at all. An unanswered question counts as wrong and plays the incorrect-answer feedback.
• Announce Score — Off by default. Tell the caller their score at the end.
• Allow Retakes — On by default. When off, a caller who already took the exam is caught before the first question and routed by their earlier result. They are matched by their contact card, or by the number they are calling from if they are not a saved contact.
• If they already took it, say — Only shown when retakes are off. Left blank, callers hear a spoken "You have already taken this exam." Their earlier score is not read back; the call simply continues on the route their earlier result chose.
• Keep All Attempts — On by default. Every attempt is stored. Turn it off and only the latest attempt is kept.

Announcing the score

Shown once Announce Score is on.

• Play first, before the score — Optional recording played ahead of the score itself.
• How to tell them:
  • Exact score — the caller hears "You scored 7 out of 10".
  • Rounded to 10% — the score is rounded to the nearest ten percent and your own recording for that band is played.

The eleven band recordings

Choosing Rounded to 10% reveals eleven optional audio slots: 100% recording, 90% recording, and so on down to 0% recording. The caller hears the recording for the band their score rounds to. Any band you leave blank is spoken instead as "you scored N percent".

This is how you say "excellent, you have earned your prize" at 100% and "please listen to the shiur again" at 30%, in your own voice.

Opening and closing the exam

• Exam is open — On by default. When it is off, callers hear the closed message and follow the If the exam is closed route instead of taking the exam.
• When closed, say — Only shown once the exam is closed. Left blank, callers hear a spoken "this exam is not available right now".

You can open and close the exam on a timetable instead of by hand. Create a scheduled task with the action Open / close an exam, point it at this exam, and set When this task runs, the exam should be to Open or Closed. Pair two tasks, one to open and one to close, for a recurring window, such as an exam that is only open on Sunday evenings.

Routing

Set all three in the Routing Configuration section.

The closed message plays first, then the call continues to the closed route. If you leave that route empty, the message plays and the call ends.

Reviewing results

The exam's edit page has an Exam Results tab with one row per person — their latest attempt — so the same caller is never listed twice. Someone is keyed by their contact card when they are identified, otherwise by the number they called from.

Columns:

• Contact — the caller's name, clickable straight through to their contact card. Callers you do not have saved show as "Unknown caller".
• Phone Number — the number they called from.
• One column per custom contact field you have defined (for example Yeshiva or Class). Each can be hidden from the column picker if you do not need it.
• Score — correct out of total, e.g. 7 / 10.
• Passed — a green check or a red cross.
• Date — when they took it.

Exporting results

Click Download to Excel above the results table. You are asked for a filename, and for Also include from the contact — a checklist of extra columns:

• Every custom contact field you have defined (all ticked by default)
• All phone numbers
• Email
• Personal ID
• Labels
• Address
• Notes

The file always contains Name, Phone number, Score, Passed and Date; the ticked contact details are added in between. Columns are blank for callers who are not saved contacts.

Tips

• Passing score is a count, not a percent. An exam with 10 questions and a passing score of 7 needs seven right answers.
• Identify your callers first. Put an access check in front of the exam and the result is filed under the caller's real name instead of "Unknown caller" — which is what makes the results tab and the Excel export worth reading.
• Record the questions in one sitting. It sounds better, and each question needs only the audio and the digits of its answer.
• Test it on the test line before you publish the number. Wrong answers are easy to mistype.
• Extension ID hides behind the More Options toggle at the bottom of the form, and only if your account has phone-system references turned on. See Settings.