VOICE RESPONSE SYSTEM WITH PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE EXTENSION

A telephony voice response system includes a database language sequencer, a database control module having a plurality of procedures callable by the database language for performing database operations, and a telephony control module having a plurality of procedures callable by the database language sequencer for performing telephony operations. The telephony operations can include speaking a predefined prompt onto a telephony channel, receiving and storing DTMF-encoded input from the telephony channel, and recording audio input from the telephony channel. The database language sequencer calls the database control module procedures and the telephony control module procedures in a sequence defined by a program prepared according to a database language. The telephony voice response system can control multiple telephony channels by running a separate task for each such channel under a multitasking operating system. A common channel server task is provided which manages the resources of the telephony card for all of the individual channel tasks.