How do I use text-to-speech in announcements?

You can configure an Announcer applet to announce some text in a voice of your choosing. You can either define the exact text to be announced, or the data sources that will contain the text to be announced at run time, in the applet. You can also specify the voice you want to use for the text in the applet, or use a data source that will contain the name of the voice at run time. For information about the Announcer applet, see Announcer applet.

The applet sends your configured text to the Amazon Polly service which turns your text into speech in the specified voice. The service returns the speech and the applet plays it.

To use text-to-speech in announcements, perform the following steps:

1. In the same interaction plan as your data sources (if using data sources), create an Announcer applet.
2. In the Announcement type list, click Text. The Voice and Text fields appear.

3. In Voice, define the voice you want to use to announce the text. You can use either a static value or a dynamic value from a data source.
   To use a static value, type the voice you want to use.
   To use a dynamic value from a data source, type the dollar sign ($). A list of available data sources appears. Click the data source that will contain the required value at run time.
   For example, $(Contact|TextToSpeech_voice__c).
   Whether you use a static or dynamic value for the voice, it must match the voice ID provided by Amazon Polly. The voice is not case-sensitive. For a list of voices available in Amazon Polly and their IDs, see Voices in Amazon Polly (Amazon help).

   We only support standard voices; neural-only voices are not supported. For information about neural voices, see NTTS Speaking Styles.

   The applet validates the voice when you click Update.
   The Voice field can contain a maximum of 50 characters.  

4. In Text, define the text you want to be announced.
   The Text field can contain text, digits, or a combination. You can include both static values and dynamic values from data sources.
   To use a dynamic value from a data source, type the dollar sign ($). A list of available data sources appears. Click the data source that will contain the required value at run time
   For example, Balance is $(account(1)|balance). 
   The Text field can contain a maximum of 1500 characters.
5. Optionally enable barge-in.
   
6. In the Next applets section, click the applet that Vonage Contact Center routes the interaction to after the Announcer applet on success and failure.
7. Optionally, you can validate the audio.
   
8. Click Update. Configure the rest of your interaction plan as required.
   Now when Vonage Contact Center routes a call through the Announcer applet, the caller hears the configured text in the specified Amazon Polly voice.