Watson Assistant call transfer. vgwActTransfer not working

Question

When I add a vgwActTransfer to a dialog node in Watson assistant to transfer the call, it just hangs up.

Here's the how I have it currently:

{
  "output": {
    "text": {
      "values": [
        "Please hold on while I transfer your call."
      ],
      "selection_policy": "sequential"
    },
    "vgwAction": {
      "command": "vgwActTransfer",
      "parameters": {
        "transferTarget": "tel:+1xxxxxxxxxx"
      }
    }
  },
  "context": {}
}

Answer 1

First, what you are showing here is a legacy way of initiating a call transfer. The proper way is to use the connect_to_agent response type. While the method you are using will work under some circumstances there are cases where the Dialog will drop the vgwAction. This link explains the proper way to do this:

https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-phone-actions#phone-actions-transfer

Secondly, call transfer using a SIP REFER target is highly dependent on the up stream provider. For instance, you are using a tel URI here. Are you sure the upstream call anchor supports tel URIs? For instance, if you are trying to use a tel URI with the Watson Assistant free phone number feature, that feature only supports sip URIs.

There are a couple of ways to debug this. You can either look at the CDR logs being generated which will include any errors and warnings that occurred during the call. Here are details on the CDR webhook (note that CDR webhooks are currently only available in the Enterprise plan):

https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-webhook-log#webhook-log-request-body-cdr

Or you can turn on LogDNA to see errors and warnings directly in the logs:

https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-deploy-phone-config#deploy-phone-config-troubleshooting