Open Forum

Is it possible to automatically generate a text to speech recording of a user's voicemail name?  We have many users who have not recorded their voicemail name.  When callers select the Company Directory option from our Auto Attendants,  those users are listed as just extension numbers, which is confusing.  It would be ideal if the system would simply use the text to speech engine to read the name of the user instead of the ext# if there is no recorded name.

We posed this same question to the 8x8 gurus, and the clunky methodology below was their recommendation (I'm just copying and pasting that part of our procedure). If anyone has a better way, we're all ears!

Create an .mp3 audio file.
   a. Browse to https://ttsmp3.com/.
   b. Select voice from drop-down.
      i. Currently, US English = Kendra & Spanish = Mia.
   c. Type in username.
   d. Click "Download as MP3."
   e. Browse to downloaded file, and rename as desired.
   i. Current format is "8x8 DBN firstinitial+lastname.mp3."
   f. Log into the 8x8 Admin Console.
   g. Click Users.
   h. Click the Edit icon for the desired user.
   i. Click "Voicemail settings."
   j. In the "Voicemail name and last name" section, follow the prompts to add the created .mp3 file.

We use https://play.ht for our voice gen. They have a decent free tier and cheap paid. We use this for the IVR menu's too, due to 8x8's character limit on SAY nodes.