Introduction
CallAudit products includes support for Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) hardware. This allows a common interface for multiple types of Caller ID based telephony hardware. Trial versions of CallAudit products are available from the download area.
The TAPI standard was developed by Microsoft and others to simplify the interface between Windows applications and telephone equipment. Prior to TAPI, most telephony applications had a separate software interface for each separate supported piece of hardware. For example, supporting voice MODEMs from two manufacturers would require two separate software interfaces. This greatly limited software developers as there were more hardware differences than available time and $ to modify their applications software. TAPI was designed to solve this problem as well as many more.
What is Required To Use TAPI
Using TAPI and CallerID on your PC requires at least four things.
- TAPI compliant hardware that is Caller ID capable (virtually all modems support TAPI)
- TAPI compliant Windows application (such as CallAudit)
- Microsoft TAPI software components (automatically included with Win98/ME/2000/XP)
- TSPI component for your TAPI hardware with Caller ID enabled (automatically included with Win98/ME/2000/XP for modems)
The first is a piece of telephony hardware that supports TAPI. This could include MODEMs, serial devices, actual telephones, complex telephone switches, or any other component that supports the TAPI interface.
The second is a Windows application designed to take advantage of TAPI. CallAudit includes TAPI support.
The third are the Microsoft software components (TAPI.DLL and a few others) needed to support TAPI. A key component in this list for MODEM users is Microsoft UniModemV. These components are automatically installed for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.
The fourth is a software component called the Telephony Service Provider Interface (TSPI). These components, for modem hardware, are automatically installed for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.
If any of these pieces are missing, TAPI cannot be used. Each of these components may in fact include multiple software modules. The last component is usually the most difficult as some MODEMs that support CallerID have no build in support within Windows to use TAPI. CallAudit can usually automatically overcome this limitation.
TAPI Advantages
Using TAPI hardware and software has many advantages. One of the first is that software configuration is mostly automatic. TAPI applications will query the hardware to determine the features and options that are supported. It no longer depends on you to determine these settings and enter them. A second advantage is that most TAPI applications can share the TAPI hardware with other TAPI compliant software. This occurs because it is built in the Microsoft TAPI software components. Where this feature can cause some problems is that most TAPI hardware cannot be shared with non-TAPI applications.