Again..Well Done!

Thanks,
Craig

[WM: You can’t get to your own external IP address from inside with most NAT-based routers.]

I have setup a nice Asterisk @home system, I got a stealth autoattendant going. I have implemented the ivr which says press 1 to continue which then gets forwarded to a ring group which rings all extensions and then gets dumped to an extensions vmail. If 1 is not received from the caller, then it is assumed this could be a telemarketer and a Zapateller sit tone is sent out, I am plagued with telemarketers!! My problem is, when the caller presses 1, i want them to hear music while all the phones ring, but i am not able to get the music on. Any ideas?

my extensions_additional.conf ivr code:

[aa_1]
include => aa_1-custom
exten => 1,1,Goto(ext-group,1,1) ; jump
exten => fax,1,Goto(ext-fax,in_fax,1)
exten => h,1,Hangup
exten => hang,1,Playback(vm-goodbye)
exten => hang,2,Hangup
exten => i,1,Playback(invalid)
exten => i,2,Goto(s,7)
include => ext-local
include => app-messagecenter
include => app-directory
exten => s,1,GotoIf($[${DIALSTATUS} = ANSWER]?4)
exten => s,2,Answer
exten => s,3,Wait(1)
exten => s,4,SetVar(LOOPED=1)
exten => s,5,GotoIf($[${LOOPED} > 2]?hang,1)
exten => s,6,SetVar(DIR-CONTEXT=default)
exten => s,7,DigitTimeout(3) ; Bell-Inbound
exten => s,8,ResponseTimeout(7)
exten => s,9,Background(custom/aa_1) ; Stealth Auto-Attendant
exten => t,1,Zapateller ; jump
exten => t,2,Wait(2)
exten => t,3,Zapateller
exten => t,4,Wait(1)
exten => t,5,Zapateller
exten => t,6,Hangup

[ext-group]
include => ext-group-custom
exten => 1,1,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => 1,2,Macro(rg-group,ringall,20,,250-260-280-290-261)
exten => 1,3,Macro(vm,250) ; jump

P.S.I have a incoming bell (pstn) line connected to a tdm card with 1 FXO and 1 FXS and sipura fxs device and some ip phones.

Insert the following Code into extensions.conf just above
; cancels call forward on busy for calling extension
exten => *91,1,Macro(user-callerid)

—%< ------------------------------------------------- ; activate Call-Forward-On-Busy (CFB) with *90 exten => *90,1,Answer
exten => *90,2,Wait(1)
exten => *90,3,BackGround(please-enter-your)
exten => *90,4,Playback(extension)
exten => *90,5,Read(fromext,then-press-pound)
exten => *90,6,Wait(1)
exten => *90,7,BackGround(ent-target-attendant)
exten => *90,8,Read(toext,then-press-pound)
exten => *90,9,Wait(1)
exten => *90,10,DBput(CFB/${fromext}=${toext})
exten => *90,11,Playback(call-fwd-on-busy)
exten => *90,12,Playback(for)
exten => *90,13,Playback(extension)
exten => *90,14,SayDigits(${fromext})
exten => *90,15,Playback(is-set-to)
exten => *90,16,SayDigits(${toext})
exten => *90,17,Macro(hangupcall)
—–%<-------------------------------------------

[WM: The problem is that you have to set a flag to set call waiting OFF with Asterisk. Here’s a thread on Voxilla that will show you how to do it quickly without picking up each phone.]

[WM: Haven’t seen the second problem you mentioned. But we have the same issue with long Festival delays which we didn’t see at all in AAH 1.5. I’ve mentioned to Andrew, but he doesn’t see it. It may be a low memory, slow processor issue in my case. What type PC are you running?]

Thanks

[WM: Memory leak means things get worse and worse until your system ultimately crashes. Are you seeing crashes? Linux is designed to use all the memory it can get its hands on. So, just because your system shows less free resources on Day 2 than it did on Day 1 doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a memory leak. It may just be Linux caching more data to speed processing up. Tell us more.]

the vonage analog lines are connected using a digium card.

i have tried just about everything i can think of. is there a trick in getting vonage to send dtmf signals cleanly to my pbx, or is this a know issue?

has anyone out there run into the same issue and resolved it? everything would be perfect if this issue could be resolved. any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
sean

I’m more into Macs than Windows/Linux, but am familiar enough with computers to have no problem either way in implementing such a system. My first computer was an Apple II+ back in 1979 and I’ve worked at three Apple dealers and four schools/school boards in my time doing tech support work. While I can fix most any old Mac (OS9 and under) I’m still getting used to OSX and use the computers as computers not toys.

My business has three lines on a rotary setup, an individual phone line used by the company that is also indicated as being with an associated company, a single dedicated fax line for receiving faxes and a single line that we use for computer equipment to dial out (Western Union terminal, POS terminal, etc.). The last line of the three line rotary is also used for a second Western Union terminal dial-out line. I am contemplating replacing the DOS box Western Union terminals with either small XP boxes or Macs capable of running Windows and having them connect via the internet, but need to assure
myself of the security of doing so.

I’ve been thinking of getting a VOIP line for cheaper long distance capabilities, having a Skype line for incoming calls as well as calls to other Skype people and possibly other VOIP lines if needed for specific VOIP features that might be available inexpensively depending on what our primary Canadian VOIP might offer.

I’d like to be able to build a system whereby callerID would identify who was calling and be able to populate a screen saying who was calling, potentially record the details of certain calls, provide IVR capability for those who call here seeking information on what we do, etc.

I keep tossing between Asterisk and using Phlink or Phone Valet running on Macs. Each has their good and bad points, costs and being able to tie everything together to make it as seamless as possible. And since Asterisk has an OSX port, is it possible to do a Mac with Asterisk and Phlink/Phone Valet in combination to get the best of both worlds? Phlink/Phone Valet for land lines and Asterisk for VOIP/Skype/etc.? (since Asterisk on the Mac doesn’t seem to support the Digium cards to connect land lines, or am I missing something?)

Thanks for your input or suggestions on where to go for further info. Some days there are too many options to choose from and I am working on too many other projects to do proper service to these decisions as well.

[WM: For what you’re talking about, it’s Asterisk hands-down. If you don’t want to go the Linux route, you might want to hold off a few weeks and try the new SPA-9000 which is a preconfigured Asterisk system minus voicemail. But frankly, based on your experience, it sounds like Asterisk on Linux would be a walk in the park for you. Any $500 PC with an IDE drive works. If I were running my business on it, I’d probably want a spare as well. Read our articles. It’ll reduce the learning curve by about 99%. If you want to get something up and running on a Windows PC just to try, you can’t beat the new VMware solution. I wouldn’t run my business on it, but it’ll quickly give you a good idea of what Asterisk can do. Best of luck.]

There was one thing I did end up adding however, as I noticed it would not detect incoming faxes to DIDs (Or Incoming Routing as it’s now refered to)

I edited the webpage that adds the DID’s to asterisk’s configs and implimented your changes there. AMP now has the option to answer immidiately and wait for a given amount of time – so instead of having it answer() and wait(x), it now will answer(), Playtones(ring), and NVFaxDetect(x). Here’s how:

Edit the file: /var/www/html/admin/did.php

Find the following section:

if ($answer == "1″) {
$addarray[] = array(‘ext-did’,$account,$i++,’Answer’,",",’0′);
$addarray[] = array(‘ext-did’,$account,$i++,’Wait’,$wait,",’0′);
}

and change it to:

if ($answer == "1″) {
$addarray[] = array(‘ext-did’,$account,$i++,’Answer’,",",’0′);
$addarray[] = array(‘ext-did’,$account,$i++,’Playtones’,’ring’,",’0′);
$addarray[] = array(‘ext-did’,$account,$i++,’NVFaxDetect’,$wait,",’0′);
}

Now not only can you have incoming DID’s accept faxes, but also have them emailed to different email addresses based on the fax handling options you specify in the AMP Incoming Route screen.

Keep up the great work, and thanks for all the help you’ve been!!

-Kris

[WM: Great suggestion. Thank you.]

[WM: Have you added automon => *1 to the featuremap context of features.conf?]

A workaround… I removed that line and the line after it. It seems to work fine.

If someone can help me figure out what’s going on there, i’d be very appriciative.

On to the problems… I was checking our logs today and noticed another syntax error being called out by the system (we had to reboot because of a memory leak, btw, and we’ll see if this somehow had anything to do with it) but I traced it out and found this line in..

[macro-rg-group]
…
exten => s,2,GotoIf($[${CALLERIDNAME:0:${LEN(${RGPREFIX})}} != ${RGPREFIX}]?4:3) ; check for old prefix

And I also had to trace down the meaning of TOK_NE (it’s not equal token, btw) and figured out that there is a missing close bracket in the expression jut before the !=. So the line SHOULD look like this…

exten => s,2,GotoIf($[${CALLERIDNAME:0:${LEN(${RGPREFIX})}}] != ${RGPREFIX}]?4:3) ; check for old prefix

Thanks, Great job with the site btw. And regarding someone’s table of requirements, The idea poped into my head of developing a web site that asks a series of questions about the requirements on thier side and it will return a sheet of requirements for a server to match… I might start work on that after tomorrow even.

1) Why can’t everything be managed from AMP?
2) I guess the opposite to AMP is to manually tweak the config files. In such case which one has precedence?
3) Am I totally lost?

Thank you for your answers and keep up the good work!

[WM: Check the logs and turn on debugging in the CLI to see what’s going on. This isn’t a good forum for solving problems like this. Head on over to Voxilla and post your question once you have some better detail about the problem.]

[WM: Not yet. TeleYapper 2.5 will be released on Tuesday, Feb. 14. The Telephone Reminder System still is in the hands of the programming department, moi.]

[WM: Absolutely. Many are doing just that.]

[WM: Give me a little better hint, and we’ll work on it.]