Creating "announcement only" mailboxes?
Submitted by nextgen on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:33pm.
I'm trying to create announcement only mailboxes. Basically a voicemail box where users can dial in to record greetings, but nobody can actually leave a message. I was under the impression that putting these mailboxes in a separate context and setting maxmessage=0 would do the trick, but no such luck.
Yes, there are ways to do it (check out post number 7 in this thread - http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/showthread.php?t=927), but I've been Googling for an hour and can't find a way to do this that can be easily managed in the FreePBX GUI without doing config edits. The object is for any customer service rep to be able to set this up for a customer without having to involve the tech-heads.
Has anyone figured this out?
There are a few creative
Thu, 08/28/2008 - 6:55am
There are a few creative ways to do it, but they all seem to involve steps that eliminate the ability for the end-user to simply dial into the mailbox and record a greeting. Using announcements works, but having to create system recordings isn't terribly end-user friendly.
You'd think there would be a simple "switch" that turns off accepting messages.
I did this by accident a few
Thu, 08/28/2008 - 1:58pm
I did this by accident a few months ago. If you create an extension with VM and have the "Delete VM" setting selected it will allow a user to leave a message, but just immediately delete it after they hang up.
The reason for this is for VM to email. Just don't setup a email for asterisk to route the file to.
Then in your recording just at the end mention something like "Please do not leave voice mails in this mailbox as they are not checked."
Custom app works better
Thu, 08/28/2008 - 9:12pm
I would simply add all these you need to your extensions_custom.conf. Make sure you use an extension that is not in use, I used 5555 in this example. You can then register them with custom extension and use them as destinations for an IVR or simply dial from any extension.
You can use the systems recording module to make the announcements. I used the built in demo-congrats recording for this. The control playback will allow you to pause rewind and fast forward the message using the #,* and 0 keys.
exten => 5455,1,wait(1) exten => 5455,2,ControlPlayback(demo-congrats,4000,#,*,,0) exten => 5455,n,Hangup()
--
Scott
aka "Skyking"
Member Since:
2006-11-02