[Asterisk-Users] Build a complex IVR?

[Jim Gottlieb]

On 2003-03-13 at 15:39, "it" <info at itwav.com> wrote:

>        I would like to know if Asterisk could be used to build a IVR with
>    complex flow?

Yes, we have done this.  We use menu files that define what each
keypress does so we can build complex menus with full flexibility.

A short example (since you asked):

default = 0
prompt
{
        name = 3046
}

0
{
        action = debitcard
        declines = debitcard-declines
        pin-prompt = 5122
        number-prompt = 5123
        thankyou = 5124
}

1
{
        action = debitcardbalance
        declines = debitcard-declines
        pin-prompt = 5122
}

2
{
        action = debitcardgenerate
        declines = debitcard-declines
        cardtype = 420
}

3
{
        action = vmail
        userno = 3641234
}

Once it goes into vmail, we have a whole hard-coded voicemail app that
is basically modeled on the Centigram VoiceMemo system including
message sending, forwarding, paging, transferring to attendant.
Likewise for other functions.  It also does queries into our backend
billing database and credit card charging systems.  

I wish I could convince my company to release the source code, but I
don't think that's ever going to happen, as they consider this code to
be their strategic advantage.  It's been developed over many years and
used to run with Dialogic hardware but we have recently ported it to
asterisk.

So yes, you can build almost any IVR application under asterisk.  Not
only is the hardware one-eighth the cost, but the tech support is far
far superior.  We used to wait years for Dialogic to fix bugs.  And
best of all, asterisk provides all the core functions so you can spend
your time on your custom features and not on coding the basic
telephony functions, message playing, etc.