[Asterisk-Users] FW: NEWBIE: HOWTO make asterisk only accept calls when extension is picked up

[John Todd]

>Ben Bosshardt wrote:
>>I am running asterisk with a AVM euroisdn card and a few sip extensions. How
>>can I configure asterisk that the calls only get accepted when the extension
>>is picked up to avoid charges fort he called when I am out. I only want to
>>accept the call and send it to voicemail after 20s to avoid charges for any
>  >called wanting to hang up before.
>
>That reminds me of a couple of other scenarios I have wanted to play 
>around with but am not quite sure how to do:
>
>1. "Count rings" generically, in the sense that I want to save the 
>caller the connect fee by not picking up until so many rings have 
>been sent to the local instrument channel.
>
>2. Better, answer differentially depending on whether there is 
>voicemail for a particular user (or perhaps any of a group thereof). 
>I am basically a one-person shop, so for me any voicemail anywhere 
>(I have a couple of different voicemail boxes for purposes of 
>convenience) would ideally trigger the behavior of my answering 
>machine, and pick up more quickly than if there were no voicemail to 
>be gotten.
>
>Thx.
>
>B.


Sounds like this can be done with a quick shell script AGI to check 
if there is email for that "user" (or, in your case, for that 
"line"), and then a GotoIf that sends the inbound call to a different 
Dial statement with a specific delay that depends on the result of 
the AGI.

JT