[Asterisk-Users] Request for help designing an unusual * application

[Jay Milk]

Doesn't sound too unreasonable or unusual -- my previous PBX had message
delivery.  In the sense of usability, I would probably move the prompts
around a little -- i.e. dial number, play a short prompt on answer, wait
for #, THEN play the customer message.  Might also give them opportunity
to rewind/replay or call back based on caller-id of the customer.

If you need this right away, one option might be to simply set up a
voicemail-box for after-hour requests, and then send a notification with
attached message to a mailing list, which in turn the tech's receive.
The could receive these messages on a PDA or similar and listen to the
message at their own convenience.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Allen [mailto:lee at leadtec.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 6:43 PM
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Request for help designing an 
> unusual * application
> 
> 
> I have been reading asterisk doc's for the past couple weeks, 
> and monitoring this list.  I have to implement an unusual (I 
> think) application of asterisk.  I have the beginnings of a 
> plan, and I would like to throw it up here for comments.
> 
> The application:
> An after-hours emergency support "hotline" for our technology company.
> 
> We have 5 different support people that take turns on 24-hour 
> call (at any time, one support person is "on call").  We may 
> have 3 or more contact numbers for each person, eg:
> - office phone
> - cell phone
> - home phone
> 
> The support people, and their contact numbers, would ideally 
> be stored in a database.
> 
> When a customer calls in, they get a canned greeting, and 
> then they leave a message.  Asterisk records it.
> 
> Asterisk then tries to reach the current "on call" person.  
> It starts dialing the person's various contact numbers, one 
> at a time, and then plays the message left by the customer.  
> If it hears a DTMF '#' it knows it has successfully given the 
> message to a human, and it quits. Otherwise it continues 
> calling the next contact on the list.
> 
> Okay so far?
> 
> I think the basic extension stuff can get me the first part 
> (answer & record the incoming call):
> - answer the call
> - play the canned greeting
> - wait for the caller to talk and then hang up
> - record the conversation to a file
> - invoke my script
> 
> Okay, now my script...
> 
> It creates an outoing call in /var/spool/asterisk/outgoing, 
> pulling information from a database (assuming I learn some 
> perl and mysql, or
> something!)
> THAT file (outgoing call queue) would have to...
> - call the given number
> - if it gets an answer, play the recorded message
> - then if it gets a # key just quit
> - otherwise (busy, no answer, no # key) again invoke the 
> (same) script, passing an incrementing value so the script 
> knows to try the NEXT contact number (until it exhausts all 
> its contact numbers, or someone responds with the magic '#' key)
> 
> Does this all sound reasonable?
> 
> Do-able?
> 
> Is there a much easier way to accomplish it?
> 
> Thanks for any help.