[Asterisk-Users] Grandstream transfer into outer space

[Michael T Farnworth]

Jim Rosenberg wrote:
> The Grandstream BudgeTone 101 phone has a Transfer button. This appears to
> be a "blind" transfer: once you've dialed the extension to which you want
> to transfer, the phone tries to do this and then "dumps you out".

You also get similar trouble if people press the transfer button, but 
forget to press 'send' at the end (certainly I find the calls are not 
transferred until 'send' is pressed, or maybe they just take a little 
while).

The big problem is that with the sometimes unreliable budgetone keyboard 
you tend to lose the call due to mistyped numbers.  To avoid this you 
could create some catch-all extensions that automatically forward calls 
back to reception (or your voicemail system).  Something like:

exten => _[0-9],1,Goto(s,1)
exten => _[0-9][0-9],1,Goto(s,1)

Unfortunately this then prevents you from using # in such a way that it 
warns you if you type an invalid extension.

This sort of system could be further improved.  You could set an 
extension number variable on incoming calls to record the extension 
which answered the call.  Then when a call is transferred to an 
otherwise invalid extension you wait a few seconds (give them time to 
put the phone down) and then call the extension number given in the 
variable.  I leave this as an exercise to the reader ;-)

Michael

-- 
Michael T Farnworth
Maxima Systems Ltd (http://www.maximasystems.com)
16 Woodbourne Sq
Douglas
Isle of Man
IM1 4DB

Tel: +44 (0)1624 665826