[Asterisk-Users] Two companies - One Asterisk???

[Sean A. Newton]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005, Noah Silverman wrote:

> We have two small business that run out of our office.  One business has 
> 3 phone lines, and the other has only one.
> 
> In a perfect world, Asterisk would indicate WHICH line (or group) the 
> outsider caller called, so that we would know which way to answer the 
> phone.  The incoming calls would go through a voice mail menu first - 
> different for each company.  (Press one for sales, two for accounting, 
> etc.)  Whatever they pressed, the correct extension would ring, show the 
> caller id correctly, AND indicate which outside line (or group) the call 
> came in on.
> 
> I'm running the Polycom IP500 phones.  I think, from Noah Miller's 
> suggestion, that there might be a way to use the "line" buttons on the 
> phone.  Tie a group of lines to button one, and a group of lines to 
> button two.  I just don't know HOW to do this.  (For the record, I'm 
> using the Zap interface for incoming POTS lines.)
> 

I'm running two companies on one * box, however I'm using PRIs, so it's
easy to break out everything. 

We have seperate menus, based on what number you dial, and all that jazz.

One idea if you're sending calls from both companies to one person, you
might prepend something onto the CallerIDName.. 

For example, I have techs that mainly answer technical support calls, but
if sales or billing is not available, they end up with the call.

As such, Tech support calls are tagged with
SetCIDName(TECH:${CALLERIDNAME}) , same with sales, and billing..

Some of us also have DID numbers that ring directly to our desks, I tag
these with DID:${CALLERIDNAME}

Hope that helps... 

--Sean

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 sean a. newton                      nester at wewt.net
 louisville, ky, usa                 http://wewt.net 

 Another day, another convertible and another hotel 
 full of cops.                -- Hunter S. Thompson
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