[Asterisk-Users] Anyone ever implement an *outbound* dial-by-name??

[Michael Jones]

Hi All;

I'm a newbie so please be gentle.

I'm a new * user and am using it to control the 3 IP phones in my  
house.  I'm using asterisk because I enjoy the flexibility and I'm  
sort of a tinkerer.

Here's my question:  Everyone has used the "dial by directory"  
function where you dial the user's name to connect to that  
extension.  Instead of an inward dial, I'm thinking how cool it'd be  
to have an outward "dial-by-name", where from any extension you can  
spell a name and dial it outbound via a trunk line.

Is this possible?  Do any of the built-in asterisk apps come close?   
If not, does anyone have any advice on building such an app?

Thanks!

Mike

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Michael Jones
PhaseGate Engineering
mike at phasegate.com
813 760 4209