[asterisk-users] Followme for multiple persons?

[BJ Weschke]

JD wrote:
> I've got a challenge (or clarification request if I am mistaken) for the 
> group.
>
> I have a non-profit customer on asterisk 1.4 that has multiple 
> volunteers that work from home. The volunteers are willing to take calls 
> to help out the organization.
>
> So, a formal queue is out. They don't want their home phones or cell 
> phones to blindly send them callers. They want to take calls when/if 
> they happen to be free to take a call at that particular moment. Plus, 
> the queue function can't handle the "roll to voicemail" problem that all 
> cell phones have. Plus, they won't have the discipline to log-in/log-out.
>
> Fine, I thought, I'll just use the followme function in Asterisk 1.4. It 
> rings four numbers at once. It asks the friendly screening question, 
> allowing a volunteer to press 1 to take the call. Or, they hang up and 
> perhaps someone else will take it. (Or, if nobody does, it goes to 
> voicemail.)
>
> Fine and dandy. Or so I thought. The problem is that followme is 
> designed to assume that it is only going to reach exactly one person. 
> So, if a phone answers and they press "2" to reject the call: bam, 
> asterisk stops trying the other three phone numbers.
>
> I am currently trying to educate the volunteers to "refrain from 
> pressing 2" but that is prone to problems. I'd rather that there not be 
> a reject function at all. Or, making it so that pressing 2 doesn't 
> really reject the call, it just hangs it up. I could change the audio, 
> and remap 2 to 9 and hope nobody presses it, but that seems like an 
> accident waiting to happen.
>
> Does anyone have suggestions?
>
> John
>
>   
  I think you can make the following code mod to have the next in dial plan step not do anything. If someone has the time, this would probably be a decent option to add to the application for future versions to make this behavior optional via an application option parameter.

[root at btwtechshowdemoC apps]# svn diff app_followme.c
Index: app_followme.c
===================================================================
--- app_followme.c      (revision 188040)
+++ app_followme.c      (working copy)
@@ -724,9 +724,9 @@
                                                        if (!strcmp(tmpuser->yn, tpargs->nextindp)) {
                                                                if (option_debug)
                                                                        ast_log(LOG_DEBUG, "Next in dial plan step requested.\n");
-                                                               *status = 1;
+                                                               // *status = 1;
                                                                ast_frfree(f);
-                                                               return NULL;
+                                                               // return NULL;
                                                        }

                                                }


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