asterisk users - May 2005 - Anyone ever implement an *outbound* dial-by-name??

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

---
Michael Jones
PhaseGate Engineering
mike@phasegate.com
813 760 4209

Michael Jones wrote:
> 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.
> 
Off the top of my head..

specify a context in voicemail.conf:

[outward-dial-by-name]
1000 => 1000,John Smith
1001 => 1000,George Lucas

then another context in extensions.conf

[outward-dial-by-name]
1000 => Zap/g1/5551234567  ; john smith's phone number
1001 => Zap/g1/5551238888  ; george's mobile phone

and finally in your dialplan (assuming you use a context called
"internal" for
all your internal phones..)

[internal]
; some other stuff
exten => 123,1,Directory(outward-dial-by-name|outward-dial-by-name)


disclaimer: untested stuff. your mileage may vary. don't sue me if it
don't work

Flynn