Graham Mainwaring
2006-Oct-29 18:38 UTC
[asterisk-users] Multiple dial macros at the same time
I am setting up an after-hours on-call system. Someone calls in and
requests service, and while they listen to music on hold, we dial out to
several people's cell phones and home phones. We don't know if they will
be answered by the employee, or by voicemail or a
spouse/relative/child/pet. So we play a message that says "press 1 to
accept the call" and ask employees to train their
spouse/relative/child/pets not to press 1.
The following extract from my dialplan shows how I have this feature set
up. This is with Asterisk 1.2.13.
[macro-screen]
exten => s,1,Set(MACRO_RESULT=CONTINUE)
exten => s,2,Read(ACCEPT|press-1-to-accept|1|skip|3|1)
exten => s,3,GotoIf($[${ACCEPT}=1]?5:4)
exten => s,4,MacroExit
exten => s,5,Set(MACRO_RESULT=)
exten => s,6,Playback(please-say-hello)
[menu]
exten => _FOLS1NXXNXXXXXX,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:4}@pstn,20,oM(screen))
exten => s,1,Playback(welcome)
exten => s,2,Dial(LOCAL/FOLS19195551000&LOCAL/FOLS19195552000,,tm)
exten => s,3,Voicemail(u301)
exten => s,4,Hangup
In order for this to work, I needed the ability to restore MACRO_RESULT
back to an unset state. For now I just hacked the Set application so
that after removing the variable from the context, it only re-creates it
if the value provided is greater than zero length. In the future I will
probably write an UnSet application to handle this more gracefully,
unless someone knows a better way to unset a variable.
This all works fine, with one small problem that is driving me batty. I
would appreciate any insight or ideas on how to solve this. Here's the
scenario:
1. Caller dials the number and hears the welcome message,
then music on hold.
2. Simultaneous calls are made to Employee A at 555-1000
and Employee B at 555-2000 (per above).
3. Both of them answer the phone.
4. Employee A presses one and hears "you will now be connected,
please say hello to the caller."
5. Employee A is bridged to the caller, says hello, and begins
working with them.
6. A few seconds later, the Employee B also presses 1. He also
hears "you will now be connected."
7. Employee B fails to bridge, and is hung up on.
The problem is, these are pretty urgent calls and employees are highly
motivated to make sure they get answered. Employee B doesn't know
whether the call dropped because someone else got it, or because of a
phone system problem of some sort. He is now obligated to figure out
what's up with the call and make sure someone got it. What I want
instead is for Employee B to hear an alternate message that says
"someone else got the call." This gives positive confirmation that
it's
not his problem, so he can roll over and go back to sleep.
I can see two ways of doing this.
1. Write a function called BridgedChannel that takes a channel ID and
returns its bridge peer channel ID, if any. This would allow me to set a
variable __PARENTCHANNEL with the channel ID of the incoming call,
before the Dial command executes. The macro, at priority 6, can then
check BridgedChannel(${__PARENTCHANNEL}). If it has a value then the
call is already bridged and we can tell the employee not to worry.
2. Have a MySQL database with a single table with two fields, varchar
channel-ID and boolean answered. When the call starts do update table
set answered=false where channel-ID=${__PARENTCHANNEL}. When an employee
dials 1, retrieve the value of answered for __PARENTCHANNEL and also set
it to true in a single transaction. If the returned value was false,
tell them to answer the call and bridge; if the returned value was true,
tell them to go back to sleep and hang up.
Solution #1 requires me to write a whole new function, and solution #2
requires a MySQL database, which is pretty big dependency for such a
simple function.
Does anyone see a simpler way of doing this, or have any ideas for other
avenues to pursue?
Thanks in advance,
-Graham
When user A is bridged with the client (right before it is done) set a variable that the call was taken, this way when he presses 1 to accpet the system checks to see what the value is, if its in taken mode he gets the message and then gets hung up on. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham Mainwaring" <graham@mhn.org> To: <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 3:38 AM Subject: [asterisk-users] Multiple dial macros at the same time>I am setting up an after-hours on-call system. Someone calls in and >requests service, and while they listen to music on hold, we dial out to >several people's cell phones and home phones. We don't know if they will be >answered by the employee, or by voicemail or a spouse/relative/child/pet. >So we play a message that says "press 1 to accept the call" and ask >employees to train their spouse/relative/child/pets not to press 1. > > The following extract from my dialplan shows how I have this feature set > up. This is with Asterisk 1.2.13. > > [macro-screen] > exten => s,1,Set(MACRO_RESULT=CONTINUE) > exten => s,2,Read(ACCEPT|press-1-to-accept|1|skip|3|1) > exten => s,3,GotoIf($[${ACCEPT}=1]?5:4) > exten => s,4,MacroExit > exten => s,5,Set(MACRO_RESULT=) > exten => s,6,Playback(please-say-hello) > > [menu] > exten => _FOLS1NXXNXXXXXX,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:4}@pstn,20,oM(screen)) > exten => s,1,Playback(welcome) > exten => s,2,Dial(LOCAL/FOLS19195551000&LOCAL/FOLS19195552000,,tm) > exten => s,3,Voicemail(u301) > exten => s,4,Hangup > > In order for this to work, I needed the ability to restore MACRO_RESULT > back to an unset state. For now I just hacked the Set application so that > after removing the variable from the context, it only re-creates it if the > value provided is greater than zero length. In the future I will probably > write an UnSet application to handle this more gracefully, unless someone > knows a better way to unset a variable. > > This all works fine, with one small problem that is driving me batty. I > would appreciate any insight or ideas on how to solve this. Here's the > scenario: > > 1. Caller dials the number and hears the welcome message, > then music on hold. > 2. Simultaneous calls are made to Employee A at 555-1000 > and Employee B at 555-2000 (per above). > 3. Both of them answer the phone. > 4. Employee A presses one and hears "you will now be connected, > please say hello to the caller." > 5. Employee A is bridged to the caller, says hello, and begins > working with them. > 6. A few seconds later, the Employee B also presses 1. He also > hears "you will now be connected." > 7. Employee B fails to bridge, and is hung up on. > > The problem is, these are pretty urgent calls and employees are highly > motivated to make sure they get answered. Employee B doesn't know whether > the call dropped because someone else got it, or because of a phone system > problem of some sort. He is now obligated to figure out what's up with the > call and make sure someone got it. What I want instead is for Employee B > to hear an alternate message that says "someone else got the call." This > gives positive confirmation that it's not his problem, so he can roll over > and go back to sleep. > > I can see two ways of doing this. > > 1. Write a function called BridgedChannel that takes a channel ID and > returns its bridge peer channel ID, if any. This would allow me to set a > variable __PARENTCHANNEL with the channel ID of the incoming call, before > the Dial command executes. The macro, at priority 6, can then check > BridgedChannel(${__PARENTCHANNEL}). If it has a value then the call is > already bridged and we can tell the employee not to worry. > > 2. Have a MySQL database with a single table with two fields, varchar > channel-ID and boolean answered. When the call starts do update table set > answered=false where channel-ID=${__PARENTCHANNEL}. When an employee dials > 1, retrieve the value of answered for __PARENTCHANNEL and also set it to > true in a single transaction. If the returned value was false, tell them > to answer the call and bridge; if the returned value was true, tell them > to go back to sleep and hang up. > > Solution #1 requires me to write a whole new function, and solution #2 > requires a MySQL database, which is pretty big dependency for such a > simple function. > > Does anyone see a simpler way of doing this, or have any ideas for other > avenues to pursue? > > Thanks in advance, > > -Graham > _______________________________________________ > --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- > > asterisk-users mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users >