Queue Pause - External Phone Control

General Help
1

Asterisk/FreePBX 13

We have a pretty diverse environment with a few phone systems. We want to offer queue service via Asterisk/FreePBX without having to redeploy/reprogram the user’s already working phones. I created a virtual extension in FreePBX (1111111111) there is no external routing to this extension and our SIP trunk routes 1111111111 to the Non-Asterisk phone system.

The FreePBX endpoint has a findme/followme setup for 1111111111#

This works and as long as the virtual extension is signed into the queue, queued calls will come to the phone on the other Non-Asterisk phone system.

The reason I made the FreePBX extension identical to the Non-Asterisk phone system, was to simplify queue call control. I was thinking that on an inbound route to FreePBX (2222222222) from the Non-Asterisk 1111111111, FreePBX would see the caller ID match with the virtual extension and when I input a feature code, it would apply it to the matching FreePBX virtual extension (1111111111).

When creating the 2222222222 inbound route to FreePBX, I noticed that the destination could be set to Feature Code Admin, but the sub options don’t allow for *45, which will log the virtual extension (1111111111) in and out of the FreePBX queue.

Is there a way to work around this from within the GUI? Does this even seem like a viable approach to do what I want (1. answer FreePBX queues on external phones, and 2. giving those external phones a way to start and stop the queue calls)?

Thanks in advance for any insight or ideas!

2

Anyone have any ideas for this? I could create a context in the override.conf that dials *45 and then hangs up, but I’d really like to stick to the GUI if someone has an idea.

3

Ok, a little further…

I set an inbound route, 2222222222, to misc. destination *45

So now when I call from 1111111111 (Avaya), I get the “Agent logged out” message. That is all I get though, it doesn’t seem to toggle the agent on and off.

I looked in the Asterisk console and even though the Avaya phone CID matches the Asterisk extension, 1111111111, the setup when I dial *45 looks a little different.

*When I log into the Asterisk extension 1111111111 on a Bria phone and dial 45:
– Executing [s@app-all-queue-toggle:4] AGI(“SIP/1111111111-########”, “queue_devstate.agi,getall,1111111111”) in new stack
– Launched AGI Script /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/queue_devstate.agi
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,1111111111: initiating queue: 3333333333

When I dial the inbound route 2222222222 from the Avaya phone (CID: 1111111111):
Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:33] Set(“SIP/Avaya-########”, “CDR(cnum)=1111111111”) in new stack
– Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:34] Set(“SIP/Avaya-########”, “CHANNEL(language)=en”) in new stack
– Executing [s@macro-user-callerid:35] ExecIf(“SIP/Avaya-########”, “0?Set(CALLERID(name)=)”) in new stack
– Executing [s@app-all-queue-toggle:4] AGI(“SIP/Avaya-########”, “queue_devstate.agi,getall,”) in new stack
– Launched AGI Script /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/queue_devstate.agi
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,: initiating queue: 3333333333
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,: Queue 3333333333 has no one logged in
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,: Finished sorting
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,: Looking up queues for agent:
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,: no queues for this agent
– queue_devstate.agi,getall,: Agent is NOQUEUES for at least one of their queues

It looks like the reason that it may be failing is because the SIP entity is different (SIP/1111111111 vs. SIP/Avaya-########)? Is that right?

Any ideas on how one might get around this? We are so close. I have queue calls ringing in, but no way to easily pause them from the end user (Avaya desk phones) side.

4

A little more progress in that I am able to set an inbound route to misc destination:
*451111111111*3333333333

Which will trigger the Asterisk extension to log in and out of the queue. The Avaya endpoint then receives Asterisk queue calls. This is obviously not scalable. I read online that you could enable hints, which would prompt the caller to input their extension and queue. That could work, but I am having trouble finding where/how to do this.

Can anyone point me in the direction that covers how to enable extension and queue prompts for external callers coming to *45?

5

I wrote a HowTo for connecting TimeTrex to FreePBX. Search for that in the search tool - it includes code (Bad code, but code) that does something like this.

6

Thanks (again & again :slight_smile: ) Dave!