Cisco UCM 8.5 with FreePBX voicemail - Using announcements -SOLVED-

General Help
1

My PBX is Cisco Unified Communications Manager 8.5, and I’m using FreePBX 2.9.0rc1.5 for voicemail and night service (an IVR for after hours).

I want to setup an inclement weather announcment service. Basically, my users should be able to call a number and hear an announcement.

I’ve created a System Recording and a corresponding Announcement, but I can’t figure out how to route calls to the Announcement instead of my extension’s voicemail box.

I’m a FreePBX novice, and wasn’t the one who setup the current configuration. Any insight anyone can provide would be great.

2

I’m not sure if it’s the best solution, but here is the solution I used:

In CUCM:

  1. Create a new CTI route point.
  2. Created a new extension (e.g. 5555), and forwarded all calls to voicemail.
  3. Associated the new CTI route point device with x5555.

In FreePBX Administrator:

  1. Created a new extension (x5555) and enabled voicemail.
  2. Created a new System Recording called Weather.

In CentOS:

  1. Deleted the .WAV file uploaded for the new System Recording:
    rm -f /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/custom/Weather.wav
  2. Created a symbolic link to the new extension’s unavailable voicemail greeting to replace Weather.wav:
    ln -s /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/default/5555/unavail.wav /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/Weather.wav
  3. Edited the voicemail trunk section of /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf to include something similar to the following (from memory):

[cisco-voicemail]
exten => 5001,10,GotoIf$($["${CALLERID(rdnis)}" = “5555”]?20)
exten => 5001,20,Playback(custom/Weather)
exten => 5001,21,Hangup

W5WAF’s (Bill’s) post in this thread was a huge help:
http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/users/without-using-announcements-play-a-message-to-a-caller-then-hang-up

So was some of the discussion in this thread:
http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/users/question-how-to-play-warning-message-on-certain-outbound-destinations