This is a general question about setting up a “code red” solution for the school board I work for. We already have a complete Sangoma (PBXact 400 box) setup up and running. But what we are stumped on is having a recorded announcement broadcast… “Code Red code red, blah blah”. No 911 call out or anything, yet.
The ideal call flow would be… User calls an extention (via quick dial), then it would start playing an audio file via multicast to lights flashing red, horns, etc…, then hang up when its done after repeating a set amount of times. Pager Pro doesn’t seems to handle this, sadly.
My first question is, is there a Sangoma add-on that does this? Or I’m I just not wrapping my head around this the right way? Lol
Why cant you use a page group and have it play the recording you want? What am I missing here. With a page group you can have it play any system recording as a prepend.
The problem is that is doesn’t hang up after the call and expects someone to speak after. In case of a real code red situation, you’d want the recording to be a one button action. Not have to manually hang up the call after and tie up the lines. Also, in the current version of Pager Pro, the “Page Announcement” seems to not function (maybe a bug), and doesn’t hang up afterwards.
I’ve given this more thought, there needs to be a add-on for these type of scenarios. Given the things that have been happening in our schools these days. i.e. One hidden extension that allows people that know it to quick dial it and have it blast out a paged message, then hang up then if a person wants the system to call 911. Then giving the authorities the necessary information to respond.
I did something like this about a year ago… found that none of the included (or commercial) modules had quite everything I needed.
My solution basically did exactly what you’re looking to do, and then a few things (it was written based on the same requirement… not a school but for the same reason).
I don’t know if I have a copy of it around anymore, but I can tell you that it doesn’t require any more than a handful of lines of custom dialplan and a couple of small shell scripts… it was literally a Friday afternoon’s work. I suspect that you, like I did, have already spent more time finding out what doesn’t work than it will to custom code a relatively elegant solution.
I’ll be happy to share my bits if I can find them.
Depending on your phones abilities, I would in descending order
A) Use a system script (sox for example) to play a pre-recorded announcement over multicast on your network.
B) Use a call-file to play a pre-recorded announcement to an Asterisk page group.
C) Use lots of call-files to tickle each and every phone local or remote that needs to ‘know’
The script that triggers the above would likely be triggered by something completely non Asterisk/FreePBX , like an Ademco alarm or another system that effectively provides a ‘contact closure’, that’s why Option A) is nice, still works when your PBX is shot full of holes…
If you share what you have that triggers that ‘Code Red’ and how your system knows about it, my guess is that the solution is likely trivial and you can add many other events to further propagate the Alarm condition as needed.