Dial by name not working from IVR

FreePBX Configuration
1

I have an IVR as my main destination on my phone system. When a caller hits the IVR I would like them to be able to dial an extension by “name” from a directory.

Within the IVR I currently have “enable direct dial” set to the directory I’d like to use. I have “force strict dial timeout” set to “yes” and “3s”. But when I dial the first three letters of a user’s name, it goes to the “invalid destination”.

I have confirmed the directory is working, as I can “dial by name” when I go directly to the directory.

However I would like the “dial by name” function to work directly from the IVR without having to dial to the directory first.

  1. Is this possible?
  2. If so, what am I missing?
2

You need to use the Directory directly. The IVRs don’t support dial by name but Directory’s do. So instead of using the IVR just use the Directory.