Disabling voicemail for intra-PBX (extension to extension) calls

Hi,

I have been asked to disable calls going to voicemail when dialling a voicemail-enabled extension from another extension within the same PBX. Voicemail is to be enabled only when a call arrives to an extension via other paths (e.g. Inbound Route).

Is this possible with FreePBX 12?

No this is not a feature FreePBX has in any version.

There’s no built-in method to achieve this (as in a simple tick-box) but in the past I’ve used something like below as a dirty workaround…

Let’s say you have an extension, eg. 103 with an inbound route pointing to it.

Enable voicemail on 103 but set the ‘Optional Destinations’ to something other than voicemail - eg. Terminate call, busy. This takes care of internal calls.

Now the dirty part.
Create another extension, say 9103 as Device Type ‘None (Virtual Exten)’ and set its optional destinations to 103’s voicemail.

Edit 9103’s Follow-me settings and put 103 in the Follow-Me list, and set the Destination If No Answer to 103’s voicemail.

Now point the inbound route to 9103. External calls go to 9103, 103 rings until timeout at which point voicemail kicks in. Internal callers ring 103 directly and never get voicemail.

I did say it was dirty :smile: