Dear Community,
Please be gentle with me – I’m crawling out of the deep, dark cave called 3CX, and I’m still a bit traumatised by all the actual options and shiny lights in the mighty FreePBX interface.
So please don’t call me names if I’m missing something obvious – I’m just a bit shell-shocked. 
What I’m used to (3CX world)
In 3CX I always did my call flows like this:
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Main IVR plays a welcome message, for example:
“Hello, welcome to Company. For German, press 1. Please hold the line…”
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If the caller presses 1, they are sent to the German queue, which:
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Has German system prompts / messages (“Bitte warten, aber bitte essen Sie den Agenten nicht…”).
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Handles everything in German from that point on.
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If the caller does nothing, they are sent to the default (English) queue, which:
- Uses English prompts and messages.
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Voicemail is handled by:
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An extension/mailbox per language (e.g. an “English voicemail” extension and a “German voicemail” extension).
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That extension never actually logs in to a phone; it’s just there to provide the right language greeting and mailbox.
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So:
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Language is tied to the queue + voicemail,
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IVR just routes the call to the correct language “world”.
Where I am now (FreePBX world)
In FreePBX, the core stuff is already working great – calls come in, IVR works, queues ring, voicemail works.
However, I’m struggling a bit with doing this clean, multi-language setup the way I’m used to:
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I’d like:
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Default route → Queue with language X (e.g. English).
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Press 1 in IVR → Queue with language Y (e.g. German).
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Each route ends up on a voicemail box in the same language.
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I’m fine with:
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Using a dedicated “language voicemail” extension per language.
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Using
Set Language/ language modules if that’s the “FreePBX way”.
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What I’m looking for
What is the best practice in FreePBX 16/17 for:
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Per-language queues (with proper system prompts in that language)?
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Routing from a single IVR to the correct language queue (and keeping that language all the way to voicemail)?
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Clean handling of language-specific voicemail boxes (dummy extensions, separate mailboxes, or something smarter)?
If you have a “this is how we do multilingual call flows in FreePBX” pattern, I’d love to see it.
Bonus points for examples like:
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“Main IVR → Set(Language) → Queue → Voicemail box per language”
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Or: “Use separate IVRs per language, and link them like this…”
Thanks in advance for helping a recovering 3CX-user who’s still a bit dizzy from all this freedom.
Kind regards,
