Need help with IVR

Hi there,

Hoping to get some help from the community regarding FreePBX IVR matrix configuration.
I’ve got a brand-new setup. We need calls to work in the following order:

  1. Call comes in and rings 4-5 seconds.
  2. Announcement plays that informs caller of what options to choose 1 through 3. We need to return on the announcement if they didn’t make a choice.
  3. If they selected #1 it plays greeting info audio, during which they will be invited to press #2 to leave their info for reservation. Same, we need to return on announcement of they didn’t make a choice.
  4. If they pressed #2 it rings to 2 extensions and another audio announcement comes on that asks caller to leave their info AND it must offer one of the extension voicemails.
  5. If they pressed #3 same thing must happen as #2 - reservation, it must offer voicemail boxes of the 2 extensions.

Now, I’ve got it working with exception of when caller hears first announcement, they cannot select nether of the 3 options, it plays until the end, then they can select.
Also, when caller selects #2 it doesn’t offer to leave voicemail.
Here I attached logical diagram of how things are setup now. Please let me know whether all this possible.

Sorry, bit new to VoIP and FreePBX, so many thanks in advance!
phone%20matrix

If I understand you correctly, when the caller selects option 1 you want to play more detailed instructions, but allow him to choose options 2 or 3 while those instructions are playing.

You could specify the detailed instructions recording as the Invalid Retry Recording and delete the ‘1’ entry under Digits. If the caller presses 1, it will appear as invalid and play the details, during which time options 2 or 3 will be accepted. With this method, the detailed instructions will play if the caller presses anything other than 2 or 3.

If that’s not acceptable, instead of the above, route option 1 to a second IVR, identical to your main IVR, except that the Announcement is the more detailed instructions.

For your option 2 issue, set the Ring Time for Ring Group 2 for the desired ringing time before voicemail, and set Destination if no answer to Voicemail -> Busy Message for the appropriate extension.

If you still have trouble, post a description of what goes wrong and the Asterisk log for a failing call.

1 Like

According to the diagram, you want the IVR to be the “no answer” destination for the first Ring Group.

Yes AND also to allow them ability to do selection 1 - 3 during initial audio announcement - which is digit 1 in the IVR.

So, do I delete digit 1 and choose invalid retry recording but do I leave digit 1 with “choose one” or delete entirely?

Correct, as owner wants that call to ring 4-5 times and allow staff to answer only THEN it goes to an announcement and down the logic.

1 Like

I assume that your initial announcement is something like:

“Thank you for calling Infinite Bliss. To learn more about our service, press 1. For reservations, press 2. To leave a message for the staff, press 3.”

Even though the announcement offers option 1, try deleting it from the Digits list but put the detailed information as the Invalid Retry Recording. If the caller presses 1, the detailed info will start to play. However, the IVR will still be listening for DTMF and if the caller presses 2 or 3 during the detailed info he should be immediately transferred.

If for some reason the above doesn’t work as you expect, just set up a second IVR as noted in an earlier post.

Hi Stewart,

Invalid Retry Recording did the trick with #1. During announcement it allows to press #1.
I’m still having issue with #3 during announcement, precisely to leave vm to 2 extensions. Any suggestions here? Thanks for your time.

Hi everybody,

I solved this issue. The owner wanted ring few times before going to each option in IVR, so I added few Ring Groups down and it worked the way they wanted! Thanks for your participation.

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.