[resolved] Question about automatic licensing

General Help
1

Dear FreePBX folks.

First of all, thank you for your excellent software!
I have played with FreePBX for the past three days at work for evaluation purposes since we need to replace our 20 year old phone system.

Now, I figured out the basics, and played with IVR, Queues, agent login/logoff, etc.

  1. My boss asked me now if it was possible to automate call-in licensing that way.

Essentially, someone calls in and gives us a code. We then check a database and if they paid, we give them a license key valid for some time. This takes up way too much time.

Of course, the database part can be programmed with a UNIX tool on our side.

So my question is whether I can create an interactive IVR with FreePBX that does this, and if so, maybe you could point me into the right direction:
-“Please enter your license request without dashes”
-User enters (for example): 471EJ21KAFP
-“Thank you, please enter your contract number”
-User enters (for example): L548168
-“Let me look that up”
-Data is somehow passed to an external tool we write (cmdline)
-Tool now comes back with an OK status, a key, and valid date:
OK
FE53KU8AB47V
11/20/2014
-OR: Tools returns false, no payment received (or DB error, etc)
-System says “I’m sorry, we haven’t received payment yet”
-OR “Sorry, system unavailable, let me transfer you to an agent, etc…”
-essentially a different outcome/route/voice/announcement based on the return code of the external tool

-Phone system says “You’ve been licensed successfully, here’s the key”
-“F E five three …”
-“The license is valid until November 20th 2014”
-“Press one to repeat this or hang up”

  1. Would it be possible to use voice recognition instead of “press one”. I.e. "Press one or say “yes” "

Thank you for all your help in advance!

2

Yes to everything. I would pick up a copy of Jarred book Asterisk, the definitive guide. It is the best programming reference.

Roll up your sleeves and give it a try. When you get stuck come back and ask questions.

Welcome to FreePBX

3

Thanks for your pointer!

I have read some in the book online on Oreilly, and found that maybe a dialplan/extension like this should work. What do you think? Is that the way to go about it?

exten => 100,1,Answer()
same => n,Playback(custom/enter-your-contractnumber)
same => n,WaitExten(5,)
same => n,SayDigits(${EXTEN:1}) // Somehow call external program with $EXTEN (which is the contract #)
// more stuff

same => n,Hangup()

4

Yep, that’s dial plan code.

The speech recognition is from a company called Lumenvox.

5

Thanks!

I will check that once I have a normal key driven option working.
So the test dialplan should in theory do what I want it to?
I.e. Ask for a contract number, wait for you to enter it, and then say it?

Or would I have to replace this:
same => n,SayDigits(${EXTEN:1})

with this:
same => i,SayDigits(${EXTEN:1})

It’d be nice to have the option to have a # at the end of the contract number, I don’t yet how that would be possible?

Additionally, shouldn’t such an extension go into the custom file?
Would that be backed up then?

6

The syntax is connect, the logic is incomplete.

7

Thank you much for your help!
I’ve decided to use AGI with PHP and found an API that makes it a little easier too, and with that have set up a custom extension in Misc Destinations that does what I want to (I have a proof-of-concept that verifies number1 % number2, but the actual logic is just details).

The point is it works!
Thank you for your help!