Ring group with its own VM?

FreePBX Tips and Tricks
1

So I had recently put in place an ring group for a group of people, that Im wanting it to ring & if unavailable -to go to its own voicemail (for this group, not for an individual), which will alert its userbase by email when a VM exists.

The issue I ran into is 2 fold:

  1. There being no GUI facility to create a Voicemail box in & of itself (Which Im under the impression I had solved by adding “1800 => 1234,Engineering Dept,[email protected],attach=no|saycid=yes|envelope=yes|delete=no” in /etc/voicemail.conf
    and
  2. It not going to this VM Box when I had manually tweeked /etc/extensions_additional.conf for this ring group to the following "exten => vmb1800,1,Macro(vm,1550,BUSY,$
{IVR_RETVM}) exten => vmb1800,n,Goto(vmret,1)

[ext-group]
include => ext-group-custom
exten => 1800,1,Macro(user-callerid,)
exten => 1800,n,Macro(blkvm-setifempty,)
exten => 1800,n,GotoIf($["${GOSUB_RETVAL}" = “TRUE”]?skipov)
exten => 1800,n,Macro(blkvm-set,reset)
exten => 1800,n,Set(__NODEST=)
exten => 1800,n(skipov),Set(RRNODEST=${NODEST})
exten => 1800,n(skipvmblk),Set(__NODEST=${EXTEN})
exten => 1800,n,GosubIf($[${DB_EXISTS(RINGGROUP/1800/changecid)} = 1 &
"${DB(RINGGROUP/1800/changecid)}" != “default” &
"${DB(RINGGROUP/1800/changecid)}" != “”]?sub-rgsetcid,s,1())
exten => 1800,n,Macro(prepend-cid,Engineering)
exten => 1800,n,Set(__CWIGNORE=TRUE)
exten => 1800,n,Gosub(sub-record-check,s,1(rg,1800,dontcare))
exten => 1800,n,Set(RingGroupMethod=ringall)
exten => 1800,n(DIALGRP),Macro(dial,60,${DIAL_OPTIONS},1820-1821-1822-1823-1824-1825)
exten => 1800,n,Gosub(sub-record-cancel,s,1())
exten => 1800,n,Set(RingGroupMethod=)
exten => 1800,n,GotoIf($[“foo${RRNODEST}” != “foo”]?nodest)
exten => 1800,n,Set(__CWIGNORE=)
exten => 1800,n,Set(__NODEST=)
exten => 1800,n,Macro(blkvm-clr,)
exten => 1800,n,Goto(ext-local,vmb1800,1)
exten => 1800,n(nodest),Noop(SKIPPING DEST, CALL CAME FROM Q/RG: ${RRNODEST})

exten => h,1,Macro(hangupcall,)"

And it doesnt seem to work, with that being said -What am I missing here? :slight_smile:
2

Your dial plan changes are not needed, simply create an extension of type none/virtual. This creates a dummy extension with VM.

3

You could also create a voicemail blast group that includes all members of the ring group, when the group receives a vm it will show up in all the users personal vm. Depending on your use of this vm you can also consider the VM Notify commercial module, that will place outbound calls notifying those on the list of the voice mail and giving them the ability to accept or reject responsibility of the message, you can also define a “manager” email address that will give a report as to who listened to the message & who accepted responsibility for the message.

You can view more information on VM Notify here:
http://www.schmoozecom.com/vm-notify.php

4

Just tried that one on my virtual here at home, and I got “Extension 1800 not available, it is currently used by User Extension: Eng VM” after having previously made that extension as none/virtual -Seems like it doesnt like having a collision in the dialplan between the ringgroup & the extension… :frowning:

5

Functionally -This does work… =)

The immediate caveat (really just looks & consumption of numbering resources) being that you need to chew up another extension number here. And the distributed nature of the same message going to multiple person’s extensions (In VMBlasting, with the storage piece -since everyone is getting the same message, is there message DeDUP going on, or no?) and since everyone is listening to the same music message-wise, I can see it being a bit difficult to determine if a message (we’ll say a callback request in this scenario) was handled.

6

Just tried this again, with making the dummy extension AFTER the ringgroup had been put in place & this appears to work -Ill give this a try when Im in the office to make sure its working as expected… =)

Thanks!

BTW, I wound up using FreePBX thanks to some of your posts @ trixbox, after they had stopped updating the community repo’s