I have IncrediblePBX running on VirtualBox because I’m trying to mimic all the settings of our current legacy PBX.
Currently, our IVR has a message when someone calls during business hours that says “Thank you for calling company xyz, for help with your order press 1 etc…” This is the IVR announcement that plays between 9AM-5PM Monday-Friday. Any other time the IVR has a different announcement that says “Company XYZ’s hours of operation are etc…” So between 5:01PM and 8:59AM the next day Monday through Friday that recording is playing, and all weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
I’ve created two IVR’s in FreePBX, one for business hours, and one for after business hours. I’ve also uploaded the recordings for business hours, and after business hours, and assigned them to their respective IVR.
So now my questions lies in the Time Groups / Time Conditions, and all I need is for someone to tell me if I’m doing it right.
I’ve created a Time Group called “BusinessHours” and this screenshot will show the settings I currently have on it: http://imgur.com/fZ3V030
Now I go into Time Conditions, and from what I understand, this is what makes sense to me in regards to the settings for the Time Conditions: http://i.imgur.com/wJCxdz5.png
Based on that image, the way I think it works, is that I’m setting the time condition to use the Business Hours time group that I created, and if the time matches then it’ll use the Business Hours IVR that I created, and if the time doesn’t match then it’ll use the Afterhours IVR.
Am I understanding this correctly? Or is there something I’m doing wrong?
You are not limited to one provider, there are many out there that offer “Termination” (outbound calls) to international destinations on a pay-as-you-go per call basis for a few cents a minute depending on destination.
I checked them out (SipStation.com correct?) they would suffice for my testing phase, but I wouldn’t be able to switch all my lines over when I’m ready because they don’t seem to offer international service as of now, and I need a provider with international rates when we are ready to go live.
Ah, I forgot to realize that you can have trunks from different providers. So basically I’d be able to have 3 trunks from one provider and one trunk from another provider that handles international calls correct? How would inbound international calls be handled?
Ok makes sense, thank you! I’m not that far along in setting up inbound routes yet so I don’t really have a way of testing it right now. I’m thinking about testing with a Google Voice account because we haven’t begun switching our POTS lines into SIP routes. We’re not at that stage of the project yet. Those questions will come with another thread in the future.
I suggest you use a softphone and get a SIP provider first, the googlevoice concept remains less than rock solid (and because Google is not stupid, probably ephemeral in the long run) and you really don’t need to spend time chasing your rabbits down that hole yet.
After reading your post I gave it some thought, and decided to abandon the Google Voice idea. I think it might be better, like you suggest, to find a SIP provider. My plan here would be to find a low-priced (yet reputable) SIP provider that I can purchase a trunk from so I can get some practice on setting up the trunk along with the inbound/outbound route. That way I can test that all the things I’ve done on FreePBX are working as they should be along with adding anything extra that I might have missed. I already have X-Lite installed on two computers so I’ll be using that as a softphone to test.
Once all of that is done I’ll look into moving our 5 POTS lines over, along with our toll-free number, and then decide what to do with our two fax lines from there.
