Overview
The Call Routes page allows you to create and maintain routes into and out of your phone system.
Inbound
Inbound routes are perhaps the easiest to understand and the most common one that needs to be maintained.
Inbound Routes control how a call into your organisation is delivered. Some of the more common things that you might do with a call are:
- Make one or more handsets ring
- Play a message
- Send the caller to a Voice mail box
- Give the caller a choice of options (IVR) e.g. Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Accounts.
- Enable recording
- Play an after hours message
You can also perform some far more complex operations on a call all from the Call Routes.
Outbound
In less common situations you may also need to configure Outbound routes. You can use an Outbound route for the following:
- Least cost routing - send different calls via different 'trunks' based on the type of number
- Enable recording
- Caller ID Masking
- Dialing restrictions (e.g. who can dial international no.s)
Understanding Call Routes
Each route belongs to a 'Context' and is normally triggered when a dialed No. matches a Target's 'Pattern'. When a call comes into your phone system or is dialed from an internal extension the call is placed into a specific Context. For inbound calls this is generally called 'from-external', for internal calls it is called 'from-internal'.
Once the call is placd in a Context the dialed number is matched against all of the available Call Route Targets within that Context. The Call Route with the most exact match for a Target is then triggered and used to control the flow of the call.
Call Routes may also have a Schedule. When a Schedule is applied to a Call Route it will only be active during the defined period of time. If the Call Route is not active then it won't be considered when doing the above pattern matching.
For calls originating from an external party the DID (incoming phone no) that the caller dialed is used to match against the Targets pattern. For calls originating from an internal paryt (handset) the Phone No. that the staff member dialed is used to match against the Target pattern.
When two Target patterns exactly match the phone number the longest of the two Target patterns will be selected.
Creating a Route
Click 'New' to create a new Call Route.
Select the Context that the Call Route is for.
Enter a pattern for the Target that is to be used to trigger the Call Route.
A target can contain any alpha or numeric characters.
The following special pattern characters are supported:
| Patterh | Description |
|---|---|
| 0-9 | The digits 0 through 9 |
| # | Match any digit single digit |
| + | Matches any characters |
Enter a meaning full Name for the Route. This mightb be something like the department name.
Finally enter a Description that will help you or someone else in 12 months time understand why this route was created.
Pattern Examples
The following provides some example of how to use patterns:
| Example | What it matches |
|---|---|
| 0383208100 | Match the phone no. 0383208100 |
| 03######## | Matches any number that begins with 03 and is a total of 10 digits in length |
| 1300###### | Matches any 1300 number that is exactly 10 digits long. |
| ### | Matches any three digit no. (such as an extension no.) |
| 300 | Match the extension 300. |
| Bounce | Matcth the word 'Bounce'. This is used when using the 'Gosub' step which can send a call to a route based on phone no.s as well as any string. |
Steps
Once you have created the Call Route you MUST add one or more Steps to the Call Route. A Call Route without any Call Steps will simply hangup the call. (More acurately it will return to the calling route. This is an important difference if you are using the 'Gosub' step.)
To create a Call Step click the 'Steps' tab and following the instructions.
Recording
To enable Recording for this Call Route click the 'Recording' Tab.
Schedule
To limit what times of the day this Call Route applies to click the 'Schedule' Tab and set the time range.