Voicemail

Description

Voicemail (or voice mail, voice-mail, vmail or VMS, sometimes called messagebank) is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. The term is also used more broadly, to denote any system of conveying voice messages, including the answering machine. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voicemail)

Voicemail is automatically sent to a user's email if the email address is specified in the device details.

An audio recording in WAV format is attached to the email.

One minute of audio takes approx. 100 Kb.

Configuration

This section can be found in SETTINGS - Billing - DIDs - PBX Functions - VoiceMail:

• VoiceMail Extension (local) - describes which local extensions a local user can dial to retrieve his voicemail (the system will ask him to enter his voicemail password, which can be set in the device's details).

If you want to setup VoiceMail (VM) on a different server, then the following settings are important:

• VoiceMail Server active - turns VM server on/off. When on, all VM requests will go to distant VM server; when off, VM will be handled locally on Asterisk.
• VoiceMail Server connection/device - describes connection to VM server.
• VoiceMail Retrieve Extension (local) - which extension to dial on a distant VM server to retrieve voicemail for an extension.

Example:

• Let's say we have our server on IP 23.45.67.89 connected with SIP to our Asterisk.
• We create a separate user/device (vm_device) to describe this connection. Device's type is SIP, IP = 23.45.67.89; set other settings also (codecs/etc).
• VoiceMail Retrieve Extension (local) = 999.

First action is when VM is recorded

So now when the VM server is ON and the user with device 201 gets a VM, the call is redirected like this:

Dial(SIP/vm_device/201)

This means that the server on 23.45.67.89 will receive a call to extension 201. The server SHOULD BE configured so that it will process VM correctly when it receives such a call.

Second action - retrieving VM

When user wants to retrieve his VM on a distant machine he dials VoiceMail Extension (local).

He is redirected like this:

Dial(SIP/vm_device/999#201)

Again, the distant server should know how to process such a request.

Let's say we have a distant VM server based on Asterisk.

So in our example its configuration in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf should look like this:

[incoming]
# to retrieve VM
exten => _999#.,1,VoiceMailMain(${EXTEN:4})
exten => _999#.,2,Hangup

# to record VM
exten => _X.,1,VoiceMail(${EXTEN})
exten => _X.,2,Hangup

Retrieve VoiceMail from outside over DID

• In PBX functions create new function with type: check_voicemail.
• Assign this PBX Function to a DID.

FROM field in email

To change the Voicemail email sending FROM field, edit the /etc/asterisk/voicemail.conf file line:

;fromstring=The Asterisk PBX

to:

fromstring=SOME OTHER LINE

... and reload Asterisk.

Change UNAVAILABLE message

Dial Voicemail access number (default *97) and press 01; then, after the signal, dictate your UNAVAILABLE message.

MWI - Message Waiting Indication

This option is available starting from MOR 9

In telephony, a Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) is a telephone calling feature that illuminates a LED on selected telephones to notify a user of waiting voicemail messages. It works on most telephone networks and PBXs. (Wikipedia)

MWI is supported automatically starting from MOR 9.

Most phones support this feature.

See also

• No sound on Voicemail or Playback
• Voicemail does not work