Displaying voice announcements
In Chapter 2, Basic PBX Configuration, we learned how to upload or record a phrase or voice prompt when configuring an IVR or auto-attendant. Let's imagine we have an incoming call (from a port or a DID) and we just want to display a voice announcement, such as a commercial promotion, a set of instructions, or an information update of any kind and then hang upon this call or send it to a group of extensions or an IVR. The PBX | Announcements menu provides us the ability to achieve this.
For example, we need to route incoming DID 6767 to the sales extension. Using the Announcements module, the caller can hear a phrase containing important information before routing his call to an operator.
How to do it…
With the System Recordings module, we can add or record a new voice prompt. We can even choose and rename the embedded (Built-in Recordings) voice prompts and sounds. Just remember that these audio prompts are in different languages and have been recorded with different genders.
The steps to perform this recipe are as follows:
- Go to the PBX | Announcements menu and select the desired recording to be used.
- If you'd like, you can change the recording's name and description, as shown in the next screenshot:
- Enter a Description of this announcement, and select the recording to use.
- Select Destination from the drop-down menu. This is shown in the next screenshot.
- The description for the main parameters is as follows:
- Description: This is the name of the announcement.
- Recording: This is the file to be played. We can add more recordings by using the System Recordings module.
- Repeat: This sets a DTMF tone (0–9, *, #) that can be pressed to replay the announcement.
- Allow Skip: When enabled, the caller can press any key to skip the announcement.
- Return to IVR: This option will send the caller to the IVR after the announcement has been heard.
- Destination after playback: This is a drop-down menu from which we can decide the destination of the call, after the recording has been played.