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additional lines for call blocking

Posted by sdennis on Mon, 05/12/2008

The call blocking feature in Thirdlane is awesome and works well, I just wish it had the option to add more than 5 numbers. Is there somewhere I can change this or can it be on the list to be added in the future?

Thanks,

Sean


Submitted by mattdarnell on Mon, 05/12/2008 Permalink

Sean,

If you grep for a number that you have blocked, it will show up somewhere in the dialplan.

Short term fix - You should be able to manually add more entries...they won't show up in the GUI & might be overwritten during a change, but you can fool around with it.

-Matt

Submitted by eeman on Mon, 05/12/2008 Permalink

actually i believe those blocked numbers arent in the dialplan but rather in the asterisk db (astdb)

they are handled by macro-tl-userexten-base

Submitted by cbbs70a on Wed, 05/14/2008 Permalink

I was just getting ready to post the same feature request. 5 numbers is not enough. I can certainly add blacklisted numbers in the Astdb, but it is much easier for the end user to manage the numbers via the web interface. After all, thats why we are using Thirdlanes product, right? Also, I think that I'd like to see the option of simply playing a sound file and hanging up. "You have been blacklisted on this system. Goodbye." and then hangup.

Submitted by cbbs70a on Wed, 05/14/2008 Permalink

Hello;

I wrote a feature using command line Asterisk called "whitelist" that works as follows. If I have do-not-disturb set for my phone, any phone numbers on the whitelist will bypass the DND and be put through, regardless. I can add the feature now, but it will not give the end user the ability to manage the numbers via the webpage. I think it would be useful to have and simple to implement.

Regards;

FSD

Submitted by dozment on Wed, 05/14/2008 Permalink

Cbbs70a, could your script be set up so that DND on the phone blocks calls from the outside but allows extension to extension dialing on the inside? I could use that.

Submitted by eeman on Wed, 05/14/2008 Permalink

You cannot override a DND on a phone. It automatically returns BUSY as a sip message. If you want to override it, dont set DND on the phone. The phone itself is an entirely different organism than the PBX and more or less operates independently. Your best bet is to use the call blocking feature of the user portal.

Submitted by cbbs70a on Thu, 05/15/2008 Permalink

That should be pretty easy to do. Just add a test in the std-exten macro. If the length of the CallerID(num) is less than, say 5 digits, then it is another extension and let the call through. I

wrote everything from scratch, using AEL. First I setup the features like this:

_*7[8-9] => {

&ael-dnd(${EXTEN});

};

macro ael-dnd( ext ) {

switch(${ext}) {

case *78:

Answer;

Set(DB(DND-ON/${CALLERID(num)})=1);

Playback(do-not-disturb&activated&for-extension);

SayDigits(${CALLERID(num)});

break;

case *79:

Answer;

Set(i=${DB_DELETE(DND-ON/${CALLERID(num)})});

Playback(do-not-disturb&de-activated&for-extension);

SayDigits(${CALLERID(num)});

break;

default:

break;

};

Playback(goodbye);

Hangup;

}; // End of ael-dnd

Then I setup the whitelist features:

_*3[2-3] => {

&ael-whitelist(${EXTEN});

};

macro ael-whitelist( ext ) {

switch(${ext}) {

case *32:

Answer;

Set(iscorrect=2);

while("${iscorrect}" > "1") {

Read(whitenr,enter-num-whitelist,,,,);

SayDigits(${whitenr});

Read(iscorrect,if-correct-1-not-correct-2,1,,,);

};

Set(DB(WHITELIST${CALLERID(num)}/${whitenr})=1);

Playback(num-was-successfully&added);

break;

case *33:

Answer;

Set(iscorrect=2);

while("${iscorrect}" > "1") {

Read(removenum,enter-num-whitelist-del,,,,);

SayDigits(${removenum});

Read(iscorrect,if-correct-1-not-correct-2,1,,,);

};

Set(i=${DB_DELETE(WHITELIST${CALLERID(num)}/${removenum})});

Playback(num-was-successfully&removed);

break;

default:

break;

};

Playback(goodbye);

Hangup;

}; // End of ael-whitelist

Then I implemented them in my standard extension macro

macro ael-std-exten( ext ) {

...

...

...

...

...

Set(dndset=${DB(DND-ON/${ext})}); // Check for do-not-disturb and whitelist

NoOp(dndset=${dndset});

Set(whitelist=${DB(WHITELIST${ext}/${CALLERID(num)})});

noop(whitelist = ${whitelist});

if("${dndset}" = "1") // If DND is set

{

if("${whitelist}" = "") // but NOT in the whitelist

{

Voicemail(1@default,u); // Sorry, you get sent to voicemail

Hangup;

}

};

...

...

...

...

...

}; // End of macro ael-std-exten

Submitted by George on Sat, 05/17/2008 Permalink

sdennis,

we make the same request about a year ago, for both call blocking AND call screening..

we talked about doing at as some kind of a drop down so the listing could be unlimited (in a matter of speaking)

in changing over the TL this is one of our customers biggest complains

George

Submitted by eeman on Sun, 05/18/2008 Permalink

just curious George, just how many people do your customers _not_ want to talk to? :-) I tend to get customers who don't even care much about an IVR. They primarily are a 'humans always answer the phone' type of businesses. The CEO's would be appalled to learn their employees were blocking large swaths of caller id numbers.

Submitted by George on Wed, 05/21/2008 Permalink

Erik,

I agree with the business customer and we get both, we are also finding more and more that want the phone to ring ext first and if no one gets it them push it to an IVR.

mostly the blocking is for our residential, some of them get killed by insurance, telamarketers ect, and yes they are on the do not call list..

this is something that if it were to use the sql data base could be easily managed

George