Emergency Call Notification

Use Case

A customer dials support number. Reaches the out of hours IVR prompting them to press “1” to be redirected to a voicemail for a regular support case, or to press “2” in case of an emergency.

The customer is then redirected to a voicemail box and, depending on their selection:

• Option 1) Leaves a regular voicemail to be processed in normal hours
• Option 2) Leaves an “emergency” voicemail. In this case the system will generate a call to a group of people that are supposed to be notified (e.g. out of hours support team). This notification call will inform the notified party that someone is leaving an “emergency” voicemail. The message could contain caller’s number and instructions on how to retrieve the voicemail.

Overview of Solution

The solution is generally as follows:

1. Recognize option 2 was selected in the IVR

2. Use custom apps to originate a notification call. This is a new call with no originating party on the other end. Instead, this new call will be sent to the party(s) to be notified and then connected to a TTS message or recorded announcement once answered.

3. Continue routing of actual call (i.e. route it to voicemail)

Configuring the Solution

Step 1. Create an IVR called Support with two options as follows. 

• Number 1 points to users > 901 dialplan entry.
• Number 2 points to users > 902 dialplan entry

Step 2. Create a dialplan 999 for the IVR.  

This could be a DID in the inbound “main” dialplan

Step 3. Setup dialplan entries for the IVR options  901 and 902 entries in users dialplan.

Below are applications used in the corresponding order:

901

• Go to voicemail 305

902

• Set -> ORIGINATE_VARIABLES -> QUEUENAME=Notification,QUEUEPOSITION=1,MYVAR=${CALLERID(num)}
• Set -> ORIGINATE_TIMEOUT -> 3600
• Set -> ORIGINATE_PRIORITY -> 1
• Set -> ORIGINATE_EXTEN -> 765
• Set -> ORIGINATE_CONTEXT -> internalcalls
• Set -> ORIGINATE_CALLERID -> ${CALLERID(num)}
• Set -> ORIGINATE_CHANNEL -> Local/777@internalcalls/n
• Set -> ORIGINATE_ASYNC -> true
• Custom application -> Originate()
• Go to voicemail 306

Step 5. Setup Forwarding Users 765 and 777 (referenced in dialplan config in step 1)

Step 6. Create “forwarding users” with the specific details shown below.  

Below are preferences for user 765 (Notice the call forward all is set to send the call to 764):

Below are preferences for user 777 (Notice the call forward all is set to send the call to 778):

Step 7. Create 764 entry in users dialplan.

This is the announcement that management extension will get when answering the call.

Step 8. Create 778 entry in users dialplan.

It will route the notification call to a call group. Add extensions you want to be notified to the call group. Don’t specify a timeout if you want it to ring until someone answers.

• Call group -> Notification.

The way it works

As a result of someone calling the support number and selecting an emergency IVR option, their call will be processed as usually and routed to voicemail. In addition to that, the PBX (Callweaver) will generate a separate call leg and ring the “Notification” call group until someone picks up the call. Once someone answers this call out of the call group they will hear a TTS message saying what number called support with an emergency and giving instructions on how to retrieve it.

Additional Information

In our example we used:

User 765 and 777

Dialplan Entries for Routing of 764 and 778

These arbitrary values can be changed to anything that you would like.  However, if you do use different values, be sure to change ALL references for it to the value of your choice.

Example: You want to use User of 321 instead of 765. You must of course build a user 321 instead of 765. And, you must change the reference to 765 in the 902 dialplan entry to 321 as well. This one:

• Set -> ORIGINATE_EXTEN -> 765