FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories
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There is a desire for enabling direct-dial functionality within our IVR as well as an option for dial-by-name. This is fine and easy to enable, as I simply Enable Direct Dial from the IVR menu, and enable an option to goes to "Phone Book Directory". However, if I am correct, that would enable direct dialing to all possible extensions, which includes extensions for ring groups, queues, etc.
I don't like the idea of a person or bot guessing the extension number for one of our queues and ringing it directly. Here's a possible solution. In the Directories module I can create a directory, name it something like Main directory, and include in the directory X extensions, which would be all of the user extensions only, no ring groups, queues, etc. Back in the IVR menu, I can set Enable Direct Dial to that directory rather than just "enable." Another advantage to creating a directory is I can give it logic to handle what to do after X number of invalid tries, since it seems there's no way to escape the Phonebook option.
The downside to this solution is when creating a new extension for a user is that I'd have to manually include that user's extension in the directory I've created. This manual process makes me wonder if it's really that big of a deal that anything could dial any extension from the IVR to warrant adding a manual process step to extension creation.
What are your folks' thoughts?
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Quantify your concern. What exactly are you worried will happen?
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@scottalanmiller said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
Quantify your concern. What exactly are you worried will happen?
For the direct-dialing concern, I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't think my concern through fully. I suppose the worst that can happen is a department would be annoyed by potential crank calling their queue directly rather than waiting through the IVR options. But then again, they can simply memorize which single digit to press, and achieve the same thing.
As far as the dial-by-name issue, I haven't found a way to get folks back to the IVR if they're in the Phonebook and cannot remember the spelling of a person's name. Of course, these folks could just hang up and try again. For a directory configured in the directory module, I can set instructions for how to handle X invalid entries.
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@eddiejennings said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
@scottalanmiller said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
Quantify your concern. What exactly are you worried will happen?
For the direct-dialing concern, I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't think my concern through fully. I suppose the worst that can happen is a department would be annoyed by potential crank calling their queue directly rather than waiting through the IVR options. But then again, they can simply memorize which single digit to press, and achieve the same thing.
This simply does not happen. I mean could it? Of course, but that way lies the rabbit hole.
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@eddiejennings said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
@scottalanmiller said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
Quantify your concern. What exactly are you worried will happen?
For the direct-dialing concern, I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't think my concern through fully. I suppose the worst that can happen is a department would be annoyed by potential crank calling their queue directly rather than waiting through the IVR options. But then again, they can simply memorize which single digit to press, and achieve the same thing.
If someone can dial you, they can dial you. Imagine this same discussion about email. "We have to hide our email DLs and aliases, what if people EMAILED us?!?!?"
Um... yeah, that's the idea.
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@scottalanmiller said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
@eddiejennings said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
@scottalanmiller said in FreePBX - Thinking Through Directories:
Quantify your concern. What exactly are you worried will happen?
For the direct-dialing concern, I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't think my concern through fully. I suppose the worst that can happen is a department would be annoyed by potential crank calling their queue directly rather than waiting through the IVR options. But then again, they can simply memorize which single digit to press, and achieve the same thing.
If someone can dial you, they can dial you. Imagine this same discussion about email. "We have to hide our email DLs and aliases, what if people EMAILED us?!?!?"
Um... yeah, that's the idea.
Point taken.
