V3 Inbound Routes

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Last updated: Mar 21, 2024 by Product Knowledge
6 min read

What is an Inbound Route?

   Inbound route is a mechanism to handle incoming calls based on the dialed phone number.

You have to create different inbound route for every phone number you have purchased from your VOIP provider such that incoming call to a specific number will be routed to its respective route to execute different functions. When the call enters the route, you can play a Playback sound file, route calls to an IVR, to a queue or perform any available applications.

This section covers topics related to managing inbound routes.

Don't forget to properly configure a Trunk to route incoming calls.

If you use a multi DID trunk, the provider could send the dialed phone number into the SIP header in the "To" field. Take a look at DID Elaboration to properly manage the phone numbers.

The Inbound Routes Section

You can find the Inbound Routes section under the Voice menu:


When you click it, you'll see all configured inbound routes and add new routes:

Create an inbound route

To create an inbound route click the New button  and enter:

 

  • Phone Number: the number on which you receive the calls, usually it's given by your telco provider. 
    It is also called DID.
    Phone Number is not limited to single specific number. It can also be a pattern that represents a series of numbers. A phone number is a pattern if it starts with the underscore symbol (_) and is followed by character(s). The most useful characters are:
    - X which indicates a number from 0 to 9, and
    - . which indicates 0 or more numbers from 0 to 9.
    For example, “_3X” means from 30 to 39 and “12X.” means all numbers starting with 12 plus at least one other number, like 124, 120, but not only 12)
    Click here for more information about pattern matching

  • Context (e.g. from-sip, from-voip-provider…)

  • Company: associate a route to a Company

  • Alias: (optional) descriptive name associated to the phone number

  • Description (optional)



 

Edit/Modify an inbound route

To edit an inbound route find the route from the list and click on Edit Inbound Route:

In the Settings tab, you can modify Phone Number, Context, Alias or Description.

In the Actions tab, you need to add a one or more applications (see the next paragraph) to execute when the call enters the route. 

 

Applications

To add an application, drag and drop the application from the list of applications and fill out the necessary fields.

Application execution depends on:

  • the position of the application in the actions table. If you add multiple applications for a single inbound route, execution starts from the top application and continues until the bottom. You can drag and drop items in the list to arrange the applications order.

  • the time interval that defines when an application can be executed (by default, it’s set to always).

 

The following table shows the list of applications you can use in Inbound routes:

Application

Description

Parameters

Application

Description

Parameters

Cally Square

Route the call to an IVR project

  • Cally Square Project name

Dial 

Establish a new outgoing connection on a channel, and then link it to the calling input channel.
It is also possible to manage DIALSTATUS after Dial applicatioN, considering:

  • ANSWER: Call is answered. A successful dial. The caller reached the callee.

  • BUSY: Busy signal. The dial command reached its number but the number is busy.

  • NOANSWER: No answer. The dial command reached its number, the number rang for too long, then the dial timed out.

  • CANCEL: Call is cancelled. The dial command reached its number but the caller hung up before the callee picked up.

  • CONGESTION: Congestion. This status is usually a sign that the dialled number is not recognised.

  • CHANUNAVAIL: Channel unavailable. On SIP, peer may not be registered.

(for more details you can explore Channel Variable DIALSTATUS)

  • Technology/Resource: eg SIP/1003

  • Timeout: Timeout before the application terminates 

  • Options: Refer to the Asterisk’s wiki

  • URL 

Internal Dial

Dial an internal extension

  • Agent name

  • Timeout: Timeout before the application terminates 

  • Options: Refer to the Asterisk’s wiki 

  • URL 

External Dial

Dial a number in the selected trunk

  • Trunk

  • Phone number

  • Timeout: Timeout before the application terminates 

  • Options: Refer to the Asterisk’s wiki 

  • URL 

Ring Group

Dial a list of internal extensions

  • User: group of agents

  • Timeout: Timeout before the application terminates 

  • Options: Refer to the Asterisk’s wiki 

  • URL

Playback

Play a sound

  • Audio File Path 

  • Options (Skip, No Answer, J, Say) : Refer to Asterisk's wiki

  • Answer: If set to YES, the system answers the channel.

Queue

Queues an incoming call in a particular call queue 

  • Queue Name 

  • Options : Refer to Asterisk's wiki

  • URL

  • Announce Override:override the announcement specified in queues setting.

  • Timeout: Time in seconds a call will wait in the queue before it is routed to the next application in the dialplan.

  • Answer: If set to YES, the system answers the channel.

Queues Group

Queues group to send incoming call

  • Queue Group to consider (by choosing it from the dropdown menu)

  • Global Priority: priority associated to the group related with the route. By default, queue priorities are applied, but if you indicate global priority at queue group level, it works like a “multiplier” for queues that belong to it. (value from 1 to 10 - default 0)

  • Options: you can insert Asterisk options (for more details you can explore Dial - Asterisk Documentation)

  • Music On Hold from the list of audios, which will be reproduced to the caller (default none)

  • Timeout: it works like timeout of normal queues: when it expires, system switches to next application inserted in dialplan (default 300 - required field)

  • flag (true/false) Answer (default true)

Set

Set value of a variable

  • Variable

  • Value

Voicemail

Leave a voicemail message in one or more mailboxes

  • Mailbox@context

  • Options

GoTo

Jump to a particular priority, extension, or context

  • Context 

  • Extension 

  • Priority 

Hangup

Hangs up the calling channel 

  • Hangup Cause Code

Send DTMF

Play DTMF tones

  • DTMF digits: list of digits accepted 0-9, *#, a-d, A-D, w (for a half second pause), W (for a second pause) , f (for a flash-hook, if the channel supports it). Max 30 digits

  • Timeout between tones: amount of time to wait between tones. expressed in ms (default to .25s - max 60000)

  • Tone duration: duration of each digit, expressed in ms (max 60000)

Custom

Executes an application

  • Application Name 

  • Params 


After defining list of applications, you can edit it, modify intervals, delete or sort them.

To modify an application’s execution time click on or click the specific menu entry and select interval type from the list:

If you choose Custom, select your custom intervals of hours and days/months:

If you choose List, select a custom interval already defined (in the Section Tools → Intervals), containing a complete set of sub-intervals:

A notification appears to remember to save the changes.