System information

Option Value/Example Notes
a second level of password in the dialplan where another password is
specified. Even so, this is not a safe practice.
sendvoicemail yes, no This allows users to compose messages to other users from within their
mailboxes.
searchcontexts yes, no This allows voicemail applications in the dialplan to not have to specify
the voicemail context, since all contexts will be searched. This is not
recommended.
callback <context> This specifies which dialplan context to use to call back to the sender
of a message. The specified context will need to be able to handle
dialing of numbers in the format in which they are received (for ex-
ample, the country code may not be received with the caller ID, but
might be required for the outgoing call).
exitcontext <context> There are options that allow the callers to exit the voicemail system
when they are in the process of leaving a message (for example, press-
ing 0 to get an operator). By default, the context the caller came from
will be used as the exit context. If desired, this setting will define a
different context for callers exiting the voicemail system.
review yes, no This should almost always be set to yes (even though it defaults to
no). People get upset if your voicemail system does not allow them
to review their messages prior to delivering them.
operator yes, no Best practice dictates that you should allow your callers to “zero out”
from a mailbox, should they not wish to leave a message. Note that
an o extension (not “zero,” “oh”) is required in the exitcontext in
order to handle these calls.
envelope no, yes You can have voicemail play back the details of the message before it
plays the actual message. Since this information can also be accessed
by pressing 5, we generally set this to no.
delete no, yes After an email message notification is sent (which could include the
message itself), the message will be deleted. This option is risky, be-
cause even though a message was emailed, it is no guarantee that it
was received (spam filters seem to love to delete Asterisk voicemail
messages). Point being: on a new system, leave this at no until you
are certain that no messages are being lost due to spam filters.
volgain 0.0 This setting allows you to increase the volume of received messages.
Volume used to be a problem in older releases of Asterisk, but has not
been an issue for many years. We recommend leaving this at the
default. The sox utility is required for this to work.
nextaftercmd yes, no This handy little setting will save you some time, as it takes you directly
to the next message once you’ve finished dealing with the current
message.
forcename yes, no This strange little setting will check if the mailbox password is the same
as the mailbox number. If it is, it will force the user to change his
voicemail password and record his name.
164 | Chapter 8:Voicemail