System information

[macro-voicemail]
exten => s,1,Dial(${JOHN},10)
same => n,GotoIf($["${DIALSTATUS}" = "BUSY"]?busy:unavail)
same => n(unavail),VoiceMail(${MACRO_EXTEN}@default,u)
same => n,Hangup()
same => n(busy),VoiceMail(${MACRO_EXTEN}@default,b)
same => n,Hangup()
Using Arguments in Macros
Okay, now we’re getting closer to having the macro the way we want it, but we still
have one thing left to change: we need to pass in the channel to dial, as it’s currently
still hardcoded for ${JOHN} (remember that we defined the variable JOHN as the channel
to call when we want to reach John). Let’s pass in the channel as an argument, and
then our first macro will be complete:
[macro-voicemail]
exten => s,1,Dial(${ARG1},10)
same => n,GotoIf($["${DIALSTATUS}" = "BUSY"]?busy:unavail)
same => n(unavail),VoiceMail(${MACRO_EXTEN}@default,u)
same => n,Hangup()
same => n(busy),VoiceMail(${MACRO_EXTEN}@default,b)
same => n,Hangup()
Now that our macro is done, we can use it in our dialplan. Here’s how we can call our
macro to provide voicemail to John, Jane, and Jack:
exten => 101,1,Macro(voicemail,${JOHN})
exten => 102,1,Macro(voicemail,${JANE})
exten => 103,1,Macro(voicemail,${JACK})
With 50 or more users, this dialplan will still look neat and organized; we’ll simply
have one line per user, referencing a macro that can be as complicated as required. We
could even have a few different macros for various user types, such as executives,
courtesy_phones, call_center_agents, analog_sets, sales_department, and so on.
A more advanced version of the macro might look something like this:
[macro-voicemail]
exten => s,1,Dial(${ARG1},20)
same => n,Goto(s-${DIALSTATUS},1)
exten => s-NOANSWER,1,VoiceMail(${MACRO_EXTEN},u)
same => n,Goto(incoming,s,1)
exten => s-BUSY,1,VoiceMail(${MACRO_EXTEN},b)
same => n,Goto(incoming,s,1)
exten => _s-.,1,Goto(s-NOANSWER,1)
206 | Chapter 10: Deeper into the Dialplan