System information

CHAPTER 15
The Automated Attendant
I don’t answer the phone. I get the feeling whenever I do
that there will be someone on the other end.
—Fred Couples
In many PBXs it is common to have a menuing system in place to answer incoming
calls automatically, and allow the callers to direct themselves to various extensions and
resources in the system through menu choices. This is known in the telecom industry
as an automated attendant (AA). An auto attendant normally provides the following
features:
• Transfer to extension
• Transfer to voicemail
• Transfer to a queue
• Play message (e.g., “our address is…”)
• Connect to a submenu (e.g., “for a listing of our departments...”)
• Connect to reception
• Repeat choices
For anything else—especially if there is external integration required, such as a database
lookup—an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) would normally be needed.
An Auto Attendant Is Not an IVR
In the open source telecom community, you will often hear the term IVR used to de-
scribe an automated attendant. However, in the telecom industry, an IVR is distinct
from an auto attendant. For this reason, when you are talking to somebody about any
sort of telecom menu, you should ensure that you are talking about the same thing. To
a telecom professional, the term IVR implies a relatively complex and involved devel-
opment effort (and subsequent costs), whereas an automated attendant is a simple and
inexpensive thing that is common to most PBXs.
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