SnevlCID Package Discussions

[kenflorian]

Is this an "Answering Machine"

Hi Steve,

I'm considering restarting my use of HSPhone. It worked great, for a long time, as a simple whole-house "announce caller". I was using Vonage at the time and did not need HSPhone to be an answering machine. A couple of basic features I need

1. The ability to assign a phone number to a "caller group". Each "caller group" gets its own unique answering machine message.

2. The ability to have the caller press a key to direct their call to a specific voice mail box. ie..for Amy's mailbox, press 1, for Ken's mailbox press 2"

3. Announce the name of the inbound caller (if in the db) or announce the number if no name is available.

4. Summarily block specific numbers.

Because of my current hardware setup, I cannot easily install and tryout your package....I'd need to switch phone providers.

Last year I went to a virtual PBX (ringcentral) which has been adequate but, the linksys ATA provided by Ringcentral does not pass through to the HS pci modem a recognizable inbound signal. The ATA provided by Vonage worked perfectly.

[stevea]

Hi Steve,

I'm considering restarting my use of HSPhone. It worked great, for a long time, as a simple whole-house "announce caller". I was using Vonage at the time and did not need HSPhone to be an answering machine. A couple of basic features I need

1. The ability to assign a phone number to a "caller group". Each "caller group" gets its own unique answering machine message.

2. The ability to have the caller press a key to direct their call to a specific voice mail box. ie..for Amy's mailbox, press 1, for Ken's mailbox press 2"

3. Announce the name of the inbound caller (if in the db) or announce the number if no name is available.

4. Summarily block specific numbers.

Because of my current hardware setup, I cannot easily install and tryout your package....I'd need to switch phone providers.

Last year I went to a virtual PBX (ringcentral) which has been adequate but, the linksys ATA provided by Ringcentral does not pass through to the HS pci modem a recognizable inbound signal. The ATA provided by Vonage worked perfectly.

Kenflorian,
I feel like maybe you hit "submit" before you were done. I'm not clear on what you are hoping my package can do for you. My package doesn't compete with / replace HS Phone, so the mailbox features and such will need to be from HS Phone. What my pacakge does is provide a bit more capability around the announcement of calls, logging of calls, blocking of unwanted calls, etc. If you want voice mailboxes, I can't help you, and HS Phone is your best alternative. My stuff works pretty well WITH HS Phone.

Some of the things I can do you listed: Blocking specific numbers, or specific names, and annnounce whatever you want based on what you have already stored in the phonebook.

Maybe if you post a few more details about what you wanted me to consider. To be clear: My stuff doesn't do anything having to do with voicemail, mailboxes, or anything related to them.

Steve

[kenflorian]

details

Steve,

Thanks for responding. I _guess_ what I am looking for is stock HS functionality + what your plug-in does + a starter hs script for building more than just the default call-handling capabilities of HS. Example....assigning a phone number to a group and assigning to that group a voice message prompt. I think this type of thing should be relatively easily do-able with HPhone...was just hoping to build as little of it as necessary.

Ken

[stevea]

Ken,


Many years ago (pre HS2) I tried to use HS Phone for my answering machine. It failed to hang up the phone some percentage of the time (leaving the phone off-hook for hours or even days if we were not in town), and that was the closest my wife ever got to making me give up this hobby completely. Anyway, although I'm pretty sure it is much more stable now, I haven't even experimented with it in more than five years, so I don't actually know what all it can do. I know you can have multiple mailboxes, but I don't know if you can automatically route calls to mailboxes based on the CID. Here's some more info about SenvlCID, and how it works with HS Phone:

1. You would want to run the phone line to both your CID device and your HS Phone hardware (PCI Modem or W2C)
2. In the event that your CID device detects CID better than HS Phone (pretty good chance of that), you are covered: SnevlCID "injects" the CID it detects into HSPhone (HST kindly provided a software call to do so).
3. You would probably want to set up HSPhone to NOT announce calls, and rather use SnevlCID. You can have a custom announcement string for each caller in your phonebook, and via the sample I posted in the libarary thread you can actually completely customize the annoncement.
4. If you have blocked callers (either by name or by number) SnevlCID will tell HSPhone to pick up the phone after the first ring, say something about why they were blocked (you can customize it to anything you want), then hang up without taking a message.
5. If the call is not blocked, SnevlCID will not interfere with it, and HSPhone will pick up the call after the prescribed number of rings.

Steve

[kenflorian]

Steve,

Thanks for your input. Maybe I should rollback just a bit. The thing I most want is a reliable way to Announce callers. I lost this capability when I switched from Vonage to RingCentral....more info at this thread.

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=130422

So, I'm searching for a way to restore that announce capability without losing most of the soft PBX functionality I get with ringcentral. My thought was to return to Vonage and replace ringcentral functionality with HSPhone and your plug-in.

Ken

[stevea]

OK, I think I see what you are dealing with, and I have a more fundamental point to make: My package needs SOMETHING on a COM port to get the CID from. I don't know much about the stuff you are using, but I don't sense that you were including that.

Were you going to add a modem to your configuration? If HS Phone isn't picking up the CID from your PBX, there may at least be a chance that a different modem might.

Otherwise, my stuff doesn't help you at all.

Steve

[stevea]

Ken,

Something I didn't quite understand: Are the analog phones that are plugged into your ATA showing a CID? (Assuming you have a CID-capable phone)

If HS Phone doesn't ever see a ring, that is also something my script won't help. Although I inject a CID into HSPhone, I don't simulate a ring, so it would never know to pick up.

Steve

[stevea]

In trying to make the script and all the web pages of SnevlCID work for non-US users, I now have developed a better appreciation for what "real" developers have to do.

Right now Ed Schenk and Rien du Pre have been very helpful. Are there any other users of SnevlCID that are non-US? If so, please PM me, as I may ask you to veryify a test version for me. I would REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks,

Steve

[Tcassio]

stevea,
I am wondering if you could adjust your script so that when a call comes in with the telephone number is in the name field, instead of a name. The telephone number is comming thru in both the name and number fields. This does not happen on very many calls, but when it does it really screws up the announcement of the last callers. What I would like to see is that when the telephone number is in the name field, that it be changed to "Unknown Name".

[stevea]

stevea,
I am wondering if you could adjust your script so that when a call comes in with the telephone number is in the name field, instead of a name. The telephone number is comming thru in both the name and number fields. This does not happen on very many calls, but when it does it really screws up the announcement of the last callers. What I would like to see is that when the telephone number is in the name field, that it be changed to "Unknown Name".

I can probably do something. Are you using a NetCallerID or a Modem?

Steve

[Tcassio]

I am using a NetCallerID box.

[stevea]

OK. And the number field is placed exactly the same in the name field? It is all numbers?

I'll have something to address this in the next release. If you want something sooner than that (or if you are willing to test it), send me a PM with your email address.

Steve

[Tcassio]

This is what is showing up in the name field on a few calls.

+50622604213

T.

[stevea]

+50622604213

Whoa. That's 11 digits! So it actually isn't even a phone number. Do some subset of the digits match the phone number?

Steve

[Tcassio]

The phone number is the phone number, I don't know where the plus sign came from. I think that is what they have programmed as there name.