Telephone Reminders 4.0.3 Adds 3 New Functions

[wardmundy]

In keeping with the PBX in a Flash promise, here is the sixth in the Nerd Vittles script collection. In under 10 seconds, it installs the new Telephone Reminders application for Asterisk 1.4 on PBX in a Flash systems only. Run the install only once! After installation, you can access Telephone Reminders by dialing 1-2-3 from any phone on your system. The default password is 12345678. Recurring reminders are supported!

Two different bugs have been reported in this thread, and we found a third that caused recurring reminders to not be delivered. All downloads after 4 a.m., Feb. 25, 2008 have all reported issues fixed so there is no need for patches. If you read this entire thread, you will have a very good grasp of why deprecating commands and changing basic system functionality in Asterisk is such a very bad idea!!


While you'll never know it from the install, reworking this application for Asterisk 1.4 was a royal pain!!! It took almost 40 hours and is the major reason for much of this week's Nerd Vittles diatribe.

If you'd like to test this (do it only once!!), log into your PBX in a Flash server as root and issue the following commands:

[COLOR=black]
cd /root
wget http://bestof.nerdvittles.com/applications/reminders4/reminders.pbx
chmod +x reminders.pbx
./reminders.pbx
amportal restart
ln -s /opt/swift/bin/swift /usr/bin/swift
[/COLOR]

For preliminary documentation and customization tips, see the Telephone Reminder 3.0 documentation on the Best of Nerd Vittles site. Your feedback is appreciated!!

If, for some reason, you get a bad install, you can install again. Read this comment for what you need to clean up either before or after running the installation a second time.

 

[cosmicwombat]

Very nice...

I just needed to add the misc destination and change the password in the dialplan.

I have a call to my phone scheduled. I'll let you know if it worked...

Thanks Ward. Double thanks for dealing with this combined with 1.4.
I have been reading through some of the changes from 1.2 to 1.4....whew doggies...

Robert

 

[jrglass]

In keeping with the PBX in a Flash promise, here is the sixth in the Nerd Vittles script collection. In under 10 seconds, it installs the new Telephone Reminders application for Asterisk 1.4 on PBX in a Flash systems only. Run the install only once!! After installation, you can access Telephone Reminders by dialing 1-2-3 from any phone on your system. The default password is 12345678. Recurring reminders are supported!

While you'll never know it from the install, reworking this application for Asterisk 1.4 was a royal pain!!! It took almost 40 hours and is the major reason for much of this week's Nerd Vittles diatribe.

If you'd like to test this (do it only once!!), log into your PBX in a Flash server as root and issue the following commands:

[COLOR=black]cd /root[/COLOR]
[COLOR=black]wget http://bestof.nerdvittles.com/applications/reminders4/reminders.pbx[/COLOR]
[COLOR=black]chmod +x reminders.pbx[/COLOR]
[COLOR=black]./reminders.pbx[/COLOR]
[COLOR=black]amportal restart[/COLOR]

For preliminary documentation and customization tips, see the Telephone Reminder 3.0 documentation on the Best of Nerd Vittles site. Your feedback is appreciated!!

Just tried it and it worked great.


Jeff

 

[cosmicwombat]

Yep, it works just fine...

Thanks Ward.

 

[wardmundy]

I just needed to add the misc destination and change the password in the dialplan.

At least in this version of FreePBX, the Misc Destination entry isn't required.

 

[wifinetguy]

Each time I try this out, it gets all the way to asking for the time to make the call for the reminder, but it immediately disconnects after entering either AM or PM. I've tried it 5 times while varying my inputs thinking it was something I was doing, but it always disconnects the call at the exact same place.

Any ideas?

 

[wifinetguy]

OK, Never Mind.

I was trying to test this by making a reminder for only a few minutes in the future. If I do it for tomorrow or later, all works fine. However, 10 minutes in the future doesn't cut it.

 

[morejavi]

It does work for a few minutes into the future. Just enter the time in miliary time if it is PM and it works everytime (at least it works for PM, I have not tried it setting an wake up call before 12:00 PM). Time was 10:00 PM if I set a reminder for 10:05 PM but enter it as 2205 it works fine. If I enter the time as 1005 and press 2 for PM it fails every time.

 

[wardmundy]

The scheduled time has to be at least 5 minutes in the future. Check the time on your computer by typing date at the command prompt. Sounds like it may not be set correctly.

 

[cosmicwombat]

Quite impressive actually

I have sent a few messages to my self and they worked great. I noticed along the way that using military time worked every time while entering a time then choosing 1 or 2 for am/pm caused an immediate disconnect roughly 50% of the time. I'll test that out more...

Also, I remember setting my email address, but I am not getting any email output for message actions. Am I not supposed to?

I'll reread things.

EDIT: Ok, so I see:
-- Executing [h@remindem:1] Set("SIP/201-08588678", "email=") in new stack
-- Executing [h@remindem:2] GotoIf("SIP/201-08588678", "1?4") in new stack

And I am guessing email= with no address means no email?

OK, i just needed to keep reading...
in (/var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/reminder.php)

• $emaildebuglog = 0 ... If set to 1, the debug log is emailed to the email address set below when each reminder is scheduled.

and (in CLI) to get email delivery of the message...
database put EMAIL 6781234567 [email protected] So, I am getting all sorts of email now

 

[lopaka]

Are there additional dependencies that have to be present for this to work?
I followed the directions for installing and everything appears fine. When I dial 123, I am asked for password which I then enter. I hear thank you and then line hangs up. Any suggestions?

I did read through the info for version 3, but it appears that some of the steps listed there are not necessary with this version. Am I correct? TIA

 

[wardmundy]

If you're using PBX in a Flash, everything is present that you need. All you have to do is run the install script once. What does the Asterisk CLI indicate when a call is handled??

 

[lopaka]

Bottom couple lines look like this

Spawn extension (reminder, s, 1) exited non-zero on 'SIP/101-08b75b60
Executing [h@reminder:1] Hangup blah,blah
Spawn extension (reminder, h, 1) exited non-zero on 'SIP/101-08b75b60

 

[MisterQ]

Each time I try this out, it gets all the way to asking for the time to make the call for the reminder, but it immediately disconnects after entering either AM or PM. I've tried it 5 times while varying my inputs thinking it was something I was doing, but it always disconnects the call at the exact same place.

Any ideas?

You might be beating it to it. I had the same, tried again, but waited a few more seconds (heard a click from the phone...) and it worked... Not sure how the input parser is working, and or different to anywhere else...

q

 

[lopaka]

Any Help on This?

See above. I posted the last couple lines from asterisk CLI where it appears the error with Telephone Reminders happens. What steps do I need to perform to check or fix this. When initially loading the Reminder 4.0 Add-on on PBX-in-a-Flash it appeared everything went as expected. I performed amportal restart but was having the hangup after correctly entering the password/pin. I restarted the box (dedicated no vmware) Still having same problem. I have another box I'll be loading PBX-in-a-Flash on this weekend so I'll see whether this problem was due to an error on the other install. lopaka

 

[cosmicwombat]

Two things..

One is that I found using military time always works. Using AM/PM seems to fail about half the time with exactly the same output in CLI that you saw.

Two is that (as mentioned) you have to be patient with the prompts.

 

[lopaka]

My problem is that I never get any prompts to record anything, set time, etc. All I get after dialing 123 is "Please enter password" then after entering I get "thank you" then it hangs up.

 

[lopaka]

Fixed!

I did a fresh install of pbx-in-a-flash, loaded the reminder 4 addon, and all is well now. Apparently the old install was incomplete even though there were no errors

lopaka

 

[wardmundy]

If you reinstalled, there may be some duplicate entries in the following files that you will want to clean up.

At the end of /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, check for duplicates of all the contexts beginning with [reminder1] through [remindem]. At the top of the same file in [from-internal-custom], there may be duplicates of the four lines that start with exten => 123...

In /etc/crontab, there may be duplicates of the two lines that process reminders each night: run_recurring and run_reminders.

That should do it.

 

[lopaka]

Thanks

I did a complete reformat so no worries. I am interested in the telephone reminders for medical appointment reminder calls. I know this is a potential cash cow, so it may tread on thin ground discussing it. If this is the case let me know.