The Announcements Module is related to any Module that has a field to set a destination for a call to be routed.  There are a number of FreePBX Modules that are used to route calls to a destination.  For example, the IVR Module Module permits you to set up a menu system where a caller can use his touchtone telephone to select from various options.  If you configure an Announcement on the Announcements Module, that Announcement will appear as one of the possible destinations in the IVR Module.  The Announcement will also appear as a potential destination in any Module that supports destinations, including the Inbound Routes Module Module, the Ring Groups Module Module, the Queues Module Module, the Call Flow Control Module Module, the Time Conditions Module Module, and the Misc Applications Module Module.

 

The  Announcements Module is also related to the System Recordings Module Module.  The System Recordings Module allows you to use your phones to make audio recordings that can be selected for playback in the Announcements Module. 

 

How Do I Create a New Announcement?

Prerequisites

• Create an audio recording that will be played by the announcement using the System Recordings Module under the Admin Menu

 

Overview

The Announcements Module is used to play a recording to callers and then send them to a different destination once the announcement has been played. Do not confuse announcements with the System Recordings module. The System Recording module is where you create the actual system recordings. The Announcement module just lets you play one of those recordings and continue on with the call flow.

Creating an Announcement

The default landing will bring you to the Add Announcement form. From any other page within the modules scope you may click Add Announcement in the right navigation menu. 

Description

Give the announcement a descriptive name

Recording

This is the actual recording that you have recorded on the system using the System Recordings Module under the Admin Menu that you want played.

Repeat

You may optionally pick a key press value from 0-9 or * and # that a caller can press to repeat the announcement. If you use this setting when doing your system recording.

Don’t forget to inform them to press which ever option, such as #, to hear the Announcement again.

Allow Skip

You can optionally enable the Allow Skip option, which will let the caller press any key on their phone to skip to the end of the recording. They will then go to the destination that is set in this announcement for when the recording has completed being played to the caller.

Return to IVR

The normal behavior after the caller has listened to the message is to route them to the destination that you define below. If you check this option and the caller came from an IVR, it will skip the defined destination below and route them back to the IVR that they came from. This is handy if you have more then one IVR pointing to this announcement or you would need to create a separate announcement for each IVR since a single announcement can only route the caller to 1 defined destination.

Don't Answer Channel

The normal and recommend behavior is to answer the call and play this message. If you would rather play this message as early media to the caller you can press this. We do not recommend setting this option, as many phone carriers do not support early media for sending audio messages.

Destination after Playback

Here you define where to route the caller after they have listened to the message. In our example we are going to route them to our main IVR, but remember we have also checked the Return to IVR option. So, if the caller came from an IVR, it will route them back to the IVR they came from.

Save

Click Submit changes to save

Remember to click the Apply Changes button to make changes take effect. 

Editing/Deleting an announcement