Per the paid helpdesk, this is a feature request for evaluation/discussion. Below is my original request.
Hi there,
I want to clarify whether something happens or does not happen before I respond to my client’s request.
Here’s what they want to happen:
When someone calls in, the caller ID number is checked against the local Phonebooks to see if there is a match. If so, it presents that information to the recipient. If not, it does a CID Lookup.
Here’s what I think actually happens:
When someone calls in, the caller ID number is checked against the CID Lookup specified on the inbound route.
Which one is correct?
And the accompanying response:
Hello There,
You can only have a single CID Lookup associated with an Inbound Route. You can use the Phonebook in a CID Lookup but not multiple sources.
In short, there’s no way to check the Phonebook and then an additional Lookup source.
Regards,
My reply:
What do you think about this article from Ward Mundy in order to accomplish the above? Caller ID Superfecta was pretty awesome at the time I used it, years ago.
Adding CallerID Names to VitalPBX Inbound & Outbound Calls – Nerd Vittles
And the response:
Thats something you can try, but remember that we don’t provide support for customizations.
Regards,
So, to clarify some points…
- Ward Mundy is a genius when it comes to Asterisk phone systems
- Ward has helped all of us out over the last 10-15 years as we’ve navigated the waters of Asterisk, Fr**PBX, PBX-in-a-Flash, etc. Ward is how I found VitalPBX and their excellent support staff. [EDIT: this one had a forbidden word in it, so I had to do a substitution. I’ll bet you can all figure out what I mean]
- Ward documented how to do things, often before anyone else even thought of the possibilities. That’s a sweeping generalization, but if you just look at NerdVittles.com, you’ll see what I mean. In addition to the stuff there, on the PBX in a Flash forums, Ward has bailed hundreds of us out of jams. He’s bailed me personally out of probably 10 of them.
So, imagine you have a local phonebook on your PBX, a few free phone number lookup databases, and a few paid ones.
You’d like to query the phonebooks in that order, until either you get a match, or you exhaust your options. That’s what Caller ID Superfecta did in PBX in a Flash.
Now, there’s no GUI analogue to Caller ID Superfecta in VitalPBX yet. But it remains an excellent idea.
I have a customer with a database of around 6,000 contacts in it. Before I go doing database lookups on a paid CNAM database, I’d like to query the local database. Doesn’t that make a ton of sense?
Also, I happen to have a mobile number that I’ve owned since 2012. Verizon STILL has not updated their database and pushed the update out to other LIDB/CNAM databases. I still show up as a girl’s name when I call people. And they all say the same thing. “Who is ******* Riley?” Well, it isn’t me. It’d sure be nice to put myself in customers local phonebooks so when I call, it shows up as me, and not this person that had my number in 2011 and before.
So, that’s my gripe, and my request. I can do it Ward’s way, which will invalidate my support from the paid VitalPBX support staff - who, again, are EXCELLENT at solving problems for me; or, I can do it their way, and every inbound call with rack up a 0.6 cent charge to my customer, even though 95% of those people are probably in their local phonebook of 6,000 contacts. $0.006 per lookup isn’t a lot… until it is, and until the results are sometimes/often/perhaps wrong.
Have a great weekend, everyone!