[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Asterisk scheduling controls

[Doug Kyle]

I keep the call files in a temp directory and move one to the outgoing 
spool dir when a line becomes available.  We have separate Asterisk 
instances for separate tasks and cron jobs to start/stop calling.

Joe Atzberger wrote:
> In the course of integrating Asterisk telephony with Evergreen's 
> action/trigger notice structure, we have encountered a problem that 
> you may have already come across, or possibly even solved.  The 
> question is basically how to schedule call times (on the asterisk 
> side), i.e. start at 9AM, stop at 9PM.  
>
> We are generating callfiles that are queued by moving them into the 
> Asterisk spool directory.  We can tell Asterisk not to call before a 
> certain time by setting the file's date modified time in the future. 
>  So we have a mechanism for the "begin" time.  What we don't have is a 
> mechanism to tell asterisk *not* to call after a given "end" time. 
>  Anything that is in the dialplan logic itself does not appear 
> suitable because that still processes the callfile and either succeeds 
> or fails.  What we want is to *not* process the callfile, deferring it 
> until the next start time.  
>
> The reason there has to be a cutoff is that EG might spool up several 
> thousand calls to fire at the "begin" time, and it is conceivable that 
> not all calls would be completed by the intended end.  
>
> Things we've ruled out:
>
>     * just turning off/on asterisk -- can't do that since local
>       voicemail, incoming calls and desktop phones might depend on
>       asterisk
>     * trying to adjust callfile date modified time inside dialplan --
>       doesn't work, because the file is still processed, i.e. moved to
>       the "done" dir at the end
>
> So are there any solutions you guys have encountered?  This problem is 
> very similar to print queue management on unix, so there may be 
> products/packages in that problem-space that would work for us.  
>
> --Joe