Introduction
At the end of this article, you will be able to configure custom dial plans within your PBX system. The article will also assist you with some common uses within your call flow configuration. Should you need any assistance, feel free to contact our support department.
Configuring dial plans
A dial plan is a named set of normalisation rules that translate dialled phone numbers into an alternate format for purposes of call authorisation and call routing. All these rules are related to the destination number. It is divided into 3 parts a prefix, an append and a match pattern. Dial plans are designed to restrict access to certain prefixes that you do not want your users calling, or to automatically add a prefix to the digits dialled, as an example, adding the area code. To start you should log into your customer portal click on the PBX tab. Then, click on the settings at the bottom left corner.
Once you are inside the settings of the PBX click on the "Dial plans" tab and you will see a selection of default options. Please note international dialling is enabled by default on all calling plans. To start creating a custom dial plan select one of the default options, rename and add and remove entries from the rules. Use the help bubble for information on setting the dialling rules.
When you have completed configuring your custom prefixes it is important that you assign the dial plan to your users. You can have as many custom dial plans as you wish. To assign to your users click on the settings cog of the user object and use the dial plan dropdown field.
PBX custom dial plan usages
This scenario simulates a real estate organisation operating in Australia with offices in some of the capital cities across the country, such as Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. The management team has decided to reduce the chances of toll fraud international calls will be restricted on all users, except calls to New Zealand where they have a satellite office. So, the image below shows the rules that were created to allow domestic calls and the rule which allows calls from Australia to New Zealand only. This is represented by the international dialling code 0011 for Australia being prepended to the number dialling if it matches 64X. If there was a need to open up alternative international countries the management team could use the same configuration updating the country code, such as 1X. for north America.
The real estate organisation has hired an employee in Auckland to facilitate its new branch in New Zealand. As this is a satellite office and they only have a single employee they would like a single PBX for all users. The PBX is configured on the Australian platform which posses a problem that all local calls from the New Zealand employee are seen as international with +64 being dialled before each call. A custom dial plan was utilised for this user to prepend the international dialling prefix so that New Zealand based users could dial local numbers as if they were using a local phone system.
After the dial plan has been altered, it is necessary to link the user to the dial plan. Firstly, you should drag and drop the user object onto the main screen and select the settings button. On the settings screen, select the customised plan in the dial plan field. Don't forget to save and apply the configuration.
Watch this in action
The video below will show you a visual representation of the areas covered throughout this knowledge base guide.