Amanda Work Group Installation Manual

Chapter 15: Programming Amanda 249
Troubleshooting
Check for the following mistakes:
1. Did you start the string of tokens without @ when you wanted Amanda 
to perform a hookflash or PCPM?
2. Did you start the string of tokens with @ when Amanda should NOT 
perform a hookflash or PCPM?
3. If the tokens are in an Extension field, did you forget that both Do Not 
Disturb and Call Screening must be OFF?
4. Did you check the trace file for information about what went wrong?
T
IP:Remember that when a string...

250 Installing [email protected]
@P(G2, 
your_personal_mailbox) 
in the Extension field for 4001, then you know which string 
fails based on which of your personal greetings Amanda 
plays. 

Chapter 16:
Programming Examples
System Paging of a User for Special Callers
This example illustrates inter-mixing tokens with Amanda’s standard call 
processing.
Application
This application creates a special mailbox (for example, 611) for family, 
friends, or special customers. When callers access this mailbox, Amanda 
pages you over the telephone paging system in your office. After letting you 
know that you have an important call, Amanda transfers that call to your 
extension through a “backdoor”...

248 Installing [email protected]
Translating to Amanda’s Tokens
This could be translated into Amanda tokens as follows:
1. Dial the code for putting the caller on Transfer Hold (which is normal 
processing if the first character is not an @ sign).
2. Dial the telephone switching system paging access code, for example, 
33* (if that is your system’s code for a system page.)
3. Play a greeting that you have already recorded such as “There is an 
important call for David” using the P() token.
4. Dial the...

Chapter 16: Programming Examples 249
Application
Let’s start by allowing a caller to select outgoing greetings in a different 
language. When a call is answered by Amanda, processing begins at the 
Company Greeting mailbox (which is 990 by default.) After the greeting is 
played, processing (by default) continues at mailbox 991 which plays the 
caller Instructions. During either the Greeting (990) or the Instructions (991) 
you can give the caller the option to press a digit to hear the Instructions in a...

250 Installing [email protected]
language system prompts the caller hears. To change the system prompts to 
another language we must use tokens (and of course have installed the 
appropriate language prompts).
Using Amanda’s Tokens
The token to change system prompts is L(). To change to the Mexican 
Spanish system prompts, use L(MEXICAN) provided that the Mexican 
Spanish system prompts file resides in the Amanda directory and is named 
MEXICAN.IDX (if your system has a Rhetorex voice board) or...

Chapter 16: Programming Examples 251
NOTE:There are several ways this same activity could have been 
accomplished. For example, instead of using the 
G(981) to-
ken, mailbox’s RNA Chain could have had 981 in it. (We 
use the RNA Chain, since Amanda returns Ring No An-
swer after successfully performing the tokens in the Exten-
sion field).
Another Consideration
This works for most situations. However, there is one final consideration. 
What happens if the caller enters an invalid extension or choice? By...

252 Installing [email protected]
To have callers always access the proper language Instruction mailbox, you 
can add a control structure to Amanda. In this example, we might perform 
the following:
1. If an alternate language is selected, remember which language was 
selected.
2. Before playing the default Instruction mailbox, determine which lan-
guage Instruction mailbox should play and continue processing at that 
mailbox.
Using Amanda’s Tokens
This could be accomplished with tokens as follows:
1. To...

Chapter 16: Programming Examples 253
This configuration now changes Amanda’s standard processing and keeps 
the caller connected to the correct language Instruction mailbox. It works 
because whenever a new call is answered, Amanda initializes the %S tokens 
to  (the empty string). Therefore, if the caller never presses 1 for Spanish, 
then %S1 is never set to the value MEXICAN and control is always passed 
on to mailbox 991 from mailbox 992.
Order Shipment Information
This example illustrates how you...

254 Installing [email protected]
Application
The application is as follows:
1. Ask the caller to enter an order number (let’s assume that it is five 
digits).
2. Determine whether or not the corresponding order has shipped.
3. If the order has not shipped, inform the caller. Otherwise, tell the caller 
the date the order was shipped.
In order for Amanda to determine an order’s shipped status and its ship date, 
she needs to retrieve information from some source. One possible way she 
can obtain the data...