Message Notification!

[laren]

Would it be possible to have a confirmation that a message in a mailbox has been read? This is the only thing that is missing from this and ... well all other vmail software I have found. This is what we are tryin to do at our trucking company.

 

1- Dispatcher leaves message in mailbox for driver.

2- Driver dials in to listen to message.

3- Later Dispatcher dials in to see if driver has received message. (ie. message confirmation)

4- Dispatcher can admin mailbox of driver (ie. change message for driver for a new job up the next day)

 

I've looked all over the net and CANNOT find any software that can date and time stamp confirmation of mailboxes read.

[MrFarmdog]

Laren

 

I am not an expert on this but here is how I think I would approach it:

 

1) Driver dials into the system and listens to voice prompt saying (enter mailbox number and password)

2) After the driver enters the mailbox number and password push them through an OGM whos sole purpose is to capture the most recent mailbox access info in a log

3) From that OGM pass them directly to the mailbox to listen to messages

 

The purpose of this log is to keep the most recent time and date of access to messages. Variables I would look to capture in the log include (but may not be limited to) the following:

 

%MailBox%

%Passcode%

%Date%

%Time%

 

If you use the SAVEDATA plugin as it will create the log on first use and then create one record for each mailbox as it is accessed. The drawback of this OMG is that it will only keep one record per the first element in the list, so if you use %MailBox% as the first element and multiple people log in to check message you would only keep the most recent persons info

 

You can also use the 'Add Entry To Special Log' funtion that will capture an entry for every time someone accesses a mailbox. This can be helpful for historical purposes but it will grow over time. This can be used to create one log or a separate log for each mailbox

 

In it's simplest form you could open logs created in either of these scenarios and read the results, which may suit your immediate needs. But, if you captured a similar log for messages left, then you could pull the %last message left% time and the %last mailbox access% time from both logs and compare the two, then based on that you could log into the system to check driver message access status and play a message that says either "There are no unchecked messages for driver %driver%" or "Driver %driver% has three unchecked messages".

 

I am sure someone with more experience can tell you some slick way to do this but with my limited knowledge these are my thoughts. Bottom line is that it is definately doable and you have a lot of flexability of how to capture, access and present the information (including web access and email notifications).

 

Hope this helps.