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Asterisk Dictation?

Posted by jkeegan123 on Wed, 05/31/2017

Does Thirdlane have the option for Asterisk Dictation? I recently read about Asterisk having a Dictation function, and I did not see how to access it in Thirdlane. Is this something that needs to be added or enabled?


Submitted by jkeegan123 on Thu, 06/01/2017 Permalink

Today I sell doctors and lawyers Olympus dictation handheld devices. They dictate their reports or briefs into recording devices and sync the recording device with their PC, which takes the recordings to a share on the Windows server. Once they are on the Windows server, the back office people take care of things. If this feature was activated in Asterisk / Thirdlane it could be helpful.

Submitted by eeman on Sat, 06/03/2017 Permalink

the expense of trying to make a phone system do this, and then do it where you didnt have to go find a desk phone, is significant. This is not the job of a phone system. You'd be litterally staring down $5k or more in development costs when I'm sure there's probably a dozen smartphone apps out there for $4 that already do all of that. Your dictiation device is portable, having a doctor go find a deskphone is less practical.

Submitted by jkeegan123 on Fri, 06/23/2017 Permalink

I only asked because I saw the folder "/var/spool/asterisk/dictate" and found that the feature exists. Since I sell devices to do this now, I wanted to know how far Asterisk and/or Thirdlane had taken this in case it comes up in the sales process. I agree that smartphone apps are easier, so much so that I don't know why people want handheld recorders, but they do ... I'd rather know the capability than just tell people what to use, some difficult clients make a sale based on features that exist that they will NEVER ever use. We've all been there I'm sure.

Submitted by eeman on Wed, 06/28/2017 Permalink

the Asterisk Dictate application is more of another kind of Record and Playback than it is anything really Dictation related. You have to specify the filename and playback a specified filename.

FWIW, Voicemail() is closer to the sort of dictation you're looking for than the Dictate app.