Customer has asked for this,anyone have any brilliant ideas or done this before?
Customer has a system with a voicemail built in (Samsung DCS with a Cadence)but I don't think that the system alone can handle what they are asking for.
They want to be able to say press 1 for sales 2 for service.
Lets say they press 1 for sales they would then be prompted to enter their 3 digit area code and the call would be transferred to the desired internal extension or outside number.
Same for the service menu.
But lets use 519 as an example if they enter it after pressing 1 for sales it goes to one destination and if entered after pressing 2 for service it goes to a different destination.Customer does have centrex trunks already so transferring callers outside the building is not a problem.
Is there an outboard unit that could handle this connected up to analog ports from the phone system?

I suppose you could do this with a Vodavi Dispatch, but they don't make the analog version anymore. It wouldn't be fun, because you would have to build a mailbox for every area code.

Perhaps some kind of IVR?

I think it has to be IVR. In any VM you wouldn't have enough buttons to cover all possible area codes unless there are not more then 8 or 9. In that scenario you can create Routing manue 1 & 2 and each area code would correspond to apropriate respond. You would have to create virtual mailboxes that would match area codes. let say you have 519, 520 & 521 area codes. I would create 3 Routing mailboxes: 519,520 & 521 with apropriate Greetings in each. After customer dial any of those area codes I would say: " Please dial 1....9 for assistance and send a call outside or iside. I think it might work.

I can visualize how it should work.The voicemail can have 1000 mailboxes so that's not a problem but it's the :
dial 1 for sales and then enter 519 send it to ext.201
dial 2 for service and then enter 519 send it to 1-555 -123-1234
My thought was to run 1 into a virtual sales mailbox with a greeting of "Please enter your area code" then by dialling the area code it would dial out of the virtual sales mailbox and go to the 519 mailbox which would have either an extension dialled or outbound forwarding turned on.
The service side would run the same as the sales side,into a virtual service mailbox which would then prompt for your area code.
That's where I would run into a "problem" because the voicemail would treat a 519 mailbox the same and not care if the caller routed down the sales side or the service side.And the destination for service with a 519 area code would be different then a sales destination for the same area code.
It needs separate tables built under both the sales and service sides.That's why I don't think the voicemail is capable of doing it but an outboard system could easily do it.
Keep any ideas coming,the customer says this is a project that they want to implement.It's an interesting solution that they want but I need to figure out how to do it.

Ya we can do this on the Tadiran using Pathfinder which is a PC that routes automatically by area code and or prefix.

I think IP Office with Voice Mail Pro would be able to do this. It would be a bunch of routing inside of the VM.

How many area codes are you talking about?

Not sure exactly how many ,not all North American ones but probably more than 1/2.

Not knowing how the Samsung VM works this is just a guess....
What about an auto attendant that asks for the area code FIRST then once it routes to a mailbox for area code 519 it asks for sales or service?

If that won't work I think it's time to think about a third party IVR/VM

pvj, have you discussed $$$ with the customer? Better do it now, rather than after you've spent a week nailing down the details. I'm thinking 10-15 thousand $$$, American! And, I think I'm probably low-balling it.
How many times has a customer looked at a proposal that does everything he wants, and says,"Oh, I didn't think it would be THAT much" And, then gets someone else to do a 1/2ass job that won't do one tenth of the original spec, but he's happy and wonders why you couldn't do it! John C.

I believe a Comdial Keyvoice voicemail would do the trick. Analog ports are available.

Here's a description of how it works. In short, the Auto Attendant that answers the call is programmed to look for a match in the database after it receives digits from the customer.

To route incoming calls based on the contents of a database lookup file:
1. Construct a database file indicating the keypresses callers can enter and the resulting boxes to which the calls should route. Save the file using a conventional filename (1 to 8 character filename plus a 1 to 3 digit extension).
2. Create a Routing box.
3. Select DATABASE LOOKUP in the Routing box field ROUTE CALL BASED ON.
4. Send calls to this Routing box to access the database. This Routing box is accessed in the same manner as any system Routing box. It can be an Initial Box, can be programmed as a DESTINATION FOR DIGIT in another Routing box, as
the destination in a GO TO BOX field, etc.
When a Routing box uses a database lookup file to route calls, the DESTINATION FOR DIGIT fields are not used. Therefore, if you want callers to have access to an operator by dialing 0, for instance, then 0 must be included in the database lookup file.

suppose you provide a separate toll free number for different parts of the country to call. route the specific call source to an auto attendant that simply offers two choices. no area code information necessary.keep it simple

That wouldn't work for them.They service all of Canada and quite a bit of the US.Sales and service are handled by region by different people most of them outside the customers physical building.

Sometimes you have to do grunt work. I just built ARS on two network sites within the same area code but. Keep in mind 541 covers 95% of Oregon and these two sites are LD to each other. I had to build over 200 entries at each site.

I would use something like Caller ID routing (Assuming that the callers are calling from the area code in question) to keep it simple for the caller. Either that,set up 1000 boxes.