IVR Menus

IVR Menus

An IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menu is the “press 1 for sales, press 2 for support” front door for your inbound calls. It plays a greeting, listens for a keypress, and routes the caller to the destination wired to that key.

Nova PBX → Call Routing → IVR Menus lists every menu with its extension, name, number of wired keys, no-input timeout, and status. Search filters by name or extension.

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How an IVR Works

1. A caller dials your number; the inbound route (or another IVR-facing path) points at the IVR’s extension.
2. The IVR plays the on-entry greeting (“Thanks for calling Acme — press 1 for sales…”).
3. It waits up to the no-input timeout for a digit.
4. A wired digit routes the caller to that key’s destination.
5. An unwired digit or no press replays the greeting and lets the caller try again, up to the menu’s retry limit.
6. Once the retries run out, the caller routes to the Timeout mapping (if they never pressed anything) or the Invalid input mapping (if they kept pressing unwired digits).

When the caller runs out of tries

The Timeout and Invalid input mappings fire after the retry limit, not on the first miss — so a caller who simply hesitates gets the menu again before being routed anywhere.

If the relevant mapping isn’t wired, the menu falls back to whatever is on key 0, the usual operator key. Only if that is missing too does the call end. Wiring either the matching mapping or 0 is what keeps an indecisive caller from being hung up on.

The no-input timeout accepts 5–120 seconds and defaults to 10. Values below 5 seconds are treated as 5 — under that, callers who are still listening to the greeting get counted as no-input.

Creating a Menu

1. Click Add IVR menu.
2. Fill in General: Name, Extension (3–10 digits, fixed after creation), No-input timeout (seconds), and Enabled.
3. Click Create IVR menu — you land on the edit page, where the greeting and key map become available.

The Enabled switch doesn’t stop the menu yet

Turning Enabled off stops phones on your PBX from dialing the menu’s extension. Calls that reach the menu from an inbound route or another menu are still answered by it. To take a menu out of service, point the inbound route (or other path) that sends calls to it at a different destination.

Dialing a Menu from a Phone

Any phone on your PBX can dial an IVR menu’s extension to enter that menu, the same way it dials a colleague. This is handy for testing a menu or for staff who want to use it themselves.

An IVR extension can’t reuse a number that already belongs to an extension, ring group, queue, conference room, paging group, group mailbox, parking lot (park extension or slot), department, or another IVR menu. SIPSTACK refuses the save and tells you what holds the number.

If an older setup already has two things on the same number, a dialed internal number goes to the first match in this order:

1. Extension (a phone)
2. Ring group
3. Group mailbox
4. Parking (park extension or slot)
5. IVR menu
6. Not a valid number

Dialing an internal number that nothing on your PBX uses plays “This number is not in service. Please check the number and try again.” and ends the call.

The On-Entry Greeting

The greeting is what callers hear the moment they enter the menu — without one, they get silence, which most callers read as a dead line. On the edit page, the On-entry greeting card offers two paths:

• Generate from a voice — type a script, pick a voice, and render it with text-to-speech. Quick-pick templates (“Welcome”, “After hours”, “Department routing”) give you a starting script.
• Pick from library — reuse a greeting or announcement already saved in your media library.

Once set, the card shows the current greeting with Replace and Remove actions. Keep greetings to 10–20 seconds.

Note

The Direct sound reference (advanced) field in the General section is a power-user fallback: a sound filename pre-uploaded to the phone system, used only when no greeting is set above. Most setups should leave it blank.

The Key Map (DTMF Actions)

The Key Map section wires keypresses to destinations. Click Add key mapping to open the editor dialog:

• Key — digits 0–9, *, #, plus two special keys: Timeout (no digit pressed within the no-input timeout) and Invalid input (an unwired digit pressed). Keys already mapped don’t appear in the picker; a key can’t be changed after it’s added — remove the mapping and re-add it instead.

• Destination — where the caller goes:

  Destination	Effect
  Extension	Ring a specific phone.
  Ring Group	Ring a shared line.
  Call Queue	Hold the caller in a queue with hold music.
  Conference Room	Drop into a conference bridge.
  Voicemail	Send straight to a mailbox.
  Aura AI Voice Agent	Hand the caller to an AI agent (shown when your org has Aura agents; draft agents must be activated first).
  External Number	Forward to an outside number.
  Directory	Let the caller find a person by last name — see Directory (dial by name).
  Hangup	End the call.

• Description — optional label shown on the key list (e.g. “Sales team”).

Existing mappings list in key order with Edit and × (remove) actions on each row.

Tip

Always wire the Timeout and Invalid input keys — typically to an operator extension, a ring group, or voicemail. Without them the menu falls back to key 0; if that isn’t wired either, the caller hears a short goodbye prompt and the call is disconnected. On a main line, that means callers who hesitate never reach anyone.

Directory (dial by name)

A key mapped to Directory lets callers reach a person without knowing their extension number. Pick Directory as the destination in the key-mapping dialog; it needs no other setting.

What callers hear

1. The caller enters the first three letters of the person’s last name on the keypad.
2. SIPSTACK plays the name of the first match.
3. The caller presses 1 to be connected, or # to hear the next match.

Each search shows up to 9 matches, and callers get 3 search attempts per call.

Who is listed

Every active extension with a name is listed. A directory only ever lists people in your own account.

For each person, callers hear the name they recorded when setting up their voicemail. If they haven’t recorded one, SIPSTACK speaks the extension’s name instead.

Hiding someone from the directory

An admin can leave a person out: go to Nova PBX → People & Extensions → Extensions, open the extension, and turn on Hide from directory. Only admins can change this setting; users cannot hide themselves.

Note

Directory is only available as an IVR menu key. It can’t be chosen as the destination of an inbound route or any other call-routing setting.

Nesting menus

Chaining one IVR into another (sub-menus) isn’t available from the key-mapping editor today — destinations cover extensions, ring groups, queues, conferences, voicemail, AI agents, external numbers, the dial-by-name directory, and hangup. Keep menus to a single layer; it’s also what callers prefer.

Editing and Deleting

Click a row to open the editor; Save changes persists the General fields (greeting and key-map changes save immediately as you make them). Delete via ⋯ → Delete on the list — a confirmation dialog reminds you that inbound routes targeting the IVR must be repointed.

Note

IVR changes are staged on your PBX configuration — click Apply Changes in the banner at the top of Switchboard to push them live to your phone system.