Pickup

Asterisk now comes with its own directed Pickup application, see bug 4865. This will conflict with the bristuff app_pickup. Therefore the current version of bristuff (0.3) changed the name of this application to DPickup.

Synopsis

 Pickup(extension[@context])

Description

This dialplan command allows you to pick up calls that are ringing a specific extension. The device which is ringing need not have callgroup or pickupgroup set, you just need to know the extension.
This application also allows you to specify partial extensions. For example, you have block 200 to 209 and you want to pick up any calls that my be ringing on those 10 phones, you just pickup 20 and it'll pick up the most recent ringing one. Another side effect is that you can pickup a call that a person might be making for an outbound call... rather cool :-)
An example for the dialplan is below, and installation can be accomplished by using astxs or manually modifying the Makefile.

New in Asterisk v1.4

If you use the special string "PICKUPMARK" for the context parameter, for example 10@PICKUPMARK, this application tries to find a channel which has defined a channel variable name PICKUPMARK with the same content as "extension".

So, if you a SET(GLOBAL(PICKUPMARK)=1234) in extension 123, the PickUp(1234@PICKUPMARK) will try to pick extension 123. See example below.

---

jperez: Warning Using a global variable seems like an awfull error to me. Every call made to extension 1234, 1235, etc will overwrite the global variable and so only the last call made to an extension can be picked up. I have tried in version 1.4.21.1 other way that works and uses channel variables, but you must pay attention to variable inheritance. So, in the dialplan you must implement pickup logic like:

exten => _*8.,1,Pickup(${EXTEN:2}@PICKUPMARK)
exten => _*8.,n,Hangup()

Don't set PICKUPMARK in the "extension" _*8. like in the example given below, that's nonsense. You should set the channel variable when making a call to the extension, something like:

exten => 1234,1,Set(__PICKUPMARK)=1234
exten => 1234,n,Dial(...)

Please take note of the two underscores before the variable name. That means "inherit unlimited depth". You should be using macros to define extensions, so better add that line to the macro. If you do so, your pickup logic will work seamlessly.

This is my first post so please feel free to edit this and correct it. I think someone more knowledgeable should edit the whole post and delete the misleading info. This has taken me a while to grasp, I hope that you find it usefull.

---

See bug/patch 5694:
Modified the Pickup application to accept multiple extensions pickup syntax,like

 Pickup(extension1&extension2&...)

For example,

 Pickup(601&602&603)

will try to pickup extension 601, 602, 603 sequentially, if one of them is in ringing state.

Example

 exten => _7.,1,Pickup(${EXTEN:1}@default)

 If phone with number 42 rings you can catch the call by dialing 742. You don't need to use the context, 
 exten => _7.,1,Pickup(${EXTEN:1}) works for all contexts.

Example using PICKUPMARK for Asterisk 1.4

 ; This configuration uses *8xxx to pickup extension xxx, so need to strip the first two digits of the extension
 exten => _*8.,1,SET(GLOBAL(PICKUPMARK)=${EXTEN:2})
 exten => _*8.,n,Pickup(${EXTEN:2}@PICKUPMARK)

Bristuff

Bristuff introduced its own Pickup application before Asterisk had its own (see Asterisk cmd BristuffPickup ). The Asterisk Pickup version is therefore renamed to DPickup in Bristuff >= 0.3.

Remark:

This command pickups up the dialed EXTENSION, not the ringing channel/device.
So when the dialplan says;

 200,1,Dial(SIP/100&SIP/101)

And someone calls extension 200
The call cannot be picked up by using Pickup(100@default) or Pickup(101@default)
But needs to be picked up using Pickup(200@default)

The context however is NOT mandatory

Multiple context pickup

If you have multiple contextes where calls are incomming,
for example external (for calls from outside) and internal (for internal calls),
you can use following pickup setup to get the pickup working:

 exten => _71XXX,1,Pickup(${EXTEN:2}@external)
 exten => _71XXX,2,Pickup(${EXTEN:2}@internal)

In the example above, you can pickup a caller from outside,
who is calling an extension (and going into the context external),
and also you can pickup a caller from internal call.

Troubleshooting

• Asterisk 1.4 fails to pick-up SIP-to-SIP calls (Oct. 2007)
• 9491: pickup_exec: No target channel found

See also

• Asterisk callgroups and pickupgroups
• Asterisk cmd BristuffPickup
• Asterisk cmd DPickup: Native Asterisk PickUp renamed by bristuff patches
• Pickup2, PickDown2 and Steal2 for Asterisk 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4
• AGX Extra Addons for Asterisk contains Pickup2 for Asterisk 1.4, no patching or bristuff is required.
• app_intercept by www.pbxfreeware.org: Intercept an unanswered call
• Asterisk cmd SIPCallPickUP: Experimental, not part of the Asterisk codebase
• app_bridge in bug/patch 5841 - similar to bristuff Steal - new in Asterisk 1.6
• New in Asterisk 1.4: app_ManagerRedirect: Break a bridged call and send called party to some context|exten|priority; see example here
• Asterisk cmd SLAStation and Asterisk cmd SLATRunk: Shared Line Appearance

---

Go back to Asterisk - documentation of application commands