Configuring Post-Answer Playback

Post-Answer Playback plays a short pre-recorded announcement to the called party immediately after they pick up, before the agent and the called party are connected. The most common use is a call-recording disclosure ("This call may be recorded for quality purposes…").

When a call goes through a route with Post-Answer Playback enabled:

1. The called party answers.
2. They hear your announcement (usually 3–8 seconds).
3. During that window, your agent hears silence - that is normal.
4. When the announcement finishes, the agent and the called party are joined and the call proceeds normally.

If the announcement recording is unavailable when a call comes in, the system ends the call before it connects. The feature ensures the system always plays the disclosure - it never lets a call through silently if it cannot play the disclosure.

Before you start

You need:

• Sign-in access to your FreePBX dashboard.
• The announcement audio file ready on your computer, in WAV or MP3 format (the system handles any sample rate or channel layout - it'll be converted automatically on upload).
• Knowing which outbound route(s) the announcement should apply to.

Accessing Post-Answer Playback

To access Post-Answer Playback:

1. In the FreePBX top menu, go to Applications > Post-Answer Playback.

2. You'll see three tabs:

• Routes: turn the announcement on or off per outbound route.
• Recordings: upload, preview, and delete announcement files.
• Logs: see which calls played the announcement and which were ended because the recording wasn't available.

Uploading announcements

1. Click the Recordings tab.

2. Click Browse.
3. Choose your .wav or .mp3 file (≤ 5 MB, ≤ 60 s) from your drive.
4. Wait for the confirmation banner: usually under a second.

5. Your file appears in the list. The name will start with pap_ followed by your filename (for example, pap_hello_and_welcome_long). That prefix keeps these announcement files separate from any other system recordings on the PBX.

6. Click play to play the recording in your browser and confirm it sounds right before assigning it to a route.
7. To delete the recording, click delete.

If upload fails

Assigning recordings to outbound routes

1. Go to Connectivity > Outbound Routes.

2. Click to edit the route that should carry the announcement.

4. Switch to the Additional Settings tab.
5. In the Post-Answer Playback section:

• Set Enable post-answer playback to Yes.
• The Recording dropdown appears below it. Pick the recording you just uploaded.
• Click Submit at the top of the route page.

Applying the configuration

At the top right of every FreePBX page is a red APPLY CONFIG button that appears whenever you have unsaved changes.

Click it. After a few seconds the button disappears which means your changes are now active. The next call placed through that outbound route will play your announcement.

Verifying with a test call

1. Place a call through the route you just configured.
2. When the called party answers, they hear the announcement. The agent hears silence during this window — that's expected.
3. When the announcement finishes (usually 3–8 seconds), both sides are joined and you can talk normally.

✔️ Congratulations! You're done.

Checking the call log

Open the Logs tab in the Post-Answer Playback tab.

Each row is one event. The most useful ones to recognize:

Use the filters at the top of the table to narrow by event type or date range.

Turning the announcement off for a route

1. Go back to Connectivity > Outbound Routes.
2. Click to edit the needed route and switch to its Additional Settings tab.
3. In the Post-Answer Playback section, set Enable post-answer playback to No.
4. Click Submit.

5. Finally click APPLY CONFIG.

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NOTE

The recording itself is not deleted and you can re-enable the route later, or use the same recording on a different route, without re-uploading.

Deleting a recording

In the Recordings tab, click Delete on the row.

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NOTE

You can't delete a recording while it's still assigned to an outbound route that has Post-Answer Playback enabled. Disable it on the relevant route(s) first, then delete.

Quick reference

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NEED HELP?

For help resolving common Post Answer Playback issues, see Troubleshooting Post-Answer Playback Issues .

If your issue isn't covered in the troubleshooting section , contact your CommPeak support contact and include:

1. The date and time of the test call, including your time zone.
2. The outbound route name.
3. The recording name you assigned.
4. A screenshot of the Logs tab from around that time.

That's enough for support to identify exactly what happened.