Please add X_SkipCallScreening option to the OBiTalk interface.... I would like to continue using the simple interface at least until I become more comfy with the direct changes.
Good suggestion.
I would imagine that many people are gravitating to the OBi because of Google Voice. Putting this on the dashboard would eliminate most of the "How do I shut off GV's call screening questions.
I would agree with this also. But in addition, the one thing that I think the OBi could do better is to make that feature work faster. In Asterisk, if you know how (http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/asterisk-1-8-x-and-freepbx-users-how-to-not-answer-google-voice-calls-until-the-called-extension-answers/) you can do about the same thing (that is, send the DTMF "1" to Google Voice after the called party picks up the phone, then connect the audio path through), but it doesn't take nearly as long as in the OBi. When you use X_SkipCallScreening, at least on my units it seems to take anywhere from 2 to 4 seconds to connect the audio path through after you pick up the phone, whereas in Asterisk it takes under (I think actually quite a bit under) half a second.
What should happen when the user answers the call is that the device immediately answers the Google Voice line, waits x amount of milliseconds, sends a DTMF "1" tone of y duration, and then immediately connects the audio path through. Values x and y could even be made configurable (Perhaps X_CallScreenDTMFDelay and X_CallScreenDTMFDuration settings?) but my guess is that by default they could make x = 200 ms and y = 60 ms and in both cases that would be more than is necessary and it would still reliably connect.
That said, I know the only reason we need this setting at all is because Google Voice refuses to fix their stupid bug, where the setting that turns off call screening isn't honored if the call goes to a Google Chat destination. If the folks at Google would only fix their bug, the need for this setting would go away.