# Asterisk Project : Auto-attendant and IVR Menus

Added by malcolmd , edited by mdavenport on Sep 23, 2010

In this section, we'll cover the how to build voice menus, often referred to as auto-attedants and IVR menus. IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, and is used to describe a system where a caller navigates through a system by using the touch-tone keys on their phone keypad.

When the caller presses a key on their phone keypad, the phone emits two tones, known as DTMF tones. DTMF stands for Dual Tone Multi-Frequency. Asterisk recognizes the DTMF tones and responds accordingly. For more information on DTMF tones, see Section 440.3. DTMF Dialing.

Let's dive in and learn how to build IVR menus in the Asterisk dialplan!