ie: LEG1 --> Leg1 Of call LEG2 --> The call you are sending out with Dail()
Why would you need to send the ENTIRE call out the other trunk?
If you are waiting for someone to answer, have them hit something if they answer, otherwise send it along to another trunk.
If your 800-411 operators are at their houses, why aren't they using sip phones? If they are using regular phones, and once the operator gets the number you want to grab it back to the asterisk system, just have the operator issue a # to transfer it (even over analog lines), and or issue a Dial(#) command on the trunk.
I don't really know what you are trying to do, but 'grabbing it back'. I think the issue lies with your dialplan logic more then, 'asterisk is junk'.
It was/is a Nortel Modular ICS unit with Cinphony ACD software installed. Had 2 PRI cards in it, and I believe 48 phone stations. Also had a nortel norstar voicemail system. Oh yeah, if you click too fast in the webinterface for the voicemail, the entire voicemail system locks up *sigh*.
Now Now... be nice. I'd actually consider myself pretty smart when it comes to Asterisk. I personally enjoy the programming that I can do with it and the fact that when it doesn't do something just the way I like it, I can make it do it with a little prodding.
Beyond a basic PBX? When we were first checking out Asterisk to see how it worked (we were looking at offering VoIP and now do offer it using Asterisk on the backend), we had a wholesale provider that provides us with dial-up numbers just vanish out of the blue. Of course this resulted in literally hundreds of phone call and our call center was swamped.
We realized we had a problem.. when I thought... hrmm asterisk!
About 5 minutes later and 50 lines of code the asterisk system was now routing calls.. If a user selected they were not able to get online and getting error 691 asterisk looked at their CALLERIDNUM, dipped into our dial-up number database, and read back a new number to the customer... warning them of course to check if it was local.
You said: For example, out of the box Asterisk won't allow me to grab a call back once I've dialed it out without waiting for the called party to hang up.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Grab it back to what?
You are running a (what sounds like) single queue and you can't figure out how to setup asterisk?!
Well you are right you DO have some major issues... I called your number... Not only was there an aweful echo, but there was no hold music... what can't figure that out?
I have asterisk running, no echo, hold music is fine, handeling tons of calls a day.
Exactly what major 'hacks' did you have to do to get your agents to log into the system, and then do CDR on them and the queue?!
If you mean you had to program AgentCallbackLogin(xyz||) then I have no sympathy for you.. that's not a hack, that's simply programming your PBX! You have to do that with any PBX system you put in... It just happens that asterisk has some very nice config file instead of a clunky phone interface or beeps.
This remind me of a story a friend of mine told me. He told his company NOT to purchase a 3com VoIP system, but they didn't listen. They had nothing but grief thereafter. The 3com VoIP system would not read line voltages correctly from a Vonage ATA (they were using Vonage for phone lines for some reason). Further, it would not work with 'SIP', as 3com had their own proprietary protocol. It was later found out that 3com firmware had a bug in it that prevented the Vonage line from hanging up. SO they downgraded... then other things broke.
This is exactly why we are dumping our Nortel phone system for Asterisk. Proprietary stuff is junk! The Nortel crashes, drops calls, is clunky. The ACD monitoring software (Cinphony) REQUIRES that it be run on an IIS server as 'Administrator' rather then the Internet account. When questioned the company said "yeah don't put that server on the outside of your firewall". I said what?! That's not acceptable, you can't run an application as 'administrator'. They said 'well that is how it runs, sorry'.
Problem is, once you have a large system like that put in for a call center, you can't exactly "just return it". We spent the good part of 2 years fighting the company that put in the Nortel and Cintech (Makers of Cinphony) to get it to work right. To this day it only transfers a call out of a queue to a land-line when it feels like it.
Oh and don't even get me started about "The routing resources needed for this call are not available" if you have a transfer to an external number from one of the menu trees on the Nortel.... apparently you can only have 1 outbound transfer from a CCR tree?!?!
This is why I hate proprietary software.... it doesn't work, and they don't support it!
Ok, Well that's great for companies that have money to blow. The $40,000 we blew on our Nortel system was not well spent. The system is a piece of junk, runs on os/2, crashes at least once every 2 - 3 months, and randomly drops calls. Oh yeah.. and we've maxed out our queues, there is a limit on the number of mailboxes you have, and routing is clunky.
We're in the process of upgrading to an Asterisk system because... well... because it just does 'everything'.
Uhh.. there is really nothing wrong with line numbers and gotos. If, XYZ, then goto blah@macro-do_this.
If you can't program Asterisk, you are just a stupid moron who can't read and learn, I'm sorry. Asterisk is a PBX. If you want accounting, load an accounting module. If you are looking to sell PBX systems, presumably once you've built a system or two, you'll know what you need! If you are looking for something for work.. the 'clunky' interface is what makes Asterisk so great! PERL is not clunky. If I want Asterisk to do XYZ, I can literally make it do that in my LANGUAGE OF CHOICE!
I don't like SUDO. If someone has figured out my account password, and gotten through all other layers of protection.. I want them to have to figure out the root password.. not just sudo and enter my password again.
Same reason I don't allow root login through SSH and why I firewall the SSH ports on my machines.
Do you personally install a new water pump in your car.. or do you take it to the mechanic? I don't touch my car! Likewise, some people just should NOT ever touch their computer to do maintence to it... hire a certified professional.
Ok.. not flaming here...seriously.... every time someone complains about a winmodem it just makes me fume. Get a real modem. Don't complain about it not working under Linux. Even under windows it doesn't work right all the time. And if you get an app that sucks the CPU down for a few moments, you might get disconnected. Get a real hardware modem, and your connections will be much more stable.
Lack of drivers?! What are you smoking. Linux has more drivers out of the box then Windows does. I don't know how many times I've installed Windows and had to go hunt for drivers. Linux just 'works'. I was actually suprised.. the other week I installed Windows XP and on Windows Update found the driver! Granted it wasn't installed with the O/S but WU found it.. and installed it. Normally, however Windows sucks really bad for drivers out of the box.
But then again.. you ARE running as a user.. right? Ok.. that's what I thought, so even if you DID launch this app instead of saving it and checking it out first, and it WAS malicious.. it would still only be able to affect stuff in your isolated home directory (Which you DO backup.. right?). The system itself would remain stable.
Slashdot Mirror
Yate - Yet another telephony engine
I think that says it all... Asterisk is just nicer.
I think the problem is in your call logic.
ie:
LEG1 --> Leg1 Of call
LEG2 --> The call you are sending out with Dail()
Why would you need to send the ENTIRE call out the other trunk?
If you are waiting for someone to answer, have them hit something if they answer, otherwise send it along to another trunk.
If your 800-411 operators are at their houses, why aren't they using sip phones? If they are using regular phones, and once the operator gets the number you want to grab it back to the asterisk system, just have the operator issue a # to transfer it (even over analog lines), and or issue a Dial(#) command on the trunk.
I don't really know what you are trying to do, but 'grabbing it back'. I think the issue lies with your dialplan logic more then, 'asterisk is junk'.
It was/is a Nortel Modular ICS unit with Cinphony ACD software installed. Had 2 PRI cards in it, and I believe 48 phone stations. Also had a nortel norstar voicemail system. Oh yeah, if you click too fast in the webinterface for the voicemail, the entire voicemail system locks up *sigh*.
Well that's fine, if you don't mind paying the high cisco TAC fees each year to keep your contract open.
Now Now... be nice. I'd actually consider myself pretty smart when it comes to Asterisk. I personally enjoy the programming that I can do with it and the fact that when it doesn't do something just the way I like it, I can make it do it with a little prodding.
OH! Grab it back as in:
ME--->Queue
ME--->Given Number
You want to pull me back out of the queue? How about just have your operator transfer the call to an extension and punch in a callcode?
IE: XFER-->201
"Please enter the call code"
ENTER: 1123#
Your call codes wouldn't need to be that long as you could recycle them.
Beyond a basic PBX? When we were first checking out Asterisk to see how it worked (we were looking at offering VoIP and now do offer it using Asterisk on the backend), we had a wholesale provider that provides us with dial-up numbers just vanish out of the blue. Of course this resulted in literally hundreds of phone call and our call center was swamped.
We realized we had a problem.. when I thought... hrmm asterisk!
About 5 minutes later and 50 lines of code the asterisk system was now routing calls.. If a user selected they were not able to get online and getting error 691 asterisk looked at their CALLERIDNUM, dipped into our dial-up number database, and read back a new number to the customer... warning them of course to check if it was local.
You said:
For example, out of the box Asterisk won't allow me to grab a call back once I've dialed it out without waiting for the called party to hang up.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Grab it back to what?
You are running a (what sounds like) single queue and you can't figure out how to setup asterisk?!
Well you are right you DO have some major issues... I called your number... Not only was there an aweful echo, but there was no hold music... what can't figure that out?
I have asterisk running, no echo, hold music is fine, handeling tons of calls a day.
Exactly what major 'hacks' did you have to do to get your agents to log into the system, and then do CDR on them and the queue?!
If you mean you had to program AgentCallbackLogin(xyz||) then I have no sympathy for you.. that's not a hack, that's simply programming your PBX! You have to do that with any PBX system you put in... It just happens that asterisk has some very nice config file instead of a clunky phone interface or beeps.
This remind me of a story a friend of mine told me. He told his company NOT to purchase a 3com VoIP system, but they didn't listen. They had nothing but grief thereafter. The 3com VoIP system would not read line voltages correctly from a Vonage ATA (they were using Vonage for phone lines for some reason). Further, it would not work with 'SIP', as 3com had their own proprietary protocol. It was later found out that 3com firmware had a bug in it that prevented the Vonage line from hanging up. SO they downgraded... then other things broke.
This is exactly why we are dumping our Nortel phone system for Asterisk. Proprietary stuff is junk! The Nortel crashes, drops calls, is clunky. The ACD monitoring software (Cinphony) REQUIRES that it be run on an IIS server as 'Administrator' rather then the Internet account. When questioned the company said "yeah don't put that server on the outside of your firewall". I said what?! That's not acceptable, you can't run an application as 'administrator'. They said 'well that is how it runs, sorry'.
Problem is, once you have a large system like that put in for a call center, you can't exactly "just return it". We spent the good part of 2 years fighting the company that put in the Nortel and Cintech (Makers of Cinphony) to get it to work right. To this day it only transfers a call out of a queue to a land-line when it feels like it.
Oh and don't even get me started about "The routing resources needed for this call are not available" if you have a transfer to an external number from one of the menu trees on the Nortel.... apparently you can only have 1 outbound transfer from a CCR tree?!?!
This is why I hate proprietary software.... it doesn't work, and they don't support it!
Ok,
Well that's great for companies that have money to blow. The $40,000 we blew on our Nortel system was not well spent. The system is a piece of junk, runs on os/2, crashes at least once every 2 - 3 months, and randomly drops calls.
Oh yeah.. and we've maxed out our queues, there is a limit on the number of mailboxes you have, and routing is clunky.
We're in the process of upgrading to an Asterisk system because... well... because it just does 'everything'.
Uhh.. there is really nothing wrong with line numbers and gotos. If, XYZ, then goto blah@macro-do_this.
If you can't program Asterisk, you are just a stupid moron who can't read and learn, I'm sorry. Asterisk is a PBX. If you want accounting, load an accounting module. If you are looking to sell PBX systems, presumably once you've built a system or two, you'll know what you need! If you are looking for something for work.. the 'clunky' interface is what makes Asterisk so great! PERL is not clunky. If I want Asterisk to do XYZ, I can literally make it do that in my LANGUAGE OF CHOICE!
Yeah.. uhh 911 is for emergencies... and the NON-Emergency number at the 911 communications center is for erm.. well non-emergencies such as this.
I didn't :P
Wow.. expert huh? I've had so many teachers in University that were NOT experts in their field...
I don't like SUDO. If someone has figured out my account password, and gotten through all other layers of protection.. I want them to have to figure out the root password.. not just sudo and enter my password again.
Same reason I don't allow root login through SSH and why I firewall the SSH ports on my machines.
Something I've often wondered about. Why are ATM PINs only allowed to be 4 digits?!?!
And you will also have no service when I with my V710 will :) Thanks, but I'll keep my V710 and just use the wired headset or speakerphone.
We have 800 numbers at work and we get the CLID.
Do you personally install a new water pump in your car.. or do you take it to the mechanic? I don't touch my car! Likewise, some people just should NOT ever touch their computer to do maintence to it... hire a certified professional.
I guess the point is that you shouldn't (be it Windows *or* Linux) have to go out and find drivers for your hardware... it should 'just work'.
What program did Unbuntu give you for default mp3 playing? Care to share? Perhaps someone can explain what might have gone wrong.
Ok.. not flaming here...seriously.... every time someone complains about a winmodem it just makes me fume. Get a real modem. Don't complain about it not working under Linux. Even under windows it doesn't work right all the time. And if you get an app that sucks the CPU down for a few moments, you might get disconnected. Get a real hardware modem, and your connections will be much more stable.
Lack of drivers?! What are you smoking. Linux has more drivers out of the box then Windows does. I don't know how many times I've installed Windows and had to go hunt for drivers. Linux just 'works'. I was actually suprised.. the other week I installed Windows XP and on Windows Update found the driver! Granted it wasn't installed with the O/S but WU found it.. and installed it. Normally, however Windows sucks really bad for drivers out of the box.
But then again.. you ARE running as a user.. right? Ok.. that's what I thought, so even if you DID launch this app instead of saving it and checking it out first, and it WAS malicious.. it would still only be able to affect stuff in your isolated home directory (Which you DO backup.. right?). The system itself would remain stable.
Yeah but if they won't look at it.. then why are they storing it?