make asterisk your call center

If you have a a2billing working already, you may want to add some more features, like make it work as a hosted callshop, here we’ll introduce how to add callshop feature using asterbilling.

1. add a new conf in your a2billing

add a new conf like [agi-conf2] in a2billing.conf, make sure you have the changed the following options:

; Manage the answer on the call

answer_call = NO
play_audio = NO
use_dnid = YES
number_try = 1
say_balance_after_auth = NO
say_balance_after_call = NO
say_rateinitial = NO
say_timetocall = NO
cid_enable = NO
cid_auto_assign_card_to_cid = NO

anyway, disable all prompt & announcement

2. add new dialplan in asterisk extensions

by default, sip peer generated by a2billing will use context a2billing, so we add

[a2billing]
; for asterbilling booth
exten => _X.,1,DeadAGI,a2billing.php|2

3. add costomer in a2billing

then we add a customer in a2billing, make sure you enabled sip or iax account, then click the “generate” button and click “reload” link

also u may want to set this customer as “postpay” and a big number for the limit coz you would not charge customer in a2billing, just make sure this customer could make calls with no problem

4. set your ip phone

go to “List Sip-friend” or “List iax-friend” get the username/secret for your phone, then try make a call, if everything goes well, u should make a call successfully

5. add clid in asterbilling

go to asterbilling and create clid using the username(if there’s callerid defined for this customers, use callerid instead) in sip-friends

6 login as groupadmin/operator and enjoy

In a virtual office, you will have few receiption but they can answer calls for hundred company, in such case, they should know which number customer dialed so that they dont mess up the calls, now we introduce u how to build a virtual call center using astercrm & asterisk.

1. add extension for receiption

open your browser and go to freepbx, click extension on left menu and add extensions for your receiption, here we have three extensions: 8000, 8001 and 8888

2.  add a queue for your receiptions which would be used to answer incoming calls, we only add 8000 and 8001 in this queue

and u can set some options for this reciption queue

3. add a trunk which could be used for incoming calls

and the most important, set registry for this trunk so that u can get calls in

4. add a inbound route so that the receiption queue could answer your incoming calls

now make a call to your DID number, if everything is allright, phones of receiption should ring

5. go to astercrm and add account for your receiptions

6. add trunkinfo so your receiption could get some information about the number customer dialed

here Trunk Channel should be the username of your trunk, not trunk name in freepbx

7. login as a receiption accound and try make a call

when ringing

when talking

this tutorial could be used on trixbox, elastix or any other system using freepbx, also u can config receiption account and dialplan by your self.

There are three rates in asterBilling, reseller rate, callshop rate and customer rate.

• reseller rate: the rate admin sell to reseller
• callshop rate (group rate): the rate reseller sell to callshop (group)
• customer rate: the rate callshop sell to customers

Rates in asterBilling could be inherited, for example, here’s two records in resellerrate

dialpreifx = 0086
number length = 0
connect charge = 0.2
init block = 60
rate = 0.2
billing block = 60
resellerid = 0

dialpreifx = 0049
number length = 0
connect charge = 0.4
init block = 60
rate = 0.4
billing block = 60
resellerid = 0

Because we dont specify which reseller is this rate for (resellerid = 0), this rate could be used for all resellers.  So what if some resellers want to change this rate rather than use this “default” rate? quite simple, just add another rate for the reseller:

dialpreifx = 0086
number length = 0
connect charge = 0.2
init block = 60
rate = 0.2
billing block = 60
resellerid = 1

so for this reseller (resellerid=1), when customer dial a number begin with 0086, it will use this new rate, we  can call it “overwrite”, but for other resellers who dont set their rate, it would use the one admin setted.

Just like reseller rate, group rate could also be inherited.

A:
dialpreifx = 0086
number length = 0
connect charge = 0.2
init block = 60
rate = 0.2
billing block = 60
resellerid = 1
grouprid = 1

B:

dialpreifx = 0086
number length = 0
connect charge = 0.4
init block = 60
rate = 0.4
billing block = 60
resellerid = 1
grouprid = 0

C:

dialpreifx = 0086
number length = 0
connect charge = 0.4
init block = 60
rate = 0.4
billing block = 60
resellerid = 0
groupid = 0

so rate C is a rate for all reseller and all group,  rate B is for all groups in reseller 1, rate A is only for group 1.

Through inherit rate, admin could be much easier to control the rates, like just set one rate for all resellers, and adjust some when they require some difference, also reseller could just set one rate for his callshops, and only do minor change to provide different rate plan.

There’re some parameters in file astercc.conf for astercc daemons. We can change them to get a beter performance for asterisk billing.

please note that u need to restart asterrc daemon to reload configration.

refreshrate = 60

refreshrate is the seconds asterrc daemon reload data from database, when u change asterBilling setting a lot, like rate, clid … , u need this parameter, but once your system is stable, u can set it to -1, so that after asterrc load the data when it start, it would not read from database again and again.

refreshlock = 30

The seconds we refresh data for astercclock to lock booth, or lock group, reseller.

calculateallcdr = no

when set to yes, asterrc will re-calculate all records with groupid =-1 or resellerid = -1 in mycdr table, this could be used when u want to calculate the CDRs with no billing .

calculateoldcdr = no

when set to yes, asterrc will re-calculate all records in mycdr table, this could be used when u want to calculate the history CDR. This could be used when your rate changed and you want to reset all credits.

callbackbill = src

; src: bill src only
; dst: bill dst only
; both: both src and dst

removeNonSysCDR = 0

; if we need use asterrc to remove CDR with resellerid = -1 or groupid = -1

removeNoAnswerCDR = 0

; if we need use asterrc to remove no answer CDR