make asterisk your call center

Predictive dialers, systems that automatically place outbound calls and deliver answered calls to agents; they are the key to using your sales force time as efficiently as possible in your outbound call center.

Here we use asterisk and astercrm to build a predictive dialer.

1. we need to install asterisk, for beginner you could use trixbox.
2. install astercrm, it could be on same server with asterisk or on a different one. the newest version is 0.046,  installation guide could be found here.
3. there's a bug in 0.046, if you have not used a previous version, you need fix the bug, execute these two line in your mysql:

        alter table diallist add creby VARCHAR(20);
        alter table diallist add cretime datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00';

4. login as admin/admin, go to "Manager" -> "preference", we need to set which context to use when make outbound call


the outcontext could be

[from-sipuser]
exten => _X.,1,Dial(SIP/TRUNK1/${EXTEN})

when a outbound campaign start, predictive dialer would first drop the phone number to this context, so this context should be your outbound context.

5. then we go  "Manager" -> "Extension" -> "Group Manage", click "Add" button to add a new group.


here we need to notice thw parameters: pdcontext and pdextensions, this mean how to handle the call when it's answered. Here, the context in extensions.conf could be something like

[from-trunk-customer]
exten => queue1, 1, Answer()
exten => queue1, n, Queue(tech-queue) 

when the call is connected, it could be redirect to queue "tech-queue" and answered by agent in this queue.

6. add a account as groupadmin, go "Extension" and click "Add", add a account, group is AstercrmGroup3, usertype is groupadmin



7. next, we should prepare a diallist, we could use "Import" function to import diallist from a excel or cvs file. The operation could be done using the groupadmin account we just added. Logout and then login as the groupadmin, go to "Import", select the local file, and then click "Upload"


"import" function could help us import phone numbers to diallist, we check the two check box on the buttom, the 0 in the select box, means the 0 column. click "Import" to continue, when finished, it will tell you "diallist : XXX records insert success", then we could to "Diallist" and check if it imported:


8. now every thing is ready, we could go "Dialer" to start, coz only a admin could start a predictive dialer, so we logout and login as admin again


we could click "Dial" button to start, the number in input box is the maximum channels number, dialer would stop once the concurrent channels reach this number, it could be modified as you like.

here're two reasons most possibly:

1. astercrm cant get asterisk evens, it's always empty in table events.

please check if eventsdaemon.pl starts, ensure database & asterisk parameters be correct in the script.

for astercrm 0.0456 or above, could try start eventsdaemon in debug mode, execute:

 eventsdaemon.pl

and check the output message.

2. Popup is disabled in astercrm configuration

in astercrm configuration file: astercrm.conf.php, the fellowing parameters are related to popup:

[system]

phone_number_length = 6

pop_up_when_dial_out = 1

pop_up_when_dial_in = 1

use perl script: eventsdaemon to replace the python script: ProxyMan

customer and contact could be related or irrespective

import/export datas online, include customer, contact, dial list

add survey module, administrator could add difference survey

survey result statistics

add monitor control in agent interface

all pop-up form is movable

browser title blinking and maximize when dial events happened

enter phone number and dial in agent interface

could trim zero in the callerid

multi-skin support

this release mainly imporved crm features and fixed some bugs in dialer.

 

asterCRM  0.0441 released:

1. improve management system

2. add extension status panel in user page and administrator page

3. improve compatibility with different astersion version