1. config a Queue in freepbx

usually you want to config a queue to resonpse customer if they want to reach some live agent, so we config a queue first

2. config an IVR in freepbx

2.1 first we will add some voice in the IVR, you’d like to use a recording software, just notice that in asterisk, it requires to use wav format and 16bit, 8000HZ mono

2.2 add a recording

you can either upload the recording you finished in your pc, or use a ext. in system to record a new one

2.3 add IVR

now queue and recording is ready, we could add the IVR

in announcement, we select the recording we just done, and also we added two options to accept customer input, when customer hits 1, he will go queue 900, and when hits 2, he will go to ext. 5001.

4. add misc

then we need add a misc so the dialer could reach the IVR

remember this feature code 800, we will use it when configing campaign in astercc, you could use some other code as you like, just make sure it’s unique in your freepbx

now we finished the job in freepbx, you’d like to dial 800 from any extension, it supposes to bring you to the IVR.

5. config the campaign in astercc

login as admin, and go to campaign, add a campaign as following

make sure in “Inexten” you put the same code as in “misc application”, and in “Queue number” put the same queue number as your freepbx queue

6. add agent user in astercrm

you’d like to add some account for your agents if you want them get a popup form when they start answer customer calls, go to “Extension” to add astercrm account for your agents, make sure the account “extension” match the ext. in your freepbx

7. start dialer and test agent

before start dialer, you’d like to check your astercc.conf

make sure this parameter is configed as

doublecheckcampaign = yes

then restart astercc daemons

/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterccd restart

ask your agent login and as admin go to dialer page, start the dialer

as an agent, he will get a popup when customer answered the call and hit 1 for queue

8. check report

you could go to dialedlist to check the campaign status

* to get a working freepbx and asterisk easily, you could choose  astercc box, elastix, pbxinaflash or trixbox

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

• Trixbox
• Elastix
• Callweaver
• Freepbx
• Magiclink
• Fonesoft
• asterisk2billing (a2b)
• pbx in a flash
• …

so when you are using a asterisk based system and want to add call center or billing features, asterCC is a good choice.

asterCC solutions connect to your asterisk via AMI over tcp, so even a embedded asterisk equipment would use asterCC for billing or contact center.

asterCC works based callerid, so it doesnt care what’s the asterisk dialplan or how a agi work, as long as you have  correct callerid in your asterisk, asterCC could work with it.

Working as daemon service in linux, asterCC is stable and extremely efficient, we have test that it could support at least 240 simultanieous asterisk calls.

Open source as all web scripts is, there’s also the possibility that you make your own solution based astercc daemons, and with the 5 free simultanieous channel license it provides by default, no need to pay a dollar for small business, like to bill an asterisk pbx with users less than 12.

On 2007-08-08, we released the first version, 0.01beta, then 0.01, 0.03, 0.04 … it upgraded almost every month.

At the same time, we’d like to provide a realtime billing solution for asterisk, then we made tow daemons running in linux,  astercc and asterrc, astercc could catch live CDR from asterisk and asterrc could bill based rate and destination. We found this billing solution is perfect for hosted callshop, then we released asterCC on 2008-3-5, asterCC means the core of the system is the astercc daemon.

After asterCC released, we found that we could get a much better performance and much more features if we use astercc damon in asterCRM, then we start integrate astercc daemon into asterCRM, then we released 0.0461 and 0.047beta, so that asterCRM could work based astercc daemon smoothly.

So for now, both the billing solution and the call center solution need astercc daemon, then we decide rename them and package both into one software, we use asterCC as  the package name, asterCRM as call center solution as it was, and use asterBilling as the software for realtime billing.

asterCC
——asterCRM
——asterBilling

asterCRM and asterBilling are both open source software, but the point is that you have to purchase license to get more simultaneous channels support in astercc daemon, by default it provide 5 free license so you can experience how asterCRM and asterBilling works.

1. Download asterCRM package from sf.net, unzip it and put all files/folders to your WEBroot folder

cd /usr/src
wget http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/asterisk-crm/astercrm-0.047beta.zip
unzip astercrm-0.047beta.zip
mv ./astercrm-0.047beta /var/www/html/astercrm


It is highly advised that the whole eventsdaemon directory be moved to a more secure location like /opt and out of the WEB root directory (in step 2)


2. Create the directories and move eventsdaemon scripts:

in 0.047 beta, there’re several daemon scripts in the package:

• astercc, asterccd, asterccdaemon are for users who would use astercc to catch asterisk call records

• eventdog.sh, eventsdaemon.pl are for users who would use eventsdaemon to catch asterisk AMI events

Users could choose either method to use, the difference of these two methods could be found here

dialer.pl is for scheduler calls, but it’s not fully tested in 0.047beta yet

mkdir -p /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon
mv /var/www/html/astercrm/eventsdaemon/* /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/eventsdaemon.pl
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/eventdog.sh
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/astercc
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/asterccd
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/asterccdaemon

3. Create the MySQL database and tables, asterCRM requires mysql 4.1 or above

mysqladmin -uyourmysqluser -pyourmysqlpasswd create astercrm
mysql -uyourmysqluser -pyourmysqlpasswd astercrm </var/www/html/astercrm/sql/astercrm.sql

here we create the database named astercrm, you could use whatever db name you want use your configration to replace “yourmysqluser” and “yourmysqlpasswd”

4. Update /etc/asterisk/manager.conf to enable Manager connections

[general]
enabled = yes
port = 5038
bindaddr = 0.0.0.0
;displayconnects = yes

;the following line could be changed by yourself
[asterccdaemon]
secret = myasterccdaemon
read = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user
write = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user
deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
; only allow local access, if you want to run asterCRM on another server
; use your asterCRM ip to replace 127.0.0.1 or add a new line
permit=127.0.0.1/255.255.255.0

5. Modify astercrm.conf.php to fit your configuration

Mainly first you need set database connectoin parameters in section [database] so that you can login, then u can set other parameters via web pages.

6. Start Asterisk and daemons you use
   

There are two daemon modes you can choose, eventsdaemon mode or astercc mode.

• using eventsdaemon.pl (eventtype = event in astercrm.conf.php)
  

open eventsdaemon.pl using some editor, then modify for database setting and AMI setting.
try start the eventsdaemon.pl using
/opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/eventsdaemon.pl
if you could read:
“Message: Authentication accepted”
congratulations, your eventsdaemon works well
use ctrl + c to exit
or else, please check your database/AMI configration in eventsdaemon.pl

then start eventsdaemon as a daemon:
/opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/eventsdaemon.pl -d

At some point, for better performance, it may be desirable to delete old events from database, you can check eventsdaemon.pl for parameter “log_life”, which is for such purpose.

Also we provide a “watch dog”, it would help you restart eventsdaemon when it’s down, like asterisk restart.
Add this line to your start-up file
/opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/eventdog.sh
so that everytime your server start, eventsdaemon would be loaded

• using astercc (eventtype = curcdr in astercrm.conf.php)

modify /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/astercc.conf to fit your configuration
try start astercc using
/opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/astercc
if you could read like following line:
“Connecting to mysql database on 127.0.0.1:
Database connection successful.
Connecting to asterisk on 127.0.0.1 port 5038:
Asterisk socket connection successful.
Check asterisk username & secret:
Success
Monitor Start:
…(some log message)…”
congratulations, your astercc works well then use ctrl + c to exit
or else, please check your database/AMI configration in astercc.conf

then start astercc as a daemon:
/opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/astercc -d

Start up astercc daemons when system startup:
Note: This option can only fit to redhat-release system.
If you want astercc daemons to start automatically when you boot your
machine, you need to :

cp /opt/asterisk/scripts/eventsdaemon/asterccd /etc/rc.d/init.d
chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/asterccd
chkconfig –add asterccd

Advice: Configure your astercc restart once everyday, it’s not necessary, but it ‘s good for your astercc operation.
for example: you want to restart astercc at 0′clock everyday,just do the following line as root.
crontab -e
add a line:
0 0 * * * /etc/rc.d/init.d/asterccd restart
end of this file, the first “0″ figures minutes and the second “0″ figures hours.

a asterCC installation guid could be found here.

7. Set file&folder access

set upload foler permission, so that you can upload your csv/excel files then import data
chmod 777 /var/www/html/astercrm/upload

set configratoin file permission, so that you can modify asterCRM perference via web
chmod 777 /var/www/html/astercrm/astercrm.conf.php

8. Test

open your browse, then enter this address

http://localhost/astercrm

or

http://YOUR-WEB-SERVER-ADDRESS/astercrm

login with admin/admin