After elected “login”, then the current agent has been logged into the queue which belongs to the queue number, the queue was according to the state of all the agent be logged to assign the calls. After elected “pause”, then the agent has been logged are not be assigned phone calls whether he is busy or free. When elected logoff, the current agent were logged off  from the queue, the queue will not assign any phone calls to the agent.

Return to the management interface, enter the dial list below campaign find the queue number corresponding to the campaign name, click on the campaign “edit” to open.

Find queue number, indicate the agent to be logged in the queue number; Queue Context, the crew used the queue context, freePBX use the latest version is the current from-queue; Use Extension Channel For Queue, where there are two cases. One case is logged in default, do not be checked before “Use Extension Channel For Queue”, in the asterisk CLI to perform queue show.

Another case is to use” Use Extension Channel For Queue”, checked before “Use Extension Channel For Queue”, in the asterisk CLI to perform queue show.

Back to the management interface, enter the extension to find the user name of current agent, click “edit”

Channel option, sip/8003, 8003 is the current agent extension.

Dial list exists phone number, the “start work” can be used properly. The phone number in dial list can be added manually or through batch import entry. Make the dialnumber in dial list, agent can click on “start work” to call outbound.

Click the “Start work”, the system will be calling dialnumber in the dial list one by one, at the moment the window about information will pop up, such as “input customer information”, “add records” pop-up window.

When the call is connected, the agent can communicate with customers to get the information input, the upper left corner points out the system is recording. After the call, click on the “hang up”, then the system will turn into count down and dialing the next dialnumber automatically.

Agent can set time in count down optionally, go into extension in management interface, find the editor belongs to user name,click and pop up a window says “Edit Account”

Find “dial interval”, setting“0”, the system default countdown in 30 seconds, setting greater than “0”, according to the number as the seconds of countdown. There are two or more than two dialnumbers in dial list will turn up count down, only one dialnumber can not be.

Agent can also stop work at any times as condition change, then the system will no longer auto-dial the dialnumber from dial list in agent interface.

Choose file

Choose file to upload, you can browse the files you want, or you can choose an existing file, then upload it. After successful upload, the data you want will upload to the system, then you can select the form, specify the data into the appropriate form.

Select customer, there will be corresponding to the fields of this form.

According to the data appear in front of several pieces of information, each vertical line corresponding to one information, information corresponding to the field appears to the left and the fields of the code will fill in the information at the bottom of the box.

Next, you must tick before “add” , and the data adding to the dial list at the same time, select the number corresponding to the phone, select the outbound time, if you want to be evenly distributed to agent, then you do not tick before “assign”, if you want a agent assigned to a designated, tick in front of the “assign”, and noted the number of the agent, if you want to assign two or three agent  you can with “,” separated. Choose your campaign, and click Import.

Before importing, when you make the phone number that will be imported to assign to a designated agent, then after importing is completely, return to the agent interface, you will find all the phone numbers waiting to be dialed in the dial list.

If you do not want to assign these phone number to a designated agent, you do not have to tick before “assign”, return to the agent interface, you will find there is not any date in the dial list from agent interface.

then all  date have been imported will be found  in dial list, the system do not assign to any agent.

dial list

Then you go back to “customer” page, you will find all the data has been imported successful in your customer data sheets, and all information corresponding to each field in form. At the same time, dial list also appear to all the same data has been imported, according to the dialing time to go to dial the number.

Add Campaign

Under the toolbar you will find Campaign Result, add.

Arrow points to the Campaign Result

Then it will pop up a window of Campaign Result

You can set up by yourself according to your own business maybe used in result name, it can be refused access, voicemail, dead number or other such results. The campaign name you can choose the campaign that you have established just now, or you may also specify the choice plan. Back to agent began to call the number from dial list, add a phone number

Arrow points to add a phone number to dial list, fill in the information completely, continue. You can also choose to bulk import, in order to import the phone number into dial list.

When the call is connecting, the screen will pop up a window for agent to record the customer information. According to call ends the agent may choose the call result setting up before corresponding to the state. Then click Update. System prompted to update successfully.

Right now you go back to see the dialed, you will find the results of a column in the Campaign Result information displayed. Allow you clearly to see the result of customer in the form of campaign result.

Then let we see the dailed, the system will prompted the call is answered or no answer, which results in the campaign result will be prompted to the form or how about answer and no answer. Management will consider screening out potential customers in its next outbound, object among those empty number, wrong number or do not want to keep the number of filtered out.

First, we find the search option to open the drop-down list, find the campaign result, input you want to keep in the back of the results, for example, you want to keep “refuse”or “voicemail,” enter the appropriate results, and select Options – “recycle”, so that these dailed numbers will be present to dail list again.

The numbers be recycled will present to dial list once again.

With this method, you may also filter out the wrong number or dead number to delete.

In this way, the dail list will save those numbers that you have already recycled unsuccessful once more, to make the next dial-up, to keep more potential customers.

Max trytime:  the maximum time we will try, if we have dialed the number more than a number, it would not dial any more

Recyle time: when to recyle the number, 3600 means  it will recycle the number after 3600 seconds if it dialed last time.

Min Duration: if the talking time is  equal or less than the min duration, it will be recycled.

Astercrm currently supports 2 modes of direct outward dialing(DOD);

Manager Mode

In this mode, the AsterCRM will dial the customer, and wait for the call to connect. Once the call is connected, it can be set to go to an IVR prompt to play any pre-recorded message or a wait message e.g “Please wait while we connect your call to an agent”. It can also be set to go into a queue, in which it will ring the phones of agents who are logged in, who in turn can answer the call and talk to the customer.

One of the key advantages of Customer Mode is that the only connected calls get transferred to your agents and there is no waiting for the calls to ring. Call ringing/setup time can take up to a minute and this can be time lost when multiplied by thousands of calls.

Another advantage is that you can make more calls than the number of agents that you have, e.g. you can make 10 simultaneous calls with 6-7 agents and maximize the answer/seizure ratio.

The disadvantage to this that the agents are required to answer the calls almost immediately, as failing to do so will result in the customer hanging on to the queue or connected to an IVR, which can result in customers hangup up prematurely, lost calls.

In addition to this, in this mode the agents will not have much time to see the customers details of who they are calling so lack of visibility of customer information might result in inaccurate presentation or missed opportunities due to lack of information.

Agent Mode

In Agent Mode, AsterCRM will dial the agent, once answered it will proceed to dial the customer/recipient. In this way, every customer or target will have an agent waiting to respond to them instantly.

When the call is finished, AsterCRM will implement a wait/cooling-down period (which can be defined/pre-set for each agent individually). This period can be set to something like 10-30 seconds, for various purposes. One example is to give agents some time to compile/update information to AsterCRM about the result of the call to the customer and such. AsterCRM will proceed to dial the next call once this period is over.

The main advantage of this mode is that the agent is more or less dedicated to the customer, the customer gets talking instantly, no waiting for agent to answer, and it provides a seamless transaction between dialing and connecting. In addition to that, the agent gets to brief up on the customer information prior to dialing so the customer identity is more or less known to the agent. One simple example is the agent will be able to address the customer by his name, which can be more personal and effective, e.g . Good Morning Mr.Joe, as opposed to not knowing the customer name.

Disadvantage of this mode is that time is lost while waiting for the ringing/calls to answer, which can lead to a significant amount of time lost in a situation where there is lots of calls.

Flow directions

If you want to use DOD function, you should add the dial list to system whichever DOD mode you want to use, but you must add some campaign for agent group before adding dial list.

1. Add Campaign

Go to the manager panel, click the “dial list” on menu to enter dial list manager page, you will find a button named “Campaign” on the top left corner:

astercrm diallist page

Click “campaign” button to entered Campaign page, add a campaign:

astercrm add a campaign

Fill correct configuration in these blank:

Campaign Name: give a name for this campaign;

Campaign Note: the description of this campaign;

Outcontext: assign which context in Asterisk it would be using when dials external number in DOD mode;

Incontext: assign which context in Asterisk it would be using when dials internal number in DOD mode;

Inexten: when using agent mode, leave a blank here; when using customer mode, if you fill some content in here e.g a queue number, the customer call will be set to go to this queue which you filled.

Queue name: assign a queue name use for simultaneous strategy when use predictive dialer, system could set the max counts of simultaneous calls base on the counts of member in this queue.

Group: assign this campaign to a group.

Max trytime: if dial to diallist number blong to this campaign, but the calls didn’t connected, then you can recycle the number, but if the retry time of this number has been to this count, then the system could not recycle this number.

Click the “continue” to complete adding;

l Add dial list

There are two way to add dial list, the one is in dial list manager page to add it one by one; the other on is import dial list by excel in import page.

Add in dial list page

When you have added campaigns, go back”dial list” page, click “Add” button to add a dial list record:

astercrm add a dilist

Fill correct configuration in these blank.

Number: the external number which auto dial;

Assign to: the extension of agent who you want to the record can be got.

Dialtime: the astercrm dialer will check it when dialer was started, if this time earlier than current time, the dialer will auto dial to number of this record;

Goup Name: select a group name which want to this record belong to;

Campaign Name: if you selected a group for this record, the campaign name belong to group you selected will list here, select one for this record;

Click the “continue” to complete adding;

Import by excel file

Click”Import” on menu to enter Import page, and click browse to select a excel file for upload:

astercrm import page

After upload, you can select a table (customer or contact) which will import the list, then the page like following fig will display.

Then you should fill filed number of table you selected in blank under the corresponding column you uploaded. Choose the “add” check box under page, add select the number of column which import as dial number to dial list, choose the”assign to” check add and fill extension of agent (it like the “assign to” of dial list add page) who you want to the record can be got, at last you should select group and campaign for dial list, e.g.:

Click the “Import” button to complete, then you can see the new list you import in dial list page:

Then you have got things ready for DOD, you can choose a DOD work mode for agent.

Start DOD

Manager mode

In this mode, you should start DOD in dialer page of manager panel.

Select a work group and campaign, and define how many simultaneous calls per dial. Click “Dial” to start DOD, you can monitor the active channel in this page.

Agent mode

In this mode, you must define the dial interval for agent or group in extension page of manager panel.

Define interval in “Adding Account” page:

Define default interval in “Adding group” page:

astercrm add group

The PRI of interval define for account is higher, if it was not defined, then the system where use default interval of group which the agent belong to.

Now, start agent mode DOD in agent portal page:

If there are some records of dial list assign to agent, he can click “Start work” to start DOD for himself, then “Start work” button turn to “Stop work”.

When a call hang up, the system will dial next call after seconds which admin define dial interval for agent or group. The work status space will display count down when system waiting.

If want to stop work, click”Stop work” button, then a validation page will pop-up such as following fig, it must use the correct group admin account and password which this agent belong to or admin account and password to stop work(if require password to stop word could be set in preference page).