some customers find that they get a problem when import, it just gives a XML error, that’s because there’s too much data and no enough memory for php. find the php.ini for your apache line: memory_limit it could be like 16M or 20M, try change it bigger, say 64M so it looks like memory_limit = 64M save and exit, remember restart your apache before give the try.
The latest asterCRM has a great improvement in dialer, and with asterCRM, it’s quite easy to build a call center. Here’s a how-to for a outbound call center with Freepbx and astercrm. Following by this how-to, you can creat such a solution:
asterCRM dialer will call the numbers in your diallist, and when the call is connected, it would be redirect to a queue, where your agent will answer the call and talk the customers, they can do survey , sales or whatever you want.
* freepbx is a web gui for asterisk which is widely used in asterisk applications, like trixbox, elastix, pbx in flash …
- install freepbx
For freepbx installation, you can read the installation document from freepbx website https://www.freepbx.org. If you are using trixbox, elastix or pbx in flash, then u can skip this, it have freepbx build in already.
- install asterCRM, make sure asterCRM daemons (astercc and astercctools) are running
for asterCRM installation, go and check asterCRM wiki:
https://wiki.astercrm.org/index.php/AsterCRM_Installation#Using_the_install_script
- add extensions for your agents and set a queue to receive calls from asterCRM dialer
login into freepbx, start add extensions for your agent
then add a queue
- set group/user in asterCRM
next login asterCRM as admin, create group “outbound sales” and add extensions for agents you created above, go wiki for more detail
https://wiki.astercrm.org/index.php/Create_Group
https://wiki.astercrm.org/index.php/Create_Extension
make sure “Extension” matched “Outbound CID” or “Extension”(if outbound cid is blank) in freepbx
so now all your agents should get a username/password for asterCRM.
In asterCRM, it provides a survey features, so you can set survey for your customers, here will give you a simple introducation for this:
first you need to add a survey, login as admin/group admin go manager interface and click survey icon, click “Add” button for a new survey, you can add several options for one survey, and each survey it provides three kinds: radio, checkbox and text
Click the “item” link next to the option to enter items for this option
keep putting options and items until u finish this survey.
Then you can put a survey from the agent page
*when there’s a customer or contact in your record form, if u click the “Add” link of a survey, the result will be linked with the customer
Click the “Detail” link of a survey, u can get a statistic of this survey
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
In asterCRM config file: astercrm.conf.php, it provides a option, with the option, you can set the information displayed in the agent work page.
The parameter is “portal_display_type”, there’re two valid values, “customer” and “note”
When it’s “customer” mode, it would display all customers agent putted
customer mode
When it’s “note” mode, it would display customers with “note” and priority is greater than zero
note mode
In asterCRM, we can set some description for a trunk or a DID, so that when customer dial in, we could know which number he dialed or which trunk he dialed from. 
it’s very simple to set this, login as admin and go to management interface, select Trunkinfo, and then add the trunk or didnumber or both. 
this feature could be very useful for a virtual office, say you have some agent in the office, they answer phones for kinds of company, need to say different hello words for different company
You can import your data via web page in asterCC, in asterCRM, you can import customers, contacts and diallist, in asterBilling, you can import customerrate, grouprate and resellerrate, when import in asterCC, it will require you define how to map your data in excel/csv file to fileds in database.
say you have a rate table what to import as rate for callshop, filename is callshoprate.csv, the content is like
93,0,Afghanistan,0,1,14.5,60,1,2,15.03.08 18:22 9370,0,Afghanistan - Cellular,0,1,11,60,1,2,15.03.08 18:22 9379,0,Afghanistan - Cellular,0,1,11,60,1,2,15.03.08 18:22 35538,0,Albania - Cellular,0,1,10.5638,60,1,2,15.03.08 18:22
1. select your data file, asterCC support excel or csv format OR you can select a exsited file in your “upload” folderand then click “Upload”
then select callshoprate from the drop down menu on left
If this rate is for specific reseller/group, we can selec the reseller and group at the buttom, but here we leave is as “All”, means all groups in all reseller will use this rate by default
click “Import” to import the data, then u might get a Success prompt and see such page
if you only get 0 records from the message, go back and check if anything is wrong.
In astercrm, there’re some more options
asterCC package provides a call center solution and a billing solution for asterisk, the most important feature is, asterCC could work with all asterisk based solutions and no need do any modification to the original system, as we have tested, including:
- 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.
Dynamic Agent mode is very useful in a outbound call center, agents login to a queue and hear some music we definied in the queue, then predictive dailer start works, it dials customer numbers and once it get connected the dialer will redirect the call to the queue, and agent in the queue could hear a beep immediately then could start talking to the customer, it’s so quick that customer just think it’s a call from the agent. With asterCRM, agent could get customer information once the call get connected, here we’ll introduce how to set dynamic agent in freepbx and asterisk: First, we need to add some extensions and queues in FreePBX: add extensions: go to FreePBX extensions page, 
then we add a queue and choose a dynamic agent for it like following figure 
yes, if you want to add a dynamic agent for a queue, you should add a agent number with A in queue agent list, and we can notice that message from FreePBX. 
so we need to counfigure agent.conf in asterisk conf directory, here we add a dynamic agent which number is 1000, its passoword is 0000, name is Brad 
then we add a dialplan for agent login in extensions_custom.conf like following line: 
update the context of extension 8000 to “agent-test”. here, we had a queue which include a dynamic agnet, well then we need add a user in astercrm, go to the extension management page of astercrmand add a new extension and assign agent 1000 to him: 
Agnet start work: first the extension have to login as a agent to PBX, when 8000 dial “*789”, it would hear the prompt that require to enter the agent number and password to login as the agent, enter agent number 1000 and password 0000, it can login as agent 1000. login to asaterCRM by brad/1234, the asterCRM could pop-up if anyone call to Agent/1000 or extension 8000. 
By default, astercc providers you 5 free simultaneous channels license, you can purchase more if need.
First, edit /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/astercc.conf which is in same folder with astercc daemons, go to section [licence], you can find three parameters there
[licence] licenceto = key = （no this parameter in current version now) channel = 5
change “channel” to the number of simultaneous channels you need, and “licence to” to the name of your organization, so now it looks like
[licence] licenceto = my organization key = channel = 50
save and exit, then execute astercc script, you should get things like
[dev01 astercc]# /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/astercc Invalid key, please contact the administrator identity = b0a5ebca13556ca9ca91813dd88dfgd9
now send this identitykey and all content in licence section (licenceto and channel) to astercc, we’ll send you back the licence key, then update your astercc.conf with the licence key, restart astercc & asterrc daemons. If no error message output, your astercc support more simultaneous channels now.
for the latest version, we start to use a license file named ‘license.astercc'(64 bits), so after u get the license file, upload it to the same folder with your astercc daemons, usually it’s in
/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/
then restart astercc daemons
/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterccd stop
/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterccd start
if everything is fine, it should give no errors, then the channels now in astercc is the value you put after channel = in /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/astercc.conf
and use this command you can check if the license will expire some day
/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/astercc -h
0000-00-00 means never expire
and astercrm and asterbilling will share same license file, which means when you get the license, you can either use it for astercrm or asterbilling or both.
good luck!