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
There are three rates in asterBilling, reseller rate, callshop rate and customer rate.
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.
asterBilling is a realtime billing software for asterisk. Through asterBilling, it’s very easy to build a hosted callshop solution for asterisk. benefits of asterBilling hosted callshop solution:
here, i’ll introduce u how to build a hosted callshop solution using asterisk and asterbilling. 1. step1, install asterisk 2. step2, set trunk and dialplan in asterisk edit /etc/asterisk/sip.conf and add your trunk there 
then set dialplan, go to /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf and add a context there 
3. step3, install asterBilling 4. step4, check asterbilling.conf.php We need to modify asterbilling config file to meet our system, so check the “asterbilling.conf.php” in asterbilling folder, find section “sipbuddy” change context to be “context = from-booth”, so the sip peer generated by asterbilling will use context “from-booth” for outbound calls. 
* if you are using freepbx, you can use “context=from-internal” here, then it you can set outbound in your freepbx and all booth will use that. By default, asterbilling will generate all sip peers to the file “/etc/asterisk/sip_astercc”, you can change to other name if you want, or leave it blank if u dont want asterbilling generate the sip peers 
also we need to include the conf file in sip.conf so that asterisk could load peers asterbilling generated modify /etc/asterisk/sip.conf and add #include sip_astercc.conf 
5. step5, set resellers and groups 6. step6, add clid as reseller 
7. step7, set rates asterbilling provides three level billing: rate to reseller: the rate you sell to resellers rate to callshop: the rate resellers sell to callshops rate to customer: the rate callshops sell to customers 8. step8, login as groupadmin/operate check callshop interface 
9. step9, check reports
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:
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.
asterBilling is a realtime billing solution for asterisk, could be used as a hosted callshop or just a simple billing system for your asterisk pbx. Many people are using freepbx based system as their pbx, like trixbox, elastix … so here i’ll introduce you how to use asterBilling to bill your asterisk pbx.
the first thing is, you must have freepbx installed and have a user their, say you want to bill these two users: solo <8000> and donnie <8001>
next go to asterBilling manager login (like https://asterccserver/asterbilling/manager_login.php) and login as “admin”
Although we only want to bill our pbx, still have to add a reseller first, go to “reseller” and click “Add” button, pur some message in the form and click “continue”
i left “Credit Lmit” to be null and “Limit Type” to “No limt” coz i just want to know how much each phone dialed each month.
then go to “Account Group” and add a group there
asterrc is a billing script in asterCC package, together with astercc, asterrc could provide you the realtime billing feature to your asterisk system.
there’re some billing fields in table ‘curcdr’, they are
`credit` : credit by customer rate (rates in table ‘myrate’)
`callshopcredit`: credit by callshop (rates in table ‘callshoprate’)
`resellercredit`: credit by reseller (rates in table ‘resellerrate’)
`creditlimit`: if we have a creditlimit for this call, if it has once the ‘credit’ reach the number, the call would be hang up
`destination` : destination of the call, get from table ‘myrate’
`memo` : rate of the call, get from table ‘myrate’
asterrc daemon will maintain these fields during a live call, and we have same fields in table mycdr, so when a call is finished, we can also get the credit of the call.
Also, we have billing fields in table ‘clid’, ‘accountgroup’,’resellergroup’
`curcredit` current credit (works as a billing flag)
`credit_clid` total clid credit for the item
`credit_group` total group credit for the item
`credit_reseller` total reseller credit for the item
Here’s a example to show you how asterrc works
say we have defined a rate, we sell to reseller in 0.1 a minute, reseller sell to callshop in 0.2 a minute, and callshop sell 0.4 a minute to customer, when customer start a call, astercc will get the live CDR into table curcdr, and asterrc will put value 0.4, 0.2, 0.1 to fields ‘credit’, ‘callshopcredit’, ‘resellercredit’ when it’s the first minute, and then 0.8, 0.4, 0.2 when it’s the second minute …. when it’s 2 minutes and a half, customer hangup the call, then we get a record with billing message 1.2 in ‘credit’, 0.6 in ‘callshopcredit’, 0.3 in ‘resellercredit’, meantime fields in clid, accountgroup and resellergroup would be updated, credit_clid = credit_clid + 1.2, credit_group = credit_group + 0.6, credit_reseller = credit_reseller + 0.3.
field ‘curcredit’ is used to save credit for comparing with creditlimt, it is updated after a call is finished, if limit type is set and curcredit is greater or equal with the creditlimit, the call would be hangup, when clid/group/reseller charges, we set curcredit = curcredit – {fund charged} so that curcredit is less than creditlimit and calls can go out.
Say a reseller pay you 500 euro, and u set his limit type to prepaid, and creditlimit = 500, then it is curcredit = 0, limittype= prepaid, creditlimit = 500 in table resellergroup, then booths under this reseller start to call , curcredit will increase by resellerrate, when it reachs 500, all calls stoped, reseller comes to you and charge 2000 euro, here you have two options
1. set credit limit to 500+2000 = 2500, but not recommend, coz there’d no log for changing of creditlimit
2. charge 2000 to curcredit, then curcredit = 500-2000 = -1500, and this operation would be logged in credithistory, so that you can check the charge history of each customer.
Hope this could help you under stand how asterbilling works.
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!
