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.
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. 
In July, 2007, we start a project, the aim is to provide a call center system for asterisk, which should be all web based and no rely on dialplan, also should have some simple CRM features. That’s how asterCRM came, we made it all open source and free to use so that it could grow faster. 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.
astercctools is a daemon script provided in asterCC package, it has two features for now( version 0.01-081116): 1 get sip peer status astercctools will connect to your asterisk via AMI and execute command “sip show peers” then parse the result to table `sip_show_peers` in your mysql database. 2 get queue status astercctools will also execute command “show queue” then parse the result to mysql tables, it would put the result to table `queue_stats`,`queue_name`,`queue_agent`,`queue_caller` using astercctools in your asterisk application, you can read sip and queue status from mysql instead of connecting to asterisk each client seperately, so this would increace efficiency and stability. Read More
- Download and unzip the source
- Create the directories and move astercc daemon scripts:
- Create the MySQL database and table, asterCC need mysql 4.1 or above
- Update /etc/asterisk/manager.conf to enable Manager connections
- Modify /var/www/html/astercc/astercc.conf.php and /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/astercc.conf to fit your configration
- Start astercc daemons
- Set folder access
- Testing: browse to https://localhost/astercc
- Set your first booth
- go Reseller and add a reseller
- go Group add a group belong to the reseller
- go Clid add some clid for this group, then the account in asterisk with the clid would be billing as a user in this group
- go Account add a account, usertype could be groupadmin and belongs to the group you just added
- go Rate to Customer and add some rate for the group, if you dont select reseller or group, the rate could be the default rate all all resellers/groups
- login as groupadmin account, then you should see some box as the attachments.
- try make a call using the ip phone with the clid, you could see the calling and billing message in the box
cd /var/www/html
wget https://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/astercc/astercc-0.09beta.zip
unzip astercc-0.09beta.zip
mv astercc-0.09beta astercc
mkdir -p /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/
mv /var/www/html/astercc/daemons/* /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/astercc
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterrc
chmod +x /opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterccd
mysqladmin -uyourmysqluser -pyourmysqlpasswd create astercc
mysql -uyourmysqluser -pyourmysqlpasswd astercc <sql/astercc.sql
Note: here we create the database named astercc, you could use whatever db name you want use your configration to replace yourmysqluser and yourmysqlpasswd
Note: asterisk and astercc could be on different server
Add something like this to the manager.conf file:
[general] enabled = yes
port = 5038
bindaddr = 0.0.0.0
;displayconnects = yes;the following line could be changed by yourself
[eventsdaemon] secret = myeventsdaemon
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
/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterccd start
Note: If your astercc scripts in other directory,
you need to modify script path in CONFIGURATION SECTION of asterccd and asterccdaemon
to fit your script path (modify path of astercc,asterrc and asterccdaemon in asterccd;
modify path of asterccd and monitor log in asterccdaemon).Start 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/astercc/asterccd /etc/rc.d/init.d
chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/asterccd
chkconfig –add asterccdAdvice: 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.
chmod 777 /var/www/html/astercc/upload
browse to https://localhost/astercc
or https://YOUR-WEB-SERVER-ADDRESS/astercc
login with admin/admin
for asterCRM 0.047beta
- Download asterCRM package from sf.net, unzip it and put all files/folders to your WEBroot folder
cd /usr/src wget https://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)
- 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, 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
- 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”
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- Test
open your browse, then enter this address https://localhost/astercrm or https://YOUR-WEB-SERVER-ADDRESS/astercrm login with admin/admin