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Hotel Management System for Elastix

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[posted at Elastix.org] Two blog posts in 24 hours? We’re on a roll here!
Based off PIAF’s Hotel Management System, we’re going to make some minor adjustments to have this work with Elastix. This is a brilliant Hotel Room Management system with the ability to restrict the calls from Ext’s when they are not checked in, per-second billing, and more!

Contents:

1. Installing the base system
2. Updating the config
3. Fixing up HTTPS
4. Updating dial-plan
5. Closing words

1) Installing the base system

First you’re going to need to ssh in to your Elastix PBX System.
Then, run the following:

cd /var/www/html
wget http://www.kefa.it/hotel.tar.gz
tar zxvf hotel.tar.gz
rm hotel.tar.gz
cd hotel
mysql -uroot -peLaStIx.2oo7

Very similar to the default steps taken on the official documentation, except we’re going to use the Elastix SQL password rather than the script they’ve got there. This is also easier than the official doco, just one step instead of two.

2) Updating the config

We’re now going to modify the configuration file so that it works with Elastix due to the different Username / Passwords used between distributions.
Edit config.inc.php with your favorite editor. In my case I use nano:
nano -w config.inc.php

Now you’re going to modify the following three paragraphs so that they match below:

//Hotel database
$dbhost = "localhost";
$dbpass = "eLaStIx.2oo7";
$dbuser = "root";
$dbname = "Hotel";

//Asterisk database
$dbhost2 = "localhost";
$dbpass2 = "eLaStIx.2oo7";
$dbuser2 = "root";
$dbname2 = "asterisk";

//Asteriskcdrdb database
$dbhost3 = "localhost";
$dbpass3 = "eLaStIx.2oo7";
$dbuser3 = "root";
$dbname3 = "asteriskcdrdb";

Save and exit and you’re done with the config.

3) Fixing up HTTPS

When you visit the Elastix WebGUI, there’s a condition that rewrites the URL to include HTTPS. However, when this system tries to check the state of an Extension, it must do it via HTTP and not HTTPS, so we add an exception.

Edit /etc/httpd/conf.d/elastix.conf with your favorite editor and add these lines at the very bottom:

RewriteEngine Off

What this will do is add the /hotel directory as an exception so you don’t have to use HTTPS to get to it. We leave HTTPS on for the rest of the PBX, just because there’s no real reason for us to turn it off.
Now, restart apache with:

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

You should now be able to access your WebGUI without HTTPS at: http://pbxip/hotel/
If not, then go back and try again, as this part is crucial to the redirection to Reception when a phone is not Checked In

4) Updating dial-plan

Now we’re going to add in to the Dial-Plan and tell the PBX what calls can and cannot be made when the phone is not Checked-In.

Edit /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf in your favorite editor and add the following underneath the [from-internal-custom] header:

;lets guests call other rooms without being checked in
exten => _XXX,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN})
exten => _XXX,n,Hangup()
;lets guests call freephonenumbers without being checked in
exten => _1800NXXXXXX,1,Goto(outbound-allroutes,${EXTEN},1)
exten => _1800NXXXXXX,n,Hangup()
exten => _X.,1,Set(result=${CURL(http://127.0.0.1/hotel/checkuser.php?Ext=${CALLERID(num)})})
exten => _X.,n,NoOp(Results: ${result})
exten => _X.,n,GotoIf($["${result}" = "OK"]?OK)
exten => _X.,n,GotoIf($["${result}" = "KO"]?KO)
exten => _X.,n(OK),Goto(outbound-allroutes,${EXTEN},1)
exten => _X.,n,Hangup()
;call front desk if not checked in
exten => _X.,n(KO),Dial(SIP/200) ; used for just one extension
;exten => _X.,n(KO),Goto(ext-group,0,1) ; used for ring groups
exten => _X.,n,Hangup()

If you want to allow additional free calling, just duplicate the lines with “1800? in them. Mines quite different for New Zealand, but I’ve left it as american to give you a good idea of what you can do there.
You’re also going to want to adjust the third-to-last line where it says “SIP/200?, replacing 200 with the Extension of Reception.
Or, you could just comment that line out, and uncomment the second-to-last line to use Ring Group 0 as your “Reception” extension. The choice is yours.
Save the file and run:

asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

5) Closing words

From here, you’re on your own. It’s dead easy to log in and get started. You’ll first need to import all the rooms which it takes from the Ext Caller ID name, so it pays to give your Ext’s decent names like “Room 201? for Ext 201, just for example.
If you run into troubles, post here and myself or the Elastix team would be more than happy to assist.
If you get this successfully installed, just leave us a quick comment to say Hi and tell us you’ve done so, it’s always nice to know our time is appreciated.
Cheers

Chill.


Open Source Voip Applications in Telecom Industry

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Open source software has leading role in emerging of present Information and communication technologies (ICT), Following is list of top rated , mature and reliable open source applications that revolutionized the communication concepts.

IP Telephony applications.

  • FreeSWITCH

    A Cross-platform, Scalable, Stable Multi-Protocol Soft Switch ,The project inspired from renown Open Source asterisk PBX system but very well designed and has a bright future
    http://www.freeswitch.org

  • Asterisk

    A software-based, Open Source Converged PBX system that has revolutionized the traditional PBX industry
    http://www.asterisk.org

  • Kamailio

    SIP proxy server, call router, and user agent registration server used in Voice over Internet Protocol and instant messaging applications.
    http://www.kamailio.org/w/

  • OpenSIPS

    SIP proxy server, call router, registration server and redirect server suitable for internet telephony service providers to offer SIP based telephony services to their customers.
    http://www.opensips.org

  • Sipexes

    SipX ECS (Enterprise Communications Server) is SIP based voice over IP telephony server, an ideal enterprise grade, SIP based communications system (IP PBX)
    http://www.sipfoundry.org

  • Gnugk

    H.323 gatekeeper based on the OpenH323 stack. A gatekeeper provides address translation, admissions control, call routing, authorization and accounting services
    http://www.gnugk.org

  • OpenSBC

    Session Border Controller and B2BUA featuring Registrations, B2BUA, NAT traversal and ENUM
    http://www.opensipstack.org

Asterisk & Freeswitch GUI interfaces.

  • BlueBox

    Latest monitoring and management tool, full-featured PBX GUI of freeswitch
    http://www.2600hz.org

  • FreePBX

    A full-featured PBX GUI supporting both asterisk and freeswitch
    http://freepbx.org

  • Elastix

    An open source Unified Communications Server software that brings together IP PBX, email, IM, faxing and collaboration functionality
    http://www.elastix.org

  • TrixBox

    Web based asterisk PBX managment software utilizing best open source tools built over asterisk
    http://www.trixbox.org

  • PBXinaflash

    PBXinaflash is a web based asterisk PBX managment software built over asterisk like Elastix and Trixbox
    http://pbxinaflash.net/

  • Druid

    Druid is unified communications platform for enterprises. It allows companies to deploy high end IP communications services using off the shelf hardware and IP phones.
    http://www.voiceroute.org

  • Vicidial

    Vicidial ( Astguiclient ) is a professional web based inbound / outbound call center solution built over asterisk
    http://astguiclient.sourceforge.net

Communications Frameworks

    Plivo

  • Plivo is freeswitch based communication framework which provides web developers with basic building blocks to create voice based applications in the form of RESTXML and RESTAPI (REST-based APIs) also Plivo is compatible and works with Java, .NET, node.js, Perl, PHP, Python or Ruby programming languages.
    http://www.plivo.org

Communication Libraries.

  • PJSIP

    Pjsip is sip based open source high performance communication library with multimedia capabilities written in C language for building embedded/non-embedded VoIP applications.
    http://www.pjsip.org/

Broadcasting Platform

ICTDialer

ICTDialler is next generation powerful auto dialler software that support sms messaging, fax broadcasting , voice broadcasting . It is bundled with IVR builder to create custom IVR with ease through web based drag and drop IVR Designer's tools .
http://www.ictdialer.org

Billing Systems.

  • A2billing

    A2Billing combined with Asterisk is a physical Telecom Platform and Soft-Switch providing a wide range of telecoms services using both traditional telephone technology or VoIP. It contains a real time billing engine
    http://www.asterisk2billing.org

  • ASTPP

    A calling card voip solution built over asterisk and freeswitch
    http://www.astpp.org

  • Freeside

    Freeside is the premier open-source billing, CRM, trouble ticketing and provisioning automation software for wired and wireless ISPs, VoIP, hosting, service and content providers and other online businesses.
    http://www.sisd.com/freeside

  • CDRTool

    a rating and mediation engine for Call Detail Records generated by opensips and others
    http://www.ag-projects.com/CDRTool.html

  • ICTFAX

    An email to fax gateway, supports G.711 faxing , PSTN faxing and T.38 origination and termination .ICTFAX is complete faxing solution
    http://www.ictfax.org

  • CitrusDB

    A Multi-user Billing solution for internet service, subscriptions, consulting, and telecommunications , It Provides CRM, Ticketing, Invoicing, and Credit Card Batches
    http://www.citrusdb.org/

Voip softphones / Clients

  • Twinkle

    Twinkle is sip based softphone and support both voice over IP and and instant messaging communications , It is sip standard compliant with advance features including secure voice communications using ZRTP / SRTP.
    http://www.twinklephone.com//

  • QuteCom

    QuteCom is cross platform open source softphone supporting Voice, Video and IM with advance features also support SRTP, QuteCom is developed using Python , C and C++ .
    http://trac.qutecom.org/wiki

  • SFLphone

    SFLphone is SIP and IAX based standards-compliant enterprise softphone, for desktop and embedded systems. It support Multi line and TLS / SRTP encryption
    http://sflphone.org/

Mobile Clients

Kamailio Elastix Installation and Integeration

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[posted at Elastix.org]

Part 1

WARNING: DO NOT INSTALL THIS ON A PRODUCTION MACHINE! Some of you may want be wanting to increase the capacity of your Elastix machine. Asterisk generally has issues when you start to put a lot of SIP peers on it. One of the best ways to get around this is to install a proper SIP server and join it with asterisk. This allows you to register all your SIP handsets to the SIP server and make calls through to your asterisk machine.

The Kamailio module for Elastix allows you to easily integrate Elastix with a enterprise SIP server. All SIP handsets register to Kamailio. All internal SIP calls stay within Kamailio however if a call is external then Kamailio will push the call out to asterisk to deal with it.
To install the Kamalio module you first need to create the directory for it to go in. It installs itself from the directory /var/kamailio

mkdir /var/kamailio

Now change to the directory

cd /var/kamailiol

Download the kamailio integration file from the MBIT website

wget http://www.mbit.com.au/kamailio-v2.tgzl

Untar the file into the directory

tar zxvf kamailio-integration.tgzl

In the directory now will be a heap of files you want to execute the script that installs all the modules for you. To run the script execute install_kamailio.sh

./install_kamailio.shl

Soon as it is installed we will move to the next part for configuring Kamailio. The installation can take a while so please be patient. The installation can only be used with Elastix 2.0.


Part 2

This article moves on from Part 1. I have updated the kamailio installation file so you will need to download this and run through Part 1 again. Make sure it all installs correctly.

The first step is to go into the /etc/kamailio.cfg file. In this file is the configuration for kamailio. When calls are between Kamailio extensions the call stays within Kamailio. If the call is to the PSTN then Kamailio sends it to asterisk. In the kamailio.cfg file we need to set a couple of parameters for your system. I have been building my test machine on the IP address 192.168.1.150. You will find 2 places where I have set this IP in the kamailio.cfg. Change these entries to the IP address of your machine using nano.

nano /etc/kamailio.cfgl

Then restart Kamailio

service kamailio restartl

Make sure kamailio is running

service kamailio statusl

The next step you need to do is go into freePBX. Under http://yourelastixip/admin is the freePBX interface. Go into module admin and you will find a new module called Kamailio integration. The Kamailio integration basically allows you to register handsets to Kamailio on port 5060. It also sends all external calls through asterisk when you make PSTN calls or voicemail calls. Once you have activated it go into the extensions tab in freePBX.

When adding a Kamailio extension you need to add a custom extension. If you add a SIP extension under freePBX this will simply be an asterisk extension. First add your extension number and display name. The last field required is the Kamailio password. You can scroll down and you will find an extra section called Kamailio services. Make sure it is enabled for the extension and you put in a password, click submit in the freePBX interface and reload freePBX.

The final step is to add a trunk in freePBX. Create a SIP trunk with the trunk name kamailio.
Under the peer details put

port=5060
allow=all
type=friend
context=from-internal
host=”yourelastixip”
canreinvite=nonat

This will allow calls to flow between kamailio and asterisk.
When you are done you should be able to register a phone to Kamailio with the details you put into freepbx.

Troubleshooting
If some of the packages dont install correctly try cleaning up yum

yum clean all l

Then run the script again.
If everything installed correctly and you still cant make calls from Kamailio to asterisk try copying the kamailio.cfg from /var/kamailio again to /etc/kamailio. Then edit the IP address that I detailed above. Once this is done restart kamailio and try calling.

ICTInvoice, A complete Multitenant Hosted PBX Solution for Telecom Service Providers

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ICTInvoice is open source Elastix PBX module for billing and invoice managements, it convert Elastix PBX into multi tenant Hosted PBX platform suitable to offer hosted PBX services to Small Business Owners and Enterprisers . It is open source GPL v3.0 software, developed and maintained by ICT Innovations

ICTInovice enhances capabilities of Elastix billing and empower elastix admin to automatically generate and email invoices to Elastix Users on monthly basis based applying rates already set also enabling users to view or download their invoices in PDF format from elastix web interface. The invoices are generated per extension basis as well as per user basis also ICTInvoice generate different summary reports of all Users to admin. ICTInvoice has multi tenant capabilities as system admin can manage multiple companies , multiple users per company and multiple extensions per users by assigning / deassigned from web interface, ICTInovice enable admin to manage multiple invoice formats for each company creating different templates respectively

Main Features

Multi tenant , multiple companies addition supported
Each company supporting multiple users with multiple extensions per user
Generate and email invoices automatically on monthly basis on particular date already set
Generate and Email Invoices manually through web interface
Elastix Rate Engine integrated for outbound billing
Inbound billing support
Outbound billing support
Summery reports per extension wise or user wise
Call Detail reports per extension wise or user wise
and much more

Installation Instructions

Now we will move forward to learn how to install and configure ICTInvoice

1. First of all we have to download Latest version of Elastix unified communication system and burn it as ISO and install and configure on our machine as per installation instruction provided by Elastix web site

2. Install and activate "Developer Module" on Elastix PBX System as per installation instructions

3. Download latest version of ICTInvoice from sourceforge.net web sites http://sourceforge.net/projects/ictinvoice

4. Click System => Load Module and click on browse button to select already downloaded ICTInvoice package file and it will install ICTInvoice on PBX System

Admin Manual

User Managment

Create users with required privelages and role through elastix menu system => user managment

Extension Mangment

Create required extensions through elastix menu PBX => Extension batch

Create New Company Templates

Click Invoices => Invoice management => Company templates => create new company template

Assigning users to company

Click invoices => Invoice management => Company Users

Select company name from top

Check un selected users from list

Click on top button to assign / deassign users to company

Assigning extensions to Users

Click Invoices => Invoice mangment => User Extensions

Select user from top

Select un assigned extension from list

Click on top button to assign / deassign extension to users

Create Invoices

Click Invoices => invoice managment => Create inovices

Select company name and user name from top right

Click on button "create invoices" to create invoices

View & Download Invoices.

Click Invoices =? My Invoices

Click on view to view invoice or click on download button to download invoices in PDF format

Download ICTInvoice

Download from Sourceforge.net, Please click here http://sourceforge.net/projects/ictinvoice/

Use ICT Broadcast for all of your Telemarketing needs

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ICTBroadcast is Multi-tenant SMS, Fax and Voice broadcasting software solution based on open source Asterisk and Kannel

In today’s modern world, changing technologies have completely changed the way that many people live, work and perform basic business functions. Likewise, technology has also changed the way in which people do business and communicate with one another and with loyal customers. Long gone are the days of relying upon a landlines telephone or even a fax machine in order to communicate with one another or even to relay information to clients and co-workers. More and more, people are relying upon technology to disseminate information quickly and to a large number of people all at the same time. This concept, known as call broadcasting, is becoming increasingly popular with a wide variety of companies and businesses. They are realizing that time is important and saving time by using modern technology to communicate with one another really is a worthy investment for any company or organization.

ICTBroadcast has worked to change the face of information dissemination by developing quality innovative software that can be used to increase the efficiency of communicating a message. For example, using call blasting in order to reach thousands of people simultaneously not only succeeds in getting out a message, but it does so in a way that takes only a few minutes, rather than hours. It is only necessary to record or say a message once and then it can be distributed to hundreds or even thousands of people all at once.

Regardless of the type of company or organization, there are many needs that can be handled by using a voice broadcasting system. For example, it is possible to send a mass message to all clients informing them of a special on products, or even to simply thank them for their patronage to the company. Likewise, it is an efficient way to inform people about an emergency like a weather-related closing or other situation. This means there is no longer a need for an old fashioned calling tree or dialing each person individually also you are able to run, manage and monitor multiple campaigns same time without hassle

ICTBroadcast features smart predictive dialling , voice message will be broadcast and interested recipients will be forwarded to live available agents for further help likewise the functionality of outbound call center


ICTBroadcast support all types of voice broadcasting campaign like simple voice broadcasting, interactive voice broadcasting, poll and survey campaign, agent campaign and also support Inbound Campaign support , automatically receiving incoming calls on provided numbers and playing desired message or forwarding calls to live agents .
However, this service is not limited to just voice broadcast auto dialer, which makes telephone calls to those on a predetermined list that is dictated by whoever manages the list. There are also options for SMS marketing and broadcasting fax marketing in order to disseminate a message in alternative ways that are both traditional and modern in their delivery methods. These software products are incredibly innovative and can be easily customized for individual needs and wants based upon the type of company using them for business or even personal needs.

Best of all, this software is set up in an easy to use and understand format that is multi tenant in nature. What this means is there is a way for both administrators of the system and users of the system to login to alter information. However, administrators and users have different platforms to log in and later information.

Another great feature is that the system can be used to blast thousands of calls simultaneously. As calls are being made, it is possible to monitor the progress of the calls in real time to determine the distribution of the message and measure the success of each call.

All a user needs to do is upload a list of their contact numbers and a message and the campaign will be broadcast to thousands. It is really just that simple. So, whether it is needed for telemarketing or just to get a message out to customers, there are so many options to increase efficiency.

ICTBroadcast has advance multi service prepaid billing and payment management system, Admin will add funds to user account accordingly and ICTBroadcast billing system will manage all calls with real time control and will stop running campaigns on shortage of funds

ICTBroadcast also has live statistics , detailed reporting and complete statistics of running and completed campaigns


For more detail please visit http://www.ictbroadcast.com

ICTFAX, open source Fax Over IP Solution

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ICTFAX, is multi tenant open source Fax Over IP solution for your faxing needs , ICTFAX is web based software solution for service providers based on open source Spandsp,Asterrisk , drupal CMS and Astbill with advance multi service prepaid billing capabilities and supporting G.711 pass through faxing, PSTN / T.30 based Faxing and T.38 based Fax over IP. It can be used in following scenarios for fax over IP implementations

Email to fax
web to fax
Fax to email

Please visit http://www.ictfax.org for more details

ICTDialer, An Open Source Unified Communication Autodialer

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ICT Innovations released a completely free and open source broadcasting solution. ICTDialer is open source Unified Communications autodialer and telemarketing software solution, ICTDialer powered with re-known open source Content Management system Drupal and Powerful l freeswitch based communication framework Plivo with multi-tenant and Voice, SMS & Fax broadcasting capabilities . It can be scaled to blast thousands of simultaneous calls . ICTDialer is capable to fit in various telemarketing and broadcasting and telemarketing scenarios. It empower user with capabilities of Drupal CMS and Plivo Communication Framework

Following are some screenshots of ICTDialer

You need to add broadcasting gateway to terminate your traffic , add , export your contacts in contact groups and add recordings before you run new campaigns

ICTFAX Version 2.0 beta , open source Fax Over IP Solution

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Pleased to release new version of ICTFAX V 2.0 beta based on Powerful communication framework Plivo and Re-known open source CMS Drupal 7.0 , ICTFAX Ver 2.0 beta is completely rewritten software based on latest and proven open source technologies ,

Previous Version of ICTFAX was based on Drupal 4.7 and was not compatible with new release of PHP therefore giving a lot of issues to users and only experienced users was able to cope with these issues also It was a tedious job to upgrade ICTFAX to new version of Drupal , We , at ICT Innovations worked on this projects for months and ported most previous code into Drupal 7.0 and rewritten communication part into Plivo Communication Framework therefore changing communication engine of ICTFAX from Asterisk to Freeswitch

Freeswitch is more stable and proven communication engine working at back-end of ICTFAX , making it more reliable and stable Fax Over IP solution

For more information, please visit http://www.ictfax.org


ICTBroadcast Version 3.0 Released , The best autodialer software in market

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We are pleased to announce release of ICTBroadcast Version 3.0 , ICTBroadcast is now a mature and professional product hence ultimate choice for telemarketers, carriers and Internet Telecom Service Providers (ITSP).

ICTBroadcast Version 3.0 include following enhancements

Improved Dashboard

ICTBroadcast 3.0 has an improved and more informative dashboard. Now admin can view server status, All active campaigns, and statistics of the logged-in users. A widget like view now enables to view the details by just clicking on it.

Innovative IVR Designer, create your custom IVR through drag and drop

IVR Designer now has 5 more applications. Now you can design your custom IVR with a lot more ease. New applications allow to speak custom values of Alphabet, Numbers, digits, date and time. Now improved Record application allows you to record complete IVR, a part of it or only the call recipient response. And these recordings can be downloaded or played in campaign summary with just a single click.

Implementation of Load Balancing

ICTBroadcast 3.0 now has built-in support for Load balancing. ICTBroadcast has been integrated with RabbitMQ that enables ICTBroadcast to scale and connect with multiple Asterisk servers and multiple Kannel nodes without any hassle.

Addition of Email Campaign

ICTBroadcast 3.0 supports creation of Email campaigns. Now you can choose your target medium from Voice, SMS, Fax and Email. No need to look a separate platform for Email campaign. Everything is bundled into a single software package. Buy one and get all.

Addition of Survey Campaign

Survey campaigns now has support for open-ended questions. Now you can create choice based questions that require key press from call recipient as well as open-ended questions that require call recipient to record their message. You can view the result of survey campaign in an informative chart report and can listen and download the recorded messages of the survey campaign.

Advance Campaign Management

Advanced campaign management allows to control the channel limits of the running campaign. Now you can monitor the status of your campaign and control it the way you want.

System wise configuration

System wise configuration allows to manage the behavior of the overall ICTBroadcast system. It allows to configure your campaigns, Forms, and Servers by advanced users.

Supporting variety of broadcasting scenarios

ICTBroadcast 3.0 supports a variety of broadcasting scenarios including but NOT limited to Voice, SMS, Fax and Email broadcasting, interactive voice broadcasting, survey, alert system, notification system, polls, telemarketing and custom IVR.

Support for Custom Variables / Tokens

Play custom message for each recipient using custom variables / token. Custom Tokens are supported in SMS messages, Email templates, IVR Applications like TTS, Say Alpha, Say Date, Say Time, Say Number and Say Digit.

Improved Campaign statistics and reporting

ICTBroadcast 3.0 has an improved campaign summary and reporting. With its chart based reporting, viewing and analyzing a campaign is much more easier than before. You can now view the contact details (contact list) of those who answered your call and of those where call Failed (due to Busy, No Answer, Congestion, Unknown error). You can export these contact lists for further processing.

REST based API's to integrate with third party software

ICTBroadcast 3.0 also comes with easy to use REST based API that can be used with any third party software or web interface. This can be used in a variety of ways from showing campaign statistics on the web page to creating new users through a function call.

Watch video for ICTBroadcast Introduction

ICTBroadcast vs ICTDialer - A comparison between autodialers

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ICTBroadcast is multi-tenant, unified communications and telemarketing software solution supporting Voice, SMS, Email and Fax broadcasting. On the other hand, ICTDialer is similar product but it is free and open source. ICTDialer has less features than ICTBroadcast. Following is a feature comparison table of ICTBroadcast and ICTDialer.

Both projects has been developed with entirely different approach and uses different technologies. ICTDialer has been developed for open source community over re-known open source technologies like communication framework Plivo, open source Content Management System Drupal, LAMP stack and communication backend engines Freeswitch and Kannel while ICTBroadast has been developed for buisness owners and professionals developed over custom communication framework, LAMP stack and communication engines Asterisk and Kannel.

Features ICTBroadcast ICTDialer
Voice Broadcasting
SMS Broadcasting
Fax Broadcasting
Email Broadcasting
Contacts Management
Interactive Voice Broadcasting (Press-1 Campaign) (using IVRDesigner)
Multi-tenant & Multi-campaign
Campaign Summary & CDR Reports
Multi-service Billing
Campaign Scheduling
External Call Center
Surveys and Polls
AMD (Answering Machine Detection)
DNC (Do Not Call) Support
Inbound Campaign
Custom Caller ID
Multiple Trunks support
Realtime Campaign Management
Multiple Technology (SIP, IAX2)
RESTAPIs
Rates and Routes Management
Payments Management
Scalability
IVR Designer
Appointment Reminder


Automatic Appointment management with ICTBroadcast

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ICTBroadcast is a unique auto dialer that can be used as an automated appointment reminder software. Appointment reminders in simple words are devices, software application or alarms that help remind us of different events. Appointments are necessary and thus part of every walk of life. Every person desires that any important or minor appointment should not be forgotten.

Article source: ictbroadcast.com

Importance of appointment reminders

Appointment reminders are conducive to both parties of the appointment. Take a doctor for example. Most of the appointments that are made at the doctor's office are usually made either a few weeks in advance or sometimes even a month in advance. It is very easy for the appointment to slip from both parties mind since with the normal hustle bustle in life it is quite easy to forget about appointments so far off in the future. Conventionally patients are reminded of their appointments with postcards and calls but both of these are not that feasible. Cards can get misplaced quite easily and there’s no guarantee that the card will reach on time. Making calls to remind the patients of their appointments is costly and a lot of precious time is wasted. Thus appointment reminders made virtually are far more reliable and feasible in reminding doctors and patients of their appointments. Appointment alerts also help save the time and resources that a doctor’s secretary usually wastes in making the appointments again and again.

Appointment Reminder Campaign

Appointment reminder campaign places a reminder call to all the contacts in a group. This campaign requires that every contact should have scheduled appointment start time and appointment end time in any of the custom fields in contact form. All calls will be placed before appointment start time. Campaign administrator will set 'reminder call time' in the campaign creation form that will specify how many hours before the appointment start the call will be placed. There is also a 'reminder expiry time' field in the campaign creation form that makes sure no calls should be placed after the expiry time. When admin/user selects this campaign, it will open a form that lists all the options and settings for creating this campaign.
Reminder Campaign

Steps to create a Reminder Campaign

1. Navigate to Messages => Message Designer => New IVR Message. Design a new IVR Message in the message designer and then save the message.
2. Once message is created through message designer, now navigate to campaign => campaign management => Add New => Reminder Campaign.
Fill the campaign form with required feilds like:
a) Campaign Name
b) Contact Group
d) Reminder Message
e) Appointment Type: Appointment type can be either individual or group.

Individual Reminder

In individual reminder, every contact that is dialed may have different appointment schedule time. Examples of individual appointments are doctor's appointment or lawyer's appointment where each patient/client have different timings for the meeting. Administrator of the campaign will select where
the appointments are stored for each contact by selecting the appropriate value in 'Appointment Start Field'. Then admin will select how many hours before the appointment time a reminder call should be placed. Reminder expiry field will ensure that no call should be placed after the expiry
time. Campaign schedule will also apply on the calls to ensure legal time calling.
Reminder Individual

Group Reminder

In group reminder, a group of people will be dialed according to the campaign schedule time. Examples of group appointments are training attendees or class/school students where all the members of training or class students have time for a training session/class. Administrator of the campaign will himself manage how many days/hours before the appointment campaign should be run. In group appointments, campaign scheduling time will apply for dialling contacts.
Reminder Group

Message Designer

Message Designer allows to create complex telephony voice messages that can be played when a call is received by some person. It allows to join voice recordings, text to speech, alphabet to speech, numbers and digits to speech, and date and time to speech. It also includes an application to get response of reminder call.

Creating a new IVR Message using Message Designer

1. Navigate to Messages => Message Designer => New IVR Message
2. Set IVR Message name and description. Initially, IVR Message fieldset will be empty. This fieldset will be populated when new applications are created and added to the message.
3. Select some application from the 'Application' dropdown. This will open a form with options for the selected application. Configure application options and click 'add' button to add application to the IVR Message fieldset on the right.
4. New application will be added to the end of the message. But message sequence can be changed by dragging the applications up and down in the IVR Message fieldset.
5. Once message is created as desired, save the message by clicking 'save' button on top left of the form.

IVR Message Applications

Following are applications of message designer and their breif description.
Play Audio:
Adds an already upload recording to the current message
TTS:
Adds text to speech to the current message. This text will be converted to voice when call is placed
Say Alpha:
Adds some alphabets or a variable with alphabetic value to the current message
Say Digit:
Adds some digits or a variable with digit value to the current message
Say Number:
Adds some number or a variable with numeric value to the current message
Say Date:
Adds some date or a variable with date value to the current message
Say Time:
Adds some time or a variable with time value to the current message
Confirm Reminder:
Adds interactive behavior to the current message. It plays a voice message (e.g. asking recipient to press some key). If recipient presses 1 his/her appointment will be confirmed. If recipient presses 2 his/her appointment will be cancelled. If recipient presses 0 (this key can be changed) call will be transferred to live agent (agent extension number can be set in this application)

Using Tokens in IVR Message:

At the moment only TTS, Say Alpha, Say Digit, Say Number, Say Date and Say Time applications support using tokens in IVR Message. Tokens are useful when customer specific information is required. Following pattern is allowed for using tokens in IVR
Message:
[contact:first_name]
When ever above pattern is used, it means first name of contact will be replaced at this place. Following is a list of Tokens that can be used in IVR Message:
[campaign:callerid]
[campaign:callerid_name]
[contact:first_name]
[contact:last_name]
[contact:phone]
[contact:email]
[contact:address]
[contact:custom1]
[contact:custom2]
[contact:custom3]
[contact:description]

Reminder Campaign Fields

Campaign Name:
Name of the campaign for identification
Contact Group:
Select contact group/List of phone numbers that this campaign will dial.
Campaign Mode:
This is Permanent campaign that means it allows campaign to keep running even after processing all the contacts and waiting for new contact in background.
Reminder Message:
Select from list of already created IVR Messages.
Settings:
Max. Concurrent Channels:Maximum number of concurrent channels that said campaign will support.
Max retries:Max number of retries to contact the said contact.
Max call Duration:Maximum allowed duration for each call. after this duration call will be disconnected automatically , If user is not sure about duration of call let it be maximum number so that it does not effect call conversation.
Caller ID:
Caller ID:Enter Caller ID to use with outgoing calls.
Caller Name:Enter caller name to use with outgoing calls
Campaign Schedule:
Start campaign:Schedule campaign start it has following options
a) Immediately:Start campaign immediately just after creation
b) On Scheduled Time:Start campaign on selected data and time
Stop/Pause campaign:Schedule campaign stop time it has following options
a) When Done:Stop campaign when every thing is completed
b) On Scheduled Time:Stop campaign on selected data and time
Reminder Campaign

Invoice Managment with ICTInvoice module for Elastix PBX

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ICTInvoice is multi-tenant invoicing module of Elastix PBX. It is complete invoice management solution for multiple companies. It automatically create pdf invoices and emails for Elastix users on monthly basis along with their calls detail records (CDRs).

ICTInvoice allows you to generate inbound and outbound billing reports. You can generate reports user-wise and extension-wise whichever is appropriate for you. You can also create a summary of the report and then view a detailed report. Summary report allows you to view total number of calls made, total inbound calls, total outbound calls and their bills. ICTInvoice also allows you to email invoices to users on monthly basis at fix dates. It can also allow you to generate manual invoices at any time.

Another important feature of ICTInovice is that it is multi-tenant which means each user has its own interface to generate invoices and reports. He/she can view his/her own CDRs. Following is a list of main features for ICTInvoice.

ICTInvoice Main Features

Multi-tenant
Create invoices for Multiple companies with branding
Manual as well as Automatic invoice generation on fix date
Auto Emailing invoices to users on monthly basis
Inbound Billing
Outbound Billing
Extension / User wise reporting
Summrize reporting
Detail Reporting

Installation of ICTInvoice with Elastix 2.4.0

1. Frist of all we download the Elastix version 2.4.0 from http://www.elastix.org/index.php/en/developers/changelog/821.html
2. Now download the latest version of ICTInvoice from http://sourceforge.net/projects/ictinvoice
3. During installation you will face some bugs in Elastix developers module. To rescue from this bug you have to downgrade developers module from (2.3.0-1) to (2.2.0-3).
4. If you are on CentOS, then do yum install elastix-developer-2.2.0-3
5. After the installation of elastix-developer-2.2.0-3 follow these instructions in following link.
http://www.ictinnovations.com/content/ictinvoice-complete-multitenant-hosted-pbx-solution-service-providers

Drupal 7 as powerful Client Management and Billing Solution for ITSP

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Drupal 7 can be used as a client management, billing and e-commerce solution for online businesses. Simple additions to the existing contributed modules can be utilized for greater benefit in terms of re-usability. We have demonstrated how to use a powerful Drupal e-commerce solution, Ubercart, for billing and client management for ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service Providers).

We have developed drupal 7 modules and integrated these modules with Ubercart e-commerce solution for drupal 7 and ICTBroadcast, a unified communication auto dialer software. Ubercart provides billing related functionality for the products. But we achieved to used ubercart for service subscription and time duration based access to service portal. When allowed duration completes, the access to the service portal is blocked. Following image shows allowed services list. When a service is expired its row (access links) becomes invisible to the user and he no longer can access these services.

This client and billing solution for ITSP has following modules and rules: client module, ictservice module, ratelist module and rules for ubercart. Client module handles clients user interfaces, subscribed service details, service links, list of available addons and current balance. Another module, ICTService creates simple rules that adds top-up, purchase of add-on, assign/revoke permission, create and assign agent / extensions. ICTService also manages a form that allows new customers to choose a package to subscribe. Ratelist module directly connects with service portal's rate list and imports complete rate list in the Drupal table for rate list. This whole process is enabled through REST APIs of the service portal.

You can download the source code for this solution from sourceforge.

You can also show products (addons) using views. We have developed a simple and elegant way of displaying the addons in a grid style using views.

These modules are written specifically for Drupal 7 and ICTBroadcast. Using them for the same might require minor modifications in REST API calls and creation of products like topup, fax broadcast, sms broadcast, voice broadcast etc. For drupal 7 developers, these modules will provide significant insight on how to integrate it with ICTBroadcast using the REST APIs.

ICTDesigner, A Graphical IVR Designer module for FreePBX

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ICTDesigner module for FreePBX is a module that allows to create interactive drag-and-drop IVR and advanced telephony applications. It is made by combining two powerful open source telephony software. That is "FreePBX" and "IVR Designer module" of ICTDialer.

FreePBX is an opensource GUI that controls and manages Asterisk (PBX). FreePBX can be installed manually or as part of a pre-configured Distribution that include Linux OS, Asterisk, FreePBX GUI and other dependencies.

IVR Designer, on the other hand, is an open source ICTDialer module. IVR Designer allows you to create advanced telephony systems with a simple drag-and-drop interface. The user can pick any application from the toolbar area, then drag it to the main drawing area and drop it. This will create that application at the dropped location. Its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for users to create voice response applications in a web browser. IVR Designer's toolbar contains the applications to create an IVR. Following is a brief description of each of those application. Following are the screenshots of this module:

You can Download the software from given link. This module is currently in development phase and will be released open source soon.

Version 3.3 of ICTBroadcast with additional features and bug fixes is released

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We are pleased to announce that ICTBroadcast Version 3.3 with additional features and bug fixes is released. New release contains bug fixes in CDR reports, role management, time based restriction to start campaign, auto-concurrent channel decrease on low balance, media validation before starting a campaign and REST APIs.

Where as new feature addition includes Appointment reminder campaign, message designer for customized voice message, user resource management, server monitoring support (Monit), Cepstral TTS engine support, Fail-over support, campaign repeat, SSL support, Installation GUI for easy installation and RPM release for CentOS 6.x.

Appointment Reminder Campaign

Appointment reminder campaign places a reminder call to all the contacts in a contact list. Appointment reminder campaign supports individual reminder and group reminder. In individual reminder, every contact that is dialed may have different appointment schedule time. Example of individual reminder are doctor's appointment or lawyer's appointment where each patient/client have different timings for the meeting. Where as, in group reminder, a group of people will be dialed according to the campaign schedule time. Examples of group appointments are training attendees or class/school students where all the members of training or class students have same time for a training session/class.

Message Designer for Customized Voice Messages

Message Designer allows to create complex telephony voice messages that can be played when a call is received by some person. It allows to join voice recordings, text to speech, alphabet to speech, numbers and digits to speech, and date and time to speech. It also includes an application to get response of reminder call.

User Resource Management Interface

User Resource management interface allows to set time slot and weekdays for the user to run campaign. This feature enables time-based restriction to start a campaign.

Open ended Question in Survey

Open ended questions allows to add questions in survey where voice response is required from the call recipient. Normally, in voice surveys, the call recipient will press some DTMF key in response to the answer choice of a survey question. But open ended question will allow call recipient to speak in response to a survey question. The voice of the call recipient will be recorded as an answer to the question. This type of question is useful where feedback from the user is required. Such questions are usually the last questions in a survey.

Media / Call Recordings (monitoring) report added

Now ICTBroadcast users can view call status, call detail report, media report. Call detail report will show when a call is placed, when it is received and when call completed. It will also show much a particular call cost.

Other important features included in this release are listed below:
* Multi role support added
* Role management (permission, resource)
* "Closing/Ending" message support added
* Server monitoring support added (Monit)
* Campaign and User wise CDR reports / report enhancements
* New REST APIs for campaign and role management
* Installation GUI for easy installation
* RPM release for CentOs 6.x
* New TTS engine Cepstral support added
* SSL support added
* Fail-over support added
* Media / Message validation before campaign start
* Call monitoring/recording support added
* Recording Studio for messaged recording added
* Auto concurrent channel control (decrease) on low balance
* Campaign repeat support added


New release of ICTFAX - version 2.2.0

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We are pleased to announce that a new release of ICTFAX with additional features and bug fixes is released. New release contains bug fixes and new features including showing email address in DID screen, removing ICTFAX users, email address length issue, ictfax_form function, ictfax_form_submit function, edit and view fax bug, stopping to send any mail on broken faxes and space in the name of email attachment issue.

Following is the detailed list of bug fixes and new features:

1. Change regarding new gevent issue in centos 6.5

There was an issue with plivo installation in recent Centos 6.5 due to recent version of gevent. Now we have fixed it by enforceing older gevent version in plivo installation script.

2. Show email address in DID Screen

Added the ability to see the email address that received faxes are sent to in the DID Screen. Also removed the Provider Trunk column as this is not needed and was taking up room which made the table look messy.

3. function ictfax_form_submit added try_recent

Modified the function ictfax_form_submit and added try_recent command in as Drupal threw an error when trying to send a fax.

4. Send Fax Remove message text as not working

Removed the message text in the Send Fax screen as this did not work, it has only been marked as hidden so it does not show this to the end user. Also made some UI changes on received faxes - delete and view buttons are swapped over so the Delete button is always first and shows on the left hand side for continuity purposes.

5. Updated email address length to match Drupal

Updated the length of the Email Address Field to match the length of the field in the Drupal Users Table

6. Enabled ICTFax User Deletion

Enabled the ability to delete a user from the ICTFax system as this was not done when a user is deleted from the Drupal User Menu.

7. Fixed function ictfax_form

The closing bracket was missing on the end, also changed the disabled text to None as it reads easier to users.

8. retry field ratting renamed into try_max

9. Documentation converted into Markdown syntax



Following are some improvements, Thanks to Marc Banyard:

11. Edit and view fax bug fixed

12. Don't send any mail on broken faxes, 0 pages

13. tmp issue fixed

14. dos2unix file converted

15. space in attachement file issue has been fixed

Testing interactive voice broadcasting with external call center

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ICTBroadcast includes basic Call Centre functionalities such as inbound campaign that allows people to call at a number that is handled by the ICTBroadcast system for customer support and then any agent or ICTBroadcast itself can respond to the queries by the customer. ICTBroadcast can also be integrated to work with an External Call Centre for further support. Built-in Inbound and Interactive campaigns have all the ingredients of a call centre solution.

Here we will demonstrate how to Integrate ICTBroadcast with Elastix as an external call center. Following is the scenario:

"We logged in ICTBroadcast system and started an Interactive voice campaign. This campaign calls to all the contacts in its list one-by-one. When one of the call recipient after receiving call pressed key 1, call is then forwarded to Elastix's Queue. From Elastix Queue, call then gets forwarded to a live agent at his registered IP-phone / softphone from the Elastix queue."

Configuration

1. Create an extension in ICTBroadcast and assign it to any user like "admin".


2. Configure said extension in Elastix as inbound trunk like

host=ICTBroadcast IP Address
username=extension username
secret=extension password
type=peer
insecure=invite

3. Add new Queue In Elastix

Queue name = any
Queue secret = any

4. Create an extension in Elastix and register it through soft-phone / IP-phone to receive live call

Display Name = any
username = any
password = any

5. Add incoming routes

Description = any
DID Number = empty (or any)
set destination = select registered extension.

After performing these steps, you'll be able to integrate Elastix and ICTBroadcast. ICTBroadcast can then be used for broadcasting voice campaign, and then prospective customers who presses key 1 will be transferred to live agents that are registered at Elastix call center module.

Powerful Graphical Reports in ICTBroadcast

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ICTBroadcast is multi tenant, unified communications and telemarketing software solution supporting Voice, SMS, Email and Fax broadcasting. ICTBroadcast has very powerful feature of real-time graphical reports. These reports can be found in summarized form as well as detailed form. Every campaign has summarized form of the reports with basic statistics and charts. Summarized report then links to each section of detailed report of a campaign. Different types of campaign in ICTBroadcast has different many statistics to show in reports. For example, survey campaign shows report in the form of question and its answer options and how many call recipients chose a particular choice.

Dashboard showing general system statistics

Active Campaigns Report

Campaign Statistics for every channel

Summary Report of Fax Campaign

Summary Report of Voice Campaign

Summary Report of Survey Campaign Questions

our journey to stability, quality , and performance excellence: ICTBroadcast version 3.0 to 3.4

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IVR Campaign

IVR Campaign and IVR Designer is added. IVR Applications like Call answer, hangup, play audio, play TTS, get digit, play menu, and call transfer. We have also added an Call Record application to record complete calls, that allows them to be downloaded later using web-based interface.

Advanced and Powerful Reporting

ICTBroadcast has very powerful feature of real-time graphical reports. These reports can be found in summarized form as well as detailed form of the reports with statistics and charts.

Load Balancing & Fail-over support

ICTBroadcast has integrated RabbitMQ for Load Balancing over multiple Asterisk nodes. Now one campaign can span multiple nodes and can achieve throughput of thousands of concurrent channels at a time.

REST APIs

REST APIs allows ICTBroadcast to be integrated with any application e.g. External Call centre, Billing application or web portal. REST APIs can be used in a variety of ways, from showing campaign statistics on the web page, to creating new users through a function call.

Appointment Reminder Campaign

Appointment reminder campaign supports individual reminder and group reminder. In individual reminder, every contact that is dialled may have different appointment schedule time. Example of individual reminder are doctor's appointment or lawyer's appointment where each patient/client have different timings for the meeting. Where as, in group reminder, a group of people will be dialled according to the campaign schedule time e.g. people attending a seminar or class.

Resource Management Interface

User Resource management interface allows to set time slot and weekdays for the user to run campaign. This feature enables time-based restriction to start a campaign and can be extended in future to include more resource management features.

RPM release for CentOs 6.x and Installation GUI

RPM release of ICTBroadcast CentOS 6.x is provided and can be downloaded from ICTBroadcast website. Also, easy to install step-by-step instructions are provided for web-based GUI interface.

GUI for AMD configuration

Now administrators of ICTBroadcast can configure settings of Answering Machine Detection (AMD) according to their needs. Admin can tweak settings accordingly based on their user's scenarios for voice broadcasting, voice mail and fax blasting.

System-wide configuration

System Configuration allows Admin to manage the behavior and performance of the overall ICTBroadcast system. It allows Advanced Users to configure Campaigns, Forms, and Servers.

Trunk testing

This new feature allows administrators to test trunk immediately without creating any campaign. Once configuring a trunk is completed, admin can click on the test trunk link. Admin can select which kind of service he/she is interested to test, for example, voice, fax, sms, email and video. After that they can Immediately writing the phone number (or email) where admin want to send the test message to go.

Advance Campaign Management

ICTBroadcast now offers a significantly more Advanced Campaign Management System. Users can stop or start a campaign at any time, can modify a campaign in real-time, and can increase or decrease the number of concurrent channels, simply and conveniently from the easy-to-use Dashboard.

IVR Reporting for AMD and DNC

IVR reports for AMD and DNC are interactive and informative. New version of ICTBroadcast has added AMD and DNC reporting for IVR campaigns.

Open ended Question in Survey

Open ended questions allows to add questions in survey where voice response is required from the call recipient. Normally, in voice surveys, the call recipient will press some DTMF key in response to the answer choice of a survey question. But open ended question will allow call recipient to speak in response to a survey question. The voice of the call recipient will be recorded as an answer to the question. This type of question is useful where feedback from the user is required. Such questions are usually the last questions in a survey.

Media / Call Recording (monitoring) Report

Now ICTBroadcast users can view call status, call detail report, media report. Call detail report will show when a call is placed, when it is received and when call completed. It will also show much a particular call cost.

Other important features included are listed below:
* Multiple role support added
* Role management with permission and resource
* Closing/Ending message support added
* Server monitoring support added (Monit)
* Campaign and User wise CDR reports / report enhancements
* Additional REST APIs for campaign and role management
* New TTS engine Cepstral support added
* SSL support added
* Media / Message validation before campaign start
* Recording Studio for messaged recording added
* Auto concurrent channel control (decrease) on low balance
* Campaign repeat support added
* Improved APIs and documentation
* Update support added from yum

Asterisk Support Services

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Our Asterisk Support Engineers can help you to run your business smoothly by monitoring and maintaining your asterisk / Linux servers and proving you immediate support services during your business hours. Our Asterisk Support Engineers monitor Asterisk / Linux Servers during customer's business hours. We offer emergency support services in case of issues arising during Customer's business hours.

Maintenance Services include
Performance Tuning of Asterisk / Linux Server
Fixing security holes to make Asterisk / Linux Server secure from attack
Update old software / applications with latest version
Note: Asterisk Dialplan programming is not included in this support package.

Asterisk Support Packages

StandardGoldPlatinum
Price per month$ 100$ 200$ 400
Response Time12 hours4 hours1 hours
Remote Health Check Yes Yes Yes
Modes of AccessibilityChat/ E Mail/ SkypeChat/ E Mail/ SkypeChat/ Telephone/ E Mail/ Skype
Number of Servers Supported111
Ticket Priority4 working days3 working days1 working day
Configuration and Administration of AsteriskYesYesYes
One time Installation of Asterisk, TrixBox, Elastix & FreePBX and Dial plan configurationOn RequestYesYes
Support Tickets Allocated Per Month8x512x5 12x7
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