3CX Partner Bootcamp Chicago

Sorry for my terrible absence from posting on the blog. Our firm has been extremely busy with a lot of exciting projects including the acquisition of a healthcare IT provider. So this, combined with the fact that I am a slacker, is my excuse for my terrible absence:)

It's the partner bootcamp in Chicago today. Just started a little while ago and Brian Conway is presenting some great info about the upcoming features in v8 of 3CX.

He indicated that we can expect the v8 beta coming out in July this year. So that's pretty exciting. I am also very excited becasue the coffee machines at the Microsoft Training Center have progress bars on them. Now, my life of watching progress bars is complete.

Other cool items we are excited about, call boomerang, enhanced CRM integration, SecureRTP, Skype Gateway, LDAP integration to Active Directory, remote phone reboots, and many more!

I will be starting the technical training shortly....for those of you that are forced to listen to my mindless garble, I apologize scincerely, later on there will be beer adn life will be better:)

Best,

Mike

Sending Custom CallerID on your SIP Trunk

Sorry I have been absent for the last month from my postings. I have been absolutely swamped with installs and support. Which, in this economy, is a good thing.

Over the last month I have done work for several 3CX customers who are using 3CX as a softswitch to provide VoIP services to business and residential customers. Let's assume the customer is feeding 3CX with a SIP Trunk. In this scenario, the customer typically wants each extension to outpulse a different CallerID to the world. The issue is, by default, 3CX will send the authentication ID you have configured on the Trunk (typically the main number assigned to the trunk by the SIP provider). So, how do we do this?

The first thing I will caution, is that you must check with your SIP Trunk carrier to verify they will accept caller ID from your 3CX system. Some providers override anything you send. Now, assuming they will accept this data form you on each call, you need to find out which SIP header fields they need this data to be in. The most common are for it to be in the From: and the Contact: fields of the outgoing INVITE from 3CX to the SIP carrier. So, we need to do some advanced customization of our SIP headers on our main outbound SIP Trunk.

1. On your VoIP Provider account go to 'Outbound Paramaters'
2. Set the 'From: Display Name', 'From: User Part', "Contact: User Part' fields to "CallerNum".
3. Set the Outbound Caller ID field on each extension in Extension->Other->Outbound Caller ID to be the value you want to outpulse for each extension.

You will now be sending your customized Caller ID in your SIP INVITE.

Happy 3CXing!!!!

Best,

Mike

Challenge Problem #1 - Week of 1/26/09

Background:

Acme Corp is a small manufacturer of baby toys in the US. They are headquartered in San Antonio, Texas with a second small office in India. The San Antonio office employs 40 staff and provides its customers with a critical support line (CSL) to call to report important problems with their toys or to get information on potential toy recalls. Over the last year, Acme has been expanding sales in the US and Europe. Because of this, Acme corp is experiencing an increase in calls to their CSL that are coming outside of their standard US operating hours of 8AM-5PM Central Time. The CEO of Acme Corp has decided to rent a small office in India and hire 2 call agents to work in that office and provide extended hours phone support for the CSL. The IT department has already completed integration of the WAN between the new India office and the San Antonio headquarters. Primary Internet is fed into the San Antonio office and provided to the India office via the existing WAN connection. No phone lines or voip services have been purchased.


Problem Scenario/Requirements:

1. From the hours of 5AM-8PM CST, all calls to the CSL are to be answered in the US by a 4 agent team. Outside of these hours, calls to the critical support line are to be answered by the India office's 2 agent team.


2. The CEO has requested that this be done in the most cost effective way posible while still meeting the other requirements.


3. The solution must be tolerant of a WAN link failure between sites.


4. The solution must be tolerant of a loss of Internet connectivity or a primary Telco failure in San Antonio (not both).


5. Any callers waiting to speak with an agent during the answering shift from US to India (morning or evening) must be seemlessly shifted to the other answering team.


6. All calls inbound to the CSL (and only the CSL) must be recorded. When agents make outbound calls, these should not be recorded. This functionality must be automatic and require no special intervention by the agent.


7. No voicemail is to be used for the CSL. Calls must be answered or held until an agent is available. Individual agents are permitted to have voicemail boxes.


8. The solution must support at least 12 concurrent calls to the CSL and be easily scalable.

Have fun!

Submit your solution as a comment. I have to release comments for posting so I will hold them until the 2 weeks is up. You can post questions if you want and I will answer and post for all to read during the 2 weeks, but I would like to keep questons to a minimum and base the solution off the info you see. Don't ask me "what I am looking for" for a particular item. That's up to you!

Happy 3CXing!!!!

Best,

Mike

New Bi-weekly Challenges

So, as I'm sure everyone can tell, one of my favorite things to do is come up with creative ways to solve 3CX challenges. Sometimes, these are just creatively leveraging existing features in a unique way and sometimes it's completely hacking the heck out of the thing to make it bend and submit to my will!

So, I have decided to begin creating bi-weekly challenges. Every other week I will post a new 3CX related problem that I will be challenging readers to solve. Everyone who would like to submit a response will simply need to post a comment in response to the original post. Since I moderate the comments, I will review everything at the end of the challenge period before posting the winner (and other good solutions). This way nobody should be able to leverage anyone else's ideas. Just make sure to include your name on your post so I don't have to credit "anonymous" winners.

What do you win? Just my undivided admiration and praise until the next winner is crowned.

Quartlerly, I plan to decide which solution submitted during that quarter is judged to be the best one and that lucky poster will win an Amazon gift card. I have debated having a giant, gold-plated, heavyweight wrestling belt made that the winner could wear proudly around town. But I decided to go with the gift card.


Happy 3CXing!!!!


Best,

Mike

Remotely Record Digital Receptionists Messages

I always have clients who want to be able to more easily record their DR messages. Or, at least the main one at the top level. So, I set out on a quest to figure out how to do this. Obviously, long term, it will make more sense for 3CX to make this a real extension we can record from the IVR for...but at the moment it is not...so here we go.....

I will preface this with my usual...I like to do things that are completely unsupported to my PBX:) If you break your PBX doing this, 3CX is not going to support you nor will I. You use these instructions at your own risk.

Alrighty then!.....

1. Create a voicemail enabled extension in 3cx. Let's call mine 9997.
2. Call in and record your greeting annoucement for this extension. In the directory "C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Voicemail\Data\extnum" you will find the file SaveVMGreeting.wav. This is the recording you just made.
3. Now, create your digital receptionist. When you upload the wav file select the recording from the previous step. in my case this is located here "C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Voicemail\Extensions\9997"
4. Now, delete the SaveVMGreeting.wav file from the "C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Voicemail\Data\extnum" directory.
5. After creation of the digital receptionist in step 3, you will notice this file has been uploaded here..."C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Prompts". Make a backup copy of this directory just in case you mung it up ;)
6. Download junction from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx
7. Extract junction.exe and put it somewhere on your PC
8. Go to a command prompt and CD to the location you put Junction.exe
9. Run the command.. junction.exe "C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Voicemail\Data\extnum" "C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Ivr\Prompts" making sure to replace extnum with your extension number from step 1.

OK, now the voicemail greeting directory for the extension you created (for me 9997) is symbolically linked to your prompts directory and the wav file in use for the digital recptionist is SaveVMGreeting.wav and is located inside the prompts directory. This basically tricks the file system so that whenever you record your VM greeting for the extension your created you are really overwriting your Digital Receptionist message.

**DO NOT DELETE THE EXTENSION VOICEMAIL DIRECTORY WITHOUT FIRST UNLINKING THEM OR YOU WILL DELETE THE PROMPTS DIRECTORY.**

Whats the result of this? Whenever the voicemail prompt in direct extnum is re-recorded it is actually replacing the SaveVMGreeting.wav file in the prompts directory and hence allowing you to record your digital receptionist message very easily.

This will only work for 1 level of your digital receptionist since all VM recordings have the same file name.

Is this a total hack? Yes! But it's beautiful isn't it? :)

Happy 3CXing!!!!

Best,

Mike

Training Reminder

Just a reminder to everyone about our March 3CXExtreme training session. Yours truly will be running it so (I don't know if that's an enticement or a repelent) so don't miss out.

It's 2 full days of training in a classroom environment. Were keeping these sessions smaller and really trying to have synergy amongst those in attendance. The price is all inclusive except your airfare.

Im going to be changing 1 session (session 4) and adding another one (troubleshooting and SIP analysis) this week so you can check back in on that agenda. But it will be a good time. End users and partners are welcome.

3CX by day....beers in the evening.....I mean come on, you can't possibly be busy enough to miss this!

Details are at http://www.worksighted.com

Best,

Mike

v7 Park Orbit Changes

Not sure if any of you have noticed this but with the advent of v7 you can now monitor Park Orbit status via BLF (sort of).

As I'm sure you all know the Park Orbits work like a combination of a virtual extension and a dial code and a queue. Blind transfering a call to *01 parks it to position 1. Calling *11 picks the call in position 1.

In v7 I have been able to add a BLF status key for *0. This goes off hook if there is a call parked anywhere in the queue. It goes on hook if there are no calls parked. Now, this doesnt show us who is parked and where. Nor can you pickup bu pushing the blf key since pick is a different dial code....but one could argue those are limitation of a blf key on a phone.

So, nothing earth shattering, but interesting as I know many where interested in this.

Happy 3CXing!!!!

Best,

Mike

Direct T.38 Faxing into 3CX via VoIP Line

I've seen talk on the forums about wanting to bring in a fax directly to 3CX via a VoIP provider. Currently, 3CX only supports faxing via a PSTN gateway device. I'm not saying I disagree with them, but I couldnt help myself from trying to make it work:)

I decided to utilize our BroadVox SIP trunk for this since they support T38 faxing.

Today I was able to have some measure of success in receiving inbound faxes. The key thing to note is that your SIP trunk needs to have "PBX Delviers Audio" disabled and "Support Re-invites" enabled. With this combination I was able to successfully negotiate a T38 session with broadvox and receive a fax.

Best,

Mike

How to Enable the missing 'allowUseBusyOptForGroup' Option in 3CX v7 / How to Add Boot Parameters in v7

This requires you to modify the 3CX databases. While I have done this several times without issue, please be aware that you take full responsibility for your own PBX and you use this info at your own risk. You should make sure to have a good backup on hand. As well, it is likely 3CX would not support these changes and either will I.

OK, here we go....

1. Download pgadmin III to use for modifying the database. http://www.pgadmin.org/download/
2. Install pgadmin on your 3CX box, the defaults should be fine
3. Launch pgadmin and go to 'File->Add Server'
4. For 'Name' and 'Host' enter '127.0.0.1'
5. For 'Port' enter '5480'
6. For 'username' enter 'phonesystem'
7. For 'password' we need to perform the following....open your ini file located at c:\program files\3cx phonesystem\bin\3cxphonesystem.ini. Do a Find and look for the string 'dbPassword'. You should find a long alphanumeric string with hyphens. Copy the alphanumeric string and paste into 'password' in pgadmin
8. Make sure the 'connect now' option is ticked
9. Hit OK.

You are now connected to your 3CX database with full admin rights. At this point, you can completely mung it up.

Now, in pgAdmin....

1. Navigate to 'databases->phonesystem->schemas->public->tables'
2. Expand tables
3. Right click the 'parameter' table and select 'view data->view ALL rows'
4. Scroll to the bottom of the table
5. We are going to create a new row by typing values in the row marked with '*'
6. In column 1 enter 'ALLOWUSEBUSYOPTFORGROUP'
7. In column 2 enter 'allow group busy'
8. In column 3 enter '0' (thats a zero not an O)
9. In column 4 enter '1'
10. At this point, the last column has nothing in it
11. Click in another field elsewhere in the table (in other words, click off this new row). this commits the row
12. Now, click the refresh button at the top of the window. This will autopopulate the last column with the proper next seq num.
13. Exit pgadmin

Now, go back to 3CX and restart all services. Once everything comes back up your old 'allowUseBusyOptForGroup' should be working again.

Happy 3CXing!!!!

Best,

Mike

Connecting your Home Phone to 3CX

I wrote a post for the 3CX corporate blog about this here....

http://www.3cx.com/blog/voip-howto/connecting-your-home-phone-to-3cx/

Some of you may find it interesting.

Mike

VoIP lines can make or break an install

One thing I have found is that VoIP phone lines can make or break an install for 3CX. You can have the most well thought out 3CX deployment: great hardware, great phones, great software, great design.....but add in VoIP lines and if the end user hears jitter or garbage, the whole install is deemed a failure.

The issue with VoIP service is that there is so much happening between your 3CX box and the ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider) that you have chosen, that its practicaly on a whim and a prayer that you get good call quality. The provider can have a great system....you might implement QoS on your edge router, but you can't control whats between you and them.

The kicker of course, is that there is such a cost savings for SMBs (Small / Midsized Businesses) to use VoIP lines that it is extremely tempting and frankly, much more flexible than POTs and PRI.

I have spent some time in my firms home area and have been able to identify at least one privately owned ISP (which is easier to deal with than some goliath like ATT) that is not only an ISP but also provides VoIP trunks. But, to go further than that, they maintain their own physical connections to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). So they are a true ITSP NOT a wholesaler shipping your traffic to another provider.

What does this mean? It means that if they are the customers ISP....and also the VoIP dial tone provider....that the customers Outbound/Inbound VoIP traffic jumps directly to their upstream ISP and is placed onto the PSTN. As well, you have 1 provider who controls the end to end for both internet and voice on a single pipe.

Benefits?

1. Drastically improved call quality for a VoIP provider
2. Single vendor for voice and internet service
3. Cost advantage because the vendor is delivering 2 services bundled rather than buying these 2 services from seperate vendors
4. Much improved engineering support from the ISP since they are not a goliath

Conclusions?

Well, I am NOT AT ALL saying that the ITSP only companies out there are not good. That is not my point. What I am suggesting, is that there is too much happening between the customer and the ITSP to be able to ensure call quality and hence a happy end user. Furthermore, I am suggesting that localized ISPs, that can also act as an ITSP (and when I say this I mean they have physical PSTN connections in-house and are not shipping the VoIP traffic to some wholesaler) can offer some great benefits as well as more reliable call quality.

Just some thoughts to consider.

Happy 3Xing!!!

Best,

Mike

PS - Don't forget about our upcoming 3CXtreme training. Its going to be a lot of fun! We have a good venue and we're going to have a great small group of individuals who really want to dig in to the 3CX product.

So dont forget to sign up!

3CXtreme: Advanced 3CX Training coming in December

This December, Worksighted will be hosting 3CXtreme, an advanced 3CX training program for 3CX partners and end-users. The training comes just a few months after 3CX's Boot Camp in Florida and will provide a more indepth training that complements Boot Camp.

View 3CXtreme Training Website

3CXtreme training is intended to be a high-touch training experience focused on advanced solutions available with the 3CX solution. This session's topics include Unified Messaging, XML development, Hot Desking, multi-office deployments, and more.

3CXtreme training will take place in a classroom-sized setting so we are able to better understand usage profiles for each attendee and customize the training to maximize knowledge sharing. This structure will also allow a better "community building" experience, where attendees and experts will have more meaningful interactions through intensive training and nightly activities.

When: Wednesday, December 10th - Friday, December 12th
Where: City Flats Hotel - Holland, MI - USA

Registration and Pricing
Standard Registration: Opens October 1, 2008 - $1,695 USD
Early Bird Registration: October 1, 2008 - October 24th, 2008 - $1,495 USD

Includes:

• 2 Night Hotel Stay (at City Flats Hotel)
• Airport transportation to/from Grand Rapids, MI (Gerald R. Ford) Airport and Hotel (both arrival and departure)
• Welcome Reception on December 10th
• Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner on December 11th
• Breakfast/Lunch on December 12th
• Prizes!

Beta testers needed for Hotdesking Program

I am wrapping-up initial development of a hostdesk software for Aastra phones and 3CX. (but I plan to extend to other XML capable phones, SNOM is next on my list). But anyway, the app is pretty slick. I based the beginnings on the aastra xml scripts that do a limited hotdesk function in conjunction with asterisk. But then I added quite a bit of capability as well as added a web management interface and obviously integrated with 3CX for authentication purposes and other features.

Essentially, the app works as follows...

1. Phone boots and requests aastra.cfg from tftp server
2. aastra.cfg specifies a startup XML app
3. Phone launches XML hotdesk program and performs authentication ,etc
4. XML app imports extension specific parameters from ini file
5. Extension is marked as active in the active extensions file
6. XML app then dynamically writes the .cfg file including special parameters
7. Phone is told to reboot and then fetches .cfg as usual
8. Voila! You have a working extension with your special attributes (blfs, etc)
9. User can now "log out" and extension is "released"

I've also included a basic web management interface that allows administrators to see which extensions are in use as well as forcibly reliease extensions after abnormal phone reboots etc.

There is definitely much more I will add in future updates, but hey, it works and it's free!

I will be posting the installation instructions in the next few days.

Mike

XML Applications for Aastra 5xi Series

Im working on some various XML Applications for the Aastra 5xi Series of IP phones. Im starting by porting over some of the pre-made Aastra/Asterisk scripts.

These assume your 3CX installation is in the default c:\program files\3cx phonesystem\ directory. The aastra XML apps will live inside of C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Data\Http\aastra

http://www.worksighted.com/blog/3cxfiles/aastra.zip

At the moment this has the weather feed ported over. This creates a 'cache' directory for storing cahced RSS feeds etc inside of /aastra/cache. The weather for specific Zips is cached for an hour per phone to prevent hammering the RSS server.

You also need to edit httpd.conf to allow access to the new aastra subdirectory via http. You need to edit C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Bin\Apache\conf\httpd.conf and add the following ...

<Location /aastra>
Allow from all
</Location>

and save the file. You will need to restart the 3CX Apache service for that change to take effect.

To use this on your Aastra 5xi, just assign one of your buttons an XML value of http://xx.xx.xx.xx:5481/weather.php (obviously editing IP and server port as appropriate). If you dont want to prompt for zip and use a default use this format....http://xx.xx.xx.xx:5481/weather.php?zip=xxxxx and it wont prompt for zip code.I'll post the additional scripts to this thread as I go through them.

I'm also working on a hot-desking script which should be cool.

Mike

Implementing Remote Extensions in 3CX w/ OpenVPN

Remote extensions are a hot topic with 3CX. As anyone knows who has wrestled with them, SIP and RTP give us plenty of issues when it comes to NAT and remote phones. I went in search of a plug and play and secure solution for remote extensions.

I ended up using OpenVPN w/ 3CX and a SNOM 370 IP Phone with the OpenVPN firmware to achieve this solution. Here is a complete write up.....

Implementing Remote Extensions in 3CX w/ OpenVPN

Mike