Newbie with Questions

[srthomas]

Hi all,

I've done my share of reading around ViciDial and understand Asterisk and call centres well. Our PBX is currently PBX in a Flash based.

I've been looking at VICIDial to fulfil a couple of requirements we have.

* Dialling - is there a mode whereby the details are presented to the agent and the agent initiates dialling? I don't need predictive, just the agent to ok the call and the system to dial and connect.

* Can ViciDial have PBX users too or is something like PBX in a flash used alongside for a couple of PBX users?

* Call recording. How are they stored on disk? Are they stored by day/month in organised folder structure or are they all dumped to a single folder?

* Are there limits to call recording interface when dealing with large number of call recordings? Approx 3,000 calls per day.

Thanks all, looking forward to some replies.

Steve

[Arative]

Hi all,

I've done my share of reading around ViciDial and understand Asterisk and call centres well. Our PBX is currently PBX in a Flash based.

I've been looking at VICIDial to fulfil a couple of requirements we have.

* Dialling - is there a mode whereby the details are presented to the agent and the agent initiates dialling? I don't need predictive, just the agent to ok the call and the system to dial and connect.

You can set up a campaign for manual dialing.

* Can ViciDial have PBX users too or is something like PBX in a flash used alongside for a couple of PBX users?

Not sure exactly what you mean here but I have both a switchvox appliance and the vicidial running. My users are connected to both at the same time with no issues.

* Call recording. How are they stored on disk? Are they stored by day/month in organised folder structure or are they all dumped to a single folder?

There are several different way the recordings are stored depending on how you set up the dialer. They are stored in on folder but through the vicidial interface, it is easy to find the recordings per person. I have my recordings moved off the vicidial to another server daily and we've had no issues finding any recording that we need.

* Are there limits to call recording interface when dealing with large number of call recordings? Approx 3,000 calls per day.

Thanks all, looking forward to some replies.

Steve

We make around 16,000 to 18,000 calls a day, of which we have around 10% answer rate, so we get around 1800 recordings a day. As I said, I move all those recordings to a storage server via crontab script and we have no problem finding them because of the way vicidial handles them. We can back months within the vicidial interface and find recordings.
I can't recommend Vicidial enough, its a great product.

[williamconley]

Hi all,

I've done my share of reading around ViciDial and understand Asterisk and call centres well. Our PBX is currently PBX in a Flash based.

I've been looking at VICIDial to fulfil a couple of requirements we have.

* Dialling - is there a mode whereby the details are presented to the agent and the agent initiates dialling? I don't need predictive, just the agent to ok the call and the system to dial and connect.

There are many methods of manual dialing, including an agent api script that can be used to initiate a manual dial call from other web forms or applications. The most easily tested version of this is in vTiger. Properly set up, it is possible to click on a phone number in a CRM and have that number dialed within Vicidial with no other requirements (except for learning how to be an Agent in Vicidial, to terminate the phone call and Disposition it ...).

* Can ViciDial have PBX users too or is something like PBX in a flash used alongside for a couple of PBX users?

Vicidial IS a PBX and PIAF would then become redundant. However, it can also be used along side a FreePBX based system if you are more comfortable with both. Vicidial has come a long way and managed to duplicate or improve all the necessary functions of a generic PBX in addition to being a predictive auto-dialer ... but if you want some of the cooler FreePBX modules ... well, then keep freepbx ... too. It is possible to have agents take calls in Vicidial on their FreePBX phones (by having Vicidial call them through their FreePBX extenions). Remember that I refer to PBX In A Flash as FreePBX because that's all it really is (just like Trixbox and a few others ... it's just an easier way to install FreePBX than learning Linux!)

* Call recording. How are they stored on disk? Are they stored by day/month in organised folder structure or are they all dumped to a single folder?

Calls are stored initially in a single local folder based on the storage format chosen (ie: in the MP3 folder if you've chosen MP3). However, since this is a Telephone server and not an Archive server, the system is designed to MOVE the recordings to an Archive server via FTP (just put in the FTP credentials and activate the transfer script by removing the "#"). At that location they can be stored by Folders of Dates. The "Link" in Vicidial to each of the recordings is updated when the file is moved, so the user listening to the file will neither know nor care that the file has been moved to the archive server. Scripting is extremely possible to move specific files to various locations (and link to them there) based on any criteria you like (even renaming them) since everything is stored in MySQL.

* Are there limits to call recording interface when dealing with large number of call recordings? Approx 3,000 calls per day.

No.


If you require Enterprise Level system design, I highly recommend you call The Vicidial Group directly. If your system will need to be built "to spec" and never fail ... they have the most experience building out new systems of anyone in the industry. They are, as a result, not "price-cutters", but their software is free which makes them by far the best deal in this market.

(That is not to say you should not call Poundteam, where I work, but we are not related to The Vicidial Group, this is their software, and their forum, and they are without question the best at this! LOL ... and NO I do not get a kickback for saying this, nor have I been hinted or threatened, it's just true! I've seen some of their designed clusters!)