[asterisk-gui] Opinion, what do you want in the gui for users?

[Steven Sokol]

> I like where the discussion is going though, keep it up!
>

Here's the list I gave to the AstriDevCon list.  I realize that much
of this is WAY outside of the scope of the GUI, but much of it relates
to what we can do with the GUI (and how we can integrate stuff with
the GUI).

1) Management/Provisioning

How do we best manage adds/moves/changes/deletes?  Is there some way
to improve the Asterisk Realtime Architecture (ARA), integrated it
with the Manager interface, and provide a single, logical,
really-real-time means of managing an Asterisk system that NEVER
requires the PBX be re-started in order for a change to be applied?
(This overlaps with the clustering/scalability topic.)

2) Endpoint Integration

While not a core service of Asterisk, one of the biggest customer
complaints is the lack of support for endpoint discover and
auto-provisioning.  (Pingtel just beat us out in an comparison and
review in Network World mostly because it does a better job of
integrating with phones.)  Can we work up a standard means of
discovering and configuring some of the most popular phones?

3) User Model

This overlaps with the security topic a good deal.  The primary means
of integrating user desktops with Asterisk is using the manager API.
Unfortunately, the manager's internal security model doesn't provide
any easy way to manage access on a granular level.  How can we improve
it to allow for multiple classes of end-users and administrators?  Can
we take the Users.conf concept and expand it to provide better
services to Asterisk users?

4) Onboard & Offboard AstDB

Let's use SQLite3 in place of the current AstDB and configure the DB
functions, applications, CLI commands, and manager commands so that
they can use either the onboard SQLite database or a remote RDBMS --
seamlessly.  SQLite can also serve as a CDR storage mechanism and can
run readily on embedded systems.

-- 
Steven Sokol
CEO
Sokol & Associates, Inc.

Asterisk Training:  http://www.sokol-associates.com/
AstriCon 2007: http://www.astricon.net/