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<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial size=2>So I'm trying to set
up queues and agents and am trying to figure out the best way to set up what I
need to do. And what I need to do is basically get Asterisk to mimic my
company's current phone system. As close as possible of course. And
my main problem is queues and agents. Currently, for our queues
and agents, a person is assigned a hot-desk extension, which they use to login
to any phone and then they can send and receive calls at that
extension. There is no seperate extension
and agent id--they are pretty much the same thing. But the
extension moves around with them to wherever they log in. The
advantage is that they always have the same extension. When no one is
logged into a phone, the phone is assigned a catch all username called "no user"
which has limited dialing capabilities. With Asterisk, when you log
in an agent, they assume the extension of the phone that they have just
logged in under. Yes, if they are a member of a queue, they will
always receive calls from that queue regardless of what extension they are at,
but for DID and internal calls, you would never know which extension to
dial to reach a person setup in such a way.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial size=2>So here's what
I've come up with (but I, of course, still have questions...):
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial size=2>Match the
agent ID to an extension. Assign an agent their ID and then
assign a certain working area, and a assign certain phone to that working
area and assign that phone an extension that is the same as
their agent id. The pitfall here is that if you do it this
way, only one person could utilize that working area and that phone.
Agents working in shifts at the same work area and same phone would
not work--unless multiple agents used the same extension, which again kills your
DID and internal calling. Of course, you could assign the extension the
phone based on time, but what if you want to have open seating and you want any
agent to sit in any work area at any given time? You can see it starts to
get messy when you try to work it out this way. Also, if you did
do the matched extension and agent id, if a person was re-assigned to a new work
area, they either have to take their phone with them, or you get to
setup a new phone with their extension. Perhaps there is something in
Asterisk that I don't know about that could benefit me here?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm thinking another
way to do something like what I need is via XML, but I'm not exactly sure how to
do it this way. Can you assign a phone a certain extension and then give
it an option for "logging in" using their agent id and then based on their agent
id, push a new XML file out that assigns their specific extension. Can you
re-assign a new extension to a phone this way? I believe this would be a
decent way to set this up (if the XML files aren't too complicated) but I'm not
exactly sure how to do it. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial size=2>Any suggestions,
pointers, directions...?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Thanks!</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=375090021-27012006><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ben
Ferguson</FONT></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>