[Asterisk-biz] New asterisk web gui for small/medium sized businesses

[snacktime]

On 11/2/05, Rod Bacon <rod.bacon at empoweredcomms.com.au> wrote:
>
> You asked for feedback, so here goes.
>
> Let me start by saying that I applaud your effort at getting involved in
> the
> project. I wish i could write a scrap of code, as there's literally dozens
> of
> things I'd like to contribute.
>
> Now... onto AWG.
>
> Personally, I'm not sure where this tool fits. It's too newbie for techos,
> and
> too techo for newbies. There are a multitude of other gui config tools
> floating
> around for SME customers, and some nifty user tools (like FOP, for
> example).
>

It's definitely not designed for someone who is on the more technical side,
since it doesn't really do anything for you that you can't do with the
configuration files if you know what you are doing. I'm curious what aspects
in particular you think are too technical for a business person if given
adequate documentation? Is it primarily the terminology used (such as
contexts) and how different things link together? Such as phones with
extensions, etc..? Also, I'm assuming you are talking about the user
interface, the admin interface is pretty plain, it's only there to add users
and templates.

Personally I think the main challenge is in the logical structure of the
pages and the terminology that is used. With the right balance I think you
can still have an interface that is powerful yet easy to use for someone
that doesn't know much about phone systems and little to nothing about
asterisk. I don't really like using asterisk terminology, and that is one
area we are thinking about. But if you start to stray too far from the
'asterisk way' of doing things, then you end up with a tool that is too
limited. So IMO it's about finding the right balance. One option we are
thinking about is to just use the templating system to build some wizards
for the most common tasks, which is fairly easy to do.


A couple of other things that probably are not obvious from the demo. Multi
tenant is built in and pretty much transparent. The web interface and
asterisk don't have to live on the same server either, and if they are on
the same server they dont' have to run as the same user. And it also doesn't
take over your configuration files. You dont' have to change the way you do
anything. There is also a very non technical voicemail interface.

Chris
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-biz/attachments/20051103/03c2fd4d/attachment.htm