[Asterisk-Users] PBX Console

[Steven Critchfield]

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 17:40, steve wrote:
> On Wednesday 23 April 2003 16:29, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> > On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 14:28, steve wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I've been looking into the one bad thing about * which is
> > > there's no practical solution to running a console. You know
> > > the kind where you have rows of buttons each representing an
> > > extension. You press the button of the extension you want to
> > > transfer the call to, and it's done.
> >
> > Couple of points here. What you point out isn't a bad thing. It
> > may not live up to the expectation you have for asterisk right
> > now, but it can't be everything to everybody. There are many of
> > us using it just fine right now without that kind of
> > functionality. This isn't to say it shouldn't be written and
> > distributed at some point.
> 
> : ) I'm not looking at everything, just to be able to replace a 
> typical PBX, and frankly Auto Attendant is in the minority use. 

This must be a difference in who we talk to. I rarely if ever get to
talk to a human unless I'm at an endpoint of a call. Of course this says
nothing about the fact that there is a great number of users using
asterisk currently and are happy with it. And as I said before, this
doesn't mean we couldn't use what you propose.

> > > There's the beginnig of GUI version but it's going to eat
> > > resources for running X which can become less than desirable,
> > > besides it's not very competitive having to use a mouse to
> > > handle calls. Too slow.
> >
> > This gui version, are you refering to gastman? if so, it is able
> > to be run remotely. I run it on a free monitor here so I can
> > track system usage. I rarely use it for call routing.
> 
> Yes, but in order to forward X to another machine X has to run on 
> the server, thus slowing down the server. Using 729 will eat enough 
> horsepower by itself.

BZZT. wrong. Try this again. X does not need to be running on a machine
to serve an X app. Secondly gastman, the current closest thing to what
you propose, uses a tcp/ip communications channel to tell asterisk what
to do and keep up to date as to what is going on. There is a windows
native version of this software, more proof of no need for X on the
server.

> > > So my idea is to have a text window. We can run at a higher res
> > > than 25x80 and squeeze a fair number of extensions onto it.
> > >
> > > The idea is to either use the extension number to access an
> > > extension or for less than 100 station system, use a two digit
> > > number for each person. This way there's minimum typing for the
> > > operator. This have enough space to easily display busy, hold,
> > > vmail etc. as the status of each extension.
> > >
> > > This way with a flatscreen monitor, or dual for bigger systems
> > > we can even run the console away from the server and use
> > > minimum bandwidth.
> >
> > Maybe go to a GUI, but without all the cutesy icons. The icons
> > would get in the way in a larger system. Also if you could go
> > touchscreen and IAX VoIP, you could have an answer button and the
> > next icon click is the transfer. This shouldn't be too hard to
> > write up in perl or so once someone wrappers up the manager
> > communication.
> 
> Touch screen is a nice "touch". But I'd settle for a text solution 
> right now. 
> 
> > > The other status screen would be a voice mail screen where you
> > > can A) see the status of voicemail. Lines in use etc. B) change
> > > the name and features associated with voice mail.
> >
> > Voicemail doesn't use lines so part A is not exactly needed. As
> > for B, why would a receptionist do this when it is available to
> > each user via the phone line.
> 
> Because you cannot configure all the options via a phone. I need to 
> be able to replace standard PBXs with voice mail. I don't expect to 
> see an operator configuring voice mail, but it needs to be 
> configured by some type of admin. In a corporate setting there are 
> control you are not willing to give to the user like adding and 
> removing boxes, reconfiguring how calls are to be routed for 
> someone, typical maintenance stuff. I.e. not talking about messages 
> and passwords.

Currently the asterisk config files, to which voicemailbox adds/deletes
require a person edit the files. There have been others mention wanting
to build gui config tools for asterisk. Check the archive and maybe see
if you can help them out. 
-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch at basesys.com>