[Asterisk-Users] Features you'd like to see in a GUI?

[Kanuri, Seshu (Company IT)]

Sherwood,

Your intentions are noble and your desire to build this, fullfills an
immediate need for business.

If your intention is just to build a GUI for Asterisk, read no further.
If your desire is to build something more purposeful, your best bet
would be to see the existing commercial GUI/HostedPBX offerings like
Pbxware and Switchware from bicomsystems.com 
( http://www.bicomsystems.com) 
and Thirdlane Technologies (http://www.thirdlane.com/opensource.htm) and
the Open Source software like AMP and try to emulate (or preferably
improve upon) them.

My suggestion is to create a "VOIP Business in a Box System" that has
inter-alia following list of modules:

1) GUI To configure Administer Asterisk Extensions across many servers
2) Postpaid and Prepaid Billing modules with realtime call progress
detection and call cut-off
3)CRM Module for customers to register and provide their information for
recurring billing.
4)Web based conference room management module
5)Web based click to dial and callback module

Many of these modules are already available on Open Source like
SugarCRM, AsreskiCC etc., and Asterisk at home CD contains AMP and SugarCRM
at this time, besides other Open Source utilities like PhpMyAdmin.

Here is the bottomline:
----------------------
The real need is for a commercially deployable solution that can create
a business, without too many additions to it.

Bicom Systems has promised for too long that their Pbxware and
Switchware can fullfill this need to create a business, but they never
deliverd their promise. PBXware and Switchware have been a total and
expensive disappointment to me and for the few who invested in them.

The story is similar with Thirdlane Technologies who promised a good
Asterisk Management Interface but they have not been able to deliver a
mature GUI to manage Asterisk, let alone deploying a Hosted PBX.

AMP fullfills this promise partially and I am impressed with it's
richness of features, to create a Open Source Hosted PBX where you don't
need to bill the customer.

AreskiCC Provides a module to run a Calling Card Business but not as a
Hosted PBX .

AMP Gives a nice Gui and can be used as a Corporate PBX but not as a
Commercial Hosted PBX as it does not have a billing system.

In summary a system that is a blend of AMP + AreskiCC + SugarCRM would
be a good mix of ingredients to build what I would call a "Business in a
Box" solution. There is money to make in such solutions.

The Business in a box solution could be any one of the following, with
the ingredient modules being varied.

1)Asterisk Calling Card Business in a Box
2)Asterisk Call Center Business in a Box
3)Asterisk Business Messaging Business in a Box
4)Asterisk Hosted Telephone and PBX business in a Box
  Etc etc.

My .02 cents on this.

Seshu Kanuri

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Sherwood
McGowan
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 9:02 AM
To: 'Matt Florell'; 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial
Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Features you'd like to see in a GUI?


->Is this going to be a configuration utility or an end-user utility?

Both, there will eventually be functionality for per-user permissions,
however right now this is for the administrator to add/remove "accounts"
in SIP and IAX, eventually other trunks, voicemail configurations, per
user configuration of options, etc...think Asterisk @ Home's combination
of tools, all in one place. 

Perhaps it would be better to show what's going on already, here's what
I have currently working in my employer's system (an ITSP):

Editing of individual extensions/trunks in SIP and IAX Voicemail Account
/ Option Editing CDR Searching Provisioning File Editing for devices
User configuration editing (extra table setup for Account options)
Account Management (Using SIP for end user accounts, interface merges
voicemail, sip, provisioning, and user options on one page) System
Statistics (concurrent calls, channels, memory usage, load, etc...)

Current future plans:
Specific SIP/IAX Channel Information
Allowing dropping of a channel (this is due to the occasional need for
dropping hung channels, which can really rack up fees on a system) SIP
PRUNE REALTIME PEER <number> SIP SHOW PEER <number> [load] The above two
options for IAX as well.
Voicemail Greetings webinterface (not hard, just not finished yet)
Voicemail Webinterface (really fairly easy, just not done)
Extensions.conf editing Logging Interface Log viewing & Management


As you can see, this is a fairly indepth project. Until I actually had
to use Asterisk on a large scale (1000+ concurrent users), I hadn't
thought of a lot of these features. The more I use it the more I come
across little things that would be really useful. Thanks to Digium for
offering the commandline option "asterisk -rx commandtoexecute"!

Aside from these planned features, are there any other arcane options
that you'd like to see? I'm definitely trying to get as many of the CLI
commands implemented in one way or another, as many users don't want to
sit in the CLI and watch verbose output, while admins such as myself
need to be able to watch progression of calls.

Thanks again,
Sherwood McGowan
ARTCP Developer


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