[Asterisk-Users] SER Interaction: Agents and Extensions

[brett-asterisk at worldcall.net]

Matthew Boehm wrote:

>Why not let asterisk be your PSTN GW? It is in our case, just throwing out
>my $0.02.
>
>Most of the cases I can think of I can get around. The one I can't seem to
>figure out is 'Agents'.
>
>Agents will need to login/logout using 1 number. I can forward that number
>from SER to asterisk by looking for it, no biggie there. The problem lies in
>having 1 SER box and many * boxes. If Agent 1 logs in at Asterisk-1, and
>agent 2 logs in at Asterisk-4, and a call comes into the queue at
>Asterisk-3, what then? Can Asterisk-3 see that the 2 agents are loggedin?
>
>Asterisk boxes need to share states and that seems difficult to accomplish.
>
>-Matthew
>  
>
>
Because my PSTN network is SS7 connected. :) and it's a decently large 
interconnection. Today I'd need somewhere on the order of 100-150 T1s 
and that's really just initial numbers.

I've looked at the SS7 solution and it's not quite where i need it yet.. 
but maybe soon.

As for your problem, I think you can still do it. The asterisk box 
managing the agent needs to manage the dial in queue as well.. So calls 
coming in must hit that box, but I don't think anything says agents need 
to be connected to it.. I haven't tried it, but can you register an 
agent on a Local channel? If so, there is a lot of stuff you can do
Like AddQueueMember(techsupport|Local/7135551212 at pstn-gateway) I bet 
that works.

I think most people probably do something like:
AddQueueMember(techsupport|SIP/${CALLERIDNUM}), but I bet you can put 
any valid channel name in there.
-Brett