Call recording and management

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Hi, I have a couple of questions on call recording I hope people can help with please.

I’ve noticed call recording is one of the topics that isn’t well documented or supported but the system’s pretty capable.

My setup is PIAF using FreePBX 2.11 and Asterisk 11.12.0. I have Cisco 7941’s on the system and have patched the system with Gareth’s patch to enable BLF, hint subscription and additional softkey features (issues.asterisk.org/jira/browse/ASTERISK-13145).

The way the ‘Record’ softkey works on the phone is to access extensions_custom.conf and insert this:

; Enable recording
exten => record,1,Answer
same => next,Wait(1)
same => next,Record(${ASTSPOOLDIR}/record/${RECORD_UNIQUEID}-${RECORD_PEERNAME}-${RECORD_DIRECTION}.wav,akqx);
same => next,Hangup(normal_clearing)

This then generates two legs of the call, an inbound and an outbound file. I want the recordings to be in one file so I tried MixMonitor with this in extensions_custom.conf instead:

; Enable recording
exten => record,1,Answer
same => next,Wait(1)
same => next,MixMonitor($
{ASTSPOOLDIR}/record/${RECORD_UNIQUEID}-${RECORD_PEERNAME}-${RECORD_DIRECTION}.wav,akqx);
same => next,Hangup(normal_clearing)

As soon as I press the Record softkey with that, monitoring the CLI the recording terminates straight away. I have tried a conference bridge setting to record but that creates a really bad echo on the call. *1 during the call records a mixed leg file but I’d like to reproduce this on the Record softkey.

So question 1 - what can I put in my extensions_custom.conf to produce a mixed audio file using the softkey on my handset?

Question 2 might be a bit more simple. How can I manage my recorded files without a computer? I was thinking perhaps if they dropped in a voicemail folder I can manage them by voicemail, is that possible?

Last question. Is it possible to record a call from the very start, numbers and everything, by dialling a prefix at the start of a call? I can initiate in-call recording by dialling *1 on Asterisk of course, but I’d be interested in a prefix that says for instance if I dial 000 at the start of a call that tells the system to start recording straight away.

Thanks all for any input you can give me, I’ve asked on the patch link above and also on PIAF forums but no-one is getting back to me.

2

For GUI support use your distro forum in this case PIAF forums

MixMonitor needs an active channel, you cant use it like that, my suggestion is to check the built-in feature used by freepbx you can trigger it using your custom key.

[quote=“laptopu”]
So question 1 - what can I put in my extensions_custom.conf to produce a mixed audio file using the softkey on my handset?
[/quote]No idea since GUI dialplan are complex.

[quote=“laptopu”]
Question 2 might be a bit more simple. How can I manage my recorded files without a computer? I was thinking perhaps if they dropped in a voicemail folder I can manage them by voicemail, is that possible?[/quote]You can trigger an script when the record ends to send the file to your email, but usually the recordings are managed by a GUI or simply HTML dir.

[quote=“laptopu”]
Last question. Is it possible to record a call from the very start, numbers and everything, by dialling a prefix at the start of a call? I can initiate in-call recording by dialling *1 on Asterisk of course, but I’d be interested in a prefix that says for instance if I dial 000 at the start of a call that tells the system to start recording straight away.

Thanks all for any input you can give me, I’ve asked on the patch link above and also on PIAF forums but no-one is getting back to me.[/quote]
Yes you can activate the call recording in your GUI or editing the dialplan to add the mixmonitor at the beggining of the calls.