Hi all,
We run a rather large call center (>350 seats, expanding to around 700) and have 7 companies under a larger “umbrella” company, each with it’s own asterisk server.
In each company, we have two divisions - one for customer service, one for collections. Currently, we have queues set up for each, and users have their own incoming call macro set up, but that is as far as we can do in terms of separating out the two divisions.
I’m curious as to whether there is any sort of “group” variable tied to a SIP (or IAX, although we use SIP only) account, so that we could define, at the most basic level, what type of account/extension/phone a particular user resides in. This would mainly be for CDR and reporting purposes, but also to allow for logical separation of company divisions for managerial purposes.
This could be valuable in other instances as well, I would think - you could have a “Sales” group and be able to monitor their call logs specifically, or be able to have an interface where you can manage (sign in and out of queues, live monitor, etc) just one group. Another thought is for call presence - being able to have your sales manager only view the statuses of your sales associates.
I know this may sound somewhat trivial, but it would be a very handy feature to have, and I’m not sure if something already exists. Any input would be great.
Thanks,
Wes
It sounds like you have several issues that if you seperate them will be easier to address.
Fro mthe CDR stand point you could use the account code field (filed 1) and assign this value in the individual extension defintion.
I think the betterway to accomplish this is to look at your dial plan and arrange your extensions so that the numbers are grouped buy department or division.
You can also assign call grops as well so that you can have group pickup.
I am guessing that arranging your dial and number plan will provide you with the results.
for example:
Sales: 6000-6100
Tech: 6101-6200
Etc.
Now if you run reports from the CDR’s you can filter based on the extension numbers. Also you can arrange your config files that that everything is orderly as well and this should make it more managable.
that’s an option, yes, but i was looking for something a bit more “built-in” to asterisk. the reasoning is more for our business model than anything else…but also for programattic (sp?) reasons - if i wanted to have a realtime monitor app that would only display sales people, i’d like to be able to set a variable that defines that group, versus just defining a range of extensions. it’s not vital to have a specific group variable, but it would make organization much easier, especially in situations like ours…
when (if) we ever get around to redoing our extension mappings, that is probably what we will end up doing. (we have companies that share internal extension ranges, on different servers of course - this was how our old PBX’s were set up, and to make the migration as painless as possible, we kept everything the same…)
thanks for chiming in - i appreciate the input.