I am currently evaluating an IVR development environment. I’d like to know from the existing users about the development platform. What type of support do you get? Is it sufficent for a small-middium business?
if you’re going to use the freely-available version (i.e. not Asterisk Business/Enterprise Edition) then the support is limited to asking here or on other forums and places like voip-info.org. Digium will give you some assistance if you use their hardware, but that will still be basic help.
if you don’t have the skills in-house to do it, then you might be better off finding someone who can help you. it doesn’t need to be local though, but you will proably find it easier if the support is at least in the same time-zone (+/- an hour) as you.
Thanks, baconbuttie
if you’re going to use the freely-available version (i.e. not Asterisk
Business/Enterprise Edition) then the support is limited to asking
here or on other forums and places like voip-info.org.
I should emphasize that the support available here and on voip-info.org is, in terms of both quality and speed, head and shoulders above anything I could have expected from a paid source short of paying someone to come in here and install it for me.
You guys rule! 
What do you really mean? Is the support good or bad? 
considering you’re not paying for it, i’d say it’s great
there are some very smart people on here that can answer just about any question imaginable. there is also an entire mailing list that receives THOUSANDS of emails a day, and covers a much broader gamut of issues. i like these forums as it’s easier to keep track of topics and it seems that i can contribute more here than i would be able to on the mailing list.
that said…i don’t think i’m alone when i say that it really irks me when someone comes on here, posts a question, and then gets pissy when it isn’t answered in 20 minutes. everyone here is a volunteer and takes time out of their schedule to help out, and i’m guessing alot of people don’t understand that. as long as you remember that this is an open community, you’ll be fine.
welcome to the board and good luck.
thanks, whoiswes. How long have you been using Asterisk? What do you use it for?
I have been using asterisk for about a year now. I actually do this for a living - I’m working as a systems admin for a small financial company, and our legacy PBX was going to cost us around 750,000 to renew licensing - we decided to go towards Asterisk, and the project landed in my lap.
So, over the course of about 4 months, we migrated almost 400 seats to *, and now I work on maintaining and upgrading the system. My current project is a new queue management system so that our managers can watch all the queues in realtime and have a nice GUI interface to sign users in and out.
Otherwise, I try to help out here a bit and work on the other projects that I have going, and keep up with the day-to-day support stuff. We’re also expanding, adding another 400 seats, so that build out has just begun. Should make for a busy winter.
Hi, Whoiswes, thanks for your reply.
What type of telephony card do you use?
I am very new to the telephony software. I work for a small financial company too. We’re looking to replace our current IVR system which has been develped by a small company. We has suffered on the poor support in the past. Yes, I think that even if using a commercial development environment, they may not give support in 20 mins.
now there’s a question for ya wes 
be careful what you say 
We have used both Digium and Sangoma quad-span T1 cards, and I prefer the Sangomas, but the Digium cards have worked well for us. Make sure whatever hardware you buy is compatible with your server hardware - we were bitten by that once.
As far as IVR’s go, asterisk is about as flexible as they come - you can literally do anything (provided you can code it either in the dialplan or through an AGI script) and it takes almost no time at all.
We were able to replicate our Copia based IVR system in less than two hours, and it’s faster and more foolproof than the system that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Once you get the hang of things (* has a pretty steep learning curve) you will be suprised at how much you can do with only a few lines of code…I’m still blown away when I figure something else new out…
now there’s a question for ya wes be careful what you say 
[/quote]
why does that sounds threatening? 
we had a few issues with Digium cards and our dell servers…for the most part, we have worked around them, but for a time, it was getting pretty frustrating. the sangoma boards never had the issue, and their echo cans and driver sets are top notch.
digium is coming along nicely, though, and they have done quite a bit to help us resolve our issues.
Wes:
what console database do you use?
sorry, not following. are you asking what OS we use? if so, FC4, but we’ll be moving to CentOS in the coming months.
[quote=“whoiswes”]sorry, not following. are you asking what OS we use? if so, FC4, but we’ll be moving to CentOS in the coming months.[/ quote]
Wes
Sorry to confuse you.
I don’t mean the OS. I meant the database. As the system we need will record some input from the caller. In our current system, we use MS SQL server.
you can use any ODBC complaint DB - i’m personally fond of MySQL, and asterisk uses that out of the box, if you install the asterisk-addons package.
see here for more detail: voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+cdr+odbc
voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+cdr+mysql
Thx for that, Wes
Hi, Wes
I got lost when I wet to look the Digium card. How to choose a card? Currently, we use one ISDN 30 line, but, we 'll look to upgrade it in the near future.
is an ISDN 30 line the same as an E1? i know that PRI is basically ISDN, and an E1 has 30 channels…
if that’s the case, any of these should work:
digium.com/en/products/hardw … lcards.php
if you’re really unsure, call Digium - they’ll know for sure.