Listen in on calls

Hi there
I have a call center running outbound calls from asterisk.
The manager would like to listen in on calls live.
Is there a way to do this ?
Both the agent and tha managers are connected via grandstream gxp2000.

dayadk

Hello, You can either use chanspy, or redirect the call with the manager to a conference where you can listen in.

TheLostPacket

i did something like this - basically, i had to use PHP via the manager interface (used PHP to initiate a socket connection, then sent manager commands) and parsed the input to get a list of ‘active’ calls. then i created a monitoring function that does a zapbarge on whatever channel the extension you are interested in is on.

it wasn’t that much coding (maybe 300 lines total, split across three or four files), and i’m sure there are lots of better ways to accomplish what I did, but it works and our managers like it. i’m thinking an AGI script MIGHT work better, but what would really be cool is if you could ‘shadow’ ANY kind of channel, not just zap channels.

our old PBX had a very nice GUI where you could pick an extension and monitor it - it was exactly the same as being Y-jacked in, only you were at a remote phone…if there wasn’t a live call, you had dead air.

if there was some way to emulate this feature in asterisk, i might be able to get a bounty started for it. this, and enhancments to the way ACD works, and we have a system that does everything our old PBX did, and then some!!!

Thanks a lot, I will try to figure something out.
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also, i just read up on ChanSpy - that actually might be the perfect solution for you.

i am going to work on recoding my applications to use ChanSpy instead of ZapBarge, the reason being that ChanSpy is not Zap specific - it will spy on any type of channel, and seems to be fairly flexible.

I’d be interested in seeing any other custom applications that anyone has developed for monitoring, etc…and I’m still waiting for that killer app that leverages RealTime to create a very easy to manage GUI for the setup and administration of extensions, menus, IVR’s, etc…that way I can farm off all of the basic stuff to my help desk, and focus on playing with the cool things.