Using dial plan to tweak callier id display?

[darryldale]

I have a small 10 person call center that is now live on ViciDial.

I have multiple inbound DIDs that get routed to a call menu and then eventually drop into an INBOUND group that all my CSR's are logged into.

We have the need to do a fair amount of manual outbound calls when logged into that campaign and since we are servicing four different distinct companies would like the ability to control what gets displayed by caller id on the other end.

Under the old Trixbox system I had it setup so that if they dialed 6 + number it would display "company a", 7 + number it would display "company b", etc....

Is there any way to do this in ViciDial with a custom dial plan?

Darryl

[mflorell]

We use Group Aliases for this(admin.php Admin -> Phones -> Group Aliases), and the agent cal select the callerID they want to use with every manual call they place through the ViciDial agent screen.

If you want it to be numeric-prefix-based, then you can set that up in carriers, just be sure you are specifying the caller id NUMBER and not NAME or generic caller ID, because changing the name or complete callerid can break ViciDial.

[darryldale]

We use Group Aliases for this(admin.php Admin -> Phones -> Group Aliases), and the agent cal select the callerID they want to use with every manual call they place through the ViciDial agent screen.

If you want it to be numeric-prefix-based, then you can set that up in carriers, just be sure you are specifying the caller id NUMBER and not NAME or generic caller ID, because changing the name or complete callerid can break ViciDial.

OK, I've given that a shot but doesn't appear to work. I went into admin -> phones and added four new group aliases. For each one I specified all four fields and made sure they were active.

I then went into the campaign and enabled group alias selection.

I had one of my CSR log out of and back into the campaign and click on "manual dial". On the manual dial screen at the top there is now a link to pick the group alias. They selected the group alias, entered a phone number and clicked dial now. The number was actually my cell phone and what came through on my end was actually the same thing that has always come through.

Any ideas?

Darryl

[williamconley]

have you demonstrated your ability to change the callerid via the vicidial campaign callerid settings? (to be sure your provider isn't "overriding" these settings)?

also: please show your dialplan for this carrier and the number that was dialed (cli output may be handy for this, to be sure we're not missing something, show the "dial command" and resulting line or two showing the dial/making progress lines)

[darryldale]

Making progress.

It would appear that if I set the callerid name / number to the same thing (just the number) it will pass the number correctly using the group alias.

That just leaves the name.

Right now I am using Link2Voip as my provider and I know that under Trixbox I was able to pass the name as well by doing something like this:

"8779477922" <COMPANY NAME>

in the caller id field for the outbound route setup. It would show up on the other end with both the name and number.

Darryl

have you demonstrated your ability to change the callerid via the vicidial campaign callerid settings? (to be sure your provider isn't "overriding" these settings)?

also: please show your dialplan for this carrier and the number that was dialed (cli output may be handy for this, to be sure we're not missing something, show the "dial command" and resulting line or two showing the dial/making progress lines)

[williamconley]

It is impossible to transmit callerid name. If you "had it working" through a specific setup, you likely had an "accidental" shared network between the phone receiving the call and the provider generating the call. What I mean by that is that your VOIP Provider and your cell phone provider happened to share a network and transferred the data.

Beyond a freak coincidence like that, it is generally impossible to actually transmit callerid name.

ALL telephone companies DUMP the callerid name data and substitute with their own internal database references (otherwise every call you get on your cell or home phone would be from "Best Viagra!" and "Free Vacation!!!", right?).

That being said: If you just want to mimic what you had before (and then just for the heck of it, check it out on ANOTHER cell phone on another network to see if it actually works there, too), you will need to insert another server between you and your provider or make arrangements with your provider to override the name within their system (some have an interface allowing this, but not many).

If you have a spare server and install PURE asterisk (or install vicidial but don't use any vicidial functions, just pass the calls through and modify the callerid name while doing it) you can accomplish this. It is also theoretically possible to loop the call through your own box to do this as well. Both are moderately complex, but the loop through your own box is much cheaper for hardware. But it doubles your call load, in theory.

[darryldale]

Not that I'm saying you're wrong but something must be different up here in the great white north.

Right now with my current Vici system I went into my phone record (admin -> phones) and set my full name to "ACE - DARRYL".

I tried calling both my cell phone (Rogers) and my girlfriends work (Bell) and in both cases the caller id name that is displayed is "ACE - DARRYL" along with the outbound caller id I have displayed in my phone record.

This is making a direct call through eyeBeam without logging into the agent interface.

So I have a call that is going from me to my SIP provider (Link2Voip) and then to either the Rogers cellular network or the Bell landline network and in both cases the name I have configured for my phone is being displayed.

There must be a lot of "shared" networking happening up here

Darryl

It is impossible to transmit callerid name. If you "had it working" through a specific setup, you likely had an "accidental" shared network between the phone receiving the call and the provider generating the call. What I mean by that is that your VOIP Provider and your cell phone provider happened to share a network and transferred the data.

Beyond a freak coincidence like that, it is generally impossible to actually transmit callerid name.

ALL telephone companies DUMP the callerid name data and substitute with their own internal database references (otherwise every call you get on your cell or home phone would be from "Best Viagra!" and "Free Vacation!!!", right?).

That being said: If you just want to mimic what you had before (and then just for the heck of it, check it out on ANOTHER cell phone on another network to see if it actually works there, too), you will need to insert another server between you and your provider or make arrangements with your provider to override the name within their system (some have an interface allowing this, but not many).

If you have a spare server and install PURE asterisk (or install vicidial but don't use any vicidial functions, just pass the calls through and modify the callerid name while doing it) you can accomplish this. It is also theoretically possible to loop the call through your own box to do this as well. Both are moderately complex, but the loop through your own box is much cheaper for hardware. But it doubles your call load, in theory.

[williamconley]

I will concede that it's possible that Canadian Telecoms may be different ... but then again, were you already in the "phone book" for those devices? Try changing it to "Dareeel"

Sending a NUMBER is doable, it's just the name that has proven impossible to control (unless you purchase a phone from a landline company and list your corporate name as what you want to display ... then use THAT phone number as your callerid)

[mflorell]

Some Canadian carriers allow for real-time sending of CIDname. If you want to be able to send CIDname with ViciDial then you have to make some manual dialplan changes and use the special loopback-no-log context included in the default extensions.conf(you will need to uncomment the exten lines):


[loopback-no-log]
; This context is to accept calls that have already been logged in another context in Vicidial
; and has been sent through one of the loopbacks. This is why this context is missing the h extension.
; Do not put any extensions in this context unless you specifically understand what this means.

; special Canadian PRI callerIDname settings FOR USE IN LOOPBACK CONTEXT ONLY
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,Set(CALLERID(name)="ACME Widgets")
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,AGI(agi-CANADA_PRI_CIDname.agi)
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,Dial(${TRUNKX}/${EXTEN:1},,To)
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,Hangup


Make sure you have your Dial commands in your carrier settings go through the loopback IAX trunk:

; dial a USA long distance outbound number through the loopback-no-log context
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log)
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,2,Dial(${TRUNKloop}/888${EXTEN:2},55,o)
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,3,Hangup
;exten => 888NXXNXXXXXX,1,Goto(loopback-no-log,91${EXTEN:3},1)



We have set this up for several Canadian clients and it does work well, but it also adds load to the system.

It should be mentioned that Canada is the ONLY country in the world we have found that allows CIDname to be set dynamically per call, and not all Canadian carriers allow for it.

[darryldale]

That is why I changed the name to "ACE - DARRYL". I set it to something different than it was before just to make sure it would flow through.

After doing that test I then went in and set my name to "DAFFY DUCK" and it came through as that as well so it would appear that passing name is possible (as the post below yours also seems to indicate).

Thanks.

Darryl

I will concede that it's possible that Canadian Telecoms may be different ... but then again, were you already in the "phone book" for those devices? Try changing it to "Dareeel"

Sending a NUMBER is doable, it's just the name that has proven impossible to control (unless you purchase a phone from a landline company and list your corporate name as what you want to display ... then use THAT phone number as your callerid)

[darryldale]

Sounds do-able then.

Wonder why I haven't gotten a response back from my support request two days ago on how to get this working then

Probably would have helped if I specified in my support request that I'm in Canada and it should be possible to do.

Not busting anybodies you know what I'm sure everybody is busy this time of year

Darryl

Some Canadian carriers allow for real-time sending of CIDname. If you want to be able to send CIDname with ViciDial then you have to make some manual dialplan changes and use the special loopback-no-log context included in the default extensions.conf(you will need to uncomment the exten lines):


[loopback-no-log]
; This context is to accept calls that have already been logged in another context in Vicidial
; and has been sent through one of the loopbacks. This is why this context is missing the h extension.
; Do not put any extensions in this context unless you specifically understand what this means.

; special Canadian PRI callerIDname settings FOR USE IN LOOPBACK CONTEXT ONLY
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,Set(CALLERID(name)="ACME Widgets")
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,AGI(agi-CANADA_PRI_CIDname.agi)
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,Dial(${TRUNKX}/${EXTEN:1},,To)
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,Hangup


Make sure you have your Dial commands in your carrier settings go through the loopback IAX trunk:

; dial a USA long distance outbound number through the loopback-no-log context
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log)
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,2,Dial(${TRUNKloop}/888${EXTEN:2},55,o)
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,3,Hangup
;exten => 888NXXNXXXXXX,1,Goto(loopback-no-log,91${EXTEN:3},1)



We have set this up for several Canadian clients and it does work well, but it also adds load to the system.

It should be mentioned that Canada is the ONLY country in the world we have found that allows CIDname to be set dynamically per call, and not all Canadian carriers allow for it.

[mflorell]

Sorry about that, this is a very uncommon feature to set up, and only a couple of us here at the ViciDial Group have ever done it. It is only for Canadian customers who have carriers that support it so it is really quite rare.

[williamconley]

I've had a lot of call centers that dialed Canada that would have been very happy to know this. It never occurred to me to test that!

[mflorell]

You have to have a Canadian carrier, that is the important part, and Canadian carriers seem to be more expensive than USA-based carriers, mostly because voice T1s and DS3s are significantly more expensive in Canada than they are in the USA.

[KDell]

Some Canadian carriers allow for real-time sending of CIDname. If you want to be able to send CIDname with ViciDial then you have to make some manual dialplan changes and use the special loopback-no-log context included in the default extensions.conf(you will need to uncomment the exten lines):

It should be mentioned that Canada is the ONLY country in the world we have found that allows CIDname to be set dynamically per call, and not all Canadian carriers allow for it.

Just for some clarification on this:

Our previous dialer was able to push the caller id name as well as a caller id phone number.
Does this mean we will not beable to change our settings on vici or in asterisk to do this in the US? Or would we need to talk to the provider to get the numbers registered in a specific manner?
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[mflorell]

What was your previous dialer?

Who was your previous carrier?

[KDell]

What was your previous dialer?
Strata
Who was your previous carrier?
Qwest

[williamconley]

AFAIK there is no way to send callerid name without actually registering a phone number with a carrier with that name inside the US.

Even if you use a proxy asterisk server to modify your callerid name ... carriers ignore it. they use their internal database list. to be on that list, you must have an actual number with a company name listed, and this information must be distributed through trusted channels to the major carriers for callerid service to work.

discuss it with your carrier.

[simonc]

mflorell wrote:Some Canadian carriers allow for real-time sending of CIDname. If you want to be able to send CIDname with ViciDial then you have to make some manual dialplan changes and use the special loopback-no-log context included in the default extensions.conf(you will need to uncomment the exten lines):


[loopback-no-log]
; This context is to accept calls that have already been logged in another context in Vicidial
; and has been sent through one of the loopbacks. This is why this context is missing the h extension.
; Do not put any extensions in this context unless you specifically understand what this means.

; special Canadian PRI callerIDname settings FOR USE IN LOOPBACK CONTEXT ONLY
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,Set(CALLERID(name)="ACME Widgets")
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,AGI(agi-CANADA_PRI_CIDname.agi)
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,Dial(${TRUNKX}/${EXTEN:1},,To)
;exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,n,Hangup


Make sure you have your Dial commands in your carrier settings go through the loopback IAX trunk:

; dial a USA long distance outbound number through the loopback-no-log context
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log)
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,2,Dial(${TRUNKloop}/888${EXTEN:2},55,o)
; exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,3,Hangup
;exten => 888NXXNXXXXXX,1,Goto(loopback-no-log,91${EXTEN:3},1)

do we need to add these inside our DIal Plan? I am not sure i understood .

[williamconley]

do we need to add these inside our DIal Plan? I am not sure i understood .

are you calling canada, and do you require callerid names to be modified?

the loopback already exists in extensions.conf, but you would need to "uncomment" them

[simonc]

We rarely call Canada. However, we are based out of Canada, and our Carrier is Canadian as well. They also pass the caller id name.

So if i understand correctly, i simply need to uncomment the lines directly within extensions.conf? ( I thought that i had to copy the lines into the dial plan of Carrier settings

[mcargile]

To set this up for a Canadian Carrier requires you to manually configure basically all of the dialplan in extensions.conf. You cannot configure the dialplan in the carrier section. Also there is a typo on the 888NXXNXXXXXX extension. There should be an _ in front of it like this _888NXXNXXXXXX so Asterisk will treat it as a pattern match.

[simonc]

I asked some clarification from my Carrier, and they have told me that they pass the Caller ID Name the same way as all other providers do.

They told me that in the USA the CNAM is not passed because it costs a fee. They will pass the Caller ID wherever it is free.

This is creating an issue for us as on some international Calls, the CNAM displayed is M(RANDOMNUMBERS)@. Some Carrier will reject the call based on the Caller ID Name

[williamconley]

For this scenario, you can use the loopback dialplan. It's mentioned several times on these forums and usually used for Canada. But this is precisely the use for it. Use is only when necessary, as it increases the load, but it will allow the transmission of any CallerID(NAME) that you want.

It also has some remnants in extensions.conf in some distros of this software.

Basically it generates a call to the asterisk in the vicidial server on the first leg of the call, then uses plain asterisk to dial out again, creating a second call NOT being tracked by Vicidial directly. This call can have any callerid name you like. But that extra call uses extra resources, obviously.

[simonc]

This is my current dial plan.

exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log)
exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,2,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:1}@voicenetwork-out,,tTo)
exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,3,Set(CALLERID(num)=8557703325)
exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,4,Hangup

exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,1,Answer
exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,2,Dial($9{TRUNKloop}/${EXTEN:1},,tTo)
exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,3,Hangup

exten => _9011X.,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log)
exten => _9011X.,2,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:1}@voicenetwork-out,,tTor)
exten => _9011X.,3,Hangup

exten => _9011X.,1,Answer
exten => _9011X.,2,Dial($9011{TRUNKloop}/${EXTEN:1},,tTo)
exten => _9011X.,3,Hangup

[williamconley]

exten => _91XXXXXXXXXX,3,Set(CALLERID(num)=8557703325)

This line will never execute. The call will terminate in the "dial" line and jump to the "h" extension. By the time it gets anywhere near priority 3 ... the call has ended (at which point setting the callerid is not particularly useful in my opinion).

Setting the callerid number is done inside the Campaign settings.

Setting the callerid NAME requires the use of the loopback dialplan. Read the "extensions.conf" file and also search these forums ... it has been discussed many times.

Essentially the loopback dialplan dials a special extension (like 881NXXNXXXXXX) which calls the same server. Then the server generates another call through the normal 91NXXNXXXXXX, but with the Name set in the loopback section. The second call is not tracked by Vicidial, but the first one is. When the second call terminates ... it terminates the first call, notifying vicidial since vicidial is watching that one. So you made an outbound call with a specified callerid name ... but you had TWO calls in your dialer to accomplish the task. Doubling the load.

[simonc]

Thank you for your useful explanation. I will read extensions.conf and try to find the solution. hopefully i wont run into any troubles:P

By the way, could this line i had in the carrier setting be the culprit for my other post : http://vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/viewt ... =4&t=25547

[williamconley]

dunno. take it out and see. but it should never have executed.