vicidial.org

by **urmi.l** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 12:56 am

Hello,

I m having vicidial and working fine.
VERSION: 2.4-364a | Asterisk 1.4.44 | Single Server | No Extra Software After Installation | CentOS release 5.5
No of Agents : 30 - 40.

My query is that the agent are having high waiting time. The wait time is around 3 - 4 minutes. Which is not acceptable. How cab I increase the Speed of calls ? I want to have all my agents to have very less wait time. My leads are also verified i.e having good data. Do I need to do specific settings or do I miss something ? Please guide me. I have below settings :

Dial Method: RATIO
Dial Timeout: 30
Available Only Tally: Y
Available Only Tally Threshold: DISABLE
Drop Percentage Limit:5
Dial Level Difference Target: 0
Adapt Intensity Modifier: 0

-Thanks.

by **williamconley** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:22 am

change the Auto Dial Level to a higher number. But watch for dropped calls if you go too high.

Have you read the manual?

by **urmi.l** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:44 am

Thank you williamconley for your quick help.

I have already set the Auto Dial Level to 25. I tried setting the Auto dial level to 15,20 or even 25. But here, the maximum auto dial level goes to 19 only. It cant get increased beyond 19. Also, at this time the dropped calls are huge and the agent wait time goes to 3 - 4 minutes.

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 6:48 am

dial level 25 on 30 agents! that's 750 leads being called :shock:

how many calls according to the real time report do you have, and how many logged in agents?
what is the system load on the server/servers when agents are making calls?
look in the "outbound calling report" and see how many answer/drop/no answer/etc you got.

set "Next Agent Call" to longest_wait_time
also look in the system settings, there is "Auto Dial Limit" and also "Max FILL Calls per Second" might be interesting for you
and the server settings: "Max VICIDIAL Trunks", "Max Calls per Second",
you might want to set dial timeout to 20 or 25 too.

by **urmi.l** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:11 am

Thank you DomeDan for your help.

I know we should not use dial level to 25. As it will dial sooooo many calls at a time and have higher call drops. But as I m having lonnnng agent wait. So, to reduce that I tried increasing dial level up to 25.

Let me try with your said parameters.

-Thanks

by **bobchaos** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 1:16 pm

Your problem may not be technical in nature: maybe it's just a bad list! Take a good look at your campaign stats, it will help you pinpoint the issue. Are massive amounts of calls actually being dialed when you crank up the dial ratio? If not, are you out of trunks or are they somehow limited? Otherwise how are those calls being classified? Keep an eye on the realtime board while calls are being dialed. Are they really being dialed fast? What's your current drop rate while agents are waiting? If it's close to the limit then most dialing modes will get pretty shy and you may have to cheat a bit to get it going again. Really there are a lot of factors, both technical and strategical, that may cause a dialer to fail.

I noticed you have available only tally set to yes. I use that only when dealing with a very small number of agents or an unusually high or unpredictable talk time. If your agents are waiting 3-4 mins I would start by removing that. Basicaly with it the system count available agents only when calculating how many calls to dial, and without it it tries to anticipate when your agents are going to become available again and dials accordingly.

Also, random tip, most voicemail systems in North America kick in after 24 secs by default, so you can dodge them without AMD by setting timeout to 23!

by **williamconley** » Mon Jul 01, 2013 4:48 pm

if you are dialing that heavy, you'll need to discuss call volume with your carrier. are you getting a lot of congestion? (common when you exceed your calling limits).

to dial heavy, you'll need to set the admin->Server settings of max calls and max calls per second to higher numbers to sustain that higher volume. But don't do so unless you've discussed these numbers with your carrier. they don't have a sense of humor.

by **urmi.l** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:13 am

Thank you for your help.

I have checked calling with 5 agents only. The Problem is wait time. Wait time on an average is 3 minutes.

Dial method was adapt_tapperd but with this method wait time gone more then 5 minutes. So I again I changed the dial method to Ratio.
Wait time problem is still going on. We are using dial level 5 to 8. Is there any settings required for dial method and parameter ?

Below is my dialing status :

Total Calls - 397
Sale - 20
No Answer - 104
Answering Machine - 24
% of Voice Contacts - 67.75
% of Sales Conversion - 5.03

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 2:25 am

How many calls are asterisk actually dialing when 5 agents are logged in? and whats the dial level? (check the real-time main report)

and the dialing stats you showed, how long were you running to get 397 calls?

also check outbound calling report "CALL STATUS STATS" to get the time spent on each status and average calls per hour

by **urmi.l** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 5:52 am

Thank you for you reply DomeDan.

5 agents with 7 dial level, approx 30 to 35 calls were placed. We have dialed 397 calls during 4 hours. Below is some of the dispo's avg wait time of CALL STATUS STATS :

A : 0.07
B : 0.35
DROP : 0.07
NA : 0.28
SALE : 5.41

Now I m going to try setting

Drop Call Seconds: 0

. Will it help to reduce the agent wait time ?

-Thanks

by **DomeDan** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 6:20 am

I don't understand the problem really,

It seams that the dialer can process calls, because you say it place 30-35 calls,
you should get a lot of drop though because you got a 67% voice contact, I guess you have about 70% drop

but during the 4h period only 397 calls were placed, thats about 1.6 calls per minute,
the only reason I can guess that its so low is because you have a lot of answers, and that should mean low wait-time.

with that good voice contact rate you should only need a 1.5 - 2.0 dial level with ratio mode.

Is it all agents that get long wait time at the same time, or is it 4 agents in call, and one waiting?
anyway, with dial level 7 the last agent should get a call in the first batch of calls asterisk makes because about 4 of them will answer.

You need to find out what is going on, there are 2 reports that you might have, but you're on 2.4 so I'm not sure you got them:
vicidial/AST_carrier_log_report.php #check the carrier results of the calls
vicidial/AST_timeonVDAD.php #"real-time" show the calls being sent to the carrier
that should get you going, but I wrote a similar "real-time" report which I like better to see whats going on with the carrier side http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALmantis/view.php?id=518

by **urmi.l** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:17 am

Yes, all the agents are getting around 3 - 4 minutes wait time.

by **DomeDan** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:41 am

At the same time, or one at a time?

by **urmi.l** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:11 am

All at the same time.

by **DomeDan** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:12 am

That's good, because now I know its a problem

now back to what I wrote earlier

You need to find out what is going on, there are 2 reports that you might have, but you're on 2.4 so I'm not sure you got them:
vicidial/AST_carrier_log_report.php #check the carrier results of the calls
vicidial/AST_timeonVDAD.php #"real-time" show the calls being sent to the carrier
that should get you going, but I wrote a similar "real-time" report which I like better to see whats going on with the carrier side http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALmantis/view.php?id=518

Or just fire up asterisk "asterisk -r"
and post here whats going on when all agents are waiting

by **urmi.l** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:34 am

You need to find out what is going on, there are 2 reports that you might have, but you're on 2.4 so I'm not sure you got them:

Which version should I go for ? Should I update the vicidial version ? If so then which version can resolve my this issue ?
and can have the suggested 2 reports ?

by **DomeDan** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:47 am

If you dont got them, then just look in the asterisk CLI

by **urmi.l** » Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:43 am

I have seen the reports. And found that there are not very less NA, Drop etc. There is no issue with it. As there is long wait time so there are no chances of drop calls.

At times it works fine and at times there are long wait of 3 - 4 minutes. I have tried with configuration parameters. But the agent wait time issue is still there. Do I need to go for any patch ? or Do I need to do any indexing in mysql ?

How can I reduce my agent wait time ? Please guide me.

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 3:08 am

I would guess there is a problem with your carrier, or on the way to the carrier.

Give us some output from the asterisk CLI when you experience this issue

by **urmi.l** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:59 am

Thank you DomeDan for your reply.

I tried using the fresh leads. If I run the same leads on other dialer with same provider than vicidial then it works fine. But with vicidial, the same leads gives issue of loooooooong wait time.

I m having around 5 to 7 agents and my tried changing the dial level : 8 to 12. Still there is wait time of 1 - 2 mins. I want to increase my agents. But with 5 - 7 agents its not working properly then how can I add more agents ?

Its bit critical now. Need help or suggestion.

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 2:38 am

william mentioned in an other post that the dialplan might not match the phone number dialed and that will result in something like your problem.

post your dial plan for the carrier and also a phone number for a lead
and also the campaign dial prefix so we can check if something is out of order

by **urmi.l** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:34 am

Below is my carrier dialplan :

; VICIDIAL Carrier: SIP-PROVIDER
exten => _985.,1,Dial(SIP/00${EXTEN:3}@SIP-PROVIDER,28,tTo)
exten => _985.,2,Hangup

Campaign Dial prefix : 985

Some of the sample phone numbers taken from the leads :

408759xxxx
70496xxxxx
78641xxxxx
219861xxxx
209622xxxx

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:58 am

Ok. seams like it matches, but its a bit strange that the number sent to asterisk is for example:

9854087591234
the dialplan matches that and adds two zeroes:
009854087591234
and then cut the first 3 digits:
854087591234

and you have 28 seconds time out, the default is empty
that might be the reason, maybe vicidial wants to time out the call and when asterisk does it vicidial gets confused

try to delete the time out, and you could shorten the dial cmd a bit, like this:

exten => _985.,1,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN:1}@SIP-PROVIDER,,tTo)

by **urmi.l** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:46 am

As my SIP-PROVIDER accepts the phone numbers starting with 00. So, I have to add 00 to each number before dialing.

My dialplan is adding 985 for matching the pattern n then removing 3 digits from EXTEN. That is removing '985' and then it adds 00 to the number.

As suggested by you, If I remove the time out from the dial plan, then it will take default time out of 60 secs. correct me if I m wrong.

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:01 am

Ah yeah you're right about the 00.

the timeout parameter:

The timeout parameter is optional. If not specifed, the Dial command will wait indefinitely, exiting only when the originating channel hangs up, or all the dialed channels return a busy or error condition. Otherwise it specifies a maximum time, in seconds, that the Dial command is to wait for a channel to answer.

the timeout is set in the campaign settings "Dial Timeout"

by **urmi.l** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:33 am

You mean that I should not apply the time out in Dial Command. And can give the

Dial Timeout: 28

from the campaign page. Right !

Will it decrease the agent wait time ?

by **DomeDan** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:36 am

That might solve the problem, try it,
and if it solves the problem it will reduce wait time when you experience the issue.

by **urmi.l** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:04 am

Ok. Let me try it for today and will update you the status.

One more thing, is there anything which affects the wait time ? or call speed ??

by **DomeDan** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:22 am

As I said before, this is no normal tweaking to reduce wait time,
you definitely have some problem with your setup, the dialer should not stop like it does in your case

by **williamconley** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 2:23 pm

1) dial method ratio (set dial ratio to 2.5 to start and tweak up/down as needed)

2) carrier dialplan entry must have all three lines. you must have the agi line and the hangup line in addition to the dial line.

3) check asterisk cli with "sip show channels" and compare those channels to logged in agents and agents in calls and ringing in the realtime. It will always be "off" a bit, but not by too much. if it is way off check your dialplan to be sure calls are not being "lost". missing the agi line will cause them to be lost.

Happy Hunting 8-)

by **DomeDan** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:39 am

Oh totally missed that he didn't have the agi line in the dialplan,
good you're here and keeps an eye on this!

by **urmi.l** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 5:59 am

Ok. I have added the agi line in my carrier dialplan entry.

exten => _985.,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log)
exten => _985.,2,Dial(SIP/00${EXTEN:3}@SIP-PROVIDER,,tTo)
exten => _985.,3,Hangup

Will you please tell me what this agi line is for ?

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 6:23 am

for logging the call, the vicidial system depends on it

by **urmi.l** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 6:41 am

ok. Let me start my calls today n will update here.

by **williamconley** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:55 am

when this line is called, the channel information is sent to a script listening on port 4577 and that script initiates Vicidial connecting to the call. without it, the call is invisible to vicidial.

by **urmi.l** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 2:09 am

Thank you very much williamconley and DomeDan.

Now the wait time is reduced to 40 - 55 seconds with Dial Level : 3 to 6. It seems good.

But can we reduce the wait time to around 15 - 20 seconds ?

by **urmi.l** » Tue Aug 13, 2013 1:34 am

I have applied the http://vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/viewt ... 060#p86411 patch and tested the calls for more than 1 week. Still some times the wait time goes 1.0 to 1.5 minutes.

In Reports -> Outbound Calling Report I found that my average wait time is around 0.30 to 0.40 seconds.

How can I reduce it to 15 to 20 seconds ? I m trying very hard for it. And in that I need help and suggestions from the team.

-Thanks.

by **DomeDan** » Tue Aug 13, 2013 3:13 am

You need to figure out why you got long wait time, don't try to attack the problem at every angle, find the problem first.

As I mentioned in the last post in the topic you linked to:
Try out the "real-time carrier report" I wrote http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALmantis/view.php?id=518
The calls being dialed will show in the top table "vicidial_auto_calls"
when it get answered, canceled(no answer) or disconnected it will appear in the other table "vicidial_carrier_log"
if you for example see more rows in vicidial_auto_calls then there is calls ringing in "read-time main report" then you have found a problem

by **urmi.l** » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:42 am

I put the domedan_realtime_carrier_report.php.4 report from http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALmantis/view.php?id=518.

But nothing is coming in my report. One strange case is that, there are no records available in vicidial_carrier_log table. And hence I think my carrier report is not showing me anything.

Is there something wrong with my DB ? or it is obvious or normal that there may not be any entries in vicidial_carrier_log table ?

by **DomeDan** » Wed Aug 14, 2013 6:27 am

Sounds very wrong... aha! just went back and saw your dialplan, you are missing the AGI function!

Sorry I didnt notice that when you posted it.

add the AGI function so your dialplan looks like this:

Code: Select all: exten => _985.,1,AGI(agi://127.0.0.1:4577/call_log) exten => _985.,2,Dial(SIP/00${EXTEN:3}@SIP-PROVIDER,28,tTo) exten => _985.,3,Hangup

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