Viciserver

[cmacneil]

Hi all -

I am considering installing Viciserver locally and am exploring costs for this. We run a small office with about 5 to 10 agents, and another 5 - 10 who operate remotely. I have about 20 years IT experience, mostly as a technical PM. I can perform some tasks with the help of online tutorials and groups such as this, but don't have deep knowledge, or much time to devote (I run the business).

I'd appreciate a steer on the following please:

- how do I obtain Viciserver (I've never been good at downloading and creating iso images, I just want an off-the-shelf disk).
- does it come with an OS, or do I have to source this separately?
- what is the minimum hardware configuration you'd recommend? All calls have to be recorded (we have typical talk time of 50 hours / day) - no doubt this will affect storage space.
- what is the minimum bandwidth you'd recommend (given we have other traffic, office lines, IVR, regular web traffic needs)
- we would want 2 servers for resilience. What would I need to manage the backups / failover?
- where can I find a review of SIP providers? We dial the UK mostly.
- we run fairly simple campaigns for the moment - we'd use vici for inbound / outbound, our IVR and perhaps hot transfers in the future.
- given my limited knowledge and time, can I provide adequate system management, or should we look to hiring someone

Appreciate there's no one-size-fits-all, but orders of magnitude so I can do a cost analysis would be helpful.

Chris

[williamconley]

Chris,

Start at Vicibox.com

Download the .iso and install it on a VMware or vSphere server to practice with a single agent and survey the system (no cost, not even hardware! LOL). I recommend the standard install, but the preload has been known to be simpler for some people, try them both it's free!

Install it SEVERAL TIMES to get used to the process. Those who install on a hardware machine are often afraid to start over and then get "stuck" with irregular systems and have fear of reinstalling. Seriously, when your kid's laptop gets infected ... do you fear the reinstall? Nope. Trust me when I say installing it 5 or 6 times will make your future brighter if you want to maintain the system yourself. LOL

Pick a random low-per-minute price carrier that has NO monthly fee (pay per minute and you'll be using very little in the way of minutes while testing, so once again the cost isn't there).

Alternately, you could lease a machine from The Vicidial Group and skip the install and carrier choice entirely. Vicihost.com will resolve both issues if you prefer. (FYI: we at poundteam also host, but we don't sell minutes.)

It will install the OS and everything else necessary. There is a PDF for installation on the Vicibox.com site. After that installation is done use the Manager's Manual available at EFLO.net to configure it.

At that point, discussion of failover, recordings, etc will have much more meaning. And Vicidial is the solution for all dialer questions. There isn't another one in the open source world and I don't know of one more powerful or with more features even in the proprietary market. Unless they are running Vicidial underneath, and then they always have Less features, not more. LOL

When you're installing, and have a problem, bring us the manual page/line number and what went wrong. Copy/paste from the screen if possible. Also be sure to give us the details related to what went wrong.

Learn to use Putty (from chiark). That is how you'll be managing the server as a technician.

We also offer a three hour training course. It's not as comprehensive as the on-site training from The Vicidial Group, but it is designed to take you from "pretty new server, no idea how to use it" to "dialing! one agent, one list, one campaign, ... but Dialing, Dangit!"

Happy Hunting

Also: We've been toying with the idea of allowing access to a Virtual Vicidial for new users for $25 so they can "audit the course" as it were without going through all the Hassle (full function ... but only capable of a single user, great for testing and seeing all the menus). If you're interested, we could fire that up for you!

[cmacneil]

Hi William -

Thank you for the detailed and helpful reply - apologies for the delayed note (summer holidays and all that!)

I'm interested in your audit option. Can you please PM me with details of what it covers, duration, any prep I need to do on my side and anything else I should know about it?

Chris

[williamconley]

$25 for 48 hours on the box.

We use a whitelist iptables firewall and will add your IP to the "allowed" list and send you Links at startup. After 48 hours it will be reset: all data entered and changes made will be erased, and you will lose access. After the reset no leads or passwords or anything will be preserved (nor can they be recovered).

Standard Vicibox 4.0.3 install. It is virtual, so it would not be advisable to try to use it with more than one agent. Also, you are limited to 1Mx1M bandwidth (plenty for a couple calls and some web access for both administration and agent simultaneously).

It also happens to come with several other applications (the list grows each month).

It will not have any (real) carriers in it, but it is possible to make fake calls or hook up a real carrier if you want to (instructions in the Vicidial Manager's Manual). I'm not sure if we have our standard 'fake' setup (which will ring an attached SIP phone regardless of what number is dialed, so you can simulate/train without spending real VOIP$). If it does not, we'll probably be adding that to the image soon.

Note that while it is a Virtual server ... IT does not know it is virtual. LOL (As far as the server itself is concerned, it behaves as if it were hardware based! It's not possible to tell it's virtual without console access.)

[cmacneil]

Sounds good. I'll need to set aside some time for this - will come back to you privately with further updates.

Chris

[williamconley]

We just added vTiger 5.4 to the image for a client. It also has SugarCRM for those interested in comparison.