Agent's hard-phone (almost) never rings

[nikolaos]

Hi all, I have setup vicibox and successfully followed the full/paid manager manual tutorials up to Tutorial #C. Then I tried tutorials D and F in order to create one outbound and one inbound campaign. I have also setup 2 agents with 2 Yealink HARD-PHONES.

What’s the problem
The “customers” --both those that we call from an out-bound campaign and those that call to an in-bound campaign-- hear “You are currently the only person in this conference” and nothing more. The agent’s hard-phone never rings (and I see no SIP INVITE transmitted from VICIbox to the hard phones at that time – only when they login and receive the 1st call). Please note that agents _can successfully call_ one-another and make manual outgoing calls from their hard-phones.

I also notice that at the moment that I expect the hard phones to ring the agent’s web interface behaves as if it is participating in a phone call (buttons to hangup, adjust the volume etc get enabled as if they really do something). I don’t understand why. I have the hard-phones and don’t want to handle calls from a soft-phone running in the agents PC.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.

[williamconley]

1) Welcome to the Party!

2) As you are obviously new here, I have some suggestions to help us all help you:

When you post, please post your entire configuration including (but not limited to) your installation method (7.X.X?) and vicidial version with build (VERSION: 2.X-XXXx ... BUILD: #####-####).

This IS a requirement for posting along with reading the stickies (at the top of each forum) and the manager's manual (available on EFLO.net, both free and paid versions)

You should also post: Asterisk version, telephony hardware (model number is helpful here), cluster information if you have one, and whether any other software is installed in the box. If your installation method is "manual/from scratch" you must post your operating system with version (and the .iso version from which you installed your original operating system) plus a link to the installation instructions you used. If your installation is "Hosted" list the site name of the host.

If this is a "Cloud" or "Virtual" server, please note the technology involved along with the version of that techology (ie: VMware Server Version 2.0.2). If it is not, merely stating the Motherboard model # and CPU would be helpful.

Similar to This:

Vicibox X.X from .iso | Vicidial X.X.X-XXX Build XXXXXX-XXXX | Asterisk X.X.X | Single Server | No Digium/Sangoma Hardware | No Extra Software After Installation | Intel DG35EC | Core2Quad Q6600

(and I see no SIP INVITE transmitted from VICIbox to the hard phones at that time – only when they login and receive the 1st call)

3) I see no ... vs ... only when they. Eithe there's an invite, or there is not an invite when they log in. "receive 1st call" is indicative of a different thing entirely. Please fill these blanks in a wee bit.

4) Are these OnHook phones?

5) Are these phones on the same subnet (local) as the dialer? Is there a firewall between the phones and the Vicidial server (which could be closing a firewall port, causing the phones to lose registration ...).

[nikolaos]

1) Welcome to the Party!

2) As you are obviously new here, I have some suggestions to help us all help you:
[...]
Similar to This:

Vicibox X.X from .iso | Vicidial X.X.X-XXX Build XXXXXX-XXXX | Asterisk X.X.X | [...]

Thanks for the understanding, here's my setup:

Vicibox 8.1.2 from .iso | Vicidial 2.14-704a BUILD: 190312-0928 | Asterisk 13.21.1-vici | Single Server | No Digium/Sangoma Hardware | No Extra Software After Installation | Intel Xeon E31220 | QEMU/KVM running on Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS

3) I see no ... vs ... only when they. Eithe there's an invite, or there is not an invite when they log in. "receive 1st call" is indicative of a different thing entirely. Please fill these blanks in a wee bit.

There is an INVITE when the agents logs in to vicidial. There's no INVITE when calls are initiated/received during an outbound/inbound campaign.

4) Are these OnHook phones?

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "OnHook phone" and google didn't help. We're using physical SIP phones from yealink (this one: Yealink SIP T21P, https://www.yealink.com/products_23.html).

5) Are these phones on the same subnet (local) as the dialer? Is there a firewall between the phones and the Vicidial server (which could be closing a firewall port, causing the phones to lose registration ...).

They are on two different subnets and indeed there's a firewall between them but it's very unlikely that the blame is on the firewall: if I tweak the asterisk configuration one agent can call another agent just fine (and remember that when the agent logs in he receives the first "hello" call from vicidial just).

[williamconley]

4) Are these OnHook phones?

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "OnHook phone" and google didn't help. We're using physical SIP phones from yealink (this one: Yealink SIP T21P, https://www.yealink.com/products_23.html).

OnHook is a method to allow agents phones to ring when they get calls instead of when they log in. This is useful for Inbound only campaigns as well as unassigned receptionist desk phones (or even regular office phones). If you have not set the "OnHook" value in Admin->Phones or Remote Agents, you are not using this feature. It is NOT related to the phone itself, but to the treatment of the phone by Vicidial.

5) Are these phones on the same subnet (local) as the dialer? Is there a firewall between the phones and the Vicidial server (which could be closing a firewall port, causing the phones to lose registration ...).

They are on two different subnets and indeed there's a firewall between them but it's very unlikely that the blame is on the firewall: if I tweak the asterisk configuration one agent can call another agent just fine (and remember that when the agent logs in he receives the first "hello" call from vicidial just).

Auto-generated calls are often generated using different criteria than manually dialed calls. Thus networking may very well be deeply related.

Does the system generate any entries in the "vicidial_manager" log during these login attempts?

and I see no SIP INVITE transmitted from VICIbox to the hard phones at that time – only when they login and receive the 1st call

If you are NOT using "OnHook" the 1st call is the only one that will generate an invite. The agent is not supposed to hang up the phone. The agent pushes the "hangup customer" button on their screen, but stays on the phone for the next prospect. Review the Vicidial Agent manual (free on EFLO.net, and paid version as well if you want more depth, it's pretty cheap).

If the agent IS using OnHook, they will not get a call at login, their phone will ring when they get a call, and if they do not answer ... the call will progress to the next agent in the Ingroup.

[nikolaos]

THANKS williamconley!
I feel like an idiot because I bought the full administration manual, read it line by line but only read the agents manual diagonally
So for the record: although we had OnHook left to default setting we were hanging up the first call foolishly expecting to get a new call every time. We just left the line open and everything was well.
Thanks again

[williamconley]

vicidial is a complex piece of work. nothing is obvious except in hindsight. this is why i like to always mention the basics AND insist on them during questioning since quite often the problem is much simpler than expected.

Our first training session with many call centers switching from regular phones/PBXs includes "whack" on the back of the head when agents hang up the phone. And that's pretty much the entire agent training session right there. Admins take many hous of training. But agents? Two minutes usually ending with whack "don't hang up 'til you log out!"