setting up Vicidial for 1 agent

[noworldorder]

I need to install Vicidial (or VicidialNOW) and set it up as a predictive dialer for one agent. I am on a limited budget and trying to set up a PD so I can work out of the home.

I don't have much $ but I don't expect anyone to work for free.

~chris

[gmcust3]

Honestly, Predictive doesnt work properly for 1 agent.

To be effective, it shld be min 4-5 agents.

U can try Hosted one which are available or 16$ approx per month.

U can contact Vici Hosted for the same.

Still u need it, PM me.

Will do it for free for you...

[williamconley]

Welcome to the party noworldorder!

Grab the closest crappy little computer near you (PIII, P4, Celeron, whatever). Try not to spend more than $100 (I have pulled boxes out of the dumpster for this, and I STILL have a PII running this software, i am NOT kidding!)

Then grab either VicidialNOW or Vicibox (from their respective .com websites) by getting the .iso and burning a CD.

Follow the installation instructions from the site you downloaded to the letter (or just boot from the .iso and see what happens ...), and if you have any problems along the way ... post them here.

DO NOT be afraid to "just try" a particular setting. Be prepared to install 15 times (if that's what it takes to stay FREE) to get the settings right.

You will need decent internet (dialup won't cut it). You will NOT need any special hardware in the box.

You will probably have to dial in Manual Mode for a while to get used to it (especially for One Agent). But MANY others have done it, you can do it, too. Just don't let anyone stop you or charge you money unless you get in a hurry and decide you need to convert Money into Time.

Bring the details of your problem here and hope for the best. Download (Seriously consider purchasing!) the Vicidial Manager's Manual also, but there is a free version on EFLO.net which should be enough to get you going.

DO NOT try to "Upgrade" or do anything special with the setup until AFTER it works and you've used it for a while.

[noworldorder]

Thanks williamconley for the encouragement.

So I have installed VicidialNOW successfully. I didn't realize I was creating a server until sometime after I did. I was thinking "what a crappy interface?? How do I use firefox if it just formatted my harddrive??" I eventually figured this out and am now able to connect to the server with my other computer.

I have a project that will begin in 5 weeks. I know it sounds crazy to use predictive dialing with one agent but I have done it before and it works (although there are heaps of hang ups...) I do not want to get VoIP until then as I will be getting 4 lines. It will cost me $100/month so I am wondering if there is a way to use a free VoIP to try out the dialing and figure out the SIP settings. Is there such a thing as free VoIP? Is this a really stupid question?

Again - thanks for the response and I am grateful for this resource.

Chris

[williamconley]

I've seen advertisements for free voip. But i've never gotten there quick enough before they shut down.

However: Grandstream sells a 4 unit "Gateway" that will allow you to use "land lines" in the box (and you don't ever need to throw that away, it will come in handy as an emergency power outage insurance system after you get to full speed).

Grandstream Gateways are simple converter boxes. You uplug it into the land lines (up to 4) and then onto your network. Then your server thinks they are "SIP Trunks".

But if you have Brighthouse or another broadband carrier, you can often hold 4 lines g729 without an issue.

[noworldorder]

I was poking around on this site a website (I am to new to post URLs to this forum) and found these requirements for vicidial:

- a pentium-class computer
- a digium telco interface card with appropriate telco lines
- at least 1 SIP VOIP device
- a Local Area Network(LAN) with extra ports enough for the new server and the number of phones you want

"What is - a digium telco interface card with appropriate telco lines" ? What do I need telco lines if I have a cable internet and am using VoIP?

AND

"at least 1 SIP VOIP device" What is the 'device' referring to? I didn't think there needed to be any hardware with VoIP.

Thanks a heap...

Chris

[williamconley]

that is NOT a REQUIREMENT.

it is a Telephone Board from Sangoma or Digium (there are others, but none worth mentioning). IF you get a "Voice T1" from a telephone company, you WILL need this card to interface with the T1. However: if you do not have one, you will use SIP through any one of several hundred VOIP companies that provide "SIP Trunks" or "Metered SIP Service" or whatever they want to call it.

For SIP (or IAX, another protocol available) all you need is a network card and an internet connection fast enough to hold the signal. Compression is available for reducing the need for as much network bandwidth. So ... get it up and running with ONE line and we'll work from there

Unsure of your speed? try "Speakeasy.net". They have a free speed check service. you need 100k per "Uncompressed" SIP call. You need 50K for a GSM call, and you need about 20K for g729 (really it is less for each, but for practicality, those numbers are good for calculating). NOTE: speed is required in BOTH directions. So if your upload speed is slow, forget your download speed and just use your upload speed to calculate.

[noworldorder]

Super helpful....

Okay - my upload speed is .96 Mbps. So if I multiply that by 1024 and then divide by 8 I get 122 k - is that correct.

I can get a better speed as I am on wireless now so if I plug into the router presumably I will get a better rate.

[williamconley]

I have no idea why you found it necessary to multiply and divide. LOL your spead is 1M (which is to say 1000k). You need 100k for each call. You can hold 10 calls and NO other traffic. (or 5 calls and 500k worth of traffic as long as that other traffic behaves itself and does NOT touch YOUR 500k).

that being said: I note you only mentioned ONE speed ... is that your "Upload" speed? (If upload and download are different ... the slow one wins ...)

[williamconley]

*I* would retest without the wireless, of course, but your wireless speed and wired speed for your 'puter are probably identical

However: You do NOT want to have any phone calls on wireless as it has a tendency to drop for a few seconds here and there. SIP signals do not enjoy being "dropped" here and there.

[noworldorder]

I have no idea why you found it necessary to multiply and divide. LOL

Laugh it up... I am a rank armature but that won't stop me from succeeding

[williamconley]

That's the name of the game. Hopefully next year you'll be on here helping out newbies!!

[noworldorder]

Grab the closest crappy little computer near you (PIII, P4, Celeron, whatever). Try not to spend more than $100 (I have pulled boxes out of the dumpster for this, and I STILL have a PII running this software, i am NOT kidding!)

I wanted to double check this with you because I was told I need a server with 64 bit dual core yada yada or the sound quality would be poor.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Chris[/quote]

[brett05]

if you need any profesionnel instalation with costum adds and tools
pm me thanks

[williamconley]

Grab the closest crappy little computer near you (PIII, P4, Celeron, whatever). Try not to spend more than $100 (I have pulled boxes out of the dumpster for this, and I STILL have a PII running this software, i am NOT kidding!)

I wanted to double check this with you because I was told I need a server with 64 bit dual core yada yada or the sound quality would be poor.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Chris

That all depends on the volume of the calls you make. I run this software on a PII (ONE CALL!) and it sounds fine. You simply have to watch your load. But to find out before going nuts (and trying to find out who to believe ...) the Vicidial Group has made this software available free. If you have a computer that you are not using, put this free software into your free computer, use the bandwidth you already have available to you and make a few calls.

Then you tell me what your sound quality is like.

that being said: I dont want to avoid answering the question: I ship only Core2Quad machines. I have a few clients with Core2Duos. But the OS is still "Vicibox" (32 bit OS). So it will run nicely on a P4 (I have several clients STILL on P4 and one on vicidial 2.0.4! No problems with sound quality and NO special hardware! I Love Vicidial!)

[williamconley]

And do it soon, because you need to be on here helping out newbies by summer. Don't be late

[noworldorder]

And do it soon, because you need to be on here helping out newbies by summer. Don't be late

I will definitely pass on the the knowledge that is being generously given to me.

It has been suggested to me that I go with vicidial as opposed to vicidialnow and that I begin by setting up Ubuntu on the server.

[williamconley]

that would be Vicibox vs VicidialNOW (they are both Vicidial).

my opinion is that if you MUST have Redhat/CentOS, go with VicidialNOW, otherwise stick with Vicibox as it is supported by The Vicidial Group (and as we all know, they make THIS world go round)

[noworldorder]

well... I don't know anything about Redhat/CentOS but it is different from Ubuntu (right?) that is being recommended to me. So does Ubuntu make sense with vicibox? Will it be supported by vicidial? Sorry for the newbie questions.

[williamconley]

no problem.

if you install vicibox, you ARE installing Ubuntu. The OS is on the .iso. The vicibox .iso is published and maintained by The Vicidial Group (with Ubuntu on it!)

[noworldorder]

Okay... so this is where I am at. The server (thanks to a lot of help) is up and running. I am trying to get my VoIP configured to vicidial but the instructions are not clear to me in the manager's manual. I would have thought there would be a place where I input the VoIP privider's IP address and the user name and password.

Another question. Is vicidial initiating calls and hanging up between them... or are they virtual calls, so to speak, and is the VoIP line opened for hte entire campaign? I heard the latter was the case and if this is so it would be an issue for me given the restrictions of my VoIP provider.

Thanks a heap,
Chris

[williamconley]

one call at a time the only constant connection is the "registration" which is just a way to say "we're over here", but not a call

instructions for setting up a carrier are in the managers manual and in the vicidialnow manual

both apply to "vicidial" carrier setup

and there are a lot of entries here on the forum that help out in that regard as well.

read 'em all

[williamconley]

the AGENTS, however, maintain their phone call with the server (soft phone, sip phone, whatever) the whole time, but those do not go through your "carrier" those are direct network connections between the soft phone and the vicidial server

read up on the "agent manual" how they log in and such

[noworldorder]

thanks williamconley,

Clear response as always. I will read those posts. For some reason computer manuals don't make always sink in. I will try the manager manaul yet again and see what I have overlooked.

[williamconley]

and do not overlook the vicidialnow setup guide

some of it pertains to the OS (CentOS) but the vicidial portion of it is exactly on point, as the vicidial installed in VicidialNOW is identical to the install of ViciBox. so the instructions work just as well.

[noworldorder]

Yes I am looking at both of them - I must be a bit handicapped... but how am I just supposed to understand what "registration string" means?

"This field is where you can enter in the exact string needed in the IAX or SIP configuration file to register to the provider. Optional but highly recommended if your carrier allows registration."

I am sure Spock would love this definition but it isn't working for me.

register => testcarrier:test@10.10.10.15:5060

So my VoIP carrier is voipgo. Is 'testcarrier' the user name and 'test' the password and the IP the proxy/domain???

I have been searching on the forum with no luck. Perhaps no one has been as easily confused as me.

Thanks a heap,
Chris

[williamconley]

if your carrier requires or allows registration, they will give you the registration string. it should be on their web site (voipstreet lists it under the help screen after you "add a device" which is the way you create a name/pwd for your asterisk server to connect to their server). most carriers have something similar OR simply require your IP address which removes the need for "registration" (since the purpose of registration is for you to tell your provider what your ip address is.).

note: the user/pwd for the registration string is RARELY (almost never) the same as that used to log on to their site. it is unique to each server or phone you attach to their system. so there is ordinarily a way to create them within their site somewhere.

if your provider does not allow registration, you will likely need to open some ports on your router to get the calls in to your asterisk server.

in your router you'll need to pass port 80, 5060, and the RANGE of ports 10000-45000 to your asterisk server. you can research this more fully if you like (and add 4569 if you want to use IAX in addition to SIP).

the "proxy domain" is the carrier's ip address. 5060 is the "port" that sip ordinarily communicates on.

this web site, for instance, uses the "http" protocol which communicates on port 80. your web browser assumes this and the server assumes this. so when your browser asks for a web page on port 80, the web server responds with an html page through port 80. the same thing applies with ALL internet communcation, but different programs use different ports. SIP calls use port 5060 (as a rule).

[noworldorder]

well I have been doing a bit of research and I think that I may not need to do any of this as I am only doing outbound telemarketing - is this correct?

so I guess I need my carrier to give me some asterisk code - is that right and if so what do I ask for?

I am confused about how to set the system up for predictive dialing. In the manager's manual it says to change the dial method to ADAPT_TAPERED in campaign. But how does vicidial know what lines to use and how many?

I am grateful for the help

[williamconley]

1) don't change to any of the adapt settings (there are three) until you know what you're doing. use "ratio". that will choose the specified number of lines per agent (ie: 2 = 2 lines for each agent).

2) set "availably only tally" to YES (if an agent is on a live call, the dialer should NOT be dialing for that agent until they hang up, thus becoming "available"

3) the dialer knows how many lines to used based on the number of "available" agents (logged in, NOT on pause, not in a live call) and the setting of Ratio

[noworldorder]

it is strange... I have been trying to find RATIO for an hour now. Where is it. Shouldn`t it be in the Campaigns under Campaigns Main Details? It isn't there. Am I looking in the wrong place.

[williamconley]

did you find adapt? ratio is one of the OTHER options instead of adapt.

[noworldorder]

I am so challenged. Yes I just found it. So is my next step to contact my carrier and ask them for the asterisk code and slot it in the account entry area of 'add a new campaign'.

So once the server know where to find my carrier how does it know how many lines I have? Do I go to Admin -- Phones and configure each line somehow?

This should - I am sure - all be clear from the agent manual. But either it is written for someone with more than average computer knowledge or I am more challenged mentally than I thought.

Thanks for your patience,
Chris

[williamconley]

the maximum number of trunks is set in Admin->Servers (for each server).

the maximum number of lines/channels/trunks (all the same thing) your carrier says you are allowed would go in the maximum trunks.

admin->phones is for AGENT phones, not related to "phone lines"

the manager manual is for setup stuff like this. the agent manual is for the stuff in the agent login section.

ordinarily, the max trunks setting is not something to worry about until after you've made your first few calls (i expect your max trunks to be a number above 10, but you have not made 1 yet, let's try that first!)

[noworldorder]

getting close to making my first call.

but I am stuck. for some reason when I try to view a campaign 'I do not have permission...". Per the user manual, in my user record I have made everything '1' except for my user level which is 9. So I would assume that I have permission to do anything?

Been at this dead end for a while now and would be grateful for a nudge in the right direction.

Thanks,
Chris

[williamconley]

99 times out of 100 you have entered the wrong password somewhere.

FIRST enter the PHONE and phone password. on the 2ND SCREEN enter the USER and user password.

but then again, you could just have forgotten to give yourself permission to log onto that campaign.

your user group should have the campaign checked.

also: list the exact error message. Don't truncate it (it's horrible when someone posts 3000 lines of code when 3 lines will do, it's equally horrible when someone lists 70% of an error message, assuming the rest is obvious ... get in the habit now of listing it exactly ... save a headache later! )

[noworldorder]

I am in vicidial administration and when I try to modify a campaign:

"You do not have permission to view campaign TESTCAMP "

[noworldorder]

problem solved. sopmehow I had deleted the ADMIN user group so I was groupless. It works now!

[noworldorder]

I made my first calls

I wonder if my laptop can't pretend to be a server. When the server calls me it is EXTREMELY choppy and broken up. It sounds choppy when it dials out also.

For some reason all the calls timed out.

hmmmm....

so I need to figure out why the calls are timing out and not ringing. And how can I know if I need a server?

Thanks,
Chris

[boybawang]

Youd definitely get a new server , just get a pentium 4 or a dual core pentium d and it would work fine

[noworldorder]

so I can get a p4 with 2 gigs of ram, 3000 megahertz, and 250 gig hard drive. would that do the trick?