Integration of Legacy PBX with vicidial

[mtk_400]

Hello Every One,

I want to use my legacy pbx system with vicidial .

Is it possible?

[Michael_N]

It depends on what kind of pbx you have.

What pbx do you have?

[mflorell]

Please mention what kind of trunks your PBX is capable of using.

No matter what, most legacy PBX integrations require some assistance from the vendor to configure everything properly because most proprietary PBX systems do not have open and available administration manuals.

[mtk_400]

It depends on what kind of pbx you have.

What pbx do you have?

I have panasonic Pbx

[mtk_400]

Please mention what kind of trunks your PBX is capable of using..

PSTN trunk and now want to FXO card for this integration

No matter what, most legacy PBX integrations require some assistance from the vendor to configure everything properly because most proprietary PBX systems do not have open and available administration manuals.

Yes thats a problem. but i want to start...give me a suggestion ..

[williamconley]

how do you want to use them together?

do you want to use the dialer to dial out through the pstn trunks and then give the calls to agents on the dialer with local sip phones?

do you want to use sip trunks to dial out with the dialer and then pass the calls to agent phones in the pbx system?

give us a hint ... obviously you are dealing with some $$ restrictions and trying to integrate a vicidial solution into your existing system to make some $$ ... but we need to know what your restrictions are before we try to jump in and help you out. (For instance: are you stuck in a 5 year PSTN line contract? Or you have "unlimited" PSTN line usage and the company owner WANTS those used ... ?)

and the exact model number of the panasonic pbx (if i recall correctly panasonic HAS manufactured more than one model over the last 20+ years ...?)

[actiondave]

Hi William,

I have already used vicidial with sip trunks and soft phones. I want to integrate vicidial with my pbx using pri's having the pri's dial out with the dialer and then pass the calls to agent phones in the pbx system. so, i guess my question is can vicidial call my agents pbx extension when they log in and the pbx phones be the means of conversation? Using a T1/E1 tie in of sorts.

or even using sip trunks and the same scenario.

edit: I also currently have a predictive dialer working this scenario. Where the pri's are connected to the dialer. When the agent logs in to the dialer interface, it rings the pbx extension phone.

[williamconley]

The only way to answer this is to find out how your existing dialer is expected to communicate with vicidial. In a way you just asked if you could use your BMW to make trips with your Volkswagen. The answer is yes: If your BMW has a trailer hitch and you can then connect the two. LOL

So: How do you want to Vicidial to generate a call through your PBX? does your PBX have a SIP interface? (If so, this may be possible.) Many proprietary phone systems/dialers have SIP interfaces, but charge a licensing fee (per channel) to use it PLUS a hardware fee for some sort of card plus installation and configuration. If it cannot speak SIP, we have a problem. LOL

If it cannot speak SIP, then we would need to determine if it has any available PRI/T1/E1 ports that could be configured to link directly to Vicidial instead. That, however, gets expensive as both Vicidial and the legacy system would require a connection card so they could talk to each other with that protocol. Which is why SIP is so cool ... it uses generic network cards for the physical connection and software (SIP in Asterisk) for the actual communication over that physical connection.

Basically: If your previous dialer/legacy system cannot speak SIP, it's not generally worth the effort/investment to keep it. Sell it while you can (if you can get $$ for it ... sell it now before it becomes worthless ...). Just my opinion, of course.

Then install a T1/E1 card in your Vicidial server to communicate with your carrier instead of your legacy system and rewire the office to allow SIP phones at the workstations (or use software phones in the agent computers) and you have just replaced the legacy system with Vicidial. And there are no more licensing costs moving forward.

[actiondave]

Thanks William,

Just fyi - I will be eliminating my current dialer soon and only be using vicidial. Have it working fine with sip trunks but our choice of broadband vendors is limited currently and we don't have a cost effective upload speed as of yet. The T1 broadband is not enough for 24 seats.

Currently the non-vicidial dialer is connected to my pbx via t1/e1 and communicating that way. Pbx does not have sip. So I want to have vicidial communicate with pbx using t1/e1 connection to have vicidial use the pbx extensions for communication.

I want to use our pri's with vicidial until a suitable broadband solution becomes available for sip trunks.

Hopefully that makes sense.

[williamconley]

the only way to do this would be to get a T1 card for Vicidial (Sangoma and Digium both make such cards) or get SIP for the legacy dialer.

or colocate a server. then your internet will only be used for the agent connection to the dialer and then the colocation internet is used for everything else.

yes, that was a blatant self-promotion. but just so you know: The Vicidial Group hosts servers (vicihost.com) just like we do. Except of course that they built the software! LOL

[actiondave]

I will get a t1 card for vicidial. one quad for the pri's and one for tie in to pbx. You are then saying vicidial can be configured to use the pbx and its extensions/phones rather than ...say a softphone?

edit: I have purchased both manuals a few years ago. don't remember any pages referring to any configuration of this.

[williamconley]

IF your PBX can be configured to accept/interact with Vicidial on that T1. This is a touchy configuration, and the concept of getting support for it may not be fun (your legacy provider will not appreciate this "we're getting rid of it soon" stage once they recognize it).

There is nothing in the manual for this, as it is a very unusual circumstance. I'm fairly certain Kumba and Mcargile have both accomplished it (and you may find references to it in the forum). This would be something you would likely want to call The Vicidial Group for directly (or someone with deep T1 experience ... once the T1 can make a call from vicidial into the legacy pbx ... we can make it do whatever we want! LOL ... just be sure that the inbound call to your PBX can be sent directly to any phone from asterisk, and the rest can be managed in Vicidial directly with the T1 to your telephone company)

[actiondave]

Thanks William,

Both the pbx and legacy dialer are fully paid for with no licensing (per seat) fees, so no problem there. Although it's been very good, vicidial has many more options and is very impressive. Looking to use sip trunks entirely but love the reliability of pri's and sound quality and some redundancy if sip trunks/broadband goes down.

[williamconley]

No licensing fees? How much would it cost to double your seats?

[actiondave]

we worked with this company in its initial stages many many years ago which allowed us the software with 24 seats and upgrades but support is pretty much nonexistent (due to "personality" and ego issues) now and the possibility of adding seats will not happen with this dialer. Support was costly each month but issues were getting resolved in a very very slow time frame - if at all, which is no good!

that's why I'm really looking to go full force with vicidial.

One last question. When using pri's with vicidial, will softphones work ok? If so, might not even bother trying to connect using pbx

[williamconley]

Vicidial runs with asterisk channels.

Asterisk (by design) will connect any channel type to any other channel type. In other words: You can connect an agent on a SIP soft phone to a prospect on a PRI and then (if you get bored) add a manager on an IAX soft phone (monitoring or just conferenced in) and then add yet another 3rd party on another PRI channel or even an IP phone (hardware based SIP Phone). Basically: If the channel works with asterisk, it can be mixed into the Vicidial Meetme room at will. That's part of asterisk's job.

You can even add a cell phone in there. Once asterisk 1.8 is fully integrated you will probably be able to add your Google Voice as well. Not sure about Skype yet, but I suspect it will be soon. LOL