The VICIdial 'ain tab is furthest to the left, followed by the%C3I T tab. VICIdial is the main screen that shows all customer information in the system as well as a call timer, the name of the line your call is c onnected on and the local time where your customer is located.
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# VICIDIAL.txt - description of the vicidial call center system |
# pronounced (VEE-CHEE DIAL) |
This system was initially created to fill the need of a customer service group |
being able to call up clients efficiently and without using a predictive dialer |
that would potentially lose calls and alienate clients. Since then we have added |
the ability to do predictive dialing alongside ratio dialing and the traditional |
one-call-at-a-time dialing as well as the ability to take inbound calls and set |
up campaigns to do blended inbound and outbound call handling at the same time. |
Major Features: |
- Inbound, Outbound and Blended call handling |
- Outbound agent-controlled, broadcast and predictive dialing |
- Full USA FTC-compliance capability |
- Web-based agent and administrative interfaces |
- Ability to have agents operate remotely |
- Integrated call recording |
- Three-Way calling within the agent application |
- Scheduled Callbacks: Agent-Only and Anyone |
- Scalable to hundreds of seats |
- Ability to use standard Telco lines and VOIP trunks |
- Open-Source GPL licensed, with no software licensing cost |
Complete Features List: |
- Ability for an agent to call clients in succession from a database through a web-client |
- Ability to display a script for the agent to read with fields like name, address, etc. filled-in |
- Ability to set a campaign to auto-dial and send live calls to available agents |
- Ability to dial predictively in a campaign with an adaptive dialing algorithm |
- Ability to dial on a single campaign across multiple Asterisk servers, or multiple campaigns on a single server |
- Ability to transfer calls with customer data to a closer on the local system or a remote Asterisk server |
- Ability to open a custom web page with user data from the call, per campaign |
- Ability to autodial campaigns to start with a simple IVR then direct to agent |
- Ability to broadcast dial to customers with a pre-recorded message |
- Ability to park the customer with custom music per campaign |
- Ability to send a dropped call to a voicemail box per campaign if no agent is available |
- Ability to set outbound CallerID per campaign |
- Ability to take inbound calls grabbing CallerID |
- Ability to function as an ACD for inbound and fronter/closer verification calls |
- Ability to have an agent take both inbound and outbound calls in one session(blended) |
- Ability to start and stop recording an agent's calls at any time |
- Ability to automatically record all calls |
- Ability to manually or automatically call upto two other customer numbers for the same lead |
- Ability to schedule a callback with a customer as either any-agent or agent-specific |
- Ability in Manual dial mode to preview leads before dialing |
- Ability for agents to be logged in remotely anywhere with just a phone and a web browser |
- Faster hangup and dispositioning of calls with one key press (HotKeys) |
- Definable Agent Wrapup-time per campaign |
- Ability to add custom call dispositions per campaign |
- Ability to use custom database queries in campaign dialing |
- Recycling of Busy calls at a specified interval without resetting a list |
- Dialing with custom TimeZone restrictions including per state and per day-of-the-week |
- Dialing with Answering Machine Detection, also playing a message for AM calls |
- Multiple campaigns and lead-lists are possible |
- Option of a drop timer with safe-harbor message for FTC compliance |
- Variable drop call percentage when dialing predictively for FTC compliance |
- Internal DNC list can optionally be activated per campaign |
- All calls are logged and statuses of calls are logged as well as agent time breakdowns |
- Load Balancing across multiple inbound or outbound Asterisk servers is possible |
- Several real-time and summary reports available |
- Real-time campaign display screens |
- 3rd party conferencing(with DTMF macros and number presets) |
- 3rd party blind call transfer |
- 3rd party conferencing with agent drop-off |
- Ability to set user levels and permissions for certain features and campaigns |
- Ability for managers to listen-in on agent conversations |
- Ability for managers to enter conversations with agents and customers |
- Ability for agents to select a Pause Code when they are not active |
- Ability for agents to control volume levels and mute themselves |
- Outbound dialing is QueueMetrics-compatible |
- Web-based administration |
- Client web-app web pages available in English, Spanish, Greek, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Brazillian Portuguese |
- Admin web pages available in English, Spanish, Greek and German |
Required components: |
- Asterisk server with Zap, IAX2 or SIP trunks |
- SIP/IAX/Zap phones(hard or soft single-line or multiple) |
- Computer with proper software installed |
- on Win32 Activestate perl |
- on UNIX Xwindows Activestate perl recommended with perlTK libs loaded |
- Asterisk server with proper software installed |
- astGUIclient must be installed with the Asterisk Central Queue System(ACQS) |
running |
Approach: |
This system is dependant on a MySQL server acting as the storage place of |
all data and settings for the system. This was done so that it would be very |
scalable and flexible. This application draws on a lot of the core scripting |
inside of the astGUIclient suite of applications and was built with flexibility |
in mind. We have used VICIDIAL for over three years now on up to 160 seats at |
once across 8 separate Asterisk servers all using the same MySQL server and |
dialing on the same campaigns. It is important to keep in mind that because |
VICIDIAL uses Asterisk meetme rooms for it's dialing that the Asterisk server |
will see an increased load as compared to a simple Zap/SIP-only calls. |
Installation: |
Look at the INSTALL FROM SCRATCH documentation and start at phase 6 if you |
already have asterisk running |
Process flow of a one-call-at-a-time call: |
- all components are installed and running(with Asterisk and MySQL servers) |
- user logs in to the client GUI [user/password/campaign] |
- GUI assigns an open meetme extension to the user, this is called the |
session_id |
- GUI sends manager command ORIGINATE to connect the user to the meetme ext |
- user clicks DIAL NEXT NUMBER and GUI UPDATEs first available number-to-call |
in DB to PENDING status |
- GUI SELECTs info on that number[name/address/...] |
- GUI sends ORIGINATE command to call that client's number from meetme ext |
- user is talking to the client |
- user transfers call to 3rd party, client Zap channel is REDIRECTed to |
3rd party |
or |
- User transfers client to a closer to finish the call |
or |
- user puts client on park and dials 3rd party, then transfers client |
back to meetme room |
- Call is Hung up |
- user hangs up call and clicks HANGUP CALL on GUI |
or |
- person called hangs up so user clicks on the CALL HUNGUP then HANGUP |
CALL |
- call is disconnected |
- user selects disposition status of the call and clicks OK |
- goes back to step 4 and repeats |
Process flow of an auto-dial call: |
- The lead hopper app(AST_VDhopper.pl) that is running every minute keeps the |
hopper for each campaign up to at least the minimum hopper lead size providing |
there are enough leads to fill it. |
- The predictive dialing control app(AST_VDadapt.pl) that is running constantly |
analyzes the current status of calls and agents and calculates the dial level |
that the campaign will need to be set at for the campaign's specific settings. |
- The call center manager can either set the dial method (on the campaign |
screen of the admin web page) to Manual for no autodialing, Ratio for fixed |
lines-to-agent dialing or any of the Adapt predictive dialing models to use |
Predictive dialing. |
- As soon as an agent logs into a campaign, the client app will look at the |
auto_dial_level setting of the campaign and determine whether |
- it will insert a record into the vicidial_live_agents table(and set |
status to READY) and update that record every second with a random 8 |
digit number to show that the client is still alive and ready. Also, |
the client app will show a 'pause' and 'resume' button to start or stop |
receiving calls automatically instead of the usual 'dial next number' |
button. |
or |
- it will allow normal manual dialing operation |
- The auto_dial app(AST_VDauto_dial.pl) will: |
- count how many agents are READY,QUEUE,INCALL with updated |
last_update_time in the last 2.5 seconds. |
- look at the campaign's auto_dial_level to determine how many calls |
should be placed each specific campaign on each server. |
- update the vicidial_auto_calls records by searching for active |
callerids in the vicidial_manager to see if they have hung up. |
- count the number of active calls that are |
occuring(vicidial_auto_calls records with a status of SENT,RINGING or |
LIVE) |
- place the calls for each server if the active calls is less than the |
total that should be placed |
- The auto_dial app will then: |
- grab the next lead to be called from the vicidial_hopper for each |
campaign(it will update that lead record in the vicidial_hopper table |
to QUEUE with VDAD as the user) |
- grab the lead information from vicidial_list and update |
called_since_last_reset Y, the user to VDAD and increment the |
called_count by 1 |
- delete the record from vicidial_hopper for that lead |
- place the call first to the Zap trunk(Exten: 917275551212), then to a |
specified Local extension number(Channel: Local/99999@default) where |
the auto_dial_transfer_agent app(agi-VDADtransfer.agi) is waiting to |
take over. |
- if the call is busy, disconnect or telco voicemail the call is never |
technically picked up so it never makes it to the |
auto_dial_transfer_agent app |
- check for dead calls by looking in the call_log for and end time of |
the call keyed by callerID(caller_code) and delete them t=from the |
vicidial_auto_calls table |
- The auto_dial_transfer_agent app takes the call and: |
- immediately grabs the uniqueid and callerid of the call and updates |
the vicidial_auto_calls record to LIVE |
- logs the call to vicidial_log using the callerid to find out the lead |
number(VmmddhhmmssLLLLLLLLL[where LLLLLLLLL is the zero-padded lead_id |
from vicidial_list]) |
- inserts the number_dialed and the caller_code in the vicidial_log |
table for the uniqueid record of the call |
- attempts to update(limit 1) a record in the vicidial_live_agents |
table to see who is the next agent to receive a call(ordered by |
last_call_time)[update the status to QUEUE, the lead_id to the proper |
lead_id and the uniqueid and callerID to proper values for the call] |
- if there are agents available[affected rows = 1](goto substep VII.) |
- if there are no agents available: |
- wait in 1 second increments and then checking substep IV. |
- if no agent is available for the drop interval(usually 5 |
seconds on outbound campaigns), the call is hung up and logged as DROP in |
vicidial_log under user VDAD |
- grabs the agent info from the vicidial_live_agents[conf_exten] and |
does a redirect to the agent's meetme room. |
- agent's app checks the vicidial_live_agents record every second for |
itself to see if it is changed to QUEUE |
- agent's app changes the vicidial_live_agents status to INCALL and |
updates the vicidial_list record to INCALL and user to the agent's |
userID and the call progresses normally |
- The agent hangs up and the vicidial_live_agents record is changed back to |
READY with the lead and call fields cleared out so the agent is ready to take |
another call |
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