As far as I know, no one has yet succeeded to deliver a high quality open source package for the thousands of small and medium sized call centers around the globe that want to go Asterisk. But having to buy proprietary software for managing the call center, or having to build their own software, seemed up to now the only two available options.

AACC was conceived to fulfill the need of those call centers, and make an impact in call centers similar to the one Asterisk has made in telephony. Now, that’s setting a pretty high mark for ourselves, so, how will we do it?

First of all, we have tried very hard to understand what those small and medium sized call centers need and want. So we are designing a system which is feature rich, yet easy to manage, agile, and extensible. We didn’t set up to reinvent the wheel. So we try to take advantage of other open source projects out there that do what they do very well. One of those projects is Asterisk-Java, on which we rely to communicate back and forth with Asterisk.

Then we said to ourselves, "Let’s go visual!" But let’s not go exactly mainstream. So we ruled out resource-hungry web based solutions, AJAX, and other technologies, and chose to use industry proven Java technology, both for our clients as well as for our servers.

Agents will have a toolbar – a specialized CRM from which they will be able to see and update call information, see a script for the campaign, or have it do an automatic screen pop. Administrators will have a control panel from which they will manage all aspects of the call center with ease. And they can chose to go Linux, or to go Windows, or… Mac? Doesn’t matter, AACC is built with Java, so it’s OS independent.

The response from the developers’ community was overwhelming, surpassing all of our expectations. We even had the luxury of turning down candidates! We are working right now on several fronts.

AACC will be suitable both for inbound as well as for outbound call centers. So we’re designing a predictive dialer, which will be able to handle multiple campaigns for multiple customers, with customizable information such as products offered, and per-campaign custom data, sales scripts, and call disposition.

Reporting is key. We are creating additional reporting information to what Asterisk provides, both for realtime and historical statistics. We're also incorporating JasperReports for stunning on-screen reporting, as well as saving the reports in the most relevant file formats, like PDF, RTF, ODT, HTML, XLS, and others. Reporting will of course be extensible, meaning that you will be able to design your own reports – with a WYSIWYG tool, also open source – in addition to the reports you will get out-of-the-box.

Last, but not least, AACC will be fully localizable. We hope that once initial development stage is over, we can be joined by translators who will help us localize the application to many languages.

When, you would ask, will this be production ready? We believe an alpha (i.e. not yet ready for production) version will be available before Christmas 2008. A beta version should be ready not long after that. I’ll keep you posted! Make sure you join our users list and visit our site at http://hanashidialer.sourceforge.net for more information about this project.

From my participation in the asterisk-users and asterisk-java-users mailing lists, and from the general questions I see, I think a common use case for the combination of the Gateway interface and the Manager interface is to deliver outbound recorded messages. I think that an example might help to show how the two interfaces (and the two parts of Asterisk-Java) can be leveraged to deliver outbound messages.

However, because I've recently wanted to write more complex applications in Scala (a language interoperable with Java), I'm going to show you how to perform outbound message delivery with Scala and Asterisk-Java and without modification of the dialplan. If you liked my example of Scala and want to see more, I'd recommend this series if you have a Java background.

Here's the plan for our simple application:

1. Design an Agi script that plays back our message
2. Create & start an AgiServer object to host our script
3. Create a Manager connection to Asterisk
4. Using the Manager connection, ask Asterisk to originate a call from some destination to our Agi script
5. Create a callback handler to act if/when the originate fails, succeeds, or we get disconnected

First, here's some definitions and imports we'll need in order to use Console (the System.out analog) and the Asterisk-Java library:

package org.asteriskjava.blog.scala
  
import actors.Actor
import Console.println
import org.asteriskjava.fastagi._
import org.asteriskjava.live._

Next, here's the simple Agi script singleton class that simply plays the hello-world sound file, and then counts to ten. This is what our users will hear as the message.

object OutgoingMessageScript extends BaseAgiScript
{
    def service(request: AgiRequest, channel: AgiChannel): Unit = {
      streamFile("hello-world")
      for(i <- 0.until(10))
        sayNumber((i+1)+"")
    } 
}

Skipping ahead of a few steps (because it doesn't depend on anything else), here's the class that implements the callback interface, providing instructions on what to do if the originate dials, fails, succeeds, it's busy or not answered, or we get disconnected. This handler simply prints out what happened, though in your own code, this would be a good place to queue up something that failed, or mark it as a preliminary success (I say preliminary because this only means the originate succeeded, but not the playback... yet).

object OutgoingMessageStatusReport extends OriginateCallback
{
    def onDialing(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("Dialing-" + channel)
    def onSuccess(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("Success-" + channel)
    def onNoAnswer(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("No Answer-" + channel)
    def onBusy(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("Busy-" + channel)
    def onFailure(cause: LiveException): Unit = println("Failure-" + cause)
}

And finally, here's the start of the main class and method...

object OutgoingMessageDelivery {
  
  def main(args : Array[String]) : Unit = {

We'll create an AGI server, and use Actor to get the startup method executed in a separate thread. We do this so that it will begin to accept connections without blocking our current thread.

    // start an AGI server with the given script
    val asteriskGatewayServer = new DefaultAgiServer(OutgoingMessageScript)
    new Actor { def act = asteriskGatewayServer.startup }.start

Next, we'll connect to Asterisk through the Manager interface too (via the nice Live API that wraps it).

    // start a connection to the manager interface
    val asteriskManagerInterface = new DefaultAsteriskServer(
      "192.168.1.15", 
      "root", 
      "secret")

Finally, we will ask through the Manager interface that Asterisk originate to "SIP/xlite1" (if you were doing massive outbound delivery with T1/E1 circuits, you'd probably put something like "Zap/r1/outbound number" here)

    // connect some channel to the script, with a callback 
    asteriskManagerInterface.originateToApplicationAsync(
      "SIP/xlite1", // **** could be "Zap/r1/1234567890"
      "Agi", "agi://"+java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost.getHostAddress, 
      10*1000, 
      OutgoingMessageStatusReport)
  }
  
}

And that's it! Asterisk will try to originate that call, and inform us (via the callback) of the outcome of the attempted originate.

Here's what the log will look like:

2008-08-09 16:02:04,671 org.asteriskjava.fastagi.DefaultAgiServer INFO [Thread-1] - Listening on *:4573.
2008-08-09 16:02:04,718 org.asteriskjava.manager.internal.ManagerConnectionImpl INFO [main] - Connecting to 192.168.1.15:5038
2008-08-09 16:02:04,843 org.asteriskjava.manager.internal.ManagerConnectionImpl INFO [Asterisk-Java ManagerConnection-0-Reader-0] - Connected via Asterisk Call Manager/1.0
2008-08-09 16:02:04,859 org.asteriskjava.manager.internal.ManagerConnectionImpl INFO [main] - Successfully logged in
2008-08-09 16:02:04,875 org.asteriskjava.manager.internal.ManagerConnectionImpl INFO [main] - Determined Asterisk version: Asterisk 1.4
2008-08-09 16:02:04,890 org.asteriskjava.live.internal.AsteriskServerImpl INFO [main] - Initializing done
2008-08-09 16:02:04,937 org.asteriskjava.live.internal.ChannelManager INFO [Asterisk-Java DaemonPool-1-thread-1] - Adding channel SIP/xlite1-081da108(1218312125.13)
Dialing-AsteriskChannel[id='1218312125.13',name='SIP/xlite1-081da108',callerId='',state='DOWN',account='null',dateOfCreation=Sat Aug 09 16:02:04 EDT 2008,dialedChannel=null,dialingChannel=null,linkedChannel=null]
2008-08-09 16:02:06,218 org.asteriskjava.fastagi.DefaultAgiServer INFO [Thread-1] - Received connection from /192.168.1.15
Success-AsteriskChannel[id='1218312125.13',name='SIP/xlite1-081da108',callerId='',state='UP',account='null',dateOfCreation=Sat Aug 09 16:02:04 EDT 2008,dialedChannel=null,dialingChannel=null,linkedChannel=null]
2008-08-09 16:02:06,218 org.asteriskjava.fastagi.DefaultAgiServer INFO [Thread-1] - Thread pool started.
2008-08-09 16:02:06,375 org.asteriskjava.fastagi.internal.FastAgiConnectionHandler INFO [Asterisk-Java DaemonPool-2-thread-1] - Begin AgiScript org.asteriskjava.blog.scala.OutgoingMessageScript$ on Asterisk-Java DaemonPool-2-thread-1

Questions? Post on our mailing list or reply to the post!

It's worth nothing, too, that there are certainly already ways of doing this that may only involve the dialplan. Also, this doesn't solve the problem of detecting answering machines.

The complete source:

package org.asteriskjava.blog.scala
  
import actors.Actor
import Console.println
import org.asteriskjava.fastagi._
import org.asteriskjava.live._

object OutgoingMessageDelivery {
  
  def main(args : Array[String]) : Unit = {
    // start an AGI server with the given script
    val asteriskGatewayServer = new DefaultAgiServer(OutgoingMessageScript)
    new Actor { def act = asteriskGatewayServer.startup }.start
    
    // start a connection to the manager interface
    val asteriskManagerInterface = new DefaultAsteriskServer(
      "192.168.1.15", 
      "root", 
      "secret")
    
    // connect some channel to the script, with a callback 
    asteriskManagerInterface.originateToApplicationAsync(
      "SIP/xlite1", // **** could be "Zap/r1/1234567890"
      "Agi", "agi://"+java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost.getHostAddress, 
      10*1000, 
      OutgoingMessageStatusReport)
  }
  
}

object OutgoingMessageScript extends BaseAgiScript
{
    def service(request: AgiRequest, channel: AgiChannel): Unit = {
      streamFile("hello-world")
      for(i <- 0.until(10))
        sayNumber((i+1)+"")
    } 
}

object OutgoingMessageStatusReport extends OriginateCallback
{
    def onDialing(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("Dialing-" + channel)
    def onSuccess(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("Success-" + channel)
    def onNoAnswer(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("No Answer-" + channel)
    def onBusy(channel: AsteriskChannel): Unit = println("Busy-" + channel)
    def onFailure(cause: LiveException): Unit = println("Failure-" + cause)
}

Chris Heller has published a series of two blog posts on how to integrate Oracle's PeopleSoft with Asterisk using Asterisk-Java.

In PeopleSoft IVR Integration the easy way he explains how to "initiate a phone call to the end user from PeopleSoft, prompt them for a PIN code, and take action in PeopleSoft depending on whether they were successful or not. This may be used as part of the initial signon process for two-factor authentication of your PeopleSoft users, or you might tie this in with some business logic (e.g. be really sure who is sending off a large wire transfer)."
Part 2 goes into more detail on how use the integration for two factor authentication with user events.

References

• PeopleSoft IVR Integration the easy way (Part 1)
• PeopleSoft Telephony Two Factor Authentication (Part 2)

Every year, O'Reilly hosts an open-source conference in Portland, OR, USA, in July. If anyone interested is at the conference, I'll be at Mark Spencer's talk on Thursday at 1:45pm. Stop by and say hello -- I'll be wearing the conference badge with my name on it. I'm always delighted to meet other like-minded Asterisk and Asterisk-Java users.

A few weeks ago, Matt Gibson posted on the asterisk-users discussion list that he was looking for a GraphViz script he had heard about a few years ago that could generate graphs of Asterisk's extensions.conf file that defines the dialplan. At the time, I had been working on a recently open-sourced application, EgoNet, for a researcher I work with. This application taught me much about social networks, particularly his specialty of egocentric networks, and it also helped me learn a ton about the Java Universal Network/Graph Framework (or JUNG). I immediately thought about combining my experience with JUNG and Asterisk, and wrote a rudimentary (read as: extremely ugly) parser for extensions.conf and generated a crude graph of the sample dialplan.

Read more...

A recent post to the mailing list asked about how to stop and start a FastAGI server and how folks host Fast AGI servers. I shared some code I wrote for a small MBean that starts and stops a DefaultAgiServer from Asterisk-Java -- see the last FAQ question "Can I have an example of using an AGI server in a container like JBoss?". The MBean uses the JBoss-specific @Management annotation.

I work on a home-grown call center management application (EJBs, JSP webpages, and two standalone Java Swing applications, all talking through JBoss Application Server), and we've already been able to add a couple features with Asterisk-Java that add value and utility to our application. I didn't want to introduce another service to our infrastructure and I also didn't want to write an entirely new Agi server, as Stefan had done a great job on that part. Thus, the above MBean was born.

Comments and suggestions and other examples of how you run your Agi scripts are welcome and encouraged on our mailing lists.

Atlassian has improved the charting features in their latest release of Fisheye. So I had a look at the Asterisk-Java code base to see how it's major packages compare in size. This is what i got:

Let's have a look at the individual packages:

The Manager API

Support for the Manager API (manager) is by far the biggest package in Asterisk-Java. It provides access to a variety of Asterisk features from call control to monitoring and call center management. The size of this package and its steady groth ressemble the groth of features exposed by Asterisk.

The Asterisk Gateway Interface

FastAGI is an easy way to implement IVR applications in Java. The feature set is quite stable over time so we don't see significant changes in the code base. You'll even notice that support for AsyncAGI (i.e. running AGI scripts over the Manager API) was a quick win as it didn't have a significant impact on the overall size of the package.

Parsing Configuration Files

The config package is quite new and supports parsing Asterisk's configuration files. All config files use the same syntax and group up configuration items into contexts. It supports inheritance of contexts, includes and forms the basis for further development like configuration editors or dialplan visualization (stay tuned for more information from Martin on this topic).
Originally developed to parse voicemail meta files the config package is certainly a candidate for future growth.

The Live API

The live API is our own invention and takes integration a step further. Instead of only providing access to the basic features exposed by Asterisk the live API offers real objects with state and behavior that model core concepts found in Asterisk. There are channel objects with state like the current caller id, the progress or hangup reason and methods to redirect channels, start and stop monitoring and much more.
The live API speeds up developers by hiding the sometimes tedious details of the low level Asterisk APIs and has reached a significant size. Next to the config package the live API is under active development and will certainly grow in the future.

Mauro has published an interesting article about Asterisk and SugarCRM integration. A swing popup notifies its user on incoming calls and provides additional information about the customer that is retrieved from SugarCRM.

The sample application serves as a good example on how to use Asterisk's Manager API with Asterisk-Java.

References

• Mauro: SugarCRM and Asterisk integration in Java

I've just finished adding support for Asynchronous AGI to Asterisk-Java. AsyncAGI allows you to run AGI scripts through a Manager API connection.

The way AsyncAGI is supported by Asterisk-Java hides the differences in the underlying communication from the users of our library. Your AGI scripts developed for FastAGI will run with AsyncAGI without a change.

To make use of AsyncAGI add the following extension to you dialplan:

exten => 1234,1,Agi(agi:async)

Create a simple AGI script, pass it to AsyncAgiServer and register the AsyncAgiServer as a listener to a ManagerConnection:

public class SampleScript extends BaseAgiScript
{
    public void service(AgiRequest request, AgiChannel channel) throws AgiException
    {
        channel.streamFile("tt-monkeys");
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
    {
        ManagerConnection connection;
        AsyncAgiServer agiServer;

        connection = new DefaultManagerConnection("localhost", "manager", "pa55w0rd");
        agiServer = new AsyncAgiServer(new SampleScript());
        connection.addEventListener(agiServer);
        connection.login();

        while (true)
        {
            Thread.sleep(1000L);
        }
    }
}

To run the sample you need the latest snapshot of Asterisk-Java 1.0.0 (at least 20080404.222056-117) and Asterisk 1.6.0.

References

• Moy: Asterisk Asynchronous AGI

Thanks to Martin we now have a FAQ section available as part of our documentation.

The FAQ covers the questions we encounter on our mailing lists and that we think will be interesting to a more general audience. Please check them before asking questions to make sure you don't ask questions again that have already been answered before.

If you notice anything we've missed feel free to post a comment or join our mailing list and propose your addition.

References

• Asterisk-Java Frequently Asked Questions