Issabel Contact Center installation (Callback Agent)

How you can create an Inbound call center using the ISSABEL (formerly Elastix) deployment of Asterisk.

This describes Issabel’s “CALLBACK AGENT” mode.  

This is an ACD style center with calls being sent to a queue, then ringing an agent’s phone, which they manually answer.

(Click HERE for Issabel’s “AGENT” mode, which does the same thing, except agents are permamently “OFF HOOK” (listening to music).  This is usually for outbound centers, but works on inbound.  Agents hear music in their headset and system beeps and automatically connects them with a customer.

ISSABEL.ORG

The ISSABEL asterisk deployment, based on Centos 7 (as of Jan 2019) and is a full featured product, self installing product to provide the OS, Asterisk, MariaDB (formerly MySQL) as well as reporting, fax server, email server and a variety of other features all packed into a single product.

The most impressive feature set of Issabel is the Contact Center Suite

Features:

Login with a hardset or softset directly and take queue calls.  

You can login/out with *45 from your handset and take calls.

GUI Login featuring screen pops with agent information.

LOTS of reporting, both historical and realtime

Call Recording

CRM integration

Break Codes

Agent Scripting

Form population, useful for capturing caller information 

Phone interaction using GUI

 

SCRIPT – Intended option is to prompt your agent with info about the queue the call has arrived on, and the information they should give to the customer.

You can use it for campaign/queue information (agents can belong to multiple queues so this is a way to allow them to know what queue is calling) 

This information can be altered by call center admins, with the data automatically refreshing on all agent screens automatically.

Forms – You can create forms and agents can fill the information in these boxes while on a call, and save it.  Supervisors can run a report to see this data in a CSV file in a spreadsheet program.

CRM – You can integrate with the CRM.  Vtiger is mentioned a lot, and the integration although not completely seamless to get going, is relatively simple in the grand scheme.  At its basic level, the agent can click on the CRM button and be taken to the Vtiger instance, and be taken to any page you want to provide.

The call center system can provide dynamic URLs with variables in the URL that can direct users to a customized urls
This is the browser window that the agents can use to help interact with the caller.

The top shows the agent phone info (extension 1005- followed by agent name)

The call status bar (our example shows green connected) gives a visual indication if the agent is on a call (its red if they are not).  Shows how long they are talking to customer.

Call control boxes- agents can control the phone call through these buttons.  Take Break allows them to go NOT ready and with a a break type that you can specify.

REPORTING

There are some fairly comprehensive reports that come with the application

 (1) INSTALLATION

==before you proceed =======================

There are 4 things you have to know to make an inbound call center installation work:

•         Install Asterisk 11 only 13 doesn’t work (as of Jan 2019)
•        MUST have phone (soft or hard) registered to even test first time login
•  ·        Agent MUST be configured properly in PBX queue dynamic or static agent positions
•  ·        Must use 4 digit extensions

 ========================================

Installation is pretty easy.  I’m not going to dive too deep, most of its self explanatory from the prompts the installation will give you as you install.
The ISO you download is a complete OS and PBX that will completely install itself on most any computer you have. 

Download Issabel ISO from https://www.issabel.org/     

Remember.  This is a SELF INSTALL FULL OS installation.  This means whatever computer you attempt to install this on will be COMPLETELY erased of all existing installations of OS and all DATA will be non-recoverable. 

Everything is open source so there isn’t anything to buy or licence. to make it work!  There is an easy registration process when you first log into the completed product, but its free and isn’t even really necessary, but gives you access to additional free features.

It uses the LINUX operating system, but do not worry if you aren’t familiar with Linux, there is very very little that you’ll probably have to do with it ever really.  

The entire installation is automatic.  

Just follow the steps bellow and if you don’t have some hardware incompatibilities, you will be up and running in a short time.

Discussion below is based on ISSABEL4 20181002.iso with 4 gig of ram and a 50gig HD size.

(ISO available as of January 2019).

You can burn this to a DVD (if you are still stuck in the 2000’s) or you can put it on a USB key (https://rufus.ie/) can help you get a bootable USB key.  Maybe your are far more advanced than that and you just install it on a vm.  Works in ESXI and HYPER-V

Select Asterisk 11 and Call Center CE in the installation 

Takes 20-30 minutes to install.

After you install, logon with ROOT and then use the password you assigned during install

At the command prompt then type in IP ADDR and get the IP of your machine.

(2) CONFIGURATION

Login to the GUI using https://IPofIssabel

When you first login, you will need to create an account with Issabel web system to get further updates.  Its free.

If this is a new configuration, please check your NAT settings in Asterisk.  If you are testing phones and your soft/hard phone is on a different network segment than your Issabel installation, it will probably fail

The critical one is putting in your external IP address. That will cause things to fail if you don’t have it set up properly.

You’ll also want to put in local networks that you will have phones in that might be different than the one your PBX is in.  For most cases, if you are a small location you might only have one, but larger offices will split up teams to different network segments so you’ll need to include the different ones here.

(3) CREATION of AGENT “CALL BACK” center. 

First we’ll create a test extension.

AGENTS NUMBERS/PHONE NUMBERS MUST BE 4 DIGITS. 

Create an extension

• PBX – PBX CONFIGURATION -> EXTENSIONS 

• Create a SIP extension
• Give it the User Extension of 1001 and the Display Name of “Agent One”

• Press SUBMIT

• Press APPLY CHANGES bar that appears at the top.

Copy of the “SECRET” that is automatically generated.

• Configure a softphone (xlite or similar) with the number 1001 and use that as the password.
  You’ll need the login user (1001) the password (automatically generated in the PBX) and the server ip, which is the IP of your asterisk server.

• Dial *43 and you will be in an echo test. You should hear your voice.

 

“You are about to enter an echo test….”

You will need an active, functioning registered SIP phone for successful Agent login. 

If phone is not available, the call center will not allow you to login the first time you try.

If you did not hear your voice echo back when you talk into the MIC, you need to review your configurations to ensure your phone is properly registered.

(4) Create a QUEUE

Select: PBX-PBX CONFIGURATION – ADD QUEUE

 

Give it a QUEUE NUMBER of ” 8000 ”

Give it a queue name of “QueueTest”

(4) Assign agents to QUEUE

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!! THIS PART IS CRITICAL !!!

This is a common fail for agent being unable to logon 
Put the agent extensions into the DYNAMIC AGENTS box.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m going to assume you made a SIP account, so put this in:  S1001,0

Add your agent to the DYNAMIC MEMBERS box.

The Dynamic Members syntax looks like the following

Xyyyy,Z

X       = Signalling Option (Sip iAx) so if SIP you use “S” if IAX you use “A”

yyyy  = 4 digit extension number belong to the phone of your agent.

Z       = Agent Weight or “Skill Level”.  (0 is default highest level)

          0= Highest  10=Lowest

The extension number you entered in (ex 1001) must prefix with a CAPITAL S (for SIP)

So extension 1001 would = S1001,0

This will be the most common dynamic member type

• Scroll to the bottom and press SUBMIT CHANGES

• Then click on the APPLY CHANGES button at the top.

(5) Configure Agent for GUI DESKTOP

Select CALL CENTER -> AGENT OPTIONS -> CALLBACK EXTENSIONS

Select “NEW CALLBACK EXTENSION”

“CallBack Extension” drop box should have your extension in the list.  If it doesn’t, go back to the PBX and make sure that you saved your changes.

• Assign an agent NAME to this account “John Smith”
• give it a numeric password.

Ignore the ECCP password, you can leave those blank.

Press SAVE

(6) Configure QUEUES for the GUI

Now you want to activate the queue for ISSABEL calcenter to know to use it.

Select CALL CENTER -> INCOMING CALLS -> QUEUES

Click on “+Select Queue”

In the “Select Queue:” drop box select the queue you have created. 

Select the Queue from the drop box at the top

You can optionally put in a script.  This text will appear in the agent desktop screen pop

Click on SAVE

Now click on Agent Console

First click on “CALL BACK LOGIN” button check box.

Your screen will change to something like this:

Select SIP 1001 for John Smith

Put in the password you assigned and click on “ENTER”

NOTE!!!!

IF your agent fails to login, wait and try again in a a few minutes, in some installation situations there is a refresh or something that needs to happen.
If its still not working make sure your phone is registered, make sure the agent is in DYNAMIC MEMEBERS properly.  Make sure all changes in PBX are applied (usually a red bar at the top indicating a reload is required)

With AgentCallBack, the agent name and Extension are locked together as one.  This means agent John Smith will always use extension 1001. 

Nobody else can.

If you configured everything above correctly, you should see something like this

(7) Now you can test an inbound call.  Call your queue from a phone and your agent phone should ring.


When your agent answers the phone, your screen should change to above.

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