I want to host several companies on one PIAF box

[gcmartin3]

I have placed a PIAF server in a datacenter and it's working well for us now.

The system is fairly underutilized and we have several companies sharing an office with us. They would all like to switch over to our PBX to reduce their costs.

Right now, I have trunks from Vitelity and VoipStreet and am thinking of getting separate DID's for each of the companies in our office. This way, when calls come in on their DID, I can route them to their appropriate IVR and extension.

Now my problem is figuring out how to bifurcate their outbound calls so that they will use their own trunks as we want to keep the charges separate for each company. I can see giving each of them their own prefix, like an 8 or 9 so I can route them to a different trunk (I am thinking of getting them each their own trunk). AlthoughI think this is possible, they don't seem to want to dial a prefix as their used to direct dialing right now.

Does anyone have a suggestion that may be better?

Thanks again for your help.

The assistance from this forum has been invaluable.

regards
Greg

 

[drmurdoch]

/total guess !

Now, this is a total guess but ... how about routing certain extensions through certain trunks ?

Company 1 = trunk 1
X 701
X 702
Company 2 = trunk 2
X 703
X 704
X 705
X 706

/total guess !

 

[gcmartin3]

I think that's what I want to do but don't know how to route certain extensions to certain trunks on the outbound side.

Is there a way to do this?

 

[jroper]

Hi

You could install A2Billing on the box, then A2Billing will select which trunk based on which call-plan you have put them on.

Alternatively, you could pass all the calls out via one trunk and use A2Billing to charge each company.

The issue I have with multi-tennant PBX systems and FreePBX is that one company can call another one, which could lead to expensive mistakes if a call is misdirected or misdialed to another competing company on the PBX.

Joe

 

[gcmartin3]

Joe,

I tried to install A2Billing once on a test PIAF and didn't succeed. Now I'm afraid to install it on a production system.

I'll have to test the install again and try to raise my confidence before installing it on the production box.

I'm curious, if my experience is a one-off?

Thanks
Greg

 

[jroper]

Hi

The install is relatively simple, apart from the callback Daemon. The issue is learning how to use it. by its nature it's a complicated product, and some knowledge of Telecoms, and telecoms billing is assumed.

At some point, I'll be teaching Ward how to use it, who, hopefully, will do one of his articles in his own inimitable style.

Joe

 

[gcmartin3]

Joe,

Thanks for the encouraging comment. I will practice it a few times first on a disposable server before doing it for real.

Thanks

Regards
Greg

 

[jmullinix]

You could also create custom contexts in extensions_custom.conf for each company. You could do something like this:

[company-A]
exten => _XXXXXX.,1,goto(from-internal,222${EXTEN},1)
exten => _X.,1,goto(from-internal,${EXTEN},1)

[company-B]
exten => _XXXXXX.,1,goto(from-internal,333${EXTEN},1)
exten => _X.,1,goto(from-internal,${EXTEN},1)

Now, in your outbound routes for company A put the following dial pattern:

222|XXXXXX.

and in the outbound route for company B put:

333|XXXXXX.

This should not affect internal dialing since it take at least a 7 digit number to trigger the alteration.

 

[titodj]

At some point, I'll be teaching Ward how to use it, who, hopefully, will do one of his articles in his own inimitable style.

Joe

That would be REALLY NICE !!!

 

[cvschleich]

I've done this as John indicates above. I have an installation at what is really the same organization, but a subset has it's own phone numbers. Custom contexts got me what I wanted in that case.