Q2: Using Asterisk Address book on 6757i

[LesD]

The phone has a limit of 200 entries. It is set to automatically download the address-book daily so maintenance of all the extensions is not an issue.

I just wonder what are the pros and cons between using it and an address-book maintained in FreePBX.

The FreePBX presumably will have a much higher limit than 200.

Also, how would I go about making the phone use the server a-b?

 

[Stewart]

Hmmm. Not sure what you mean by "use the server a-b", but look into the SugarCRM integration with the Aastra phones. It's very nice.

 

[LesD]

Hmmm. Not sure what you mean by "use the server a-b"

Neither am I I thought I had read about references to an address book in PIAF documentation. There is an "Asterisk Phonebook" option in FreePBX though I haven't looked at that yet. What is that capable of doing?

Just looked at SugarCRM. That looks like a full blown CRM system with a price to match.

 

[Stewart]

There is a community edition that's free that can co-reside on your phone system. You can choose to not use it for anything other than a contact database for the Aastra script.

 

[LesD]

Thank you. I will look again.

 

[atsak]

I'm going to post this as a project on vWorker and talk to some programmer friends because I want this as well, except I also want it to pull information from Active Directory as an additional plug in.

I'll see how much it costs. For data sources I'm thinking Active Directory, SugarCRM, the extension list, Asteridex and it's own independent.

Nothing may come of it but it might be worth the exercise to gather some intelligence and figure out what's involved.

 

[LesD]

May I add my thoughts and needs.

I think there are three distinct requirements which are unlikely to merge unless every phone becomes a PC.

One is the need to be able to dial out when sitting in front of a PC using one's favourite Address book. Most are unlikely to want to change their A-B just to integrate better with a telephone system.

I see Ben Sharif in PIAF Without Tears mentions AstTapi. Is that working? With something like that a TAPI compliant A-B could be used for outgoing calls.

The second requirement is to be able to look up a number while at a phone without access to a PC. To satisfy that the phone needs access to at least a subset of the A-B. Ideally it should be the whole address book list with only name and number (possibly plus some other reference like address). For me a selection from the A-B would suffice (I have 4000+ entries in my A-B).

The final requirement is for caller ID to show up the name of the caller. If one is to allow for a mix of phones, from different sources and with different capabilities, then really it is only via Asterisk that the last two need can be satisfied.

 

[LesD]

Depends on what you mean by "be able to dial out". Surely you don't mean to provide click to dial from every phone book already in existence; it's an insurmountable task. Even providing a mechanism to export/import from a handful of popular ABs is a chore.

Agreed. I was thinking TAPI.

I have tried Asttapi, outcall, ActivaTSP, all the free offerings. Open source tapi-asterisk offerings are not very mature and none have kept pace with the continuous stream of Asterisk dial plan "improvements". I have tried Ingenius which is not free but didn't thrill me either. To make matters worse, all of the contact managers I have tried that use the TAPI interface, make it nearly as hard to click to dial as to just dial the digits manually. I gave up on all of them. I would love to be corrected on any of the above points. Nothing comes close to Noojee and firefox. One click of one button, pick up the ringing phone and talk.

Noojee it is then. I presume it will work using simple copy/paste. I can live with a couple of extra clicks. I'm off to have a look.

Must it be FF? I have just switched to Chrome!

Having a GUI for every SIP phone on the market is also dreaming pretty big. There is so much variation in endpoints that to do this means providing a separate front end for every phone model you want to use.

This one is probably the easiest since it should be a simple mater to integrate with the already excellent superfecta project.

For dialling out, I accept that the phone has to have some basic facilities to ask Asterisk for some addresses. I was thinking more about CID - every phone should be able to display CID + Name.

 

[gregc]

The phonebook in FOP2 covers all your points, sorta.

1) I've modified the directory script from Aastra & Ward to accomplish this for our Aastra phones.
2) Definitely does this.
3) Does this.
4) Superfecta has the module to do this.
5) Pretty much all of those things.
6) Does this as well when the entry is made (can be marked private and it is then private to the extension that entered it).

On top of that, you can even add a photo to the entry. When using the FOP2 panel (at least in chrome), it pops up the caller info in the bottom right corner of the PC also.

-Greg

 

[LesD]

I have installed FOP2 and started to test it. First impressions are good though as yet I cannot see how to integrate the address book with the Aastra phones.

 

[gregc]

Here is what I use. It is as far as I got with my limited knowledge. What I'd like it to do is allow you to pick between phone number 1 and phone number 2, but it only allows using phone number 1 right now.

Anyone want to take a crack at it??

-Greg