We are looking at additional reporting and Tapit (www.trisys.com) as a specific request - its a well known package, with support, and those requesting are familiar with using it. Also looking for any recommendations of other reporting software that can report per extension (number of calls, numbers called, time on call, etc) and be automated to email those specific reports out several times a day. Tapit can do this.
Tapit runs on a Windows box, loads the Master.csv file from Asterisk, and then create reports based from there. I have spoken to Trisys support about connecting Tapit to Asterisk. They say that they run Asterisk internally. They just install Samba, share the cdr-csv directory, and then map the service in Tapit to pull from the UNC path.
I have found another post that describes populating the Master.csv file as well as the database but haven’t tried setting it up yet. Wanted to check in to see if anyone had a better idea and if not - are there any issues with installing Samba or is there another recommendation?
The official answer is we don’t recommend installing any outside software. Every service and application you install adds another potential risk and the possibility for stability issues.
That said we can’t all live in a bubble. I would mess with a test server first and get the kinks worked out. If they are simply reading a CSV file from a file share I don’t see why it would be a big deal functionally. If they open/edit the file in windows it could become an issue as file encoding vary.
Thanks James! I have built a test system to play with while trying it out. From what I know now, they are simply reading the csv - no changes, etc. The systems (both Windows and FreePBX) are kept patched and up-to-date. Neither will be open to the Internet. I want to keep everything as thin and streamlined as possible which actually makes me like the reporting software install on a separate box. Is there any issue with having the Master.csv file populated along with the CDR database as described here - Asteriskcdrdb into qlikview ?