We have a department in our company and resignation or employees getting fired is very common and each of these employees will have their own IP extension while working with us. So their IP extension is configured with their names within FreePBX Extension settings. A month from now, or say at least 6-months from now the employee resigns or gets fired and a newly hired personnel will soon take that place and I will have to rename the IP extension again.
Is there a way in which FreePBX keeps record on when the IP extension had been renamed with another person’s name? We’ll be requiring this so we can trace previous calls and who had made this calls besides familiarizing or guessing their names from hearing on previously recorded calls.
The name of caller id stays in the CDR, it does not change. You can test it on your extension with changing your name and record some calls with different names. You can search in the CDR’s by name or by an extension.
Yes, it will not change and stays in the CDR. But, whenever you change the name in the Extension filed from the FreePBX we administration - it will change so there’s no way of knowing who (the name) made those calls before. You can only know it by the IP extension but not the name you had configured in it.
I am sorry, but I do not understand. Do you have a special Freepbx version? What does it matter what is the name in the Freepbx GUI if the CDR’s have all the necessary data?
All you want to do is to find an old recording and usually you do it by searching the phone number of the customer in the source or destination fields (an incoming or an outgoing call).
If you wish to maintain a history of the Extension’s name in the Freepbx GUI you can add the initials of the former employee to its name, i.e.:
No, we’re using the normal FreePBX version. The name matters most as we have to track phone call recordings made by previous employees most of the time.
In a year, an IP Extension can be used by 4 employees - after the previous resigned or fired. So it’s paramount that we know the IP extension history… as to who among those users had that call been made.
I’m looking at the database tables but can’t find anything related to history or IP extension history.
Say:
From January 2015-March 2015, IP Extension 60035 was used by Abigail
From April 2015-August 2015, same extension 60035 was used by Nicole
From September 2015-Present, same extension 60035 is now being used by Tamara.
So if we are to do a query for a certain saved call recording from Feb. 2015-March 2015, we know that it was Abigail who made that call.
If you believe you are going to need records past termination why not create a unique extension for each employee? all you would have to do is change the credentials in the phone.
Or create a virtual extenstion and use follow me to send it to the static device. when the follow me calls stop coming in you know that the employee that was using that physical device is gone? Just a couple of thoughts. If Device/user mode was still supported this would have been perfect for your scenario.
I believe that you are right, but maybe you will answer this to me (I want to hear your opinion):
If you are searching in your CDR’s a call, why do you need to know the name of the extension? If you have the extension’s number and the customer’s number(usually the destination), you will get the name of the extension in the CDR itself.
So, why to bother with the extension’s name history if it is already exist in the CDR?
Creating a unique extension is not applicable in my scenario since there is a unique Inbound Route configured on those IP Extensions and I don’t want to move each Inbound Route to another IP extension past termination/resignation.
Are there any other suggestions to sort this issue?
What about adding another column inside cdr table name it as “Username” so every time a call is made - it will automatically be in the database with the username? I’m a bit afraid of doing this since I don’t really know what codes and where to insert it. I might corrupt the entire database.
i wouldn’t modify the CDR tables may work for a bit and break on the next update.
Changing the extension and inbound route can all be done in a few clicks. Additionally the virtual extension with followme idea leaves the inbound route in place and would keep a record of the timeframe that user was in place.
If those don’t you could change work environment or hire better people.