Remote Agents

General Help
1

Hi,
I’m pretty new with Asterisk, and I appreciate all the help I’ve received in this forum, specially the suggestion to go and read some books instead of keep asking meaningless questions… :lol:

Now, after having read a couple of books, and searched some forums and sites, I have no choice but to return here, with a more reasonable question:
Remote Agents implementation for a Queue.
I couldn’t find any detailed information about this.
Do I have to manually enter all the agents into the agents.conf file?
Is there a way to enter this information via TrixBox?
If this is the correct syntax to define an agent
agent => 1000,1234,Happy Tempura
How do I define a Remote Agent? (like a cell phone)
I hope someone can help me out…
:roll:

Thanks,
Fabian

2

currently there is nothing to validate the extensions or anything else like that, unfortunately.

3

:frowning:

4

Thank you MarcusS!
I’ll give it a try and I’ll let you know.
This is exactly what I needed…
:wink:

5

Hi MarcusS

I wanted to let you know that your solution works perfectly for me too!

I really appreciate your help.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and experience with new users like me!!!
:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:
Fabian

6

Hi MarcusS,

I’m using the implementation you suggested. It works OK under normal conditions, but I’ve discovered a potential problem:
When a remote agent calls in to log-in it has to enter his/her assigned extension number. This is just a place holder, since the external number is used to call the agent via follow-me.
There is nothing preventing the remote agent from entering a wrong extension number, or even one that does not exist. The ‘Log-in’ function will take that number anyways and assign it to the queue…
Is there any way to validate the extension entered against existing extensions? or against a list somewhere else?

Thank you!

Fabian

7

set one up and try it - you will see how it handles it (what if there is no CID?)

8

[quote=“Fabian11”]
Remote Agents implementation for a Queue.
I couldn’t find any detailed information about this.
Do I have to manually enter all the agents into the agents.conf file?
Is there a way to enter this information via TrixBox?
If this is the correct syntax to define an agent
How do I define a Remote Agent? (like a cell phone)
I hope someone can help me out…

Thanks,
Fabian[/quote]

Hi Fabian,

If I understand your question right, we recently had the same problem and had a consultant that came up with a solution which works quite good.

Goal:

  • To be able to use cell phones or other external numbers as normal extensions (external agents)

  • The external agents should be able to login/logout to a queue (or several queues)

Solution:

External Agents

  • Use the FreePBX GUI
  • Install the module “Follow Me”
  • Configure a normal SIP extension
  • Add a “Follow Me” extension to the extension
  • At the “Follow Me”, “extension list” set the external number to be called
    • Be sure to use the syntax “#” in the field “extension list”.
    • In our case we use 9 for the outgoing trunk, so it would look something like “908123456#” (08 is the area code for Stockholm, 123456 is the phonenumber).

Queue Login/Logout

  • Create a queue with the name “SupportQueue” (for example).
  • Go to Misc Destinations
  • Add a destination and name it something like “SupportQueue-Login”
    • Use the syntax “*”
  • Add a destination and name it something like “SupportQueue-Logout”
    • Use the syntax “**”

Theese are the normal commands for logging in and out from a queue, but as it can’t be done the normal way from an external phone, this is one way of solving the problem.

  • Now, create an IVR with two options which calls the Misc Destinations respectively for login and logout. The user will be prompted with the normal “Agent Login” prompt and asked to type in their extension number.

Now you can route calls to external phones that are able to login and logout from queues as well.

As far as we have tested this solution it has worked really good!

Best Regards
Marcus Svenningsson
Octasense, Sweden

9

Hi p_lindheimer,
Thank you for your reply!
But how do you handle remote agents?
Will their call back number be based on their CID when they log in?

10

freepbx does not use ‘agents.conf’ type agents. When you create a queue you put the extensions or phone numbers of all users who you want permanently in the queue. To dynamically login or logout additional agents, you simply use the NNN* and NNN** feature code that is generated for each queue, where NNN is the queue number.

11

I have implemented marks settings. I can log in and out agents, but my system will not call the external number. When i call my DID and reach my IVR. I will dial the extension the system will call the external number. i have no idea PLEASE help someone.

12

got it going thanks anyway

13

For someone comming here to find a solution, another go could be this:
http://www.thirdlane.com/forum/login-to-queue-dynamically-from-cell-phone
I think that is nicer since the agent do not have to press the extension.
The problem is that you cannot bind the number to an agent for statistics.
-Sofus