AstriCon 2017

As telecom becomes more and more decentralized with all the new equipment, technologies and players (both big and small) the issues that we face daily are becoming ever more complex and one needs to always be one step ahead. Some of the items I plan on discussing are: 1) Why can CLI (Caller ID) be so unpredictable? 2) FAS - How to detect and beat it. 3) Why is the cheapest price not always the best. 4) SS7 , T1/E1, SIP and IAX. Does the protocol matter? 5) Calls were working fine. What just broke them?

Are you familiar with Asterisk call center applications? The great open source community did a very good job for voice applications, and we have been able to use it in many call center environment to deliver voice mission critical services. It’s now time to have a look beyond the pure voice interactions, introducing what we can do with Asterisk integrated with multiple other channels: web chat, sms, email and more. This year the XCALLY Team will present a real concept about the Asterisk Omni Channel opportunities. The Asterisk call center agents will be able to manage multiple kind of interactions, and - even more interesting - it will be introduced the concept of Open Channel: a simple way to add custom channels inside an Asterisk call center environment, from Social media to IoT events which need to be managed by a Queue of customer service representative or an Automatic workflow. Dangerous demo will be played during the session, in order to see when such concepts work and when they break!

How to develop and use scripts/systems to validate your PBX functionality and health against TELCO problems. Practical case: Using Audio Fingerprinting to validate all DID's are correctly answered on your company IVR's

With hundreds of millions of active users and billions of supported devices, WebRTC has more than proven it can be used in high-scale applications. However, the 6-year-old technology has hardly reached ubiquity. WebRTC brings unique challenges and limitations. For telephony developers who aren’t using WebRTC, this leaves many questions: -I’m not doing WebRTC, is it too late? -I’m not doing WebRTC, should I start? -What do I need to know to be successful in WebRTC? -How quickly is this all going to change? WebRTC expert Chad Hart will explore and answer these questions with a focus on WebRTC for open source telephony developers.

Asterisk has a number of APIs to allow it to interact with external processes.

Attend this introductory level session to learn about the follwing:

AMI - the Asterisk Manager Interface, allows external processes to control and monitor Asterisk
AGI - the Asterisk Gateway Interface, gives control to an external script
ARI - the Asterisk RESTful Interface, the latest interface - introduced in Asterisk 12 - provides a new approach...

This presentation will cover: How VICIdial got it's start, the challenges in interoperating with Asterisk as it changed over the last 14 years, the evolution of the VICIdial user interface, where VICIdial is going in the future, how to survive as an open-source project and thrive as a business while still giving away your product for free, and reasons why many large enterprise-level call centers have chosen to go with VICIdial as their contact center solution.

Today's world is unimaginable without the internet. We buy products, file our taxes, pay bills, apply for jobs, stream entertainment and communicate with people all around the world over it. But this isn't the way things always were. Think about what it was like to buy a product before the internet existed. Buyers actually needed salespeople to help them make a buying decision. The internet changed everything. And it turned the buyer-seller relationship upside down. Today, the information a buyer needs to make a purchase decision is just a click away. The power in buying and selling has shifted to the buyer from the seller. Keeping up with today's empowered buyer means that the sales process needs to change too. Whether your sales process relies on inbound leads or targeted outreach, whether you're a big or small company, whether your product is simple or complex, inbound sales is relevant. Attend this session and learn: 1. The difference between 'Legacy' sales and the 'Inbound' sales process. 2. The three stages of the Buyer's Journey. 3. How to develop a sales process that supports your buyer through the journey. 4. The Inbound Sales Methodology. 5. Incorporating social media into your selling process.

Exceeding the capacities of widely-used Asterisk management UIs can result in a painful experience.  Designed for typical SMB deployments, their performance under large-scale conditions can be challenging and has numerous practical limitations...  This case study explores a large College campus environment and Voneto's deployment of Asterisk with a management framework based on Asterisk realtime.  We'll discuss development, customer-requested modifications, and rollout experience.   As this was also a large deployment of Digium handsets, we'll explore the rollout experience and also discuss a number of custom phone and directory apps designed to enhance the end-user experience.  Whether a first-time user of Digium handsets or contemplating a deployment that exceeds the capabilities of traditional Asterisk UIs, we'll have something for you.

Why do we believe having a GSA contract is so important? Have you ever tried to rent a car without a credit card? The same scenario exists. The government cannot just buy from you. You need a contract vehicle for the buyer to place an order against. A GSA contract is the fastest and easiest way to get a 'number' to make the buyer's job easier. Many companies believe that simply registering with SAM (System for Award Management) will net you business. Nothing could be further from the truth. SAM registration is required before you can do business with the government, that's all. You must have a contract vehicle for the buyer to place an order against. Get started now with your own GSA contract. The myth is that a company can succeed without a contract and continue to accept open market orders of $3,000 or less. This violates the CICA (Competition in Contracting Act) and is illegal for multiple purchases. The buyer must combine these requirements and place an order with a contract holder. Do not get caught in this web, get your GSA contract now.

An industry built on expensive hardware, many contact centers moved to cloud-based systems in the last 10 years. However, cloud-based system providers created proprietary technologies that lacked integration options, or came with them but at steep technology support prices. In 2015, Gary Pudles decided to challenge those industry norms. Gary Pudles, AnswerNet CEO and President, shares his experience about finding a solution that integrated with Asterisk as well as other open-source applications. This session will include tips on: -Technology Sourcing: Understanding how to scope your technology needs as a business owner -Input on Open Source Tools: Finding the right ones for your contact center -The Many Faces of Asterisk: Learning the system inside and out, then teaching it how to work with you

Looking to start a new voice business or create a voice application? Learn about the true costs, pitfalls and business models currently working well for others, and those that cause many to remain stagnant or close the doors.

How often have you heard the phrase "For a communications company, we don't communicate very well!"? Kenneth O'Neal has the solution...

“Effective Communication” in the Workplace must change from a Parent/Child relationship to an Adult/Adult mature conversation requiring critical agreements. There are rights and responsibilities for all parties. All lives matter and are treated well. These are learned skills.

1. The whole organization must come before personal ambition

2. Honest, truthful openness to others’ opinions raises difficult issues; focus on results

3. Control emotional responses and obtain full information about organization

4. Make a choice about accountability for organization and understand business reasons

5. Each member manages their morale, motivation and commitment; supporting others does not take emotional responsibility; no blaming, no condemning, no criticism, no complaining A powerful adult position would be: “As I reflect on this situation, I acknowledge my contribution.”

Case studies will be provided with facts showing a significant increase in productivity.

Did you ever ask yourself how well your call workflows match customer needs? Or what kind of call application your users appreciate the most? Then this session might be for you! We'd like to share our experiences with designing an application for realtime analysis of Asterisk calls. The application is called TPA (Telephone Process Analysis) and analyzes technical call logfiles/databases in order to extract any details useful for further call process evaluation. The ultimate goal is to not only evaluate Asterisk calls, but also to incorporate the call processes of other communication systems used in our call center and remote offices, enabling an enterprise-wide evaluation of communication processes. The technical challenge is to semantically analyze proprietary call data and re-model interesting details in a generic way, so that statistical data of different systems can be connected and evaluated comprehensively. Though this is not decided yet, we are considering to publish this work as open source once it has reached a reasonable maturity level. Key topics: - Business motivation for call analysis - Evaluating enterprise communication processes - Evaluating usage patterns - Identifying bottlenecks and technical problems - Improving business workflows and system setup - Design basics for call analysis - Data Collecting - Sorting & Filtering - Semantic analysis - Generic re-modeling / abstraction - Customized export filters - Asterisk specific call analysis - Data sources (CEL, CDR, Queue) - Characteristics and relations of internal Asterisk IDs - Limitations and solutions in multi-server environments - Simple vs. difficult call scenarios - Ideas for generic call description - Scope and validity of IDs - Cross-system call identification (SIP/Infrastructure) - Elementary call phases and attributes - Extensible data model design

Find out how FreePBX® grew to be more than just an easy way to write config files for Asterisk®, to becoming the most widely adopted Open Source PBX Platform and EcoSystem in the world. In this talk, we will provide an overview of what the FreePBX® project is and the history of how FreePBX® has evolved into what it is today, including how our millions of users continue to benefit as the project evolves. Come learn about how the projects has evolved and what's coming next.