Reverse dialing

Question

I'm new to asterisk and struggling with it. I'd appreciate any help.

I'm building a schedule call feature in a CRM. I have a list of phone-numbers stored in a table in mysql.

I'm using AMI Originate to make calls to these phone-numbers and connect them to agents in a queue. The problem is that Originate first calls client and puts him on hold and then calls the queue. I need to first call the queue, wait for an agent to answer, put the agent on HOLD, and then call the client, So i dont make the client wait for a call he does not know what it is and probably hangup on the call.

I've seen this working in wombat dialer, but i dont know how it actually works.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Since the application originate waits for the first channel to answer before atempting to connect to the second channel, you should first contact an agent and then the customer. I would recomend working with ringroups (where the agents extensions would ring when dialed) instead of queues, because queues answer the channel while waiting for an agent and ringroups only after someone pick up.

If you want a more advanced option you should try VICIdial, it's a predictive dialer, it can dial a bunch of phones and send the call to an agent only whene someone (or something) answers the destination call. It's open source, it has a very easy and complete API. If you need any help with it let me know.

Answer 2

Lets say you have freepbx and usual queue 800. To do what you ask, just need originate to

Local/800@queues/n

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+local+channels

Please note, it still recommended have at least 5 years REAL experience with asterisk before do dialout soft. If you have less, use vicidial or other soft which take care of possible "bad" situations like 1000channels triing go via your small server.