Installation and Setup of  the Survox Dialer

Dialer Installation

The Survox Dialer is distributed both as a hosted service (“Subscription License”) and by software download, to be installed and managed on your hardware or virtual environment (“Subscription License”).

Dialer installations must be completed by or under the supervision of certified Survox personnel. Any changes or modifications made to an on-premise dialer must be certified by Survox or Survox will be unable to support your installation.  Repairs or restoration of a dialer that has been modified without the knowledge and approval of Survox may result in additional professional services charges.

Overview

A CFMC dialer requires two packages to be installed. The first package is the latest combined survent package. It contains the CFMC dialer program and certain configuration files. The second package is the CFMC Backend Dialer package. It contains a custom version of the Asterisk ABE PBX software, a number of support packages, as well as the web-based Dialer Console for managing the PBX configuration and certain settings for the CFMC dialer program.

To install the combined survent package, follow the instructions at <URL-HERE>.

Note:  For the dialer, the survent package is assumed to be set to run under a user named “cfmc”. When installing survent, make sure that you configure a runtime area for the “cfmc” user.  You may want to update your system’s OS before proceeding.

Installing the Dialer Package

The dialer package install process should be run as the root user. All the commands that follow should be executed by the root user unless otherwise specified.

Create the /opt/cfmc directory, download the latest Survox Dialer package, and uncompress it:

> mkdir /opt/cfmc
> cd /opt/cfmc
> wget portaldev.cfmc.com/pkgs/dialer-console-abe
> tar xzf Survox_Backend_Package.<version>.tar.gz

Once the package is in place, install the Asterisk PBX:

> cd /opt/cfmc/Survox_Backend_Package.<version>/install
> ./install_asterisk_abe

Note:  If user either the cfmc user or asterisk user is not on the system the user will be created and you will be asked to supply a password.  If yum needs to install/update packages you will be asked if you want to continue. If you do not continue the install will stop.  When the installer finishes dahdi will be running and asterisk will be set to not start on reboot as we have not yet installed all the pieces for asterisk.

To install the Dialer console UI:

> ./install_dialer_console

Note:  This installs mysql and starts it if not installed.  If installed it restarts mysqld.  This installs httpd and starts it if not installed.  If installed it restarts httpd.
Next the Survox Dialer database needs to be  dealt with.  If it does not already exist, then it needs to be created. To do this you are prompted for the mysql root password once if the database exists and twice if it does not. After that the Survox Dialer Console package is either updated or installed. If we are doing an update the files in /var/www/html/Console/includes/astconfig are saved off. We then install some sound files in the web area if there is not directory /var/www/html/soundfiles. We then check to see if the Survox Console database is populated. If it is we update the version. If now we populate the database  with default information.  /var/www/html/Console/includes/logger is created and the permissions are set. Next we deal with the files in /var/www/html/Console/includes/astconfig, including
dealing with saved versions if doing an update.

Note: Php requires that the date.timezone gets set in /etc/php.ini, so set that before opening the Dialer Console in your browser. If you change that setting you may have to restart the web server (as root run “/sbin/service httpd restart”).  If you have not installed the combined survent package yet, do so now.

Once the dialer package, the dialer console UI, and the core software are installed, you will need to issue these commands:

> cd /opt/cfmc/Survox_Backend_Package.<version>/install
> ./post_core_install_fixup

Note:  You are asked which account from /cfmc/cfg/accounts you want to connect to asterisk and Survox Dialer Console.  Next we setup a link to cfmc_cdi_private.incl.abe in the asterisk area. We then setup a link so Survox Dialer Console can deal with the cdiparms file. Also setup a link to the log directory so Survox Dialer Console can access it.

Configuring the dialer

The following steps will configure asterisk and other items so that the Survox Dialer will function correctly.

    • Point your browser at http://<your.hostname.com>/Console and login as user “cfmcadmin” with the default password of “n5934”.
    • Under the top menus choose “Account Administration” and “User Administration”, set a new password for the cfmcadmin user.
    • Next, go to “Status & Configuration” and select “Console Configuration”. Set “Company Name”. Set “Account File Location” to use the account that you want the dialer to run under (this is the full file name, so if you want to the CFMC account “production” then enter “/cfmc/cfg/accounts/production.acct”). Set “Beginning Agent Number” and “Ending Agent Number” to the correct values. Set the “CFMC Environment Directory” to the runtime directory that you set up.
    • Save these changes.
    • Once you have changed these settings you should logout of Survox Dialer Console and log back in again, so the new settings will be in effect.
    • Configure both the dialer under the “Status & Configuration” and “Dialer Configuration” menu.
      Then configure Asterisk under the “Status & Configuration” and “Asterisk Configuration” menu.
    • We are now ready to make sure we can run things.
    • Change to the asterisk user and start the asterisk command-line interface

      > su – asterisk
      % asterisk -cvvvvv

    • Once the screen stops enter the command “stop now”. Look at the screen output to make sure there are no unexpected errors or warnings.  If there errors you do not understand, contact Survox support.
    • Type “exit” to exit the CLI and return to the root user command prompt.
    • If everything looked good in the asterisk CLI then, issue the following commands to start asterisk and set it to auto-start at boot time

      > /sbin/chkconfig asterisk on
      > /sbin/service asterisk start

    • Check that the Survox software will run properly by switching to the cfmc user and issue these commands to make sure mentor can run:

      > su – cfmc
      % mentor con con

      At the prompt enter ~end<cr> to exit mentor. Then “exit” again to return to the root user command prompt.

    • At this point, the dialer should be ready to run. However, until the telephone trunk is in place and configured you can not make calls.
  • Do whatever other testing wants to be done.

Go to your production server, and add a dialer line into the parmfile for this dialer as described in the next section.

Setting up your study server to use the Survox dialer

The Survox parmfile includes server and dialer parameters for the Survent software. The file to edit is $cfmc/control/parmfile.

Here are the additional parameters that are required if you are using a dialer:

DIALER: This tells Survent the type of dialer you are using.

It is not required, but if it is missing there must be a dialer type on each DIALER## line.

DIALER##: This tells the program specific information about the dialer or dialers you are using. You may have up to 20 dialers, and you need one DIALER:## line for each to tell the program where the dialer is and what ports and extensions are involved.

This will specify the type of any dialer that doesn’t have a type on the line for that specific dialer. It is not required, in which case, every DIALER## line must have a type specified.

The syntax is:

DIALER## SOCKET=<IP address><read><write><ext list>, <group> <type>

<IP address> is the IP address of the dialer (eg. 192,168.1.1).

<read> is the ldev or socket the dialer reads (from where it gets its input) .

<write> is the ldev or socket to which the dialer writes when it sends data to Survox.

<ext. list> is a list of extensions connected to this dialer and it looks like <from-to>+<fromto>+<from-to>+<to> …

<group> is an ASCII string of up to 5 characters. This will be the column head on the dialer summary screen, which you get in SURVSUPR with the “sum” command. The counts of interviewers for dialers with the same <group> will be added together.

<type> is the dialer type.  For the purpose of the Survox dialer it is “Survox”

Here is an example:

dialer01: socket=127.0.0.1,5039,5039 1001-1010+9000-9001,Mork survox

“01” is the dialer number, 127.0.0.1 is the IP address for the dialer on your network (or you could use its NAME like “DIALERX”). 5039 and 5039 are the read/write sockets for the dialer machine. 1001 – 1010+9000 – 9001 are the Survox dialer extension numbers you are assigning to the phones connected to the dialer. These must be in a sequential range where 1001 is the first physical dialer extension and 1010 is the last Mork is the name and survox is the dialer type. You can also specify disjoint extension sets (+9000-9001).

You can also set Status codes to override the default call status.  Please see Call Status Codes.

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