Telephony Integration

E.T · July 12, 2021, 7:20pm

I could not find any telephony integration for corteza, if there is any please point me in the right direction.

Else, we want to build telephony integration for Corteza. We have a team of developers and experienced voip engineers (asterisk & freeswitch). I was wondering if anyone is willing to contribute to our project? Or if anyone else has such a need? Our immediate mission is:
1, click to dial from corteza, insert recording URL and call detail record in corteza post-hangup.
2, open correct page on corteza based on number calling in --try and connect the same agent for returning inbound callers.

I am aware that this could turn into a large project, which is not a problem.
Just exploring at this stage and looking for likeminded individuals to join in.

I appreciate any feedback
E.T.

mia.arh · July 13, 2021, 6:52am

Hello @E.T, welcome to Corteza!

Thanks for reaching out, and even bigger thanks for showing the will to contribute, much appreciated!

There was an attempt to set up a Twilio integration more than a year ago, but it wasn’t maintained after that, and I’m not sure about the current status. You can check out GitHub - cortezaproject/corteza-ext at feature-twilio to see if there’s anything that you might find useful.

There is definitely a need for this integration (requested from several users by now), but there was simply no time yet to do a proper integration. I quickly checked Asterisk and Freeswitch, and both seem very promising.

Cheers, Mia

E.T · July 13, 2021, 10:32am

Hey Mia. Thanks for replying.
I don’t like Twilio due to the price for life model. It’s not in line with our free vision, and for techies they probably want to run something locally alongside their local Corteza VM, with their own local SIP providers, using their own local DIDs (numbers).

Asterisk would be ideal for a single instances of Corteza, where Freeswitch (with a SIP proxy) could scale infinitely with HA and support thousands of Corteza VMs.

So, different ways to skin the cat. We will start with a simple Asterisk integration to POC and learn. Once we understand the Corteza/integration side we can migrate to FS to scale for enterprise.

Are you available for a remote meet to discuss options and where we would need help? We are not in a rush and I appreciate your time.

E.T · July 20, 2021, 10:40am

Update. We started integrating with Asterisk via ARI. We are using an automation module in the CRM to call a javascript which injects the call into Asterisk dialplan. Asterisk first calls the CRM user, upon answer it will call the number clicked on in CRM and bridge the calls. Next step would be to put the recording URL and CDR info in CRM.

mia.arh · July 21, 2021, 10:58am

Hi @E.T ,

I’m blaming a summer heat for my late reply

Wow, that sounds fantastic; thanks for the update. If you have any questions or doubts, please reach out, and we can also set up a call when needed, of course.

We really appreciate your contribution.

Take care, Mia

E.T · July 21, 2021, 11:48am

No stress, do your thing.
I dont really have Qs.
One topic we are struggling with is the firewall. Voice needs a bit more security, because its not just your data that can be compromised, but now also your telphony/your pocket.

Would appreciate some help in understanding the firewall part better. How to apply custom iptables config to allow IPs without breaking nginx/docker networks. I can start a new thread for this if needed?

Appreciate any pointers.

E.T · August 25, 2021, 7:34am

We have click to dial integrated.
Moving on to pulling CDR info into crm to create records of calls with links to recordings.

anamati · December 30, 2021, 6:14pm

Any progress in this direction?

mia.arh · December 31, 2021, 9:43am

Hi @anamati,

@E.T has a functional integration of their telephony system ready, so he’s the best person to give you more info.

Cheers, Mia

E.T · January 4, 2022, 11:45am

Yeah we have a working click to dial integration. The rest is also easy to do, just a matter of time. Looking for a client who needs more so that we can build out the rest.

anamati · January 4, 2022, 12:50pm

Very interesting. Can you tell us about it in more detail?

E.T · January 5, 2022, 9:52am

I dont know your context or what you want to learn from this. There is much to talk about, rather ask some questions please?

Sharkbyte · January 13, 2023, 12:41am

Hi was wondering if you could detail your setup?
And how it’s working

E.T · January 13, 2023, 6:23am

We integrated Corteza with Asterisk using the Asterisk Rest Interface (ARI). We had to write some special dialplan/contexts for Asterisk to make this work. The result is a button in Corteza which can be used to click to dial. Upon completion of the call, Asterisk sends all the call data and the recording URL to Corteza. Asterisk can also send data to Corteza for inbound calls, so that you Corteza can route the call accordingly. Happy to assist with the integration if you want to achieve this for your own installation. Let me know.

E.T · January 16, 2023, 6:14am

I forgot to mention that we also have a Freeswitch integration for users with multitenancy requirements. Freeswitch is also about 5x more efficient at routing calls than Asterisk, but the latter is more suited for single integrations under 1000 concurrent calls. Asterisk does not support multitenancy.