How we "married" cloud PBX, GSM and realtors (part 2)
Continuation of the hub, published on January 30th.
Summary of the previous series: Russia, Moscow, 2014, the phone provider decides to launch the cloud-based IP-PBX , integrate it with the modified FMC platform of one of the mobile workers and charge it all into commerce, so that the service is useful, customers are happy , and the authorities are satisfied.
We settled the mobile component of the service - the SIMs began to call as we wanted, and not as it was intended by the developers of the FMC platform: we see all the calls, we receive everything that is dialed on mobile phones (we accept from 2 to 20 characters), we manage calls online, enable / disable all of this, and even create an interface, read the "Client's Personal Account" in which you can assign short numbers to SIM cards, block and unblock traffic and, in general, bring unprecedented beauty to communications.
')
Here is a personal account turned out:
Now the client himself decides which short numbers he will register on the SIM cards of the secretary Natasha and the storekeeper Lena. But this is not a ready-made solution - it is necessary that SIM cards not only call, but call as it is now accepted - with IVR, with recording of conversations, with statistics and other hunt groups.
So, it is necessary to deceive SIM cards with the cloud-based VoIP-platform, so that GSM and VoIP merge into communication ecstasy and a new, super-convergent service emerges that clients manage exactly the same way they used to manage regular virtual PBXs.
For several years of hard work in the voice services market, our company has simply acquired a variety of platforms - from Asterisk to tricky paid solutions from foreign vendors, and each of the platforms has been spent a lot of effort, time, sweat and blood of productologists, technicians and salespeople, but nothing -clientoriented was never created, since each such platform solved highly specialized tasks or served a variety of callbacks, and the interfaces were drawn more for themselves than for sale. And then it became clear that five years were wasted, the market ran far ahead, winking with colorful lights of animations and flat design, and we would have to do one more “cunning crap”, write scripts, discard the unnecessary, add the necessary, draw the interfaces and get rid of hereditary skevomorphism as a class. In other words, with all the love and respect for open-source asterisks-friscans, time, effort, and most importantly, there was no desire to do another hand-made service of the “look-what-we-here-bewildered” type.
For several days spent in meditation and meetings, it was decided to buy or rent something commercial and beautiful, with those. the support is complete, with polite and loving managers on the other side of the helpdesk, with the right functionality and a guarantee that the developer will not love us immediately after the wedding. It was at this moment that we remembered the sly-eyed representatives of one platform-writing company, who were waving flags at the last SvyazExpoCom, offering to test their platform for free and did not ask for anything in return.
We decided to twist paid happiness a bit and requested test access.
That's what we got:
Honestly, despite the good functionality of the switch itself, the user interface was a bit depressed and strongly reminded of the Rambler mail of the heyday of dial-up. We wanted to shock and delight, which was immediately unsubscribed where it should be. The answer I received was intrigued - “expect what you want to be released, but for now test and do not think about anything bad”. Yes, we do not think about the bad, we want to look modern and at the same time not to spend much money on painting the clouds. Ok, we continue to test.
A couple of weeks of tests revealed a critical bug - the core of the system didn’t want to understand the non-standard identifiers of the SIM cards that we sent to the platform with each call - problems arose when trying to present a SIM card as an ordinary client sip device. The server did not understand where to call him. The correspondence with the vendor lasted for several weeks. It was not possible to eliminate the problem by standard means and it was decided to go into the code. The iron rule: since the vendor agreed to go into the code, then why be shy - ask for more and get as much as it should be. What was done: bloated TK flew to the mail to fellow developers. Another couple of weeks passed and the miracle happened: a couple of cherished buttons appeared in the admin panel of the platform, which made our service very similar to what we originally intended.
Here they are, these buttons:
Now we know how to work with FMC (simok identifiers are processed correctly, we can enable or disable FMC support for those who need it), and even get the opportunity to integrate with third-party CRM. The evening ceases to be languid: FMC plus VoIP plus CRM integration - this is three in one, it’s convenient, the market needs it.
By that moment, the promised new design arrived - the result of the sleepless nights of marketers and script writers. At our request, the redundant functionality was removed (who needs multilevel IVR, complex schedules and three-step redirects), and the vacant space is used to improve the usability of the interface. Ideology - the simpler, the better, and if someone wants "goodies" we either dissuade him or give access on an individual basis. In most cases, the client’s initial desires and objective reality are two uncorrelated entities. We want a lot of buttons, but in fact we use two or none at all. I have never seen a seller who would enthusiastically set up redirection according to five tree rules, not forgetting to include colleagues in the hunt group. We readily believe that CRM is almost always open on a working laptop (if it exists), but the telephony control interface is almost never open.
Now we began to look like this:
What was the result? The result was a cloud platform , with fastened FMC SIM cards and good functionality. A SIM card is presented to the system by an ordinary SIP phone and it can be included in any PBX scenarios — assign it as an internal line, record conversations, see statistics, when calling from a SIM card, substitute the company's common number and, in general, do what you normally do with iron phones. Our corporate sipa has grown legs.
Now you need to understand the needs of potential customers, complete the functionality, integrate with several CRM and can be sold. Moreover, the coveted telephone director of one of the real estate agencies for several months has been calming eyes, and the director just asked for a vulture with legs, CRM and telephony in one bottle. So we will experiment together.
Wait for us, Director. We almost collected the stand, we will call soon and ask for TK.
To be continued…
Summary of the previous series: Russia, Moscow, 2014, the phone provider decides to launch the cloud-based IP-PBX , integrate it with the modified FMC platform of one of the mobile workers and charge it all into commerce, so that the service is useful, customers are happy , and the authorities are satisfied.
We settled the mobile component of the service - the SIMs began to call as we wanted, and not as it was intended by the developers of the FMC platform: we see all the calls, we receive everything that is dialed on mobile phones (we accept from 2 to 20 characters), we manage calls online, enable / disable all of this, and even create an interface, read the "Client's Personal Account" in which you can assign short numbers to SIM cards, block and unblock traffic and, in general, bring unprecedented beauty to communications.
')
Here is a personal account turned out:
Now the client himself decides which short numbers he will register on the SIM cards of the secretary Natasha and the storekeeper Lena. But this is not a ready-made solution - it is necessary that SIM cards not only call, but call as it is now accepted - with IVR, with recording of conversations, with statistics and other hunt groups.
So, it is necessary to deceive SIM cards with the cloud-based VoIP-platform, so that GSM and VoIP merge into communication ecstasy and a new, super-convergent service emerges that clients manage exactly the same way they used to manage regular virtual PBXs.
For several years of hard work in the voice services market, our company has simply acquired a variety of platforms - from Asterisk to tricky paid solutions from foreign vendors, and each of the platforms has been spent a lot of effort, time, sweat and blood of productologists, technicians and salespeople, but nothing -clientoriented was never created, since each such platform solved highly specialized tasks or served a variety of callbacks, and the interfaces were drawn more for themselves than for sale. And then it became clear that five years were wasted, the market ran far ahead, winking with colorful lights of animations and flat design, and we would have to do one more “cunning crap”, write scripts, discard the unnecessary, add the necessary, draw the interfaces and get rid of hereditary skevomorphism as a class. In other words, with all the love and respect for open-source asterisks-friscans, time, effort, and most importantly, there was no desire to do another hand-made service of the “look-what-we-here-bewildered” type.
For several days spent in meditation and meetings, it was decided to buy or rent something commercial and beautiful, with those. the support is complete, with polite and loving managers on the other side of the helpdesk, with the right functionality and a guarantee that the developer will not love us immediately after the wedding. It was at this moment that we remembered the sly-eyed representatives of one platform-writing company, who were waving flags at the last SvyazExpoCom, offering to test their platform for free and did not ask for anything in return.
We decided to twist paid happiness a bit and requested test access.
That's what we got:
Honestly, despite the good functionality of the switch itself, the user interface was a bit depressed and strongly reminded of the Rambler mail of the heyday of dial-up. We wanted to shock and delight, which was immediately unsubscribed where it should be. The answer I received was intrigued - “expect what you want to be released, but for now test and do not think about anything bad”. Yes, we do not think about the bad, we want to look modern and at the same time not to spend much money on painting the clouds. Ok, we continue to test.
A couple of weeks of tests revealed a critical bug - the core of the system didn’t want to understand the non-standard identifiers of the SIM cards that we sent to the platform with each call - problems arose when trying to present a SIM card as an ordinary client sip device. The server did not understand where to call him. The correspondence with the vendor lasted for several weeks. It was not possible to eliminate the problem by standard means and it was decided to go into the code. The iron rule: since the vendor agreed to go into the code, then why be shy - ask for more and get as much as it should be. What was done: bloated TK flew to the mail to fellow developers. Another couple of weeks passed and the miracle happened: a couple of cherished buttons appeared in the admin panel of the platform, which made our service very similar to what we originally intended.
Here they are, these buttons:
Now we know how to work with FMC (simok identifiers are processed correctly, we can enable or disable FMC support for those who need it), and even get the opportunity to integrate with third-party CRM. The evening ceases to be languid: FMC plus VoIP plus CRM integration - this is three in one, it’s convenient, the market needs it.
By that moment, the promised new design arrived - the result of the sleepless nights of marketers and script writers. At our request, the redundant functionality was removed (who needs multilevel IVR, complex schedules and three-step redirects), and the vacant space is used to improve the usability of the interface. Ideology - the simpler, the better, and if someone wants "goodies" we either dissuade him or give access on an individual basis. In most cases, the client’s initial desires and objective reality are two uncorrelated entities. We want a lot of buttons, but in fact we use two or none at all. I have never seen a seller who would enthusiastically set up redirection according to five tree rules, not forgetting to include colleagues in the hunt group. We readily believe that CRM is almost always open on a working laptop (if it exists), but the telephony control interface is almost never open.
Now we began to look like this:
What was the result? The result was a cloud platform , with fastened FMC SIM cards and good functionality. A SIM card is presented to the system by an ordinary SIP phone and it can be included in any PBX scenarios — assign it as an internal line, record conversations, see statistics, when calling from a SIM card, substitute the company's common number and, in general, do what you normally do with iron phones. Our corporate sipa has grown legs.
Now you need to understand the needs of potential customers, complete the functionality, integrate with several CRM and can be sold. Moreover, the coveted telephone director of one of the real estate agencies for several months has been calming eyes, and the director just asked for a vulture with legs, CRM and telephony in one bottle. So we will experiment together.
Wait for us, Director. We almost collected the stand, we will call soon and ask for TK.
To be continued…
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/251525/
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