Release Notes 3.0.0
From Pbxnsip Wiki
Web Design
The new web interface loads faster than the previous one and it has new icons. We also added AJAX calls for real-time input verification and suggestions for available input.
We changed the user index in the accounts web page. The old page made it difficult to find the right user in a long list of accounts. In the new view, the administrator can immediately click on the right index. Also, the session stores the last selection, making it easier to move back and forth through the accounts.
The web interface now also shows an icon when an extension is on DND. DND has proven to be a major pain in the neck with users that accidentally dial the DND code and then do not receive calls any more. Therefore the new web interface should make this problem much more obvious.
Users that are part of an agent group can now monitor the activity of the agent group through the web interface. We added a relatively lightweight AJAX call for this, making this look smooth on the web interface. Managers can see additional information about the queue, e.g. the agent's activity and statistics of the day.
Midnight Events
There are new midnight events available. In addition to the call list of the whole domain, the PBX can now send also CDR lists specifically for an account. This way, it is easier to get an overview e.g. on the FAX number or on an agent group.
We introduced a reset of DND and hot desking at night. It seems there are too many people who put the phone on DND, then go home and forget about it. With the midnight event, those users will automatically find their phone online the next day.
Agent Queue
The agent queue now measures the agent's activity in much more detail. The system can send daily reports that include the agents talk time, the time calls were on hold, how long the caller heard ring back tone and how long a caller had to wait in line. It also includes a list of the calls with the detailed information. The email report completes with an activity report when agents logged in and logged out.
The statistics are also available through the web interface. The members and managers of the agent group can also see the information through their personal web login, eliminating the need to give them administration permission for the domain.
Agent group can now also have their own music on hold assignment.
Auto Attendant
The 3.0 auto attendant has a lot more prerecorded announcements, for example for the hospitality industry. Service flags can now be used to control what prompt is being played back.
Callback
The calling card account can now also be used for callback. When enabled, the PBX will collect the authentication information only and call the user back either on the received number or on the number that the user enters. The whole procedure happens in early media (unconnected), so that there is no cost for the caller. The authentication should be fast enough, so that the carrier will not disconnect the call before this phase is over.
Conference
When a conference is being recorded, the PBX now informs the caller about this fact. Conference rooms can now also have their own language, making it easier to set up international conference rooms in environments with local languages.
CDR Generation
The way the call detail records (CDR) are being generated has been changed. Now the PBX writes "leg"-based CDR. This means whenever the character of a call changes, the PBX writes a CDR record for that leg. Typical scenarios include calls into the agent group, which are then transferred to other extensions or IVR. These transferred calls are treated similar to new calls. For the purpose of tracking, these CDR share the same Call-ID. The new CDR also has internally ms precision, making routing mistakes less probable.
The CDR now contains more information, for example which IVR user was called. The CDR should be backward compatible to the previous versions when the XML serialization is being used.
Mailbox Changes
The logic for moving and copying messages was modified. The prompts for version 2 were not ready for that and the logic was confusing to the end user. Now it should be easier to copy or move a message. We also added a menu item in the main menu that allows recording a message inside the mailbox, so that this kind of voice message sending becomes easier.
The general usability was improved in several places. For example, when listening to a message, pressing the pound key (#) now skips the message without changing the state of the message and pressing pound when the PBX tells how many messages are new and saved, also skips that message.
Messages that have been recorded are marked as such. When a user listens to a mailbox message from the web interface, the PBX changes the state of that message from "new" to "saved" and updates the MWI counter on the SIP phone.
The personal prompts management was simplified. The old way of having a FIFO-style of personal messages was obviously too confusing to end users. Because of that, we introduced a new starcode for extensions, so that a user may record directly a specific slot for a personal prompt (e.g. *98*2 for the second personal announcement).
The email client now also supports STARTTLS for sending emails through a secure connection and protecting the password authentication over the public Internet. Emails that contain a WAV attachment are now assembled in the email thread, which makes it much easier to send out large WAV attachments. That makes it possible to send emails with attachments that contain a recording for example of a conference call.
In most places it is now allowed to use a list of email addresses. For example, for the sending of midnight reports, the PBX accepts multiple email addresses. In the previous version it was necessary to set up distribution lists, which is an unnecessary overhead now.
The timestamps of emails continued to be a problem. Hopefully, these problems are solved in the 3.0 build.
ANI Presentation
When it comes to caller-ID presentation, the PBX now differentiates more between sending and receiving calls. The problem for outgoing calls was that the tel:-alias could only be assigned for one user. Therefore we added a new setting called "ANI" which is used for representing the extension on outbound calls.
There was also a security problem with the old way the tel:-alias was used; a domain administrator could steal the DID away from other domains. The PBX was assigning those tel:-alias names on first come first serve basis. Now only the system administrator can assign tel:-alias names.
The other problem that we had with the calling of tel:-alias from one domain to another domain was that it does not scale in hosted environments. The promise in hosted environments is that a domain can be moved from one server to another server. That is not possible if the PBX allows calling with tel:-alias within the system. Therefore, tel:-alias must now be used with trunks.
We needed to clean up the way the PBX differentiates between internal and external representation of users. While for internal communications the PBX uses standard SIP URI that have a username and a domain name (but no user=phone parameter), the PBX changes that to the ANI name for external communication and then sets the user=phone parameter.
We also added support for P-Charging-Vector. This is a simple and safe way for service providers to find out who exactly is sending the call.
DND Reset
DND proved to be a big problem in installations where users forget that they turned DND on and then complain that they don't receive any calls any more. In order to address this, the domain now has a flag that tell the PBX whether to reset DND over night. The same applies to hot desking.
Server Farm Support
When running the PBX in a redundant setup, the licensing was a problem for the automatic failover. Version 3 supports multiple MAC addresses in a license key, so that the redundant servers can share exactly the same file system for failover. That makes it very easy to use SAN devices for the PBX and run the PBX service as a pure CPU application without local storage.
The updated license check also makes it possible to manage licenses remotely. By fetching licenses automatically from a license server, the PBX can automatically be updated with new licenses. This makes it possible to run the PBX in a subscription mode.
SIP Routing
The SIP routing subsystem was improved. Especially in cases when the system was using advanced routing mechanisms like IP tables, the old way could lead to wrong IP addresses.
Support for Client Matter Code
When a phone sends the Client Matter Code to the PBX, the PBX includes that information in the CDR.
CS410 Feature Support
The CS410 has some additional features that the PBX controls through its web interface. Those features include the IP configuration and the PSTN gateway setup. New is the DHCP server setup, which allows the CS410 to provide IP addresses on an interface. When the PBX does that, it also make sure that devices which are processing option 66 on DHCP automatically go to the provisioning server of the PBX for configuration data.
Provisioning Updates
The PBX is now able to automatically provision snom M3 devices. The profiles for the other snoms have also been updated, including the standard path for the firmware which is not 7.1.35.
For Polycoms, there has been a minor change regarding the DTMF volume which seems to be a problem in some cases when the PSTN gateway converts it into inband DTMF the volume could be too low.
Attended Transfer into IVR
There were cases when an extension tried to transfer another party into an IVR where that transfer failed. A typical example is the transfer into the conference, where the internal user enters the PIN code for the conference and then wants to transfer an external party (which is on hold) into the conference. Another typical example is the attended transfer into a mailbox. These scenarios work now.
Another case that was a problem was the attended transfer of a call to a call that is in ringback state, for example an external call with RTP already established.
Multiple Hot Desking
We changed the login and logout procedure to be able to deal with multiple hot desking. By that we mean that several extensions can log in at a specific seat.
E911 Enhancements
There were already a couple of changes in the 2.1 version regarding E911 calling. Now when someone dials a number listed as E911 number, the PBX will always send that call to a trunk. The problem here was that some customers used the number 911 as extension number, which made it difficult for an office user to call the emergency service. In order to make hosted services easier, every extension may have an emergency destination number associated with it, so that E911 essentially works like a speed dial.
Multipart/MIME in SIP
The PBX now also supports Multipart/MIME in SIP. There is equipment in the market that demands this feature, although the PBX only pays attention to the SDP part in the MIME attachment.
Speed Dial in Calling Card
The calling card account now also supports the dialing of a speed dial number. The user or the domain must have set up speed dial entries for that. This makes it easier to dial well-known numbers when on the road (e.g. from a cell phone).
SOAP
The web client what sends SOAP requests now also supports TLS. This makes it possible to encrypt the traffic, e.g. for sending CDR over the public Internet.
Bulk Import for Accounts
It was a major problem to create a large number of accounts automatically. Now the PBX supports an import of CSV-based data in order to set up accounts. The CSV file can be imported easily through the web interface and all settings of the accounts can be manipulated. The syntax is not so easy; we have to provide examples on how to do this.
New Builds Available
We added support for Apple MacOS as well as FreeBSD. This will extend the choice on available hard- and software even further. The MacOS version comes with an easy-to-install installer package.
IVR Node Flexibility
We added more flexibility for the IVR node. It can now perform more actions like disconnect a call, set a session variable and other things. This makes it for example possible to set a parameter of an extension based on the user input.
Buttons
We made it possible to have a button configures as MWI button. That makes it possible for a switchboard person to monitor several mailboxes on an extension board.
The speed dial button needed to be split up into a "pure speed dial" which does not change state at all and a "BLF" button, which also works like speed dial, but also displays the state of the destination. This change was necessary to be able to provision speed dial codes into large deployments without having to send messages to all the registered devices when a central number changes.
There were also a couple of changes which became necessary to keep pace with the development of the PAC (pbxnsip attendant console).
Logging
The PBX sends out emails for important events. For example, when the PBX disconnects a call because of one-way audio, it sends an email to the administrator. These emails will help to proactively manage the system before users complain.
