Usability Problems in Manual Dialing

[aouyar]

There seems to be certain problems that prevent Manual Dialing from being completely usable.

The problems have been described in other posts to the list, but the issues seem to be related and the root cause seems to be the way the channels for manual dialing is managed.

The following issues are inexistant for Auto-Dial Outbound or Inbound calls and are specific to Manual Dialing:
* Dead calls are not detected. The customer hangs up, but the agent stays in INCALL status.
* Main Volume Buttons do not work for Manual Dial Next, Manual Dial and Fast Dial Calls.
* In automatic dialing when an Unassigned / Disconnected Number is dialed, the system would automatically mark the lead as ADC, but in Manual Dialing the call hangs up without any indication of the hangup cause to the agent.

In my opinion, for functionalities like Manual Dialing and Dialing from CRM or external apps using the Agent API to be more usable a definitive solution to the documented issues is required.

[mflorell]

There most likely is a solution to this, we just have not had any clients mention this as an issue, and we have had no people want to sponsor the development of a solution to this.

[williamconley]

version of vicidial and build?

also, i would handle these individually and be sure they are actually "bugs". a client hanging up is not supposed to "bounce" the agent out of the client screen. what if the agent is writing notes about that client? bounce = no more access to client record, information gets lost.

[aouyar]

Asterisk 1.2.30.2
Astguiclient Trunk (2.2 rev. 1240)

In the case of Dead Call Detection, it works flawlessly with Automatic Outbound Dialing or Inbound Calls. When the client hangs up the agent is not bounced of the agent screen, but a red CALL HUNGUP message is displayed to agent on agent screen, and the agent appears DEAD (Color Black) in Realtime screen.

In the case of volume buttons, they work perfectly with Automatic Outbound Dialing and Inbound Calls, but they simply don't work with Manual Dialing.

Matt has confirmed that both are issues related to how channels are tracked for Manual Dialing.

The last issue is not a really a bug, but a feature request, but the issue causes a serious usability problem in Manual Dialing in a Call Center. The agent makes a Manual Dial Call and the Call is Hungup immediately without any indication of the cause to the agent. The agent keeps wondering why the call has hungup and has no way to discover that the number that was dialed is Unassigned or Disconnected.

It seems like there are some other issues related to reporting of Manual Dial Calls, but I have to make some more tests to have more concrete results.

What all these issues have in common is that they are al specific to Manual Dialing; things work flawlessly for Automatic Outbound or Manual Dialing.

You can check the forum threads:
http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/v ... php?t=9441
http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/v ... php?t=9502
http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/v ... php?t=9497

Two of the issues are already documented in Mantis:
http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALmantis/view.php?id=248
http://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALmantis/view.php?id=249