Call Limits - Per Group

[BigRussian69]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to 3CX, and have a professional license. I must say I am very impressed with 3CX and love how it works. I previously used Asterisk which did the job.

I was told this product is way superior to Asterisk, but now I am not so sure I made the right move. To be frank I am rather dumbfounded that there are no per group outgoing call limit options available for 3CX. I am sure I am not the only one who would like a feature like this. I feel it should have been a feature already long ago, but anyway... since I cant post in ideas I thought I would post here to get a feel for whats going on, and how many others think this should be a feature.

I realise it is my own fault since I should have checked that 3CX had this feature before moving over, but no use crying over it now.

Is there any hope for this feature?

Brian

 

[VoIPTools]

I am not familiar with the Asterisk feature "group outgoing call limit options". Can you provide a detailed description of this feature?

 

[BigRussian69]

I think I need to clarify, Asterisk does not have the feature built in, but we had the feature developed by a third party.

I guess my question is can this feature be developed or an add-on purchased?

 

[Alphabetic]

3CX can do this.

you would set up a SIP trunk with # lines for each group and then create outbound rules which specifies that calls from group A use Trunk A, group B use Trunk B and so on.

 

[VoIPTools]

As Kieferschild mentioned you can set a limit on the number of simultaneous calls on a trunk, but I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to achieve. If you can describe in detail what you mean by "no per group outgoing call limit", that would help me determine whether we can build a similar solution for 3CX.

 

[BigRussian69]

You are right.. allow me to explain. I want to set a limit for certain groups of users that will have a outgoing call time limit of say 200 minutes. Once they hit their 200 minutes they should not be able to call out anymore, but of course still recieve and make internal calls.

 

[VoIPTools]

Ah, now I understand. Absolutely this can be done. Here is one possible approach:

1. Obtain a list of groups and their call limits (managed outside of 3CX)
2. Obtain a list of group members (extensions) using the 3CX Call Control API
3. Configure 3CX to create CDR files for each call
4. Read the CDR files in real-time to calculate the total minutes used
5. Monitor active calls in 3CX and when the limit is reached, drop any external calls made by monitored group members
6. Reset the counters when a new reporting period is reached.

This approach doesn't terminate active calls, it only prohibits new calls after the limit is reached. You could replace step 4 with actually monitoring active calls (using the Call Control API) and as the limit gets close you could barge into the active calls with an automated message similar to "your call limits are about to be reached. Please finish your call or it will be forcibly disconnected". You get the idea.

It would be easy enough to build reports too that show all the calls that were included in the minute totals if needed.

 

[BigRussian69]

Thank you for that... I am going to send your suggestion to my vendor and see what he can come up with.