PMS + CDR with Roommaster. PMS works but CDR not working correctly.

[cdecker]

They are receiving the call records but the Roommaster system wasn't able to parse out the data fields. Their tech told me that there were too many data columns. I tried removing fields that I thought were probably not needed but it still did not work for them. Does anybody know which CDR data fields need to be selected, and in what order do they need to be set, to work with Roommaster?

 

[cobaltit]

It seems like the tech who told you there were too many fields should know what fields and order are needed.

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I have to agree with @cobaltit on this one, roommaster documentation or support should be able to provide this info since it's requirements/limitations on their end.

 

[cdecker]

I agree with both of you. Despite their announcement in 2016,

"3CX and roomMaster Work Together to Cut Hotel Management Costs",​

3CX support and Roommaster have been completely worthless. Roommaster just says that we need to emulate Mitel, which we do for the PMS interface, but the CDR part is its own thing and of course there's no option to "Emulate Mitel". 3CX support just points me at the document giving a description of CDR. That's why I was hoping that somebody in the community might have successfully set this up before.

 

[WilliamGS]

When I did my own 3cx to MitelSX2000 emulation for Call Accounting on a different PMS a few years ago, the 3cx CDR functions were just too limited to be useful for any call accounting charges, except international.
The Hotel PMS Module worked great, but, I was unable to control the right/left trimming/padding necessary in 3cx CDRs for an error-free fixed length format expected by the PMS Call Accounting. I found it was necessary to use middleware to process and transform the 3cx CDRs into what was expected by the PMS' Mitel SX2000 call accounting interface.

CallHospitor was my solution in being able to process the relevant information from the CDRs and push it to the PMS in a Mitel format it would accept without error, every time.
Cjay's software also allowed us to fine-tune the charges we passed onto our guests.

https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/pms-stay-n-touch-integration.79469/

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

3CX support and Roommaster have been completely worthless

I understand your frustration but, I do feel I need to make clear the fact that the CDR functionality on the 3CX end works as described in the documentation you were pointed to and that is all the information we can provide on 3CX CDR.

It has not been designed to only work with the PMS Integration(It can be used independently) and even if it did, we offer more than one PMS Integration option so we could still not design it to accommodate for one specific PMS's CDR requirements/limitations. That being said, I hope you understand that we are not in control of the PMS software requirements and limitations when it comes to what they expect the CDR data to look like so naturally we can't provide this information which is the reason why we recommend you speak with them directly. If their requirements happen to be something you can meet by modifying settings within 3CX then good, if not, you would probably have to use some sort of middleware as @WilliamGS already mentioned.

 

[cdecker]

@ChrisC_3CX, I do appreciate your response. CDR is an important function for many hotels. What I find frustrating is that I can find a big announcement about 3cx and Innquest roomMaster working together to cut hotel management costs. This would lead me to believe that the technical teams between the companies would have worked together to make sure that CDR integrates between them, not just PMS. As for roomMaster support, they just say that we need to emulate the Mitel standard and it just works. Unfortunately the CDR fields available in 3cx do not match any Mitel smdr output that I have been able to find. So we may have to go the middleware route that William mentioned, which seems like an added step that shouldn't be necessary.

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I see your point but the announcement was exclusively referring to the PMS integration.

As for roomMaster support, they just say that we need to emulate the Mitel standard and it just works

Were they perhaps referring to the PMS protocol and not CDR?

In any case, I'm sure that if you manage to find the information on exactly what the limitations are of the receiving end, you'll at least be able to determine if you do need middleware or if the changes required can be made via 3CX directly.