asterisk users - Dec 2006 - AgentCallbackLogin() deprecated in 1.4

Hello all,

I've seen that the application AgentCallbackLogin()has been set to
deprecated in version 1.4. So I've done some tests based on the tutorial
"queues-with-callback-members.txt" coming with version 1.4.

What's not clear for me is what is happening to agents.conf, it seems that
it's no longer needed, and I have to define my agents using variables in
extensions.ael. The other thing is, that "show agents" doesn't
show me which agents are logged in and if I use "show queue" I can see
local channels attached to a queue but no agents. For my point of view there is
some functionality lost with the new concept.

If I want to program a realtime display to show agentstates in queues based on
the output from "show queue", what's the concept to map agents to
the local channels? How can I configure agents in future?

Any comments regarding that topic are appreciated.

Thanks and Regards

Markus

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:39:42 +0100
"Markus B?nke" <mbodbg@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello all,
> The other thing is, that "show agents"
> doesn't show me which agents are logged in and if I use "show
queue"
> I can see local channels attached to a queue but no agents. For my
> point of view there is some functionality lost with the new concept.
Snap! I've been designing an * system for our call centre and fallen
into exactly the same trap. I ended up coding my own agent login/logout
procedures using astdb functions to store the extension at which an
agent is sitting...

However what I'm missing most is a 'wallboard' for 'number of
agents
on Do-Not-Disturb' / number of waiting calls / average wait time, so I'm
considering QueueMetrics, but E 2500 is a lot of cash for that one
feature. I'll probably get one of the codies here to knock something
together.
> If I want to program a realtime display to show agentstates in queues
> based on the output from "show queue", what's the concept to
map
> agents to the local channels? How can I configure agents in future?
Well, you might want to make use of the 'pre-queue AGI' facility, and
use that to set that agent as 'on call' (Postgres/MySQL or just AstDB)
in that.. then after the Queue application exits, use ${UNIQUEID} to
change the state of the agent to 'free' via func_odbc or another AGI.

If you specify setinterfacevar=yes in queues.conf, then
you can do 'GET VARIABLE MEMBERINTERFACE' in the AGI to find the name
of the Local/xxxx channel that the caller is about to be connected to.
Then look that up in AstDB... here's what I do - it's heavily based on
the agi-test.agi that comes with Asterisk.

# Which queue member was this incoming caller about to speak to?
print "GET VARIABLE MEMBERINTERFACE\n";
my $result = <STDIN>;
&checkresult($result);

# Incoming string is "200 result=1 (Local/1737@agents)" so we need to
# trim the fat
$aid=$result;
$aid =~ s/.*Local\///;
$aid =~ s/\@agents.*//;
chop $aid; # drop the end carriage return

# This /has/ to work because this is the same logic that the 'agents'
# context uses in the dialplan!
print "DATABASE GET LRCC $aid\n";
my $result = <STDIN>;
&checkresult($result);

# More trimmings.
$ext=$result;
$ext =~ s/.*\(//;
$ext =~ s/\).*//;
chop $ext;

You can then go on and do... 

$sql="UPDATE agent_status SET status = 'on call',
uniqueid='".$AGI
{'uniqueid'}."',
extension='".$AGI{'ext'}."' WHERE
agentid='$aid'";

$dbh->do($sql);

.. then just view the contents of the agent_status table. I hope that
makes sense - it was a bit of a ramble :) 1.4 has been a lot of fun so
far - I'm using a lot of the new features and doing stuff that I
couldn't have thought of with 1.2 :)

Cheers,
Gavin.

Yes, we have issues with this application being removed as well. In my opinion,
it's a loss of functionality.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Markus B?nke" [mailto:mbodbg@gmx.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 6:40 AM
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Cc: mbodbg@gmx.net
> Subject: [asterisk-users] AgentCallbackLogin() deprecated in 1.4
> 
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I've seen that the application AgentCallbackLogin()has been 
> set to deprecated in version 1.4. So I've done some tests 
> based on the tutorial "queues-with-callback-members.txt" 
> coming with version 1.4. 
> 
> What's not clear for me is what is happening to agents.conf, 
> it seems that it's no longer needed, and I have to define my 
> agents using variables in extensions.ael. The other thing is, 
> that "show agents" doesn't show me which agents are logged in
> and if I use "show queue" I can see local channels attached 
> to a queue but no agents. For my point of view there is some 
> functionality lost with the new concept.
> 
> If I want to program a realtime display to show agentstates 
> in queues based on the output from "show queue", what's the 
> concept to map agents to the local channels? How can I 
> configure agents in future?
> 
> Any comments regarding that topic are appreciated.
> 
> Thanks and Regards
> 
> Markus
>  
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gavin Hamill [mailto:gdh@laterooms.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 7:10 AM
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] AgentCallbackLogin() deprecated in 1.4
> 
> 
> On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:39:42 +0100
> "Markus B?nke" <mbodbg@gmx.net> wrote:
> 
> > Hello all,
> 
> > The other thing is, that "show agents"
> > doesn't show me which agents are logged in and if I use "show
queue"
> > I can see local channels attached to a queue but no agents. For my
> > point of view there is some functionality lost with the new concept.
Funny. I said the same thing in this list about 2 months ago and I got told I
was nuts.