pythonpoole

I'm guessing Axon does not support the full character set with accents, and I don't see any way around this. Even if you were able to edit it directly, it may cause Axon to behave unexpectedly and/or crash.

If I were you, I would simply make the names in CAPITAL letters. Generally it is more excusable to omit accents when you use CAPITALS. It's not a perfect solution, but I think it is a workable alternative.

Try using the low bandwidth option in IVM. I know some users have reported that regardless of the amount of bandwidth IVM seems to have a bug that causes dramatically reduced call quality after 3 simultaneous calls are in progress, however I do not believe this has been confirmed by NCH yet.

I know you say you can't reduce the number of rules, but perhaps you could just be overlooking something. I cannot forsee any scenario where you would need that many different rules, could you please provide a specific example? I think there is probably a more efficient approach to the problem.

Even if you were able to load 20,000 rules in, I really don't think the software would be set-up to handle that kind of demand. For one, I imagine it would probably cause Axon to freeze for a few seconds (if not crash) every time you would attempt an outbound call.

Yes, this can be done, however it will also require a PBX software or hardware solution. IVM on its own is simply an automated answering/attendant system.

In order to add more complex call routing (e.g. call into IVM, select support and then ring the VoIP phone associated with support), then you need a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system such as NCH's Axon software or Digium's Asterisk.

The way it works is, your PBX registers directly with your VoIP service. It will then be set to send incoming calls to the PBX extension linked to IVM. IVM answers the incoming call and based on the selected option will then transfer the call to either a particular extension or ring group (the PBX handles the transfer and sends the call to the appropriate destination). The ports on the modem will be linked to the PBX as individual phone extensions and can be configured to accomplish whatever you need in terms of inbound and outbound call routing.

It's not too complex to understand (at least I don't think). Most settings are clearly labelled and the help file usually provides a description. The basic steps are:

- Install IVM and Axon

- If IVM hasn't automatically done so (which it should do), set-up an extension for IVM

- Setup an external line in Axon that links to your VoIP account, set it to ring on IVM's extension

- Create/edit the extensions for your modem and setup your modem to link to those extensions using the username/password combination you set in Axon and the IP address of the computer for the server or proxy field.

Now all you have to do is set-up your call flow for IVM.

IVM has one of the easiest call flow designers around so it shouldn't be too hard. Simply create a new OGM for each 'prompt' you want (e.g. 'Press 1 for sales, 2 for support') and set each OGM to respond when certain keys are pressed, for example 1 may be set to transfer to an extension linked to your modem.

^Yeah, as Don said, although you can't specifically set which codec to use.. I'm pretty sure high quality uses G.711 and low bandwidth uses something like GSM or maybe G.726. If you have control of the system on the other end, it's probably easier to change the priority there.

The trial should be fully functional as if you had a full license for the program during those two weeks. Anything that you can't get to work during the trial probably won't work with a license either. If you have found a bug, you should report it to NCH directly (this is just a user community/support forum)

Are you using VoIP or an Analog system?

VoIP typically can handle up to 20, 40, may be even a 100 calls on a single machine assuming you have enough 'horsepower' and network bandwidth.

Analog systems on the other hand are limited to the number of lines you can connect to the Voice board. I believe there is a physical limit of 64 lines and this will require the Enterprise license last time I checked.

You should be able to connect it. You will need to authenticate with a username and password however. The port is usually 5060, and you also need UDP 8000-16000 open to carry the voice data properly.

You can try IVM for two weeks before needing a license, so if you haven't actually tried it out to see if it works, I suggest you do so.

What you can do is make all calls dial out to IVM (using a custom dial plan) and then IVM would be set-up to ask for a password. It would then validate the password, and if correct allow to enter the number you wish to dial.

There is no direct feature however that will let you simply dial a number, enter a pass code and then connect the call straight away.

"User not found" usually indicates that either

1) The obvious: That extension doesn't exist

OR

2) The not so obvious: The dial plan has not been configured properly and is causing calls that should go through on an outside/VoIP line to be routed internally instead. This applies especially to users who are using ET in combination with Axon.

Note: The 4 tones are generated by Express Talk itself to indicate a general error. When you hear those tones do not assume that the call was taking place and hung-up after the tones, the tones are the result of a call being hung-up or not taking place at all. Even if you are completely disconnected from a network, Express Talk will still play those tones for every attempted call just to indicate something went wrong.

Is it possible one of your Windows system fonts is set really small? I have not encountered this problem as of yet. What version of ET are you using (and for which platform (Windows, Mac, PocketPC))?

Express talk only supports free to use/open codecs such as G.711 and GSM. Proprietary codecs like G.729 are not supported because they require licensing fees that would force a price increase on all the VoIP software.

Is there any particular error that is given (e.g. bad authentication, server not replying etc.)?

Note that VoIP can never be very dependable for faxes, but you can give it a try anyway.

As far as I know, Axon doesn't support T.38 faxes (the VoIP version of a fax) yet, but you can still try to send a regular fax through using a good quality VoIP line and the G.711 codec.

IVM does have a built-in TAPI Fax Hand-off feature that lets IVM detect faxes and hand them over to another program to handle and decode. Unfortunately there are not very many programs that support TAPI Fax Hand-offs.

1. Axon does not support the G.729 proprietary codec, or any other licensed based codecs. It does however support all the open codecs including GSM to my knowledge which provides the best compression rate.

2. As far as I know it is not limited, however I am still partial to the older versions of Axon which were free to use for an unlimited number of extensions so I don't know what has changed recently.

There may however be other factors that limit the number of extensions the system can handle, for example the processing power or amount of RAM available on the Axon server PC or the amount of bandwidth available to make simultaneous VoIP calls.

3. Generally if the soft phone is on the same network as Axon, there should be very little latency and the quality should be satisfactory. However, I have found that soft phones (in general) do not perform as well as ATAs or IP Phones for making VoIP calls.

4. Honestly, I can't say I would recommend Axon for a large corporation. I would recommend it for SOHO, Small and Medium Sized Businesses, but I wouldn't have a large corporation depending on its reliability, but that's just me.

Vonage (unlike other VoIP providers) keeps their service locked so Axon can't connect directly to it (unless you purchase the Vonage softphone plan).

Instead, you can connect it using an FXO adapter (e.g. the SPA3102) or a professional telephony board (several available from the NCH site).

- The vonage adapter connects to the FXO adapter/board which then connects to Axon

IVM requires a TAPI Compliant Voice Modem. It sounds like your modem is just a standard fax/data modem.

The symetric nat router is fine, you just have to make sure it is correctly setup for port forwarding. By the sounds of it, despite your best efforts, it looks like the ports are still being blocked. Perhaps contact the manufacturer of the router or visit the free guides on portforward.com for help with port forwarding on your particular router model.

If your pocket PC is connecting via WiFi, it's likely the firewall causing the problem is on the router end. You should reference your router's user manual/documentation on how to correctly forward ports to a device on the network and set it up to allow/forward port 8000 for the IPAQ. Hopefully that will correct the problem.

See if there is a low bandwidth option (there is on the normal desktop client). If not, the audio quality could be poor because of a firewall or low-speed connection.

Hmm, if the behaviour is that consistent, I would have to conclude that there must be a bug (probably in the latest version of Express Dial). You should contact NCH directly as this user support forum probably won't be able to help much except for confirming the problem.

@DFritz, I believe he is using the Express Talk version for mobile (cell) phones, not the USB phone feature on the PC version.

As for the original question, I'm not sure if you can change the audio device on the mobile version as I've never used it. Perhaps contact NCH directly and see if they can help resolve the problem?

Can you provide any further information?

For example, does IVM's status/log window indicate it sees an incoming call? If so, what does IVM report?

Is IVM set to 'On' mode? (top-left toolbar area)?

What happens when you perform a simulation call?

Edit: I saw your post in the other topic. I don't know what to suggest. I know that Vista causes lots of incompatibility problems for voice modems, and it seems to me that it mostly concerns Zoom cards. Is reverting to XP an option? Also, I'm pretty sure Zoom is the one to contact, I think their driver for Vista must be a bit buggy.

I haven't actually tried this, but it's common for software to accept multiple addresses in the 'to' field when separated by commas.

e.g. myemail@gmail.com, myotheremail@hotmail.com

Let me know if this works.

Well, keep in mind this forum is run by NCH, a software company that writes telephony and audio related software, so this is not the place to get unbiased information about the different software packages available.

The thing is, while NCH's Axon is a suitable PBX for small-medium sized businesses, it is a 'work with what you got PBX' in the sense that it is closed software. Because of this, there is not a lot of room for third parties to come in and make modifications or fundamentally change how the PBX functions. Axon was designed more for single campus installations, and it would be really hard to use it (in my opinion) to provide several customers with a PBX service. Each customer's extensions and virtual lines would be bunched together in the configuration and I would imagine it would quickly become a mess and eventually possibly overload the system.

There is other open source PBX software out there that is almost designed exactly for what you need. It uses the same PBX base for each customer, but it partitions it in such a way that each customer appears to have complete control over his or her own PBX. For a good example of what this looks like in practice, try a free account with www.pbxes.com. This is more for what you need and is still an affordable solution (in some cases it might even be free to use). But as I said, I'm not comfortable giving out specific names of software packages.