Metaswitch Tutorial

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If you wish to install, configure and manage our application using the Metaswitch SIP Provisioning Server please follow the Tutorial here instead.

  Creating a line for VOP

To install Voice Operator Panel (VOP) with Metaswitch you need to create a line that VOP will use to register to the Metaswitch server.

This line will also be used to receive incoming calls, monitor other lines and transfer incoming calls to them.

This line must be dedicated to VOP and not shared with another phone even when VOP is tethered to a hardphone.

This line must be configured to receive all the incoming calls destined to your company. If a tethered hardphone is used its purpose is only to be called by VOP to talk/listen to calls received/placed by VOP. Please read "How does VOP behave when tethered to a hard phone ?" in our FAQ before using a hard phone.

VOP can only manage and transfer its own incoming/outgoing calls.

However, VOP can also pick-up a ringing call on a monitored line then transfer it to another line, but this behavior shall not be the regular way to handle calls.

To allow VOP to monitor the presence of other lines/phones you need to ensure that the VOP line is in the same business group than them.

You also need to ensure that the VOP line has "Line State Monitoring" enabled. This option is under "Services" in Metaview Web. You can see a screenshot of this option by clicking here.

If you want to see the DND status of the phones, you also need to ensure that the VOP line has "Monitor Do Not Disturb status" enabled.

For this tutorial we will use the line phone number "901" and the password "secret".

  Configuring the line in VOP

Start VOP and configure the line through the wizard:

"Enter your display:" - Enter the name (caller ID) of the application. ("VOP" for example)
"Enter your user name:" - Enter the phone number of the line. ("901" in our tutorial)
"Enter your SIP server host name or address:" - Enter the host/domain name of your Metaswitch server.
"Enter your SIP server port:" - Leave it to zero.
"Enter your SIP server user name:" - Leave it blank.
"Enter your SIP server password:" - Enter the password of the line. ("secret" in our tutorial)
"Enter your voicemail phone number:" - Enter the phone number to dial to reach the voicemail of the line.
Finish the wizard by entering other information not related to Metaswitch.

VOP will start and register to your Metaswitch server.

  Populating the directory

You will now need to build the Local directory of VOP with the users/lines at your Metaswitch server.

First you will need to remove the dummy/example user "Doe, John" by right-clicking on him and selecting: User > Remove.

For each user you want to add you need to right-click in the Local directory and select: User > Add.

You can also import all your users/lines from CSV or vCard files by right-clicking in the Local directory and selecting: Directory > Import > File.

If you have a CommPortal account, you can also import all the (or a range of) extensions/lines in your business group or all your contacts by right-clicking in the Local directory and selecting: Directory > Import > Metaswitch CommPortal. Check "Enable Presence" to enable presence for the imported extensions/lines. You can also check "Alert" statuses to receive a desktop window alert when the presence status of one of the imported extensions/lines changes to the selected status (we advise you to only enable alerts for a low number of extensions/lines to avoid having too many desktop notification windows).

When you add a new user, phone presence is enabled by default for every phone contact. But you can also enable phone presence manually by right-clicking on any phone contact and selecting: Contact > Presence > Enable.

You can also add your parking orbits as regular extensions and enable presence to see their status, you can pick up a call on a parking orbit by right-clicking on it and selecting: Intercept.

You should now see all your users in the Local directory with a green background that will change to show the phone status (Green: available, Yellow: ringing, Orange: busy, Red: do-not-disturb) and you will be able to see every calls on their phone (call direction/state, caller/ee name), you will also be able to intercept/pick-up any ringing call by right-clicking on the user and selecting: Intercept.

  Done

You have now fully configured VOP for your Metaswitch server.

If you have any problem press Alt-D to show the debug window of VOP, you should be able to read the problem from there.

If not, please contact us we will gladly help you.

  Notes

. The number of lines you can monitor is currently limited to 200 by Metaswitch.
  This is the maximum number of lines you can have in a Metaswitch Line State Monitor group.
  You may break this limit by monitoring lines through XMPP instead if you have a CFS v9.2+ and the AMS and MVD configured.

. Line monitoring may require to configure VOP to connect to the CFS through TCP instead of the default UDP protocol.
  In some cases the notifications generated by the CFS may exceed the UDP MTU size and thus not be sent.
  If this happens you will not see activity on the monitored lines (they will stay available/green) because VOP will not receive notifications.
  In that case please switch VOP from UDP to TCP in: Settings > Account > SIP server transport protocol.

. If you want to use a hard phone when NAT is involved, you need to enable media bypass on the SBC.
  This is usually done by setting up a VOP dedicated port on the SBC where media bypass is enabled.
  You can still use a hard phone without enabling media bypass by checking "Bridge Mode" in: Settings > Operator.
  But in that case the RTP streams will flow through VOP.

. To use an outbound proxy you need to enter its host or IP in: Settings > Account > SIP server address.
  By default VOP tries to resolve the SIP server domain/host if you leave this field empty.

. To be able to place intercom calls you need to enable in the MetaView Web: Business Group > Services > Enable advanced alerting features.

. VOP has been certified with Metaswitch as you can see here.

  Discovering VOP

To learn how to use VOP please watch our Videos.

To learn more about VOP please also read our F.A.Q

You will learn how to set up many features such as: Hardphone tethering, Outlook, LDAP, CRM, Multi-tenancy, Provisioning and more...