Aska

Making Calls with Asterisk Ami

Today its time for us to do something that is a bit more exciting. We are going to make a call with the Asterisk AMI Manager Interface. It's time to take a look at the Asterisk Ami Actions and more specifically the Asterisk Ami Originate Dail Action.

Asterisk AMI Actions

Before we start with the Originate Dail Action we first want to talk about the Asterisk Ami and which other AMI commands are available for your version of Asterisk. Did you know that the Asterisk Ami has more than 40 commands available that can be used? With these commands, you can easily manage your whole Asterisk Management system. Rather than searching through Google to find the list, there is a simpler way which also has the benefit of being specific to your Asterisk phone system. All you need to do is simply use the following command in the Asterisk CLI:

manager show commands

This will bring up a list view of all the available AMI actions as shown below:

  AbsoluteTimeout  Set Absolute Timeout                                   
  AgentCallbackLo  Sets an agent as logged in by callback                 
  AgentLogoff      Sets an agent as no longer logged in                   
  Agents           Lists agents and their status                          
  ChangeMonitor    Change monitoring filename of a channel                
  Command          Execute Asterisk CLI Command                           
  DBGet            Get DB Entry                                           
  DBPut            Put DB Entry                                           
  Events           Control Event Flow                                     
  ExtensionState   Check Extension Status                                 
  GetConfig        Retrieve configuration                                 
  Getvar           Gets a Channel Variable                                
  Hangup           Hangup Channel                                         
  IAXnetstats      Show IAX Netstats                                      
  IAXpeers         List IAX Peers                                         
  ListCommands     List available manager commands                        
  Logoff           Logoff Manager                                         
  MailboxCount     Check Mailbox Message Count                            
  MailboxStatus    Check Mailbox                                          
  Monitor          Monitor a channel                                      
  Originate        Originate Call                                         
  Park             Park a channel                                         
  ParkedCalls      List parked calls                                      
  PauseMonitor     Pause monitoring of a channel                          
  Ping             Keepalive command                                      
  PlayDTMF         Play DTMF signal on a specific channel.                
  QueueAdd         Add interface to queue.                                
  QueuePause       Makes a queue member temporarily unavailable           
  QueueRemove      Remove interface from queue.                           
  Queues           Queues                                                 
  QueueStatus      Queue Status                                           
  Redirect         Redirect (transfer) a call                             
  SetCDRUserField  Set the CDR UserField                                  
  Setvar           Set Channel Variable                                   
  SIPpeers         List SIP peers (text format)                           
  SIPshowpeer      Show SIP peer (text format)                            
  Status           Lists channel status                                   
  StopMonitor      Stop monitoring a channel                              
  UnpauseMonitor   Unpause monitoring of a channel                        
  UpdateConfig     Update basic configuration                             
  UserEvent        Send an arbitrary event                                
  WaitEvent        Wait for an event to occur

Asterisk AMI Originate Dial

The Originate dial action is probably one of the most used commands for the Asterisk Ami next to the login command. In order to use the Asterisk originate Ami Dail action, you first need to understand the required syntax which can be found with the following Asterisk Ami Command.

manager show command Originate

This will open the documentation for the Originate Action and provide an overview of the relevant options available:

[Arguments]
ActionID
    ActionID for this transaction. Will be returned.
Channel
    Channel name to call.
Exten
    Extension to use (requires 'Context' and 'Priority')
Context
    Context to use (requires 'Exten' and 'Priority')
Priority
    Priority to use (requires 'Exten' and 'Context')
Application
    Application to execute.
Data
    Data to use (requires 'Application').
Timeout
    How long to wait for call to be answered (in ms.).
CallerID
    Caller ID to be set on the outgoing channel.
Variable
    Channel variable to set, multiple Variable: headers are allowed.
Account
    Account code.
EarlyMedia
    Set to 'true' to force call bridge on early media..
Async
    Set to 'true' for fast origination.
Codecs
    Comma-separated list of codecs to use for this call.
ChannelId
    Channel UniqueId to be set on the channel.
OtherChannelId
    Channel UniqueId to be set on the second local channel.

The next step is to try it out. To do this, connect to the Asterisk Ami and start with authenticating yourself. Once connected and authenticated, you will be able to start using the AMI perform to do actions.

After you have authenticated yourself its time to do the originate command. This can be done by writing the following command.

Action:Originate
Channel:SIP/Wesley
Contect:phones
Exten:100
Priority:1

The result is that the Asterisk phone system will call Wesley and when Wesley answeres the fine he will be automatically connected to extension number 100. That’s it on the Asterisk AMI and for the Introducing of the Asterisk Ami Originate function.

In the last couple of weeks, we have created a free Customer Relationship Management system that uses the Asterisk Ami function to make calls between customers and extensions. This system can be download on our GitHub page [click here] and used. For more information about our free Customer Relationship Management system for Asterisk, give us a call on 06-6131-1267 or send us an email via our contact form to arrange a meeting. We can also customize the system for every kind of business.