Telephone based auto-systems???

[mittalpa]

Hi

-- Not sure where other board to put this in.

I received this requirement.
- A telephone user will call a number. The number is connected to a system which will prompt for user authentication.
- It may be userid/passwrod authentical or a unique word authentication. This will be only known to the user. It can be changed via phone or through a web-interface.
- If could not authenticate in, let's say 3 times, then account is locked and user will have to request unlocking or do it online.
- If properly authenticated, then user will be redirected to a queue and next available operator will handle the user.
- System will open the default application screen for Operator. This screen will have prefernces set by the user

This seems like a regular telephone answering system but I don't have technical idea of creating such system.

I am looking for following help:
- What are the options for such needs?
- Are there any .Net based solutions to this? or any other technologies?
- What are the things I need to consider for such systems? Ofcourse security is the TOP priority.


Please advise. Thanks

Pankaj

[Oliver1]

This would be purly based on the features you have avalible in your telephone system so you would have to look at the features of your pbx.
Or you could use a virtual number, for example in the uk BT have just released some clever stuff using virtual numbers
http://web21c.bt.com/services
Where you can control the call and call web services to authenticate users.

[mittalpa]

Thanks for the link. I am sure it will prove useful.

[wossname]

Doesn't "asterisk" support this kind of functionality?

[TomGibbons]

Asterisk absolutely does support this functionality. I, in fact, just wrote a dialplan script to do almost the same thing you're asking to do, but instead of adding you to a queue after you authenticate, it gives a dial tone in an internal context. Dialplan scripts can be written in Perl or PHP, possibly some other languages too but I'm not 100%.

It's FOSS, check it out.

[wossname]

Hurrah!

Nice one Tom.

[TomGibbons]

You'll be happy to know, Woss, that I'm in the process of setting up a new Asterisk machine with CentOS 5. It's running quite nicely so far. I love Red Hat based distros.