Chapter 2. Installing QueueMetrics

Just add our repository and install the package:

wget -P /etc/yum.repos.d http://yum.loway.ch/loway.repo
yum install queuemetrics

Now, install the Uniloader in each of your Asterisk boxes.

wget -P /etc/yum.repos.d http://yum.loway.ch/loway.repo
yum install uniloader

In order to do an upgrade, you must have started the original instance using a data volume or a shared folder.

If you did, you first download the new QueueMetrics image, then you stop (and remove) the current version and then run the image again using the same data folder:

docker pull loway/queuemetrics:latest
docker stop QM1
docker rm QM1
docker run --name=QM1 --volume=/opt/qm1data:/data -P -d loway/queuemetrics

At this point, it will just work.

Please note that system logs, the compilation cache and everything else that is not in your persistent data folder will be deleted.

On the Asterisk systems edit the /etc/sysconfig/qloaderd file; you need to set the following values in order to tell Qloaderd to work with the QueueMetrics database:

MYSQLHOST=
MYSQLUSER=
MYSQLPASS=

If you’re running an Asterisk server cluster you also have to modify the PARTITION value, giving to each of them a different name (usually P001, P002, P003, etc). This is fundamental to avoid any possible concurrent writing issue.

	Each Asterisk server’s Qloader script have to use a different partition.

Now restart qloaderd:

service qloaderd restart

If Qloader is on a different machine that QueueMetrics (and MySQL) you will need to create a new database user able to connect remotely.

Log in MySQL as root:

# mysql -uroot -p

One you’re in create a new remote user and give it all grants on the queuemetrics database:

mysql> CREATE USER 'queuemetrics'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'javadude';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON queuemetrics . * TO 'queuemetrics'@'%';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

If you have a single Asterisk server and have not modified the PARTITION value in the Qloader configuration add (or, if exists, modify), in the configuration.properties file, the following values:

default.queue_log_file=sql:P001
callfile.dir=tcp:admin:password@ip-address
        # user:pass are the credentials for the Asterisk's AMI interface.
        # You might have to configure a user in each of the
        # Asterisk servers' /etc/manager.conf file.
        # serverhost is the IP address of that server.

QueueMetrics is now already able to retrieve information from Asterisk. Instead, if you have a server cluster add or modify these values as follows:

default.queue_log_file=cluster:*

# Put here the server names (A, B, C, etc could be a choice) separated
# by a pipe.
cluster.servers=A|B|C

# For each of them put these values, replacing 'servername' with
# the name chosen above
cluster.servername.manager=tcp:user:pass@serverhost
        # user:pass are the credentials for the Asterisk's AMI interface.
        # You might have to configure a user in each of the
        # Asterisk servers' /etc/manager.conf file.
        # serverhost is the IP address of that server.
cluster.servername.queuelog=sql:partition-name
        # partition-name is the value of PARTITION in the Qloader's
        # configuration file in that server.

Now, to enable QueueMetrics to place calls and log the agents on and off the queues you need to include the QueueMetrics dialplan in Asterisk. If you installed QueueMetrics with yum, you can find it in /usr/local/queuemetrics/qm-current/WEB-INF/mysql-utils/extensions-examples/extensions_queuemetrics_18.conf.

Copy the file under /etc/asterisk/ then add the following line at the end of your extensions.conf, or extensions_custom.conf if your PBX has this file:

#include extensions_queuemetrics_18.conf

Then open the Asterisk CLI and reload the dialplan:

Asterisk CLI> dialplan reload

QueueMetrics has some test tools to check if all is running the right way and for troubleshooting. The System Diagnostic Tools page offers a number of tools that check database and AMI connections and more (see Troubleshooting).

Now, to check that everything works you can open your browser and point it to http://hostname:8080/queuemetrics, the first time you run it you might get an error, it will disappear in a few seconds and QueueMetrics will guide you through the database configuration; probably you’ll just need to confirm without make any change. After that you will be able to log in with the default username demoadmin and password demo. Obviously, at the the moment, no data is shown.

Often this is a firewall problem. First of all, check if QueueMetrics is running:

lsof -i -P | grep 8080

If it returns something then QueueMetrics is running; if so, do try temporarily stopping the firewall:

service iptables stop

Now retry pointing your browser to http://hostname:8080/queuemetrics.

If it works now, you should setup your firewall in order to accpet incoming connections to port 8080.

The configuration.properties file is located in the system path but you can edit it from QueueMetrics interface clicking on Edit system parameters. When you modify this file, always remember to log out and log again in QueueMetrics to reload the configuration.

QueueMetrics has some tools that help you to solve most of the possible issues. You can find them clicking on System Diagnostic Tools or pointing your browser to http://hostname:8080/queuemetrics/dbtest/.

If you originally installed QueueMetrics using yum, you can upgrade your system using yum as well.

See also Making settings permanent when upgrading through yum Section 2.11.2, “Manual installation of a license key”.

Log on to QueueMetrics as "demoadmin" and click on the License page, if you have the correct grants you should see a label called "Install new license key"; click on it.

Copy the activation code you received by e-mail into the license box and press "Install". The system will restart in a few seconds (you may see a blank page - if you do, just try and reload). Log off an on again. On the License page you should see the new key.

If you see any errors, follow the manual installation procedure detailed below.

When installing using yum, the tpf.properties file is automaticaly copied from the current version to the new one, without the need to do this manually. We anyway suggest that you make a backup of your existing configuration and database before upgrading, just to be on the safe side.

QueueMetrics will notify users on the Home Page when the license is about to expire; this helps preventing downtime in case a license actually expires without renewal.

	It is possible to turn off this additional notification by setting a configuration property.

To set up a cluster, you should define the following configuration variables in configuration.properties:

cluster.servers=aleph|trix

This statement tells QM that the current cluster has two members, that are called "aleph" and "trix". We suggest using a short name for each server, as it will appear in many different screenshots. One option would be using the capital letters, like ""A", "B", "C" etc for different members of the cluster.

For each server (in our case "aleph", but we’ll have to repeat it for all members of the cluster), we will define the following properties:

cluster.aleph.manager=tcp:user:pass@10.10.3.5

This tells QueueMetrics that the manager interface for aleph can be found at 10.10.3.5, logging in as "user" with password "pass". The manager interface is needed to run Live monitoring and can be used to run commands to Asterisk (like logging agents on and off, starting chanspy sessions, etc).

cluster.aleph.queuelog=sql:P001

This tells QM that the queue_log file (or its contents) can be downloaded from partition P001 of the QM database. You must use MySQL storage in order for clustering to work at all.

cluster.aleph.monitored_calls=/share/aleph/calls/

This tells QM where to look for recorded calls on each Asterisk server. This is used by QueueMetrics in order to click-and-listen to recorded calls. A NFS or SMB share is usually a good starting point. As an alternative, you can enter the URL of an XML-RPC server that will return information about the recorded call (for more information on this topic, see Section 18.11, “Enabling XML-RPC call listening and streaming”).

cluster.aleph.callfilesdir=/share/aleph/callfiles/

If you do not want to connect to your Asterisk servers using the manager interface, you still need a way to send it commands (e.g. to start a chanspy session). In order to do this, you should give QM a directory to write callfiles to. If you use the manager interface, leave this entry blank. (We strongly suggest doing so and using the manager interface instead).

cluster.aleph.audioRpcServer=http://myserver/xmlRpcServer

If you use an XML-RPC "broker" in order to used live calls listening using a third-party software like Orecx, you should enter its URL here. This must be activated at once for all servers by not leaving blank in the property default.audioRpcServer. In all other cases, just leave this property blank. (for more information on this topic, see Section 18.11, “Enabling XML-RPC call listening and streaming”).

cluster.aleph.agentSecurityKey=AAA

When using the agent’s page in cluster mode, you must make sure that each agent "points" to the correct server, as this server will be used for both pulling agent’s data and sending logon/logoff commands. This is obtained on the agent’s page through a pull-down menu where the agent must select the correct server he’s logged on to. In order to avoid mistakes, it is possible to protect a server by adding a security key, so that only agents having that security key will see that server. If an agent has only one possible server, that server will be automatically selected. In practice, this means that you could create two agent classes, we call them AGENT_A and AGENT_B. They have the same keys, but in class AGENT_A there is the key SERVER_A, and in the other SERVER_B. We protect each server entry with SERVER_A for the first and SERVER_B for the other. Then we assign users to classes AGENT_A (for agents working on the first server) and AGENT_B (for agents working on the second server). If you want agents to manually switch servers, or your cluster is made up of only one machine, leave this blank.

On each box that is a member of the cluster, you should set up the following items:

First thing, you should make sure that you have a clustered license for QueueMetrics and that your license is big enough in terms of agents to support all agents that are present in the call-center. Older licenses are valid for one Asterisk server only and QueueMetrics will complain they are not correct. The first releases of QueueMetrics 1.4 will anyway allow accessing a cluster up to a specified future date (likely October 2007).

To report on all members of a cluster, you should set the property:

default.queue_log_file=cluster:*

This means that all boxes defined as members of this cluster will be used a s a data source.

To report on a subset of the members of the cluster, you will use a syntax like:

default.queue_log_file=cluster:A|B|C

This way you will be reporting on boxes A, B and C.

If you want to report only on a single box, the syntax:

default.queue_log_file=cluster:C

Will be appropriate.

You can then change this property on-the-fly by going to the "Custom reports" page and editing as needed under the "File" text box.

If you have agents using QueueMetrics’s Agent’s pages, you should set them up so that each agents points to its correct server.

The agent’s page on QueueMetrics acts as a kind of portal for an agent; she can use it to log on, log off, go to pause, enter pause codes, launch external apps linked to a call (e.g. CRM apps) and enter call codes (see The real-time agent page).

As the number of agents can be very high if compared to the number of supervisors who run reports or monitor the call center, QM uses a "minimal impact" policy: the page must be refreshed manually by each agent in order to avoid hammering the server with repeated page hits and the analysis run is a stripped-down, low-fat version of the full analysis QueueMetrics is able to perform. When coming to clusters, this means that to avoid useless load, calls for an agent will be searched only on the server the agent is working on and not on the entire cluster.

Also, we have the problem of defining where an agent is supposed to work: as QM can issue commands to Asterisk on behalf of an agent, it needs to know to which Asterisk server those commands must go. This is obtained by using the Server selection that will appear on the agent’s page if QueueMetrics is running in clustered mode. If more than one server is selectable, the combo box will let the agent switch server as she best sees fit (if only one server is selectable, QueueMetrics will use that server immediately and will make the combo locked).

As a QM installer, you can control which servers are selectable to which agents by setting the properties cluster.---.agentSecurityKey correctly for each Asterisk server in the cluster.

When working on a clustered environment, an agent is allowed to access only one server at a time. The server selection is usually done through the Agent Logon Panel, where you choose the queues to log on to, the server to use and the agent extension.

the first time an agent logs into the Icon Agent’s Page though, a special panel will appear that will ask the agent for the preferred server. This can be changed later on from the Agent Logon Panel.

There are some rules that QueueMetrics enforces, that must be understood:

To sum it up, an agent will be able to choose a server only if three conditions are met: