Taming of the Shrew. We connect a single number to several mobile
Soon a year as we develop our convergent mobile B2B project - the AltegroCloud virtual office, and a significant part of the developers' efforts is spent on it. At the same time, during the development of Cloud, there was a strong feeling that the B2B segment, although attractive in terms of customer demand, there are also ordinary users who also want to call and use all the delights of IP-telephony in combination with additional, tricky (and sometimes not very tricky) services. In order to enable our customers to enjoy the benefits of IP-telephony, we came up with the project A-FON.RU and our engineers and technicians are now engaged in "twisting" the service for ordinary users. We are not looking for easy ways and are committed to solving non-trivial problems. One of them: what should a person do if he has not one or even two mobile numbers,
One of the leaders of our company came up with a proposal to create a service that would help the user cope with a variety of his mobile and city contact numbers: a big boss travels a lot and often across Russia and Europe and is forced to constantly change SIM cards and notify colleagues and partners about that his number changed for a while. Travel SIM cards almost do not help - the crooked incoming number and call back for outgoing calls completely discourage any desire to use such SIM cards for active communication, I want to make life as easy as possible for myself and the rest. Everyone is accustomed to calling the number from the notebook in the mobile phone and it’s really good when each contact has one or a maximum of two of these numbers. We will build on this.
We already had a “ring-voip” projectA-FON.RU and the new VAS decided to do on its basis. The a-background was originally built for outgoing calls and now you need to figure out how to use the SIP miracles to tighten the tricky service to tame many mobile numbers to the project of low-cost Internet calls. The project was based on the idea that the user is ready to use a single number to process the reception of all incoming messages and our task is to create an interface for managing flexible redirects from a single number to many other hidden numbers. They decided to call the service OneTel and tie it to the A-background as part of a converged VoIP service. Schematically, this is what happened:
The user is provided with a single virtual number in a convenient geographic code, which is announced as the main telephone contact, all other numerous mobile or fixed numbers are hidden behind him, as entities for call forwarding according to pre-established rules. The user spends some time presetting several forwarding scenarios, saves them and activates them if necessary. We go on vacation to Montenegro - we activate the rule “we will redirect all incoming on weekdays to the Montenegrin SIM card”, we go to the exhibition in Prague - we activate the rule “we send the incoming from Wednesday to Friday to the Czech number, but only until 18-00 Moscow time, out of hours turn on the voice box ”, return to Russia - connect the Russian number. All call forwardings are charged like regular calls at Internet telephony rates, i.e. at quite reasonable prices. Marketers quickly sketched a promo image that clearly shows the functionality of Uantela.
The concept became clear and we gave the task to the developers to "cut" the interface and the switching part. An intuitive step-by-step algorithm should be implemented in the interface, allowing the subscriber to go the whole way of activating the service from connecting a single number for receiving incoming messages to setting up all the forwarding rules.
The first window turned out like this:
The subscriber is invited to select a number from the list, activate it and move on. Since our company has its own numbering capacity, the initial idea was to offer only our own virtual numbers, but over time it became clear that this was not enough. A subscriber can come with his number, since we are not able to cover the needs of users in all regions of the Great and Mighty. They added the ability to connect a third-party virtual number as an external trunk on our switch, i.e. simply register a sip account received from any provider. We are not sorry, we will earn on forwarding.
After connecting a single number, you can begin to create forwarding rules. Then I had to sweat, choosing what kind of opportunities would be most in demand. We deliberated for a long time and decided that we would allow adding up to five cellular or city numbers to each rule (it is unlikely that anyone will connect anymore), we will give the opportunity to choose any call forwarding time interval up to a minute, and will suggest choosing a method for ending a call by timeout: either give “Busy”, or send to the voice box. The timeout was determined in 10 seconds. It is clear that you can choose a call-dialing scenario - either all numbers specified in the rule are called, or the list is called up alternately.
We save the created rules and offer to connect or disconnect the necessary at any time, and, if necessary, to build a sequence: the rules can be switched on in turn or transfer control from one to another.
In simple terms, the subscriber added all his many Montenegrin-Czech-Russian mobile numbers, set up call forwarding with several conditions from a single number to many, many cellular numbers, saved the rules and activated each of them if necessary. They drew an interface in which all the rules with a timeline and beautiful pictures are clearly visible.
What else might your beloved subscriber need? Since we give the opportunity to use SIP bells and whistles, let us use them to the maximum. Sip telephony is not only cheap calls, it is also an opportunity to record all conversations and then listen to them. Why not: they made the option of recording conversations, we are sure - for someone it will be useful. The recording is saved in MP3 and sent to email. At any time, the option can be disabled as unnecessary.
Someone from the engineers said that he was often taken out for unnecessary reasons - they called in the evenings and offered to buy vacuum cleaners. There is no need to invent anything, everything has already been invented for us. We make black lists. The subscriber has the right to protect his personal space from unwanted intrusions. Add Blacklists. The function definitely does not bribe with its novelty, but in combination with a single number eliminates the need to configure a black list on each of the phones separately.
The current interface is already working and it can be used, confirmed by the best employees of the company. We are registered on the website of the project A-FON.RUand in your account we see the new VAS OneTel. In the struggle for functionality, the interface part suffered a bit, and now it’s clear that the buttons need to be painted brighter, and the labels need to be done more and in general there are too many buttons and checkboxes, it needs to be simplified. The next version of the interface is already being actively drawn in mockups and we will be updated soon. In the meantime, you can take advantage of the current implementation. We don’t ask for money for creating and connecting rules; we are still thinking about tariffs and collecting responses. In their personal account, Uantel honestly wrote that we are working in beta testing mode and offer "Try", and not "Buy".
We hope that the idea will "go", and we, based on the collected statistics and analytics, will come to a truly sought-after functionality. The idea does not seem wrong, it remains to confirm this hypothesis. We will report on further movements, efforts and results in our blog on Habré.
One of the leaders of our company came up with a proposal to create a service that would help the user cope with a variety of his mobile and city contact numbers: a big boss travels a lot and often across Russia and Europe and is forced to constantly change SIM cards and notify colleagues and partners about that his number changed for a while. Travel SIM cards almost do not help - the crooked incoming number and call back for outgoing calls completely discourage any desire to use such SIM cards for active communication, I want to make life as easy as possible for myself and the rest. Everyone is accustomed to calling the number from the notebook in the mobile phone and it’s really good when each contact has one or a maximum of two of these numbers. We will build on this.
We already had a “ring-voip” projectA-FON.RU and the new VAS decided to do on its basis. The a-background was originally built for outgoing calls and now you need to figure out how to use the SIP miracles to tighten the tricky service to tame many mobile numbers to the project of low-cost Internet calls. The project was based on the idea that the user is ready to use a single number to process the reception of all incoming messages and our task is to create an interface for managing flexible redirects from a single number to many other hidden numbers. They decided to call the service OneTel and tie it to the A-background as part of a converged VoIP service. Schematically, this is what happened:
The user is provided with a single virtual number in a convenient geographic code, which is announced as the main telephone contact, all other numerous mobile or fixed numbers are hidden behind him, as entities for call forwarding according to pre-established rules. The user spends some time presetting several forwarding scenarios, saves them and activates them if necessary. We go on vacation to Montenegro - we activate the rule “we will redirect all incoming on weekdays to the Montenegrin SIM card”, we go to the exhibition in Prague - we activate the rule “we send the incoming from Wednesday to Friday to the Czech number, but only until 18-00 Moscow time, out of hours turn on the voice box ”, return to Russia - connect the Russian number. All call forwardings are charged like regular calls at Internet telephony rates, i.e. at quite reasonable prices. Marketers quickly sketched a promo image that clearly shows the functionality of Uantela.
The concept became clear and we gave the task to the developers to "cut" the interface and the switching part. An intuitive step-by-step algorithm should be implemented in the interface, allowing the subscriber to go the whole way of activating the service from connecting a single number for receiving incoming messages to setting up all the forwarding rules.
The first window turned out like this:
The subscriber is invited to select a number from the list, activate it and move on. Since our company has its own numbering capacity, the initial idea was to offer only our own virtual numbers, but over time it became clear that this was not enough. A subscriber can come with his number, since we are not able to cover the needs of users in all regions of the Great and Mighty. They added the ability to connect a third-party virtual number as an external trunk on our switch, i.e. simply register a sip account received from any provider. We are not sorry, we will earn on forwarding.
After connecting a single number, you can begin to create forwarding rules. Then I had to sweat, choosing what kind of opportunities would be most in demand. We deliberated for a long time and decided that we would allow adding up to five cellular or city numbers to each rule (it is unlikely that anyone will connect anymore), we will give the opportunity to choose any call forwarding time interval up to a minute, and will suggest choosing a method for ending a call by timeout: either give “Busy”, or send to the voice box. The timeout was determined in 10 seconds. It is clear that you can choose a call-dialing scenario - either all numbers specified in the rule are called, or the list is called up alternately.
We save the created rules and offer to connect or disconnect the necessary at any time, and, if necessary, to build a sequence: the rules can be switched on in turn or transfer control from one to another.
In simple terms, the subscriber added all his many Montenegrin-Czech-Russian mobile numbers, set up call forwarding with several conditions from a single number to many, many cellular numbers, saved the rules and activated each of them if necessary. They drew an interface in which all the rules with a timeline and beautiful pictures are clearly visible.
What else might your beloved subscriber need? Since we give the opportunity to use SIP bells and whistles, let us use them to the maximum. Sip telephony is not only cheap calls, it is also an opportunity to record all conversations and then listen to them. Why not: they made the option of recording conversations, we are sure - for someone it will be useful. The recording is saved in MP3 and sent to email. At any time, the option can be disabled as unnecessary.
Someone from the engineers said that he was often taken out for unnecessary reasons - they called in the evenings and offered to buy vacuum cleaners. There is no need to invent anything, everything has already been invented for us. We make black lists. The subscriber has the right to protect his personal space from unwanted intrusions. Add Blacklists. The function definitely does not bribe with its novelty, but in combination with a single number eliminates the need to configure a black list on each of the phones separately.
The current interface is already working and it can be used, confirmed by the best employees of the company. We are registered on the website of the project A-FON.RUand in your account we see the new VAS OneTel. In the struggle for functionality, the interface part suffered a bit, and now it’s clear that the buttons need to be painted brighter, and the labels need to be done more and in general there are too many buttons and checkboxes, it needs to be simplified. The next version of the interface is already being actively drawn in mockups and we will be updated soon. In the meantime, you can take advantage of the current implementation. We don’t ask for money for creating and connecting rules; we are still thinking about tariffs and collecting responses. In their personal account, Uantel honestly wrote that we are working in beta testing mode and offer "Try", and not "Buy".
We hope that the idea will "go", and we, based on the collected statistics and analytics, will come to a truly sought-after functionality. The idea does not seem wrong, it remains to confirm this hypothesis. We will report on further movements, efforts and results in our blog on Habré.