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TAPI Control

KennyKenny Posts: 209
in AMX General Discussion
Anyone ever try to control a telephone system from a Modero?
I have a customer that wants me to control the IP phone system. Mainly dial, ON/OFF Hook stuff.
The MFG says that I need to control it using TAPI. I only vaguely know what TAPI is and so far I think I don't want to even try it.

Any words of wisdom will go a long way.

The phone MFG is Shoretel.

Thanks.

Comments

  • patbpatb Posts: 140
    Isn't that exactly what the SIP gateway was designed to do? Take a look at that.
  • matt95gsrmatt95gsr Posts: 165
    As we have a Shoretel system here in the office, I can say that I've explored this possibility a good bit and spoken with Shoretel with regard to the subject as well. That was maybe 1-1.5 yrs ago though. At the time, there was no direct way to make this happen (and I really think that's still the case). The only real way that I can see you could do it via TAPI would be to build a custom app running on a PC using TAPI for the phone interface and PCLink or something similar to handle the AMX side of things. Although you can telnet into the phone itself and that looked promising for a short period of time, you either cannot really control the hookstate and dialing of the phone from there or they simply won't tell me how. As for the SIP gateway, it is unfortunate that Shoretel system is not SIP-based, but rather MGCP. Shoretel running 7.0 software release does support SIP trunks (but not extensions). That's the version that I have here and I did spend some time (less than a day probably due to busy schedule) attempting to connect the CSG to the ST system via SIP trunking but never had total success. I'm not sure where it stands right this moment, but there was some talk of ST version 8 supporting SIP extensions, in which case the CSG should integrate somewhat more seamlessly. However, I'm still not sure that even pulling a CSG into the mix would really give you what the customer is looking for. AFAIK there is still no way to make the gateway control an actual phone; it serves as a bit of a mini-IPPBX itself and allows for touch panels to place SIP calls through it. That said, I've all but given up on the subject for now myself but would certainly like to know if you are able to get anywhere with it. Additionally, since I do have the system in-house I would be happy to help you test any ideas or possible solutions you may come up with.
  • mncchartiermncchartier Posts: 68
    You could do it with serial on an Inter-Tel Axxess system, you would need to make sure the System OAI and 3rd Party OAI features are enabled. There should be a way to control a ShoreTel system via IP connections. I use to work for a TelCom company that installed both of these systems. There is an API document for the Inter-Tel systems, but I only worked with ShoreTel for about a year before I left the company.
    If you look at the Inter-Tel the 5000 series systems (VoIP) should also communicate over IP to a control processor no problem but you need to make sure that the OAI features are enabled. The Axxess system can do VoIP but you need an IPRC card and then the licenses so if it a new system going go with a 5000.

    I just found out if my ShoreTel login still works, I will see what I can find for an API SDK.

    They have a DevNet, but it is $995per year that gets you the API SDK.
  • John GonzalesJohn Gonzales Posts: 609
    I've always gone to this forum: http://www.sundance-communications.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi for phone questions. They're not quite as quick to respond as we are here, but it's one more resource for you and they may be able to point you in some good directions too. If they give any good ideas we can bounce them back here to figure out how to implement them.

    --John
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