U-Rang II

Asterisk Screen Pop Utility for Windows

U-Rang II for Asterisk is an application that pops up the familiar pink phone slip in a window on your Desktop PC whenever your phone rings. The phone slip displays the date and time of the call, the extension that was dialed, and the CallerID name and number for the incoming call. You can designate one or more extensions on your Asterisk PBX to be managed by U-Rang. When used in conjunction with the Nerd Vittles CallerID tools for TrixBox 1.2.3 or earlier versions of Asterisk@Home, these screen pops feature name lookups from matching telephone entries in the Google Phonebook, AnyWho, and AsteriDex.

In addition to the new phone slip user interface, version 2 also adds a call log which is displayed on identical phone slips, just like in your office. Using the cursor keys, you can scroll up and down through your recent call phone slips to review them at any time.

A version of U-Rang II for Asterisk will be released for the Mac OS X operating system shortly. Linux versions are also contemplated down the road.

Prerequisites

U-Rang II for Asterisk requires a desktop PC running almost any version of the Windows operating system. For ease of installation, the desktop PC should be on the same local network as the Asterisk PBX. Make certain that your firewall is configured to allow port 5038 traffic to pass between your Asterisk system and your desktop PC. U-Rang II requires version 1.2.x of Asterisk. A Nerd Vittles PBX-in-a-Flash Linux install of TrixBox 1.2.3 or the Nerd Vittles TrixBox 1.2.3 VMware edition for Windows are strongly recommended to achieve the best CallerID results. This tutorial assumes you are running TrixBox 1.2.3 although other versions of TrixBox, Asterisk@Home, or Asterisk will work reliably if you are familiar with editing Asterisk config files.

Windows Desktop Download

urang2.zip (248KB)

Updates

2007-01-04, 7:00 pm (GMT - 7): Whimsical and yellow phone slip executables added.
2007-01-04, 6:30 am (GMT - 7): Bug Fix to resolve memory leak. Also added IncludeSource option to display incoming trunk info for calls. Source information does not yet get written to the call log so it is not available in reviewing previous calls.

Download Contents

urang.exe - Executable program (pink phone slip)
urang2.exe - Executable program (yellow phone slip)
urang3.exe - Executable program (whimsical phone slip)
urang4.exe - Executable program (user-configurable phone slip)
urang folder - Supplemental files folder
- urang.dat - U-Rang config file
- urang.ico - U-Rang program icon
- urang.txt - U-Rang calls log
- urang.jpg - Sample U-Rang phone slip image

U-Rang can be installed in any directory; however, the urang folder must be in the same directory as the urang.exe file. We recommend your Desktop, but any folder will suffice.

Asterisk Configuration

U-Rang for Asterisk makes extensive use of the Asterisk Call Manager to monitor incoming calls. By default, external access to the call manager is blocked. We want to modify that behavior in order to let U-Rang read information from the Call Manager. Log into your Asterisk server as root. Now edit the Asterisk manager_custom config file:

nano -w /etc/asterisk/manager_custom.conf

Scroll to the bottom of the file and insert the following lines. Replace 192.168.0.143 with the IP address of your Windows desktop PC. Leave the network mask alone unless you know what you're doing. Replace the yourpassword entry with a very secure password that will be used by the desktop systems to access the Asterisk Call Manager. If you plan to run this application on multiple Windows desktops, add additional "permit" lines using the IP address of each desktop PC.

[urang]
secret=yourpassword
deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
permit=192.168.0.143/255.255.255.255
read=system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user
write=log

Save your entries by pressing Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter. Now restart Asterisk to load the changes: amportal restart.

Desktop Installation

On your Windows Desktop, unzip the urang.zip file downloaded above. Open urang.dat using Notepad. The file can be found in the urang folder on your Desktop. You'll see the following entries:

[Global]
App = urang
PW = 
ServerIP = 
Extension = all
Port = 5038
Hidden = 0
TrunkCalls = 0
ExitOption = 1
IncludeSource = 0

First, enter the password that you chose for U-Rang access to the Asterisk Call Manager. NOTE: For each entry in this file, there should be one space after the equals sign that precedes your entry. No spaces should follow your entry! For the ServerIP entry, enter the IP address of your Asterisk server. The Extension field is used to define the extension numbers on your Asterisk system which will be monitored by the U-Rang desktop application. All means all extensions. Normally, you would enter a single extension number here in the following format: /205/ for extension 205. You can also enter a list of extensions. For example, an entry of /300/301/302/303/ would tell U-Rang to monitor incoming calls to any of those extensions. NOTE: This is a change in syntax from prior versions of U-Rang. Leave the default port that Asterisk uses to communicate as 5038. Hidden allows you to determine where U-Rang hides between calls. If Hidden = 0, then U-Rang is minimized on the desktop. If Hidden = 1, then U-Rang really is hidden and cannot be accessed until another incoming call forces a screen pop. Leave the Hidden entry set to zero until you're sure everything is working properly. TrunkCalls determines whether calls on trunks are reported when you have Extension set to all. ExitOption determines whether the end-user can terminate the program by right-clicking on the phone slip image. IncludeSource = 1 tells U-Rang to display source (i.e. trunk) information for calls except those between extensions. Save your entries and close Notepad.

Choosing an Executable

U-Rang II now comes with four interchangeable executables. They all do the same thing but with different phone slips:

urang.exe - Pink phone slip
urang2.exe - Yellow phone slip
urang3.exe - Patriotic phone slip
urang4.exe - User-configurable phone slip

To use the user-configurable phone slip, create a jpeg image (159x205) named urang.jpg to replace the sample urang.jpg image in the urang folder. Be aware that the incoming phone data will be displayed in exactly the same positions as shown with either urang3.exe or the sample image with urang4.exe. So you must design your image in such a way that space is available at the top and bottom of the image to accommodate the incoming call data. Send us your favorites, and we'll post them here for others to use.

Using the U-Rang Application

To start the application, click on urang.exe. If you've entered the correct password and IP address for your Asterisk server, then U-Rang will start up and notify you that it's ready to receive calls. Click the OK button and then place a call to one of the extensions you entered in the urang.dat file. When that extension rings, U-Rang will spring into action by displaying a phone slip on your desktop. The ScreenPop will notify you of the incoming call and provide the date and time of the call, the extension called, and the CallerIDName and CallerIDNumber of the caller. To hide the window once again, just double-click on the phone slip or press <Esc> after clicking on the phone slip to give the U-Rang app focus. To shut down the application (assuming you allow it), right-click on the phone slip while it is displayed on the desktop. To view previous calls, click on the phone slip to give the app focus. Then press the <Down> cursor key to move down through the call list. A phone slip will be displayed for each prior call. Press the <Up> cursor key to move back up through the call list. To delete and reinitialize the call log, press the <Delete> key.

If you're running U-Rang in "hidden" mode, the U-Rang icon will appear in the System Tray when the application is hidden. You can restore the call slip by double-clicking on the U-Rang phone icon in the System Tray. If you want to completely hide U-Rang with no ability to access it except with an incoming call, then simply delete urang.ico from the urang folder before starting the application.

As previously mentioned, if you set ExitOption = 0 in urang.dat, then the user cannot terminate the program by right-clicking on the phone slip. Otherwise, the program can be terminated by the end-user by right-clicking on the phone slip and answering "Yes" to the shutdown prompt.