Quickstart: retail

In the retail scenario your customers are end users: a softphone or an IP phone registers on the switch with a login and a password, the account is prepaid, and the user tops it up through the self-care portal, vouchers or a payment processor. At the end of this quickstart a softphone registers on the switch, makes a call and the user sees it in their own call records. Allow about 40 minutes.

The vendor side is the same as in wholesale. If you have not done it yet, complete steps 1 to 4 of Quickstart: wholesale first: a vendor, a connection, termination routes and a routing group.

Before you start

• You have Administrator access to the panel and a routing group that reaches at least one vendor.
• You have a softphone to test with, for example Zoiper, on a device with internet access.
• The switch’s SIP port is reachable from the internet. Check System Management → IP Firewall.

Step 1: Create a prepaid tariff plan

A tariff plan combines the price list with the billing rules and is what you assign to retail accounts. Retail plans usually bill the first minute in full and then per second, and often add a connect fee.

1. Open Tariffs & Currencies → Tariff Plans and click Add.
2. Enter Name: Retail prepaid, select your Currency and set Avg. Call Duration, sec: 90.
3. Set Connect Fee if you charge one, and Grace Period, sec to the number of seconds that are free when the call is shorter, for example 3.
4. Set Billing Type: Pre-Paid. Prepaid accounts stop when the balance is used up; postpaid accounts are invoiced at the end of the Billing Cycle.
5. Set Billing Cycle: Monthly and Billing Day: 1 if you issue monthly statements. Optionally add rows under Service Charges for a subscription fee.
6. Click Save & Close.
7. Click Rates, then Add Rate. Enter Prefix: 1, Interval 1: 60, Price 1: 0.02, Interval N: 1, Price N: 0.02. Click Save & Close. Repeat for every destination you sell, or click Upload and load a CSV file.

Result: the plan is listed with its billing type and shows its rates as Currently Active.

Step 2: Create the account

1. Open My Customers → Accounts and click Add.
2. Enter Account Name: 1001. Users dial each other by this name for on-net calls, so short numeric names work best.
3. Enter Password: the SIP password the softphone will use. The panel can generate one.
4. Enter Web Password: the password for the self-care portal. Leave Separate VoIP Login and VoIP password off unless the SIP credentials must differ from the account name.
5. Check Registration Allowed. Without it the switch rejects the REGISTER request.
6. In Routing & Billing select Service Plan: Retail prepaid and Routing Group: the group from the wholesale quickstart.
7. Set Balance: 10 and Credit Limit: 0. The user can call until the balance reaches zero.
8. Click Save & Close.

To create many accounts at once, for example a batch of prepaid cards, upload a file with Upload… on the Accounts screen or call createAccount through the API. See Accounts and Generate accounts and vouchers with patterns.

Result: the account 1001 is listed with Balance 10.00.

Step 3: Register a softphone

1. In the softphone create a SIP account with username 1001, the password from step 2 and the domain of your switch, for example sip.example.net.
2. Save and wait for the registration status. A successful registration shows as Registered in the softphone.
3. In the panel open My Customers → Accounts. A registered account shows a green check; hover it to see the contact address and the user agent of the softphone.

The detailed walkthrough for Zoiper is in Register an account on the Zoiper softphone.

Caution

If registration fails with 403 or times out, the usual causes are a wrong password, Registration Allowed unchecked, a firewall that blocks the SIP port, or a router with SIP ALG enabled. See What is SIP ALG and why you should disable it.

Step 4: Make a test call

1. Dial a number in a destination you have rates for, for example a US number.
2. Open System Management → Active Calls while the call is up to confirm the account and the vendor connection.
3. After hang-up open Reports → Call Records (CDRs) and find the call. The Price column shows what the user paid; the balance of the account is reduced by that amount.
4. Sign in to the panel as Account 1001 with the Web Password. My Call Records (CDRs) shows the same call from the user’s side, and My Rates shows the retail price list.

Result: the account balance is below 10.00 and the call is visible in the user’s own portal.

Retail products built on the same objects

Once an account with a tariff plan makes calls, every retail product is a variation of the same setup:

Calling cards. The account name becomes the card number and the PIN is checked by an IVR. Callers dial a DID, the Calling Card IVR application authenticates the card and connects the call through the account’s routing group. See Calling card scenario, Add a calling card IVR application and the Calling card IVR application reference.

Callshop. Each phone booth is an account under a customer with Callshop Enabled. The operator starts and stops sessions on the Callshop screen, and the panel prints a receipt. See How callshop works and Callshop configuration.

Incoming numbers. Assign a DID from DIDs & IVR Apps → DID Pool to the account so the user can receive calls. See Create a DID and assign it to an account or IVR application.

Top-ups. Users add funds with Top-Up Vouchers or through a Payment Processor. See Vouchers and Payments.

What’s next

• Accounts: every field of the account form.
• Service plans: billing cycles, service charges and minute plans.
• Low balance notifications: warn users before the balance runs out.
• Understanding rating and billing: how the price of a call is calculated.