using tapi to monitor multiple phones and dial or hangup

Question

I have with a good level of success got a C# application to use TAPI to connect to my office PBX and dial and hangup calls but need to go further and be able to monitor activity and provide CTI to client pc's as well as integration back to my companies web based CRM.

I am focusing on the client app for CTI popups and dial/hangup functions as the phone number lookup to the CRM is relatively easy.

I initially started by registering one handset in the tapi that I could then dial and hangup, I even seem to have registered all the handsets on the system and to be able to dial from any of them but I don't seem to be able to get any activity logs as to when any of the handsets are ringing etc.

Does anyone have any example tapi code that can get me started or point me in the right direction? I can work with C++, C# or VB.Net as I am okay with any of them.

Answer 1

To monitor multiple devices you will need a 3rd-party TAPI driver from your PBX manufacturer (and they don't all supply them.) The default Windows driver will probably be a 1st-party driver that can only handle one device at a time.

You should consider using a central server to monitor all devices and use a hand-rolled socket-based protocol to talk to your CTI clients - that's what we do and it means you don't need TAPI drivers on every PC (which I assure you is a massive PITA.)