UK Outbound - Setting Caller Id

[Bertrand]

Outbound documentation is clearly describing how to modify the Caller Id for US calls.
How can I set the Caller Id for a UK outbound call with a UK domestic number (from your UK hosted platform)?

Thanks,
Bertrand

[support]

Hi Bertrand,

You should be able to set the caller ID in the same way for a UK outbound call. We have placed a test call to one of our phones here in the US and were able to see the caller ID properly displayed.

Here's the sample code we used:

outboundappuk.php:

<?php

// utility function for posting to a given webservice
function curl_post($url, $post_vars) {
//initialize curl
$ch = curl_init();

//set the necessary curl options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_vars);

//execute the call to the backend script, retrieve the results
$xmlstr = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

return $xmlstr;
}

$post_vars="login=xxxxxx&pin=xxxxxxxx&phone_number=tel:+001857xxxxxxx;ani=207xxxxxxx&start_url=http://myserver.com/test_call.php";
$xml = curl_post("http://outbound-uk.plumgroup.com/webser ... uecall.php", $post_vars);
echo $xml;
?>

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Plum Support

[Bertrand]

Thank you!
Will test this as soon as Outbound feature is activated.

By the way, I submited an online request for Outbound a few days ago.
How/when is that going to be validated (or declined )

[support]

Hi Bertrand,

Regarding this issue, it would be best if you contacted your sales representative about getting this feature activated for your account.

Regards,
Plum Support

[Bertrand]

Hi,
We are facing 1 problem with CLID (ANI) and have 1 remark on the number to call for Outbound from the UK platform.

Outbound feature is working fine from the UK platform, however we are experiencing inconsistency with the caller ID.
Our script is always passing the same values:
......
$server = "http://outbound-uk.plumgroup.com/webser ... uecall.php";
$ani = "1536214214";
......
$req = "login=".$login."&pin=".$pin."&phone_number=tel:+00".$phone_number.";ani=".$ani."&start_url=".$start_url."&result_url=".$result_url;
......

Whereas we sometime receive a call from 01536142142 (as we would expect), about 40% of the calls are coming from 02070744161

We do not know where this number is coming from and our script is never modified.
We would therefore expect consistency in the CLID.

2nd point:
Also, you will notice that the phone number to be called has to be presented as +0044207xxxxxx
This is very unusual since the international format is 44207xxxxxx and at most, we would understand either + OR 00 to explicitly indicate that the number includes the country code. Having to present both is very strange (although working).

Thanks,
Bertrand

[support]

Hi Bertrand,

About your question on ANI, we first need to clarify a few things:

1) If you are outbound dialing internationally (i.e. from US to UK or from UK to Germany), the ANI that you set will not be presented to the callee.

2) If you are outbound dialing a UK number (i.e. 0207-147-1600) with a UK caller ID (0153-621-4214) within the UK, you would use the following dial string:

tel:+442071471600;ani=01536214214

However, there is no 100% guarantee that the ANI that you set here will be presented to the callee.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Regards,
Plum Support

[Bertrand]

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

Just to clarify, we are placing an outbound call from the UK platform to a UK number. However the number to dial is presented in international format (i.e. with country code).

Regarding your suggestion:
tel:+442071471600;ani=01536214214
this has never worked for us.

Whilst I would definitely agree this should be the format, the only way we managed to have the outdial call and see the correct ANI is when we use: tel:+00442071471600;ani=1536214214

Then (and only then) the platform is calling 02071471600 and presenting caller ID 01536214214 (although not consistently as mentioned in my previous message).

Regards,
Bertrand