Outbound Channel Grouping

This How-To will explain how to configure certain NBE channels into a group and how to route calls to those specific channels from your external application.

1. Open up your web browser and go to the NBE Gateway Manager portal

2. Click on the "PSTN Config" sub-tab on "Configuration" tab and expand (by clicking on triangle) the "Call Control" and "Channel Groups" folders.

3. Next click on "Add Channel Group".  In the new window give the group a name, set the direction that calls are allowed to go in (IN, OUT, BIDIR) and lastly the channel hunt scheme.  Figure 1 shows a sample of what you should see at this point.

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   Figure-1-Adding the new groups
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4. Click "Add" to add the channel to the list.  Repeat for each group that you want to add.

5. Next we need to assign the group to certain channels.  Start by expanding the "Analog Configurations" Folder.  Your screen should look like Figure 2.

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   Figure-2-Assigning a group to the interfaces
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6. Click on the "Assigned Interface(s)" button to access the "Assign Channels to Configuration" window.  In this window double click the "Channel Group ID" column to change the group that each channel belongs to.  Figure 3 shows a A200 with 12 FXO channels having it's group values changed.

   Figure-3-Assigning the Group value to a Channel
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7. Once you have assigned a certain group value you need to tell NBE how to treat this group.  Click on "Routing Rules" sub-tab of on the "Configuration" tab.  Scroll through the Routing Rules until you find the block of XML that has the comment "PSTN OUT".  Highlight the entire block of XML, copy it (ctrl+c) and paste (ctrl+v) a copy of it after the existing block.

8. Next there are 3 sections that need to be changed so that NBE knows how to route to the specific group.  The first section that needs to be changed is the "Rule Name" section so that the rule has a unique name.  Sangoma recommends using "<group name>_pstn_out".

9. Now we need add a new option to the XML....after the "<condition param="transfer" expr="false"/>" add the following "<condition param="sip.in.from.uri.canonical" expr="sip:<prefix>([\+]?[0-9]+)@"/>".  Change the <prefix> to a prefix value of your choice....for this example I will use the group name but it can be anything.

10. Lastly you need to tell NBE which group of channels to send the calls to.  Set the "pstn.out.deviceGroup" to the group name you set earlier.  Figure 4 shows a completed PSTN OUT block.

    Figure-4-Completed Routing Rules Section
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11. Restart NBE to apply the changes.