Unified Communication Use Cases

Contact Directories

Wazo platform provides extensive and extensible support for managing sources of contact information. This support involves both internal implementations of contact directories that wazo-platform users can automatically benefit from, as well as integrations with common external contact directories that can serve as sources of information on how to reach people and services both internal and external to the wazo system.

Given proper configuration within the wazo integration, those integrated directory sources can provide functionalities such as

automatic reverse lookups on incoming call numbers
global search across all configured directories available to a user
allowing users to use wazo to call registered contact using number available from contact source
allowing users to keep a list of favorite contacts across all directory sources, which are made available for quick access by an appropriate wazo client

Glossary

directory source: an internal (part of the wazo stack) or external(third-party software deployed separately from the wazo platform) provider of contact information, which can be made available to wazo users through the wazo-dird component of the wazo platform; alias directory backend, shorterned form source or backend
contact: a record of an entity(individual person, organization, service, object) that users which to account for in their directories, and which are usually addressable and reachable through different methods of communication, including telephony and email. Alias contact entry.
directory profile: a configuration object specifying which directory sources are made available to a tenant's users, and which functionalities are supported by that source
contact attribute: a named piece of information associated to a contact entry in a directory source, such as name, telephoneNumber, mobileNumber, emailAddress, etc. Alias source attribute.
caller id: caller identification information, includes a "caller name" and a "caller number", often represented in the format "Caller Name" <caller number>, can be carried in an incoming call by the calling party and can be overriden/completed by the wazo system using directory information(see reverse lookup section). Alias caller identification information. See also Caller ID.

Configuring a new directory source

General configuration steps

Different directory source backends require specific configurations and might require additional preliminary steps, such as deploying third-party(non-wazo) software, which will not be documented here.

Given any backend-specific preliminary steps performed, the general steps necessary to setup a directory source and make it available to wazo users can be summarized:

Make sure any necessary plugin for the directory backend is enabled in the wazo-dird configuration;
Use the source backend API of the backend plugin to create a source entity containing all relevant configuration for that backend;
Update the directory profile of the tenant to include the newly created source, with the relevant configuration specifying the supported functionalities of that source for that profile

Following these steps, a wazo user of that tenant should be able to use the newly configured source for its supported functionalities(depending on the configurations at step 2 and 3).

Plugins configuration

All directory backend plugins already included with wazo platform are enabled by default, but plugins for custom directory backends will require explicit configuration.

See wazo-dird configuration for details on wazo-dird configuration.

Creating a source configuration

To configure a new source, a source configuration resource is created using the appropriate backend-specific endpoint of the REST API. All backends expose a similar API for manipulating source configurations, through an endpoint of the form /backends/{backend type}/sources. An HTTP POST request on that endpoint with the proper json configuration would thus create the source.

See the wazo-dird API reference for configuration endpoints for examples and details of each backend endpoint.

Common configuration options

All directory source backends require some common configuration options. The desirable values for those options might depend on the specifics of a backend to be configured. As such some tweakings specific to each wazo platform deployment may be required.

name: a name given to that directory source, for purpose of administration. Should be unique within a tenant;
first_match_columns: the contact attributes in the directory source that should be used to match a search term to a single contact, as for reverse lookups. This usually will include all source attributes that may contain a phone number the contact might use to call in a wazo user(see reverse lookup);
searched_columns: a list of contact attributes which should be considered when searching all contacts matching a given search term. This usually should include any attributes relevant to the wazo users and by which the user may attempt to retrieve a contact entry, such as attributes referring to a contact's name(including name components) as well as attributes referring to a contact's reachable addresses(email, phone numbers);
format_columns: a mapping between contact attributes that should be made available to a wazo user, and formatting strings that can refer to the contact attributes available in the directory source. This option allows the administrator to transform the contact information available in the directory source into a more convenient format to present to the wazo system users. This option is also used to affect the result of reverse lookups(see reverse lookup).

As a represensative example, the default configuration for the internal wazo directory source looks like such:

{
    "auth": {
        "host": "localhost",
        "port": 9497,
        "prefix": None,
        "https": False,
        "key_file": "/var/lib/wazo-auth-keys/wazo-dird-wazo-backend-key.yml",
        "version": "0.1",
    },
    "confd": {
        "host": "localhost",
        "port": 9486,
        "prefix": None,
        "https": False,
        "version": "1.1",
    },
    "format_columns": {
        "phone": "{exten}",
        "name": "{firstname} {lastname}",
        "reverse": "{firstname} {lastname}",
    },
    "searched_columns": ["firstname", "lastname", "exten"],
    "first_matched_columns": ["exten", "mobile_phone_number"],
}

Ignoring the wazo backend specific options("auth", "confd"), we can see the default values for the generic options:

...
"format_columns": {
    "phone": "{exten}",
    "name": "{firstname} {lastname}",
    "reverse": "{firstname} {lastname}",
},
...

This makes available the exten attribute of a wazo source contact as the phone field, combines the firstname and lastname attributes of the contact into a name composite attribute, and specifies the reverse special attribute in order to display the same composite of firstname and lastname for the result of a reverse lookup match.

...
"searched_columns": ["firstname", "lastname", "exten"],
...

This ensures lookups on the wazo internal source will look at the firstname, lastname and exten attributes in order to match the user's search term.

...
"first_matched_columns": ["exten", "mobile_phone_number"],
...

This ensures a reverse lookup will consider the exten and mobile_phone_number wazo contact attributes in order to match an incoming call to an entry in this directory source.

Adding a source to a profile

Once a new source configuration is created, the new source must be added to a "profile" in order for a wazo end-user to have access to it.

The /directories/{profile}/sources expose the sources made available to a user through a given profile(see the API reference).

In practice, a single profile of name default will be shared amongst all users of a tenant, and sources made available to users of a tenant will be exposed through that default profile(/directories/default/sources).

To add the source to the default profile, one must modify the profile configuration accordingly. First acquire the uuid of the default profile of the tenant with GET /0.1/profiles(see API reference).

Then query the current configuration of the profile with GET /0.1/profiles/{profile uuid}(see API reference). The configuration of a profile looks like the following:

{
  "uuid": "026dc75a-6699-471c-8b55-0bdc28990a17",
  "tenant_uuid": "54eb71f8-1f4b-4ae4-8730-638062fbe521",
  "name": "default",
  "display": {
    "uuid": "1ed80c58-7f00-4e79-bc47-c0a564494d77"
  },
  "services": {
    "favorites": {
      "sources": [
        ...
      ],
      "options": {
      }
    },
    "lookup": {
      "sources": [
        ...
      ],
      "options": {
      }
    },
    "reverse": {
      "sources": [
        ...
      ],
      "options": {
      }
    }
  }
}

Notice the three sections under "services" refering to the three optional functionalities each source may support, "favorites", "lookup", "reverse". For a source that supports all three functionalities, the new configuration would see the uuid of that source added to the sources attribute of those three sections, e.g.:

{
  "uuid": "026dc75a-6699-471c-8b55-0bdc28990a17",
  "tenant_uuid": "54eb71f8-1f4b-4ae4-8730-638062fbe521",
  "name": "default",
  "display": {
    "uuid": "1ed80c58-7f00-4e79-bc47-c0a564494d77"
  },
  "services": {
    "favorites": {
      "sources": [
          ...
          {
            "uuid": "000747d0-5b57-4380-a6b1-f64f9609adb1"
          }
        ],
      "options": {
      }
    },
    "lookup": {
      "sources": [
        ...
        {
          "uuid": "000747d0-5b57-4380-a6b1-f64f9609adb1"
        }
      ],
      "options": {
      }
    },
    "reverse": {
      "sources": [
        ...
        {
          "uuid": "000747d0-5b57-4380-a6b1-f64f9609adb1"
        }
      ],
      "options": {
      }
    }
  }
}

With that new configuration accounting for the new source, we can update the profile using PUT /0.1/profiles/{profile uuid}(see API reference).

The newly configured source should now be available to end-users.

Reverse lookups

The wazo directory subsystem enables better caller number identification through reverse lookups in the configured directory sources. This means that an incoming call which is missing relevant caller identification information will try to match the caller number to an entry in one of the directory sources available to the user being called.

For example, if the calling party is a family member of the user, which the user has registered into their personal directory, and the calling party operator is not providing a relevant caller name in the caller id information, then a reverse lookup will automatically be triggered, which should result in the user's personal contact entry being matched by correspondance with the calling party's number, and the name configured by the user in their personal entry for that contact will be used as the display name for the caller.

Note that this reverse lookup mechanism does not occur on all calls, but only when the wazo system sees the incoming caller id as missing a relevant caller name. How this determination is made is subject to change, but is guided by seeking a balance between providing relevant information to wazo users, and avoiding wasteful load on system resources from unnecessary and potentially computationally expensive operations.

Reverse lookups are handled automatically internally by the wazo platform, through the wazo-dird API endpoint /directories/reverse/<profile>/<user_uuid>(where <profile> will generally be default and <user_uuid> will be the uuid of the user receiving the call).

As mentionned above, two of the general source configuration options are relevant to enable reverse lookups on a directory source:

first_matched_columns must include all the source contact attributes which may identify a phone number which the contact might use to call a wazo user(for example, separate attributes specifying the numbers for an office phone line, a home fixed line and a mobile phone); -- format_columns must include a reverse member attribute which specifies a format string which will be used to provide a value for the display name of a matched contact entry(for example, allowing to combine firstname and lastname attributes from the source contact entry into a composite name).

If the reverse attribute remains unspecified in the format_columns of a source, the reverse lookup may succeed in matching a contact, but the match will not be used to provide relevant caller identification for the incoming call, since the information on how to express that identification information is missing. if the first_matched_columns is missing an attribute which may specify a phone number by which the contact might be calling the wazo user, a reverse lookup may fail to match the incoming call to the proper contact entry in that source.

caller id normalisation is also part of the formula to successfully benefit from reverse lookups.

Through a configuration file made available at /etc/xivo/asterisk/xivo_in_callerid.conf, one can specify rules by which incoming call numbers will be matched and transformed into a format that fits how contact phone numbers are expressed in the directories.

Without proper configuration at this level, an incoming call from a known contact of a user might fail to match the corresponding entry from the user's directories simply because the phone number of the incoming call is not expressed in the same format as the one registered in the contact directory entry.

For example, for a wazo deployment located in France and serving french users, an incoming call might expose the caller number using the international format, e.g. "+33911223344". However a french user might intuitively want to register this contact using the conventional national format "09 11 22 33 44". To handle this discrepancy, an in_callerid normalisation rule might transform all incoming call numbers matching the international french number pattern((+33)\d{9}) into the conventional national format by stripping the international prefix(+33) and adding a 0 prefix.

Note that this currently allows a single normalised form of a class of phone numbers to be used to register contact numbers in all directories of a wazo stack.

See also Caller ID for more information relative to caller id handling in the wazo platform.

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