Initiating a Gradwell call directly from a custom Internet Explorer Context Menu
ByI recently read some documentation on the Gradwell website which detailed how to initiate calls via the web:
http://www.gradwell.com/support/kb/article.php?id=159
I wrote a powershell script to test the system and it worked well, but I didn’t really have a practical use for dialing from the command line. Yesterday I was by chance reading about Extending the Internet Explorer Context Menu.
I decided to put together a quick bit of code that would allow me to initiate calls directly from Internet Explorer to my Gradwell extension, and it works really well! I ditched the original Powershell version in favour of javascript because it made the solution much neater.
To make this work for you need to setup an authentication token for your extension on the Gradwell VoIP control panel first. Make a note of your extention and authentication token.
Download this HTML File (right click - Save Target as) and store it locally somewhere on your machine. Open the file for editing and modify with your own extension number and authentication token:
Now we just need to create the internet explorer context menu, create the following registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\&Gradwell Call]
@=REG_SZ:”C:\some\path\to\View\DialGradwell.htm”
Contexts=REG_DWORD:10
You will need to change “c:\some\path\to” to the actual folder where you saved “DialGradwell.htm”.
Open Internet Explorer again and highlight some text or a link and right click and you should now have the option to call the number directly from your browser:
If you have done everything right, simply click on the “Gradwell Call” context menu option and your phone should start ringing right away. Answer the call and you’ll hear the ringing of the destination number right away.
I might see about doing the same thing for Chrome and Firefox.
Super insights Paul, thanks. Really looking forward to this type of function becoming a standard feature; let me know how the Chrome attempt goes?
Happy 2012
Hi Paul,
Would you be interested in doing something using our API – http://www.surevoip.co.uk/api
Thanks.
Perhaps, what are you looking to get done?
Once our OAuth2, event notification framework and call generation is done, something cool!
Wow – your API is really extensive.
Thanks. Only one like it in the telecom sector in the UK (at the moment)!
Just had a couple of ideas of things that it could be useful for….
Cool. Happy to sponsor it if you blog about it etc. !
Hi Pauline,
We’ve been looking to integrate Click-to-dial from our CRM using Gradwell, so this is excellent!
One question, if we have several people sharing a machine, do you know how I can adapt this script so it dials the correct extension of the logged in user – i.e. a different version of the script loads for each user who logs in to the PC?
Users already login to the phone on the dek so it assumes their Gradwell extension and voicemail etc.
Many thanks,
Mark.
Sorry, autocorrect changed Paulie to Pauline!
Is your CRM web based or full desktop application?
Personally I would look to store the users extension number in thier CRM profile, that way you could have one script, or peice of code that would work regardless of who is logged in.
Hi Paulie,
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, it is web based. Sounds like a good suggestion.
So are you saying, ask our CRM dev’s to embed into the weboage something like ext_no=xxxxxxx, which of course updates depending on who’s logged in?
If so, please can you give an example of how you would adapt the extenstion number part of your script to take the extension fom the webage?
Hi,
Yes, that is what I mean.
You should be able to adapt the code already provided very easily. If you get stuck then get in touch and we will see if we can come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial.