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SipExchange Overview

Terminologies

SubConsole - Manage your SIP Service


Table of Contents
  1. Overview
  2. Accessing the Subscriber Console
  3. Managing contacts
  4. Subscriber Features
    1. Call Forwarding
    2. Call Screening

Overview

The SIP service that you have subscribed to uses the SipExchange server. Using this service, you can do the following:
  1. You can make VoIP calls to other subscribers and SIP phones. Depending on the SIP phone you are using, the service will allow you to make voice calls and video calls as well as establish instant messaging sessions. 
  2. Depending on the SIP phone you are using,  you can add other subscribers to your contact list. When you add a contact, the subscriber will be notified by email that you wish to add him/her to your contact list. If he/she accepts your request for subscription, your phone will display the status of the contact - whether he/she is online or not. Similarly, someone can add you as a contact.
  3. Avail call-related services. Your service provider may also offer many call-related features like "call forwarding", "call screening", etc. You can subscribe to these features.
The SubConsole is a web-based user interface from where you can manage your SIP service. You can do the following among other things:
  1. Manage your profile: Change information about yourself - you email address, for example.
  2. Manage your password: Modify your password. It is always a good idea to modify your password as frequently as possible.
  3. View your call records: View the calls you have made or calls that have been received by you. Your service provider may delete call records older than a certain period of time.
  4. Manage your contacts: Accept or reject subscription requests from other  subscribers. You can modify the subscription status any time.
  5. Manage your features: The calling features you have subscribed to can be managed. Exactly what you manage is dependent on the feature itself. For example, if you have subscribed to the "call forwarding feature", you can specify your call forwarding address from here when you want all calls to be forwarded.

Accessing the Subscriber Console

The console is a web-based user interface that can be accessed from any web browser. In order to use the system, you will need to know the URL of the Subscriber Console When you subscribed for the service, the service provider created a SIP account for you. Either an email was sent to you providing you the URL and other account information or the URL was communicated to you by telephone, snail mail or other means. You will need this information to login to the console. Note that all transactions on the console is over a secure transport. Hence you don't need to worry about the privacy of the communication.

To login to the console, type the URL that you received. The system will display an authentication screen prompting to enter your user name as password. The user name is in the format name@domain where name is your user id and the domain is the name of the domain you have been assigned to. Example of an user name is "amit@cafesip.org" where amit is the user id and cafesip.org is the domain name. This information is the same as that you enter when you setup your SIP phone.

After you successfully logged in, the system will display your "home page". The page contains links that will help you manage your profiles, contacts and features. After you are done with the console, please use the "logout" link present at the top of every page to logout. Logging out of the system is highly recommended for security reasons especially when you are using a public computer because other users accessing the browser after you have access to the account even if the browser is displaying a different web page at that time.

Managing contacts

The SipExchange server acts as a presence server. What this means is that from a phone supporting the presence function, you can add one or more subscribers to your contacts list. The server notifies you when anyone in your contact list goes online or offline. The phone typically lists the contacts along with their status - online or offline. 

When someone add you to his.her contacts, the SipExchange server notifies you by email. The email contains instructions on the person who has added you to the list and instructions on how to authorize or block the user. To authorize or block the contact, you need to login to the Subscriber Console. From the main menu, you can access your contacts list and can either authorize or block the user. If you authorize the user, he/she gets notified when you are online or offline. If you block, the user do not see your presence. You can block an authorized contact any time. Similarly, you can unblock the user any time. You can also delete the contact but this option is less useful because when the user's phone sends a "subscription request", the person is automatically added to your contacts list (in unauthorized state).

We have tested the presence functionality only with Microsoft Messenger and XLite.

The presence service is in very early stages of implementations and the feature has many limitations. These limitations will be fixed in the upcoming releases. The limitations are as follows:
  1. The software has only been tested with Microsoft Messenger and XLite.  It may or may not work with other SIP phones.
  2. When an user authorizes or blocks a contact, the subscriber who has the user in the contact list does not see any change until he/she logs out.
  3. If the server is restarted, active subscriptions are lost and affected users won't see subsequent status changes of buddies in their list. If/when a client refreshes its subscription after recovery, the subscription will be re-established at the server.
  4. Some of the more advanced presence server features are not supported, such as notification filtering and buffering of notifications while a client is offline.

Subscriber Features

The SipExchange server comes with a set of features that you may subscribe to. Examples of features include call forwarding, call screening, etc. You can manage these features "My features" link on the from the Subconsole home page.  Your service provider may not have already enabled all the features for you. Please contact your service provider if you would like to  sign-up or unsubscribe from a feature.

The following section explains each feature and how you can provision them from the SubConsole.

Call Forwarding

This feature allows you to forward your calls to another SIP address. There are two types of call forwarding:
  1. Call forwarding (always): When this feature is enabled, all incoming calls to you is forwarded to the specified SIP address regardless of whether you are logged in to the system or not.
  2. Call forwarding when not available: When this feature is enabled, an incoming call is forwarded to the specified SIP address when you are not logged in, when you do not answer the phone or when you deny an incoming call request.

SipExchange supports both types of call forwarding and the administrator for your service provider can enable either types of call forwarding or both. You can configure call forwarding address(es) from the Subconsole. The calls will be forwarded to the  address(es) your specified. To configure the call forwarding address(es), select the "My features" link from the Subconsole home page. Click on the "Manage" button next to the Call Forwarding ( CFW) feature listed on the table.  When the "Manage Call Forwarding" page is displayed, you can enter the SIP addresses for one or both of the above cases.  Note that if the administrator has not enabled the feature or has enabled only one of the above call forwarding features, you may not be able to enter the call forwarding address(es) for which you have not subscribed to.

Call Screening

This feature allows you to screen incoming calls. You can maintain a list of addresses that you want to block (not receive calls from) and a list of addresses that you want to forwards to another SIP address. When a call addressed to you is received from one of the addresses in the list, the SipExchange server provides a treatment to the call as specified by the list. Either the call is blocked or forwarded to another SIP address.

You can configure your list from the SubConsole. To configure your call screening list, select the "My features" link from the Subconsole home page. Click on the "Manage" button next to the Call Screening ( CSC) feature listed on the table.  On clicking, the list is displayed. You can add additional addresses by clicking on the "+" image at the bottom of the list or delete it from the list by clicking on the trash-can icon.

To add an address to the list, click on the "+" image. A form - "Manage Call Screening" is displayed. Enter a fully qualified SIP address (example: sip:amit@cafesip.org) or an user name for an user belonging to your domain.  Select a treatment from the list and if you have selected the "Forward" treatment, specify a fully qualified SIP address. Click on the "Add" button to add the address to the list.

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