Hi Jeff, (How’s things man! )
In the past, at work, I’ve used, personally and administratively, activity-based database systems, that used what was termed “Soft Phones” or “Voice over IP”.
Basically, when a call comes in, or goes out (outbound), the database is able to search for the caller’s phone number, and initiate a new activity record. It’s been a while but with a bit of coaxing, I should be able to remember it!
From my understanding, however, I could be wrong here, with these types of systems, it can be either an “internet call” or a “PABX call” that is then directed to the desktop PC. In either case, the client PC has access to the incoming/outgoing phone number.
Basically many CRM systems (CRM type databases) have VoIP already built-in! So Ragic, as it seems, won’t be going “astray” to consider this kind of future development!
From the looks of it, today there are also many designated “VoIP only” solutions on the market, some are configurable to facilitate PABX as well as including many other great features.
I do not personally know, at least at the moment anyway, the “best way” to go about integrating VoIP (Softphones) into an existing database system. But I could imagine that it would entail at least the consideration of supporting some if not all the VoIP service providers out there, otherwise one would be going about doing this utilizing only one’s own VoIP technology, I guess!
As I said it’s been a while since I have used this technology, so I really have no idea what would work best if you guys were to offer VoIP today!
From my point of view, it is something that I could use now, and most definitely in the future if offered with the Ragic database management system.
Keep well! And thank you for your time sir!
Kane