Every setup, step by step.

Everything in this guide happens in the panel, the website where you manage the phone system. You open it in a browser, sign in, and every setting, report and recording is there. The panel is fully bilingual: switch between English and Arabic at any time with the button in the top bar, and it flips to right-to-left.

Shabackat PBX runs on its own calling engine, built by Shabackat Technology. It does not depend on Asterisk or any other outside phone software, so every feature in this guide is part of one system and is set up in one place.

Most of the setup is deciding what happens to a call. Here is one call from start to finish, using the example company in this guide. Each stop is a chapter.

Every person who signs in to the panel has one of three roles. Chapter 6 shows how to give them out.

After signing in you land on the dashboard. The four cards at the top are live: calls in progress, extensions online, phone lines up and callers waiting in queues. Below them are call statistics for the last 7 or 30 days: total calls, answer rate, average talk time, average queue wait and call quality.

The menu on the left is grouped the way this guide is: Overview, Phones & lines, Call flow, AI calling, Reports, Resources and Administration. People only see the pages their role allows.

Yealink, Grandstream and Fanvil phones can set themselves up. Under Phones & lines › Desk phones, add the phone's MAC address (printed on a label underneath), its brand and model, and the extension it belongs to. The phone downloads its settings from the PBX when it starts. The provisioning password is under Settings › Phone provisioning.

No installation at all: every user with an extension can call from the panel. Press the phone button in the top bar and allow the microphone when the browser asks. Chapter 19 covers it in full.

The Needed class column works with each extension's calling permission from Chapter 4: an extension set to Local can use routes that need Local, but not International ones.

An announcement plays a message and then sends the caller on, for example an after-hours notice followed by voicemail, or a recording notice before a queue. Upload a recording or type the text for text-to-speech, choose how many times it plays and where the caller goes next.

Callers on hold and waiting in queues hear music. The PBX includes four original pieces made for phone lines and free to use: Calm piano, Oud · Maqam Hijaz, Bright and Ambient. The default hold music plays them one after another. To use your own, open Resources › Prompts & music › Music on hold, create a class and upload files; each queue can use a different class or a single built-in piece.

Instead of the ringing tone, callers can hear music while your phones ring. Under Administration › Settings › General, switch on Play music instead of the ringing tone and choose the music. By default only outside callers hear it; tick Also when colleagues call each other to use it for internal calls too.

Each person can pick the web phone's own ringtone too: Marimba, Classic bell, Chime, Oud or Digital, under the web phone's audio settings.

People join by dialling the room number from any extension, or from outside through an IVR option. During any call, the web phone's Add person button turns a two-person call into a conference on the spot (Chapter 19).

A paging group has a number that makes every member phone answer on its speaker, for announcements to a floor or a warehouse. For a single person, dial *80 followed by their extension to speak on their speaker straight away (intercom).

The Live monitor tab shows each queue as it happens: callers waiting and for how long, every agent's state, and today's figures: offered, answered, abandoned, service level and average wait. Supervisors can sign agents in or out and pause them from here.

Agents sign in and out, take breaks and end wrap-up early from the Queues tab of their web phone, or with *45 from any phone. A break has a reason: Break, Lunch, Prayer, Meeting or Training, which supervisors see on the monitor. Sign-ins and breaks survive a restart of the system.

A campaign has an AI agent call a list of people, for appointment reminders, confirmations or follow-ups. Import the list, write the instructions with placeholders such as {{name}} and {{date}}, and set the calling window. By default it only calls from 09:00 to 21:00 Riyadh time, retries unanswered numbers, and can detect voicemail.

Press your status under the phone's title. Free: calls ring as normal. Busy: callers go to voicemail or your busy forwarding. Not available: calls follow your "when unavailable" forwarding. Colleagues see your status in the directory. If you leave the panel idle for a long time, you show as idle.

The Queues tab lists your queues with how many callers are waiting, and a badge shows the waiting count on the tab itself. Sign in and Sign out join or leave a queue; Pause starts a break with a reason and Resume ends it. Pause all and Resume all do every queue at once. After a queue call, a short wrap-up time gives you a moment to finish notes; press Ready to take the next call sooner.

Overview › Live calls lists every call in progress with who is talking, how it is being handled and its codec. From the menu at the end of a row you can hang up or start recording. The Registered devices tab lists every connected phone.

Supervisors can join an agent's call from any phone: 555 + extension to listen silently, 556 + extension to whisper to the agent only, and 557 + extension to join both sides. While connected, press 4, 5 or 6 to switch between the three.

Reports › Call history keeps every call: time, from, to, talk time, wait time in the queue, the result and a call-quality score (MOS, where 4 and above is excellent). Filter by date, direction, result or extension, play recordings in the row, call a number back, or press Export CSV for a spreadsheet.

Reports › Recordings gathers every recorded call in one place, to play, download or delete. Recordings are kept for 90 days by default and then deleted automatically; change the period and the file format (MP3 or WAV) under Settings › Call recording.

Agents get their own dashboard: their active calls, new voicemail, their queues with a Resume or Sign in button, and their recent calls. It never shows colleagues' calls.

At the top of Administration › Security, the checkup looks at your own setup: administrators without two-factor sign-in, extensions that can call abroad, easy voicemail PINs, unused accounts, missing backups and more. Work down the list until only passed checks remain.

With two-factor sign-in, a stolen password is not enough: the panel also asks for a 6-digit code from an authenticator app on the person's phone.

1. Turn it on for yourself under My account: press Set up two-factor sign-in, scan the QR code with Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator or Authy, and enter the code it shows.
2. Save the ten recovery codes somewhere safe, away from your phone. Each one signs you in once if the phone is lost.
3. Require it under Settings › Security for administrators, for administrators and supervisors, or for everyone. The people it applies to set up the app at their next sign-in.

If someone loses their phone, an administrator chooses Reset two-factor sign-in for them on the Users page.

My account lists every device your account is signed in on. Sign out any you don't recognise, then change your password; changing it signs out your other devices anyway. Sessions end after two hours without activity (change this under Settings › Security) and after 12 hours at the latest. Administrators can sign a user out everywhere from the Users page.

If a phone password is stolen, the thief usually places many international or premium calls within minutes. The guard refuses outside calls beyond hourly limits per extension (by default 60 outside calls and 10 international calls) and more than 5 international calls at once. Refused calls appear on the Security page and can be e-mailed to you. Emergency numbers are never blocked.

• Automatic blocking. An address that fails too many phone sign-ins is blocked (by default 8 failures within 10 minutes blocks it for 1 hour). Each repeat within 30 days blocks it four times longer, up to 30 days, and blocks survive a restart.
• Locked phone sign-ins. After repeated wrong SIP passwords, an extension is locked for that one address only; the owner's other phones keep working, and the lock expires by itself.
• Panel sign-in limits. Too many wrong passwords lock the sign-in for 15 minutes, also when an attacker tries many accounts or uses many addresses. Common and simple passwords are refused.
• Block an address by hand for 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 or 30 days, with a reason for the audit log.
• Blocked numbers (under Phones & lines) stop nuisance callers by number or prefix, for example 0501110000 or 97150*.
• Calling permissions keep most extensions on Local. Give International only to people who need it, with a longest-call limit.
• Nightly backups of the database, recordings, voicemail and settings, kept for 14 days. The checkup shows when the last one finished.
• The audit log records who changed what and when.

Dial these from any phone on the PBX: desk phone, Zoiper or the web phone.

The link is a tie line: a SIP line between the two systems that both sides recognise by IP address, without a password. Shabackat PBX sends the Avaya the extension number its user dialled, and the Avaya does the same in return. Outside calls keep using each system's own phone lines, unless Shabackat PBX sends its outside calls through the Avaya: see Appendix C.

1. Open the configuration of the IP Office (File › Open Configuration).
2. Turn on SIP trunks: under System › LAN1 (or LAN2, whichever faces the internet) › VoIP, tick SIP Trunks Enable. On the Network Topology tab, enter the site's Public IP Address and choose the Firewall/NAT Type that matches your router. Under System › Telephony, Companding Law should be A-Law, the Saudi standard.
3. Create the SIP line: right-click Line and choose New › SIP Line. Note its line number, for example 17, and fill it in as in the table below.
4. Send calls from Shabackat PBX to the right person: right-click Incoming Call Route › New. Line Group ID: the line number (17). Incoming Number: leave empty. On the Destinations tab, enter . (a full stop) as the destination: each call then goes to the Avaya extension whose number was dialled.
5. Let Avaya users dial Shabackat extensions: right-click Short Code › New. Code 8N;, Feature Dial, Telephone Number N, Line Group ID 17. Avaya users then dial 8 and the extension, for example 81001. If no Avaya numbers start with 1, use the code 1N; with the telephone number 1N instead, and they dial 1001 directly.
6. Save with File › Save Configuration. Turning on SIP trunks for the first time needs a restart of the IP Office; Manager offers to do it.

This builds on the tie line from Appendix B. A Shabackat user dials an outside number as usual. Shabackat PBX puts the Avaya's outside-line code in front of it (the digit Avaya phones press to get an outside line, usually 9) and sends the call over the tie line. The Avaya handles it like a call from one of its own phones and sends it out on its phone line. The steps follow IP Office Manager 11.1, and other recent releases look the same.

1. Open the configuration: start IP Office Manager, choose File › Open Configuration, select your IP Office and sign in as an administrator.
2. Find the outside-line code: click Short Code in the list on the left. Look for a code ending in N; (or just N) with the Feature Dial, for example 9N;. Click it: Telephone Number is N, and Line Group ID is where outside calls go, often 50: Main or 0. The digit in front of the N is your outside-line code, 9 here. Write it down. Skip the 8N; code from Appendix B: its Line Group ID is the tie line (17), so it leads to Shabackat PBX.
3. No such code? If Avaya phones dial outside numbers straight away, without a code, your Avaya has no outside-line code. Then leave Prepend empty in part B. Calls from Shabackat PBX follow the same dialling rules as the Avaya's own phones.
4. Check the Incoming Call Route from Appendix B: click Incoming Call Route and open the route whose Line Group ID is the tie line (17). On the Destinations tab, the destination must be . (a full stop). The full stop makes the Avaya treat each number from Shabackat PBX as if one of its own phones had dialled it. An extension number rings that extension, and 9 plus an outside number goes out through the short code from step 2. There is nothing new to add.
5. Changed something? Save it with File › Save Configuration, and choose Merge when Manager asks. Short codes and call routes don't need a restart.