Free CallerID Reverse Lookups Mashup
As avid readers know - we use the Switchvox VOIP PBX in our office. It's been up about 18 months now .. and despite some hiccups - we're happy. It's flexible and reliable.
If our phone company was sending us the callerID names with the calls - we'd see them .. but they don't. There are a few ways to get this - including some expensive solutions and some less expensive ones .. but I've spent some time tonight (this morning?) getting a little "mashup" to do this for free.
Overview:
Switchvox allows you to send or revieve information with a URL when certain events occur.
So every time a call comes in - SV can send the CALLERID to a URL somewhere. It expects an XML document back with the data. Using Dappit, I made a little application that goes and does a reverse lookup and returns the name(s) associated with that number.
Next - I had to make a stylesheet to turn that output into the XML form that SV wanted. FInally - I had to put it into the "default URL" field in the Switchvox URL manager page.
The URL for Switchvox is:
http://www.dappit.com/transform.php?dappName=RLK&transformer=XSL
&variableArg_0=%CALLER_ID_NUMBER%&extraArg_xslUrl=
http://www.docnotes.net/phone/phone2.xsl
Don't click that - as it' will cause an error since there is no phone number.
You can use this link to see what it returns