[edit: see my 2nd reply for how this can work with your hard phone ]
Matthew,
Yes. There is a solution that works pretty well. I know because I've just spent a good bit of time testing it on my various work computers.
Vonalink ScreenPop by arcosoft.com $29.00
My real estate investment biz is jumping with about 20-30 calls coming in from new prospects each day. I needed a way to identify callers when they ring in any one of our four incoming voip lines so that we can provide excellent customer support. Really, I just need to remember all the conversations I've had back and forth with prospects when they call in. There's nothing that impresses prospects more than hearing "Hello Joe, good to hear from you again" when JI pick up his call, and be able to quickly review the details of your last conversation.
The only way I can effectively track that *and* pull it up instantly is with the Screen Pop to my Outlook contacts where I've decided to store their information. I know there are other CRM and voip solutions that offer this functionality. But, Outlook is my communications and planning hub that networks me to others in the office and allows me to share info with them to divide up the work. Outlook was my choice after much CRM debate because *everyone* interfaces to it--from add-in developers to mobile phone sync utilities.
Anyway, I searched long and hard for an Outlook contact screen pop utility. They all seemed to be TAPI based (TapiCall, CallCler, TapiRex, CTI Data connector, etc). I kept my search to add-in type applications and simple solutions rather than implement some big program or server-based software that would be total overkill. (I'm so tired of server junkies advising me to install and maintain an asterisk server, as if it's the silver bullet solution). I just want my contacts to pop up -- I need to K.I.S.S.
The Vonalink ScreenPop utility is a lightweight utility program that runs in the system tray. It sports 2 processes running in the task manager: one to monitor SIP phone traffic on your computer's network card, and the other to provide the screen pop functionality. It differs from the TAPI add-ins because it monitors the SIP ports your phone uses for incoming and outgoing calls on your soft phone. This is a more universal approach than the TAPI interface because not all phones are TAPI compliant.
Now, I don't currently use Express Talk, although I've been reconsidering it recently. I've used eyeBeam (xLite) for some time now and am reluctant to give it up because it's a pretty solid phone. However, I've found the CounterPath folks to be less than responsive to my requests. They've been very unresponsive to implementing things like Click2Dial context menu dialing and TAPI compliance. And, they still haven't responded to my questions about a ScreenPop application. (I think I'll have to post this over on their forum boards). It just seems that every time I have a great idea on how to make my telephone life easier, I'm searching for some third-party solution that will do what eyeBeam won't. I know they just came out with their Bria product. But it still doesn't seem to have these little features I want and need, but rather lots of other exotic functions that I don't care about (video phone for example). I digress.
The setup is very easy because the program has a smart auto phone detect feature that makes configuring the software a snap. You also specify how you want ScreenPop to search for and open your Outlook Contacts. For example, you can tell it to only search business and mobile numbers, or select all numbers to search. The searching work just great with about 2 second pops on my dual-corel aptop with only a few hundred contacts. If a phone number is not found, you can optionally configure ScreenPop to create a new contact. It will populate the new Contact form with the caller ID name and phone number. It leaves the open contact windows on your desktop for your review before you close and save (or delete) them.
The cons are few. But, I would like to be able to tell ScreenPop which phone number to populate (Business Phone is the default field). Also, I'd like to be able to automatically assign categories to new contacts (i.e. insert the line number the call came in) and automatically create phone journal entries to track calls in the Outlook journal. I've got Tony over in tech support looking into these things.
If there are any VB programmers out there, I'm looking into getting the source code to add these features. It's supposedly available under the GPL. I'm pretty busy and could use some help with things like this.
However, my dream is that NCH, or some soft phone company will realize that this is a highly desired feature and incorporate it into their product.
Jimbo
