Customizing the Call History Database Format

Active Call Center versions 2.5.2 and later allow the user to customize the Call History database. The newest versions of Active Call Center use Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to store and retrieve data from the Call History.

In theory, any database format that provides an ADO data provider should work with the Call History. However, as application developers, we know that theory and reality are not the same.

In this section, we offer guidance on how to replace the Call History with a proprietary database format. This is not a task for the average user, and we strongly urge customers to consider using an experienced ADO developer to make and test the changes. Because there are a large and varied number of database formats and data providers, we cannot provide technical support for migrating to another database platform. As a user, "you're on your own" once you go down the road of customizing the Call History.

If you are successfully able to replace the Call History, Active Call Center will automatically read and write that Call History during all operations involving the Call History - a significant performance enhancement over copying or duplicating Call History data.

Matching the Structure of the Default Call History Database

The default Active Call Center Call History is saved as a Microsoft Access 2000 database in the file Phone Call Log.mdb (located in the Active Call Center program folder). There are two tables in the Call History database:

• The "Calls" table, which is a sequential list of all processed calls. There are three fields in this table: CallID, Date, and Folder. The CallID field is a sequentially auto-numbered 4 byte integer field. The Date field automatically contains the date/time stamp that the record was created, and Folder is a 20 character text field used for filing purposes (refer to the section on the Folder Variable).
• The "CallData" table, which stores all the call-specific data. Fields in the CallData table are CallID, Description, Value, and Audio. The CallID field provides a reference a record in the Calls table. The Description field is a 25 character text field. The Value fields is a Memo field (text of arbitrary length) and the Audio field is an OLE Object field (binary data).

The Audio field is read and written using the AppendChunk and GetChunk methods of the ADO Field object. Make sure that your ADO provider supports these operations.

A one-to-many relationship exists between records of the Calls table and the CallData table through the CallID field.

Any Call History database that you create must contain these tables and fields in identical or comparable formats to those in the default Call History database. Any variation from these formats will cause application failures at some level.

Changing the Default ADO Data Provider and File Name

To prevent novice users from customizing the default Call History, we provide no user interface to make these changes. You must modify the registry using REGEDIT to change the data provider. Accidental changes to the registry can result in the incapacitation of your system, so these operations should only be performed by experienced users.

The data provider used by Active Call Center is stored in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ SunnyBeach \ Active Call Center \ Settings \ Call Log ADO Data Provider

If this key is left blank, Active Call Center will use "Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0" as the default data provider. You can change the provider by setting the value of this key to a different data provider.

The default Call History file name used by Active Call Center is stored in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ SunnyBeach \ Active Call Center \ Settings \ Call Log Data File

If this key is left blank, Active Call Center will use "Phone Call Log.mdb" located in the Active Call Center program folder as the default database. You can change the file name by setting the value of this key to a different database.

If you make changes that don't work, revert to the original values by setting both registry entries back to blanks.

ADO Objects used by Active Call Center

Active Call Center uses the following ADO objects: "ADODB.Connection.2.5" or "ADODB.Connection.2.7" and either "ADODB.Recordset.2.5" or "ADODB.Recordset.2.7". The associated Errors and Fields collections and Error and Field objects are also used. These objects are all part of Microsoft's MDAC 2.5 or 2.7 kit.