Recording phone calls is an important feature of any PBX. Phone calls sometime need to be recorded for legal purposes, e.g., for brokerage firms that need proof when trading agreements are made over the phone.

On the snom ONE PBX, we differentiate between automatically made recordings and recordings started manually. The manual recordings are treated similar to voicemail messages and are shown in the voicemail section of the web interface. Because there are usually only a handful of such recordings, the manual recordings are not a big problem. The automatic recordings are mostly generated in bulk. Especially in busy call centers, with thousands of calls every day, this poses a difficult question as to how to archive and access the recordings.

The first answer to this question is the file system. By putting the recordings into directories organized by the domain and the date, we make it easy to access files for those who have file system access; it's also easy to permanently store these files on remote storage services. There are several synchronization services for this.

There was always the demand to have the playback for the recordings directly from the web interface, however: HTML5 has added the audio element, which makes it possible to stream the audio directly to the browser without the need to store it and then play it externally. In other words, it becomes possible to play a recording back with a simple click. It also makes it possible to grant access to only certain recordings - for example, only to those made by a certain agent group - without having to tweak file system access. This is what we have added to the upcoming 5.1.3 release. For the various recording locations, we have put a little triangle next to the recording record: when the user clicks on it, it makes the audio player visible and starts the playback.

While we were on it, we also started to add the playback feature in other places like the auto attendant IVR control (see screenshot). This makes it easier, faster and more fun to set the attendant up.

Most desktop browsers support this method. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer is again an exception here because it is unable to play back simple WAV files. Encoding the recordings in MP3 or even AAC isn't an option for the PBX, so we are unable to offer this feature for IE users. In most installations, however, users also have other browsers installed, so it will be possible for practically all users to use this new feature. The feature availability for mobile users is limited, but we expect that over time more and more mobile devices will support the HTML5 audio tag with the WAV format.