Frequently
Asked Questions
Overview
What is Aselo?
What is the connection between Aselo and Child Helpline International?
Does Aselo provide counseling services?
No. We provide the software and tools necessary for helplines to be successful, while the helplines themselves handle all conversations and counseling services.
How do helpline staff access Aselo?
In what countries is Aselo available?
How does Aselo handle varying operating requirements of different helplines?
What are the technical requirements for using Aselo?
Aselo has the following minimum laptop/desktop computer hardware and software requirements:
CPU: 1Ghz
RAM: 1024Mb
Screen resolution: 1024×768
Operating system: Windows 7 and 10, MacOS, or Linux Ubuntu/Mint 64bit
Browser: An up-to-date version of Google Chrome
Bandwidth: Minimum recommended internet bandwidth of 200 kb/s
What does Aselo cost?
Aselo is a cloud-based, open source solution built on top of the Twilio Flex, Okta, and Amazon Web Services platforms. As a nonprofit, Tech Matters does not need to charge a profit, so our cost estimates are based on our actual expected costs to customize and operate Aselo as a cloud solution for each helpline partner.
We provide an in-depth proposal of the cost to customize Aselo to meet the needs of a specific helpline, based on detailed interviews of what that helpline needs. These costs range from USD $3,000 to $20,000, depending on the complexity of the desired setup. In addition, we have a cost model for estimating what the ongoing costs would be for a helpline, based on the number of counselors, the estimated number of hours they will be using Aselo each month, and any telecom costs that are not subsidized by the telecom firms or the government. In addition, we charge a fee for offering continuing technical support on a 24/7 basis for technical emergencies, and during the workdays in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia for regular support.
We are expecting child helplines in high-income countries to pay these costs in full, and we partly subsidize the costs of child helplines in lower-income countries, mainly with donor funding. For helplines who have limited resources, we regularly work together to find donor funding for customization and initial operations.
The Aselo software itself is open source and carries no license fee. This means that as new features are added to Aselo, all Aselo users get these new features for free.
Who is using Aselo right now?
How can I get a demo of Aselo?
Aselo Features
What channels are available?
What types of call center capabilities are included?
Aselo includes sophisticated call center capabilities including:
- Extensive queuing controls
- Skills/attribute-based routing
- Transferring of both voice and text-based contacts
- Ability to handle multiple text-based contacts at once
- Interactive voice and text response
- Real-time queue monitoring
- Real-time supervisory monitoring of live voice calls and text-based contacts
- Voice recording and text transcripts
Does Aselo include any data reporting capabilities?
Does Aselo provide case management capabilities?
Are contacts to the helpline anonymous in Aselo?
Aselo can be customized so that contacts can be anonymous or not. It is at the discretion of the helpline.
Does Aselo operate with any chatbots?
What happens in cases of internet and/or power outages?
When there are national power or internet outages, counselors will not be able to take conversations through Aselo. However, Aselo will work with local telecom providers to plan for inbound telephone call routing with failover solutions (for example, automatically rerouting to a regular desk phone, automatic messaging, voicemail, routing calls to a second call center, and/or to mobile phones).
Aselo also has a manual mode so that any data captured during a power outage can be entered when power or an internet connection is restored. Because Aselo is cloud-based, it is also possible to use it from other locations that have data connections when the main contact center is offline.
How does Aselo deal with reports of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)?
What other features are planned for Aselo?
Onboarding, Training, and Support
What level of operational and technical commitment is needed to adopt Aselo?
There is no technical development required from the helpline to deploy Aselo, as the Tech Matters’ team handles configuration and set up. Our team works closely with the helpline to understand and define any customization requirements as well as migrate any existing services to Aselo.
Rolling out a new technology platform for a national helpline is a major project. Considerable attention must be invested in planning for the switchover, as well as change management and training efforts to support helpline staff to get the most out of the new technology capabilities. A critical part of this effort is the initial creation of a staging version of Aselo, customized to the needs of the adopting helpline, for use as a testing and training environment. Only when the helpline team is trained, and verified that they are able to use Aselo as part of their standard operating procedures, will we transition the helpline to using Aselo to handle confidential data of callers and texters. We also work with helpline staff to implement a system switchover plan to ensure data integrity while the helpline team transitions to using Aselo for real call/text data.
Can Aselo support short codes and migrating our existing number(s)?
What type of training is available for Aselo?
What level of support is provided?
Technical support is currently available Monday-Friday 15 hours a day at support@aselo.org, thanks to our current team based in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. We also run 24/7 monitoring and alerts systems that notify our team in case of any major incidents or system outages that occur outside of our covered hours.
Data Privacy and Security
How do you secure the data of children and adults?
Tech Matters has implemented security and privacy according to industry best practices, which include such items as:
- Data encrypted at rest and in transit
- Multi-factor authentication required for our staff
- External audits by third-party firms to test Aselo for vulnerabilities
- Access to caller data by Aselo staff restricted and logged
- Modern ‘defense-in-depth’ architecture to provide multiple layers of security to protect caller data
Is Aselo GDPR compliant?
Data Ownership
Does Child Helpline International, donors, NGOs, companies and/or governments have access to our data without our permission?
If we choose to share data with Child Helpline International, does Aselo provide the means to do that?
Tech Matters has designed Aselo to make it very easy for helplines using Aselo to export the reports they need to provide the data requested by CHI. We are happy to help with this process, which should be driven by each helpline.
Where is my data hosted?
Can my data be hosted only in my country?
Since Aselo’s cloud-based design makes extensive use of AWS and Twilio, it is only possible to host data in countries with server availability from AWS (roughly fifty countries) and Twilio (currently only in the U.S., but with plans to support other countries).
Is my data backed up?
Yes. Automatic backup is part of the benefits of using a cloud solution like Aselo.
Management and Direction Questions
Who owns Aselo?
Who funds Aselo?
Who operates Aselo?
What is your contingency plan if Aselo loses funding?
Aselo Software Licensing
What open source license will be used for Aselo?
The license for the portions of the Aselo software created by Tech Matters is the Affero General Public License, version 3. Aselo may take advantage of software created by other groups, and these components are covered by the licenses chosen by their developers, which may be different.
How do I get access to the Aselo software to do my own software development?
The Aselo software is maintained in a publicly available repository on GitHub.