Author: DrVoIP

Peter S. Buswell (aka DrVoIP) is a rare blend of C-level executive leadership and deep technical expertise in telecommunications and cloud infrastructure. With a career that began at AT&T in 1970, he has founded and led multiple industry-defining companies, including Dextr.Cloud—acquired by AWS Global Partner CloudHesive. Peter has held senior roles at firms like Exxon Enterprises, Intervoice/Brite, and Franklin Telecommunications, and has consistently driven innovation from traditional PBX to Amazon Connect cloud deployments. A hands-on architect with certifications from Cisco (CCNP/CCDP, UCCX/UCCE) and AWS (Solutions Architect, Developer, SysOps), he combines strategic vision with engineering precision. Known as DrVoIP, he continues to bridge the gap between enterprise goals and technical execution in today’s evolving cloud communications landscape.

ShoreTel Version 10+ “Find Me/ Follow Me” Enhancements!

Posted on by DrVoIP
Mobility and Office Extensibility continue to be “must have” feature sets for success in todays hyper competitve market place.   Nobody seems to care if it is after business hours in your time zone.  When a client wants you, they want you now and if you can’t be found, they will find someone else!  ShoreTel has had a range of features to address this requirement since the early on releases.  Features like “Office Anywhere” and “External Assignment” have been the minimum daily adult requirement for ShoreTel mobility from the very early releases and they continue today and they continue with Version 10.   ShoreTel has refined the “find me” functionality in this latest release to include a number of new capabilities including “call screening” and the ability to route a call before the caller hears your Voice Mail greeting!
There is an ever increasing group of knowedge workers and professional staff that spend very little time sitting at a specific desk location.    Sales and IT professionals, for example,  are always on the move and away from their desk.   With ShoreTel 10 we can now route the caller to your “find me” locations before the caller hears a greeting.  Depending on your selected call handling mode, you can route an incoming call directly to your cell phone, with full call screening.  This is not a simple call fowarding feature, it is an intelligent process of routing calls and enabling the recipent to determine the priority of the call and then accept or reject the caller.  If the caller is rejected, they then hear your Voice Mail greeting.  (Make sure you don’t invite them to press 1 to activate “find me” as they have already gone down that path)!
Generally, you would set up your “find me follow me” locations as part of your basic Call Manager setup.    You then associate that process with one of your calling handling modes.  I for one, do not want people hitting “find me” when I am in the office and in my Standard call handlign mode.  When I am out of the office, I might want to offer the caller this option, so I associte this process with that call handling mode.   What about the professional who is never at their desk?  Version 10 has a key new option in the “find me” setup: “enable Find me for incoming calls before playing my greeting”.   Additonally you can elect to send the caller CID and even “Enable Callers Name for find me”.
This last option cause the system to prompt ” the person you are calling requests your name”.   The system records what the caller mutters and then follows the “find me” instructions to locate you at one or two locations.   When your cell phone rings you will hear “this is the ShoreTel Voice Messaging system with a call from”, at which time we will insert the recorded mutterings of the caller for your edification.   Press 1 to accept, 2 to reject or 3 to repeat the caller ID.  If you did not elect this option which many might consider obnoxious and rude, the system will speak the numeric caller ID phoen number unless it is another ShoreTel user from within your system.  In this last case, you would hear the ShoreTel play the record name of that users mailbox.
This is only one of the mobility solutions that ShoreTel offers.   Other features including Mobile Call Manager and External Assignment also prove to be powerful options to keep you intouch and availalbe, regardless of your geographic location.    The following film clip walks you through the process of setting up “find me follow me”.   Enjoy!
Mobility and Office Extensibility continue to be “must have” feature sets for success in todays hyper competitve market place.   Nobody seems to care if it is after business hours in your time zone.  When a client wants you, they want you now and if you can’t be found, they will find someone else!  ShoreTel has had a range of features to address this requirement since the early on releases.  Features like “Office Anywhere” and “External Assignment” have been the minimum daily adult requirement for ShoreTel mobility from the very early releases and they continue today and they continue with Version 10.   ShoreTel has refined the “find me” functionality in this latest release to include a number of new capabilities including “call screening” and the ability to route a call before the caller hears your Voice Mail greeting!
There is an ever increasing group of knowedge workers and professional staff that spend very little time sitting at a specific desk location.    Sales and IT professionals, for example,  are always on the move and away from their desk.   With ShoreTel 10 we can now route the caller to your “find me” locations before the caller hears a greeting.  Depending on your selected call handling mode, you can route an incoming call directly to your cell phone, with full call screening.  This is not a simple call fowarding feature, it is an intelligent process of routing calls and enabling the recipent to determine the priority of the call and then accept or reject the caller.  If the caller is rejected, they then hear your Voice Mail greeting.  (Make sure you don’t invite them to press 1 to activate “find me” as they have already gone down that path)!
Generally, you would set up your “find me follow me” locations as part of your basic Call Manager setup.    You then associate that process with one of your calling handling modes.  I for one, do not want people hitting “find me” when I am in the office and in my Standard call handlign mode.  When I am out of the office, I might want to offer the caller this option, so I associte this process with that call handling mode.   What about the professional who is never at their desk?  Version 10 has a key new option in the “find me” setup: “enable Find me for incoming calls before playing my greeting”.   Additonally you can elect to send the caller CID and even “Enable Callers Name for find me”.
This last option cause the system to prompt ” the person you are calling requests your name”.   The system records what the caller mutters and then follows the “find me” instructions to locate you at one or two locations.   When your cell phone rings you will hear “this is the ShoreTel Voice Messaging system with a call from”, at which time we will insert the recorded mutterings of the caller for your edification.   Press 1 to accept, 2 to reject or 3 to repeat the caller ID.  If you did not elect this option which many might consider obnoxious and rude, the system will speak the numeric caller ID phoen number unless it is another ShoreTel user from within your system.  In this last case, you would hear the ShoreTel play the record name of that users mailbox.
This is only one of the mobility solutions that ShoreTel offers.   Other features including Mobile Call Manager and External Assignment also prove to be powerful options to keep you intouch and availalbe, regardless of your geographic location.    The following film clip walks you through the process of setting up “find me follow me”.  It is part of a four part series on setting up Call Handling Modes.    Enjoy and email your comments and questions to DrVoIP!

ShoreTel Compatible Audio Conference Bridge on a Plug Server?

Posted on by DrVoIP

The Sheevaplug computer is an amazing appliance!  Think of the applications you could create on this 3 watt PC often confused as a wall transformer  by the uninitiated.   In fact I have a bunch of “wall warts” under foot  for a variety of electronic devices on my desk that need stepped down AC power and the Sheevaplug server is smaller than any of them!    A  Plug Computer is designed to draw so little power that it can be left on all the time.  Unlike other embedded devices, it contains a gigahertz- class processor designed to offer PC- class performance, Ethernet interface, USB port and a SD Flash Card.  OMG! Geek Heaven!

As a technical support organization,  we needed a network monitoring tool to help us diagnose WAN QOS issues for our ShoreTel and CISCO VoIP clients.  How do you get an appliance on a clients network that can connect to the mother ship, capture network performance statistics and be left on all the time with no large power consumption?  We also needed something that was “plug and play” and dirt cheap as we give them to our ShoreTel multi-site clients who are under contract as part of our normal support service!   With this little plug computer  we can put a full network monitoring appliance on the network and try to stay ahead of the QOS issues that result from bandwidth, latency and jitter fluctuations.

With the network monitoring solution solved,  we started looking for other useful VoIP applications we might stuff into this plug computer.     Sometime back we created a fully featured audio conference server in software.  The goal was to make it possible for clients to create multi  party fully managed, audio conferences without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars.   Thanks to SIP we were able to do just that and the results were exceptional.  (Click here for full specifications  http://www.siplistic.com/tutorials/setup-users-and-standing-conferences .   The marketing challenge was  the fact that the server hardware and OS cost more than the application software!

So that became the next project to take over in our wonderful world of VoIP!   We have now achieved what would have been unthinkable only a year ago!  We can now provide the same audio conference solution including the hardware at the same price we charged for the application software!  Thanks to the wonderful engineers at Marvel  we have been able to realize a fully feature, SIP based audio conference server on an appliance that draws less than 3 watts of power!  How green can you get?  Now the problem is how to keep people from stepping on it!

marvell_sheevaplug_computer2

I know it is crazy to get excited about a hunk of hardware, but next to my iPad this is a must have and I have a long list of applications that would make the world of VoIP more exciting!  How about a turn key telephone system for a remote office that cost less than an SG30 and interfaces to ShoreTel and CISCO as a SIP tie line?  Let me know your thoughts!

NOTE – March 2012-  We have had so much demand for this product that we now offer it as a SKU through our product company, http://www.Siplistic.com !  We can ship you a turn-key Audio Conference Appliance for $1995 including the Server Hardware.  Answer a few configuration questions, and you will have a 24-94 port appliance with web interface administration as fast as Fedex!  Price includes remote configuration and installation on ShoreTel, CISCO, Microsoft or Asterisk!  – DrVoIP!

Log Blog – Debugging ShoreTel Voice Mail with vmail.log

Posted on by DrVoIP

We should probably do several blogs on logs!   Logs to an engineer are like finger prints to a cop!   Both professionals need to play “detective” and gather all the hints they can in an exhaustive effort to figure out what went wrong!   Logs always have interesting information, written cryptic ally but useful none the less.  Recently we had to solve the case of the “missing message notification” and that sent us deep into Vmlogs.   The problem statement was that a message left in a voice mailbox was suppose to notify a cell phone when the message was marked urgent.  The client reported that this was not happening .  So how do you go about debugging this issue?

 ShoreTel gathers log information and stores them in a specific data folder.  The logs folder is contained in the X:\Shoreline Data folder on both your ShoreTel HQ server and your Distributed Voice Mail Servers.  This folder is a critical component in any disaster recovery plan as it contains all the information you need to recreate your system.  For example, you system automated attendant prompts are located here, so make sure you back this folder up along with the configuration database.   The Log folder contains a number of logs that can be used to trouble shoot ShoreTel system issues and you should become familiar with them.  For purposes of this blog, we are going to focus on the vmail logs.  These logs are created for a 24 hour period and are time date stamped accordingly.  You will find this folder and its parent folders, exist on each ShoreTel server.

 Poking around in the Shoreline Data folder is instructive.   These is a sub folder named VMS.  This folder contains several other folders that effectively define the Voice Mail structure of the system, or at least of the Voice Mail boxes that live on that server.  In the folder marked ShoreTel, you will find a folder for each voice mailbox on that server, named for the extension number.  Inside that folder will be the data pointer and the wav files for the mailbox name and the various call handling mode greetings.   The actual voice mail messages, however, are contained in one massive folder named Messages, also in the VMS folder.   The Message folder contains all of the voice mail messages saved as wav files with cryptic file names.   Moving through the vmail logs, not only can you associate the messages with a specific mailbox,  you can generally get the password to that mailbox as it is saved in clear text.

The vmail log is verbose and very English like in is format.   It does not take much time to get comfortable with the interpretation of this log.   Generally, when reviewing any log, you have some basic information about what you are looking for.  Often you will have a GUID or an extension number that when coupled with time can help you search the log for a specific call.   In this log we can see the incoming call answered by the voice mailbox and the caller Id captured for call back and email notification.   We can see the various key strokes that the caller entered and we can also capture the name of the WAV file that ShoreTel will write out to the Message folder.

 If any of the out dial features are activated, you can see the perform in the mail log, including  the number dialed and any digits captured by the system when the caller answers.   Generally, all of the activities associated with this phone call are recorded to this log.  Working between the log and the VMS Folder you can locate messages for a particular user.  In this example we were able to trace the incoming caller ID through to a mailbox, watch the caller interact with the mailbox by generating DTMF digits and then mark the message urgent.  The logs continue to demonstrate that the system then set up an external call to a remote phone, played the ShoreTel voice mail notification greeting, collected the acceptance of the voice mail and the user password.  The system then marks the message heard and moves it to the delete message queue.  

 All in a days work for a log file!  If you have to debug ShoreTel, Logs are your new best friend!  

ShoreTel ECC – the powerful “change call profile” scripting tool!

Posted on by DrVoIP

Call Profiles can be of two varieties in the ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center. They are either System Mandatory or User definable. ( Actually, to be absolutely correct, we need to acknowledge that “Skill Sets” are another type of call profile, but we are including them as User definable). The system assigns a number of Call Profile parameters automatically as the call moves through the system. These profiles are variables that change with each phone call. Examples of system call profiles would be Priority, DNIS, Call Type, Agent Extension and Average Queue Time. User Definable Call Profiles are parameters that you define to enable values required to implement your specific application. If your application, for example, plays a prompt to the caller that asks the caller to enter their account number, this information needs to be saved for follow on processing. As the caller enters their account number, the digits are saved to a User defined call profile that might be named “account code”. This profile variable can be interrogated , tested and used to further define call routing.

Lets assume that the account code that is entered by the caller is used to determine if that caller requires Platinum, Gold or Silver routing. You might assign Platinum callers a higher initial “priority”, a System mandatory Call Profile, than you might assign a Silver client. Given that an Agent is eligible to receive one of many calls awaiting service you might want to set the call select strategy at to be “by priority” rather than by “longest wait” or “best skill fit”. With this option you would manipulate the Priority Call Profile to set the Platinum caller with a higher value. You might also want to change the service that that call is routed to based on the account code. The question becomes, however, how do you manipulate the Call Profile? What tools area available to do this manipulation and what other tools might work in harmony with this capability?

In the ECC Scripting tool there is a remarkable scripting Icon named “Change Call Profile”. This icon can easily become the most powerful tool in your implementation scripting arsenal! When used in conjunction with a other icons like the “logic menu” or SQL dip kit, you can solve some really amazing application requirements. The video for this blog, uses a SQL data dip to look up and account code, entered by the caller, to determine how to route the call. Once this decision is made, the Change Profile icon is used to steer the call to the appropriate service, and send along other application specific call profile parameters. We use the Account Code to index a SQL database and return the “status” (e.g. Platinum or not) and the “route” we want the call to follow. The Route information is used to index a Logic map to find a specific Agent or Group that is assigned to handle that particular client account. The video also illustrates the use of the “branch to  script” icon to further manipulate the call parameters. I often use the ” Change Call Profile” icon to flip the automated attendant scripts from on hours to off hours when implementing that function within the ShoreTel ECC. Individually, these capable scripting icons are very powerful call handling manipulators. Taken as a suite of scripting tools I have not yet found an application that we could not implement in the ShoreTel ECC!

Install your ShoreTel Call Manager on your Apple iPad

Posted on by DrVoIP

On more than one occasion I have actually had to telnet into a clients router or switch using nothing more than a mobile phone!  Now, that is either an example of superior customer service or an indication of creeping insanity.   When you have to, you have to!   Sometime ago I moved to an Iphone and that actually makes RDP, VNC  or Telnet actually usable on a mobile phone in a pinch.

To say I think the Ipad is a game changer is an understatement.  If you analyze your computing habits you will find that you have two basic modalities: work and play.  At work, you are bent over and leaning in to your computer using a keyboard.  At play, if you could, you would be sitting in your favorite armchair surfing the web, watching yourtube and reading electronic books while updating your Facebook status.   This last mode, does not really require a lot of keyboard.  In fact the user interface that makes the Ipad so exciting is beginning to make you want to touch your Windows screen before you reach for you mouse.

It is the 21st Century and we are still keyboarding and mousing around?   The Ipad is redefining how the man machine interface will work.  Human gestures are much more effective than highlighting, dragging and dropping.  Ever consider how people use a phone?   They really want to poke buttons and lift handsets.  Mousing around is OK and many of us gravitate to all the features available to us when we integrate our phone system to our desktop computer.  The issue is, that word “desktop”.   The level of mobility that exists in business today, especially among knowledge workers and dispersed work groups is phenomenal!  Thus a growing dependency on Mobile devices.

Enter the Ipad. I admit it, I am a fanatical fan of the Apple family of computing devices, but I love this Ipad!  I finally took delivery on my Ipad 3G and am trying to figure out what I can and can not do with it.   I am able to do PowerPoint presentations on my Ipad using the Keynote App.   I am telling you, if you have to do a one on one presentation and you do it on an Ipad, you are going to get the order!

I found a great application named iTapRDP which I had on my iphone and it is now available on my Ipad.  This is a full blown RDP client that takes advantage of the “big screen” and additional real estate of the Ipad.   Now if i have to log into someones ShoreTel on the fly, I can do it with only the pain of a 3G connection, but with a full screen.    The next step was to just RDP into my own desktop and make use of my own ShoreTel Call Manager!  Now  using the “external assignment” feature, I have full ShoreTell Call Manager control from wherever I am, using my Ipad through and RDP session.

Come on, it is impressive to say the least!   No application required other than iTapRDP and I was running both ShoreTel 10.1 and an the Integrated ShoreTel Call Manager with ECC Version 6!    Sorry for the really bad video, but I am VoIP engineer not Oliver Stone (if anyone has a good Ipad Screen capture app, let me know)!

“Call flow” the callers experience when reaching your business!

Posted on by DrVoIP

Having managed 1000’s of telephone system deployments over my career, one subject continues to be the project “speed bump”.    You might think that the core issues of network configuration, WAN traffic planning, QOS and DHCP services might be the issues that cause a phone system deployment to go “sideways”, but you would be wrong.   Those issues clearly need to be defined, planned, developed and tested, but we always seem to get the technical issues worked out.  The speeds and feeds, the duplex and the QOS always seem to become clear and the system deployment is executed as planned.   I am a big fan of incremental, process improvement every day, every step of the way!

The area that always seems to require the most post cut support, however, is not the technical area.  It is the User Group area in general and the entire subject of “call flow” in particular that needs more up front planning to assure a successful “go live”.  When you are hammering out the details of the phone system deployment, we always seem to get the bits and bytes defined, but how about those automated attendant scripts?  For reasons that I can only summarize as “procrastination”, it seems that “call flow” is the last item to be implemented!   Not only has the “call flow” not been carefully considered, the scripts have not be written, reviewed or recorded.   It is one hour before “go live” and most deployment managers are scrambling to get a voice to record the Automated Attendant.

On my deployment system design check list, call flow is second only to the dial plan, as a mission critical design issue.    It is essential that project deployment managers engage the User Group early on, often and at each step of the deployment to assure success!  Clearly without the IT Director, the network definition is going to be less than easy, but without User group buy in on “call flow” you are headed for a disaster come “go live”.    I make interviewing the Company Operator a key part of our deployment planning and I make sure that there is a User group decision maker present at every planning meeting in which a “call flow” option is being discussed.

What exactly is “call flow”?   Each new caller to your place of business, will have an audio experience.   “Call Flow” is how we define a vision for that callers experience.    Do we want each new call answered by a real person?   How do we feel about the use of Automated Attendants?  Will a caller have a different experience based on the “time of day” or the “day of the week”?   Do all callers dial the same number?    Will the “live answer” point be an individual or a group of individuals and do we have a vision of what the caller should experience if the target live answer is not available?    Theses questions taken in their entirety define the subject of “call flow” and it remains one of the most important parts of your phone system definition and deployment.

There are a variety of tools that we can employ to create a “call flow”.  These tools include “automated attendant” menu’s that allow callers to “self navigate” through your phone system.    “Hunt groups” and “Work groups” can also be used with automated attendants to create “call flow” solutions that, while complex, are designed to assure a positive caller experience.   Taking the time to consider how a call flows through your company and planning for all the eventualities (e.g. busy, no answer) is not only essential to your customer service process, but it drives professionalism and demonstrates consideration for the calling public.  We have all been abused by Automated solutions, so take the time to consider the message you want to send to someone when they call your place of business.  Remember. “you only get one chance to make a first impression”.

ShoreTel Route a Call based on Area Code or Mood

Posted on by DrVoIP
“Can we route calls to a Workgroup based on the Area Code of the Caller”, asks our intrepid Sales representative!  “The prospect wants each Area Code in the country to be handled by a different Workgroup”.    Interesting question.   Now if we were talking about the Enterprise Contact Center, routing by Area Code would be easy, but we are talking about you basic ShoreTel IPBX and that type of routing is not obvious.     If we could get the Clients to call a different number based on which Area Code they are calling from, we could use a DNIS map to point the caller at a different Workgroup.  Though some phone companies actually have a value added service in which they can route a call to a different DID based on the ANI ShoreTel needs some additional functionality to achieve this level of call routing.
Maybe we could use ShoreTel “Call handling modes” to get the job done?   Features like “Personal Operator” and “Find/Follow Me” are offered to callers once they are in your Voice message box and they can be very useful by offering callers options beyond leaving a message at the beep!   Call handling modes, however, can only be applied after the call is answered!   What is required in the application described above, is the ability to manipulate a “ringing” telephone call and redirect that call before the call is answered.  So how would you route a call based on the callers Area Code?
ShoreTel has a new feature entitled “personalized call handling”.  This is a powerful feature that can be used to manipulate a phone call before it is answered.  You can route a call based on a number of conditions including a “phone number match”, the fact that you are already on the phone, based on the number the caller dialed or DNIS and even by the time of day or day of week.  Based on the condition you specifiy, actions can be executed that include forwarding teh call to a specific number or play a different ring tone.  If you select the condition “Phone number match”, for example, you can further define a specific internal or external number, and off-premise extension, a number marked as “private? or an “any external number starting with” and fill in the blank.
Imagine sending all incoming “private” numbers to “Dail a Prayer”!  You could really have some fun with this feature, but let us see if we can solve the above application.    Set this user up to foward calls to the NY Sales Workgroup, but looking at the Area Code of the calling number.  You can actually do this!  To make this work as in  the above application you will have to dedicate a USER to the applicaiton.   After you create the user and setup the “personal call handling” conditions and actions, you will need to change the DESTINATION of the incoming Trunk Group, to be this user.   Make sure you set the Call Stack for this user sufficiently high enought to handle the anticipated call volume.  The following film clip walks you through the setup of the Professional Call Manager to achieve the desired application results.“Can we route calls to a Workgroup based on the Area Code of the Caller”, asks our intrepid Sales representative! “The prospect wants each Area Code in the country to be handled by a different Workgroup”. Interesting question. Now if we were talking about the Enterprise Contact Center, routing by Area Code would be easy, but we are talking about you basic ShoreTel IPBX and that type of routing is not obvious. If we could get the Clients to call a different number based on which Area Code they are calling from, we could use a DNIS map to point the caller at a different Workgroup. Though some phone companies actually have a value added service in which they can route a call to a different DID based on the ANI ShoreTel needs some additional functionality to achieve this level of call routing.

Maybe we could use ShoreTel “Call handling modes” to get the job done? Features like “Personal Operator” and “Find/Follow Me” are offered to callers once they are in your Voice message box and they can be very useful by offering callers options beyond leaving a message at the beep! Call handling modes, however, can only be applied after the call is answered! What is required in the application described above, is the ability to manipulate a “ringing” telephone call and redirect that call before the call is answered. So how would you route a call based on the callers Area Code?

ShoreTel has a new feature entitled “personalized call handling”. This is a powerful feature that can be used to manipulate a phone call before it is answered. You can route a call based on a number of conditions including a “phone number match”, the fact that you are already on the phone, based on the number the caller dialed or DNIS and even by the time of day or day of week. Based on the condition you specify, actions can be executed that include forwarding the call to a specific number or play a different ring tone. If you select the condition “Phone number match”, for example, you can further define a specific internal or external number, and off-premise extension, a number marked as “private? or an “any external number starting with” and fill in the blank.

Imagine sending all incoming “private” numbers to “Dial a Prayer”! You could really have some fun with this feature, but let us see if we can solve the above application. Set this user up to forward calls to the NY Sales Work group, but looking at the Area Code of the calling number. You can actually do this! To make this work as in the above application you will have to dedicate a USER to the application. After you create the user and setup the “personal call handling” conditions and actions, you will need to change the DESTINATION of the incoming Trunk Group, to be this user. Make sure you set the Call Stack for this user sufficiently high enough to handle the anticipated call volume. The following film clip walks you through the setup of the Professional Call Manager to achieve the desired application results.!

ShoreTel Phone Security and the Terminated Employee ( a lesson in User Groups)

Posted on by DrVoIP
Recently a client discoverd that at terminated employee, gone for almost a month, was still answering his office extension from his cell phone!  We have so many technology options for mobility today that the HR deparment most be going nuts trying to keep the “exit interview” check list up to date!   Without commenting on the HR ramifications, IT system administrators have long had to contend with terminated employees and how to handle remote access, email and the other regular components of an advanced Information Technology.  With the advent of VoIP, most IT organizations have now had to add the telephone system to the growing list of security access concerens.
This blog and video clip was created to knock off a couple of concepts simultaneously.   First, adminstrators want to know how to configure permissions for different user types.   Clearly the folks who work in the call center are supervised by managers that require a set of features that might enable monitoring, barge in and call recording.  The Kitchen and Lobby phone do not need voice mail boxes and should only be enabled for extension to extension calling and 911 service.  Do we need to set up Account Codes for International dialing?   Who must enter an Accout code to make a phone call and who has Supreme being features?  The list goes on.    Do you allow your Users to reassign there extensions to external numbers, like the home office or cell phone?   If that employee leaves the company, do you have a plan in place as to how to manage that employees incoming phone calls?  This is where the concept of a ShoreTel Use Group can be exploited to rapidly nail down departing employees call flow.
The concept of a “containeer” as a mechnism for treating a class of users has been utilized as a programming convention since the first bit stream.   Microsoft System administrators will be immediatley comfortable with the concept, as will any IT professional who has system administration responsibility.   The concept is simple: rather than create a each individual and then list out their permissions, previldeges and class of service; lets “contain” them in a “group” and apply the permissions against the group.   This makes it easy to administer large populations of users who may share similar system facilities.  In ShoreTel, the concept of class of service, is defined and applied to a container named “User Group”.
Out of the box, ShoreTel has a predefined family of User Groups arbitraily but apptly named Exeucitve, Manager, Staff and so on.  Each user group contains a set of permissions defined as a Class of Service.  These services include permissions regarding the telephony features available to this user, the users dialing restrictions and also define key attributes about the users Voice Mail box.   In ShoreTel, certain features like “call forwarding” and “find me/follow me” require the user to have a Voice Mailbox, so understanding how these permissions are configured is essential to the creation of a secruity policy for your phone system.  If you allow the use of “find me follow me” or the ShoreTel “Personal Operator” funtion you might want to limit the range that those calling permission might include.  (If you want to talk to Mom in Italy, call my extension after hours and press zero when you here my greeting” is one of my personal favorites).
The video clip walks you through the process of creating a new User Group aptly named “Terminated Employee”.  This User Group then encompasses a body of restrictions that can be applied to a User, in this case a departing employee, with just a couple of key strokes.   The goal here is to nail down the employees call flow while you are working out the details of transitioning the employees work flow.    Clearly, you can just delete the user and be done with it, but normally business is not that simple.  Employees are part of Work Groups or  Hunt Groups that define a work flow and sometimes it takes a transition plan to get the details worked out.  In the mean time, we need to secure the phone!

Recently a client discovered that at terminated employee, gone for almost a month, was still answering his office extension from his cell phone!  We have so many technology options for mobility today that the HR department most be going nuts trying to keep the “exit interview” check list up to date!   Without commenting on the HR ramifications, IT system administrators have long had to contend with terminated employees and how to handle remote access, email and the other regular components of an advanced Information Technology.  With the advent of VoIP, most IT organizations have now had to add the telephone system to the growing list of security access concerns.

This blog and video clip was created to knock off a couple of concepts simultaneously.   First, administrator want to know how to configure permissions for different user types.   Clearly the folks who work in the call center are supervised by managers that require a set of features that might enable monitoring, barge in and call recording.  The Kitchen and Lobby phone do not need voice mail boxes and should only be enabled for extension to extension calling and 911 service.  Do we need to set up Account Codes for International dialing?   Who must enter an Account code to make a phone call and who has Supreme being features?  The list goes on.    Do you allow your Users to reassign there extensions to external numbers, like the home office or cell phone?   If that employee leaves the company, do you have a plan in place as to how to manage that employees incoming phone calls?  This is where the concept of a ShoreTel Use Group can be exploited to rapidly nail down departing employees call flow.

The concept of a “container” as a mechanism for treating a class of users has been utilized as a programming convention since the first bit stream.   Microsoft System administrators will be immediately comfortable with the concept, as will any IT professional who has system administration responsibility.   The concept is simple: rather than create a each individual and then list out their permissions, privileges and class of service; lets “contain” them in a “group” and apply the permissions against the group.   This makes it easy to administer large populations of users who may share similar system facilities.  In ShoreTel, the concept of class of service, is defined and applied to a container named “User Group”.

Out of the box, ShoreTel has a predefined family of User Groups arbitrarily but apply named Executive, Manager, Staff and so on.  Each user group contains a set of permissions defined as a Class of Service.  These services include permissions regarding the telephony features available to this user, the users dialing restrictions and also define key attributes about the users Voice Mail box.   In ShoreTel, certain features like “call forwarding” and “find me/follow me” require the user to have a Voice Mailbox, so understanding how these permissions are configured is essential to the creation of a security policy for your phone system.  If you allow the use of “find me follow me” or the ShoreTel “Personal Operator” function you might want to limit the range that those calling permission might include.  (If you want to talk to Mom in Italy, call my extension after hours and press zero when you here my greeting” is one of my personal favorites).

The video clip walks you through the process of creating a new User Group aptly named “Terminated Employee”.  This User Group then encompasses a body of restrictions that can be applied to a User, in this case a departing employee, with just a couple of key strokes.   The goal here is to nail down the employees call flow while you are working out the details of transitioning the employees work flow.    Clearly, you can just delete the user and be done with it, but normally business is not that simple.  Employees are part of Work Groups or  Hunt Groups that define a work flow and sometimes it takes a transition plan to get the details worked out.  In the mean time, we need to secure the phone!

QOS for ShoreTel VoIP Deployments!

Posted on by DrVoIP

Setting up QOS on your routers to support ShoreTel VoIP across a WAN connection requires that you employ some creativity in your configuration.   Think of Class Marking as a way of “coloring” packets so that the routers no how to treat the packets when there is any kind of congestion.   We want voice packets to have a priority over data packets, so we color them and tell the carrier or WAN router which color is voice.   Generally, QOS strategies employ the use of Differential Service Control Points or DSCP values.

These values are established by convention and can be generally summarize as IP Precedence Level 5 (101xx000 = DSCP bits) or DSCP Values of 160-184 to representing  “Express Forwarding” with a decimal value of 41.   The TOS byte in the IP header allocates the high order 6 bits to the DSCP value,  making Express Forwarding or EF equal to decimal 41 or 10111000 binary. Most carriers will comply with this class marking and will put IP packets marked with this value in the Low Latency or “go fast”  queue.  (See note below).

In the ShoreWare Director Portal you will find a link under Call Control to “options”.  On this page, you will find a box for DiffServ/ToS Byte (0-255).  This is where you will set your DSCP value, generally 184.   This will mark all voice packets originating from ShoreTel Voice Switches and IP phones.   A QOS configuration generally consists of three elements;  The Class Map, the Policy Map and the Service Map.  The Class Map tells us what it is we are looking for.   The Policy Map tells us what do when we find what we are looking for and the Service Map applies this information to the proper interface, generally the WAN side of your router.

Here is an example of a simple QOS configuration:

class-map match-any VoIP
match ip dscp ef

policy-map QoS
class VoIP
set ip dscp ef
priority percent 50

Basically, we are telling the router to look for incoming IP packets that have a DSCP value equal to Express Forwarding.   When we see these values we are going to know they are VoIP packets  and move them to our LLC where we have reserved 50% of the available bandwidth for use by the voice application.   It is important to note that queues in routers only take effect when we have contention for bandwidth.  The QOS statements help the router make decisions as to what queue gets serviced first.   Understand that, should queues fill up, the router will start “tail drop” and throw out packets no matter what the class mark!   This is a key issue, as the queue is for outbound processing.  What happens if some idiot is down loading Avatar from NetFlixs?  The incoming data flow could drown out any attempt to service outbound queue handling.

Lets look at modifiying our ShoreTel QOS strategy to provide for some additional configuration options.  One option is to set up an Access-List to capture information that might not be generated by a ShoreTel switch or IP phone.  ShoreTel uses a specific set of TCP/DUP ports that we can easily identify.  You also know the IP address of your ShoreTel server.  Why not set up an access list to look for traffic originating from the ShoreTel server or traffic originating or terminating on specific ports?  Here is an example, created by Brain Krail,  of a configuration that establishes the access list and also sets up several classes of service for voice, mission critical data and best efforts data:

access-list 197 remark “All SHoreTel”
access-list 197 permit ip any any dscp ef
access-list 197 permit udp any any eq 2427
access-list 197 permit udp any any eq 2727
access-list 197 permit udp any any eq 5004
access-list 197 permit udp any any range 5440 5446
access-list 197 permit udp any any eq 5060
access-list 197 permit tcp any any eq 5060
access-list 197 permit udp any any eq 111
!
access-list 198 remark Mission Critical
access-list 198 permit tcp any any eq ftp
access-list 198 permit tcp any any eq telnet
access-list 198 permit tcp any any eq smtp
access-list 198 permit tcp any any eq 3389
access-list 198 permit udp any any eq 3389
!
access-list 198 remark VPN Traffic
access-list 198 permit esp any any

class-map match-any VoIP
match access-group 197
match ip dscp ef

class-map match-any mission
match access-group 198
!
policy-map QoS
class VoIP
set ip dscp ef
priority percent 50

class mission
set ip dscp af41
bandwidth percent 30

class class-default
set ip dscp default
fair-queue
random-detect

int ser 0/1/0
max-reserved-bandwidth 100
service-policy output QoS
!
In this configuration we use our Class Map to look for packets that match our Access-List.  Clearly, we are scanning for matches and based on the match, we classify the traffic as voice or mission critical.  The Policy map then assigns the proper value or class marking based on the Class Map matches.   The Service-Policy at the end applies the Policy to the Serial Interface on this router, most likely going off to the Carrier.  Your previously co-ordinate  agreement with the carrier will result in them treating the packets as marketed an handling them accordingly.  We find that QOS configurations that use Access-Lists to further search out traffic and host IP addresses that generate voice media streams, do a much better job than those that rely solely on the DSCP mark setup in the ShoreTel Director.

Now about that ugly issue of the user downloading NetFlix! How do we tell the carrier not to exceed a certain about of traffic inbound to our router?  The following configuration is an example of “Policing” an inbound interface to throw away any traffic that exceeds the CIR rate we set up.   This configuration increases the likely hood that QOS will be effective outbond, by making sure the inbound bandwidth is not over subscribed by a user downloading over your voice traffic!

access-list 199 permit ip any any dscp default

class-map match-all test
match access-group 199

policy-map testPolice
class test
set ip dscp default
police cir 1000000
conform-action transmit
exceed-action drop

QOS is an essential part of any VoIP deployment.   ShoreTel Deployments  can benefit measurably by getting creative with your Configurations and thinking outside the simplicity of DSCP!    NOTE – you need to dig deep on circuits provided by carriers that are peering with another carrier to deliver a complete circuit solution.   We have experienced situations in which the carrier taking the order adhered to our QOS markings and acted according to plan.  However, when that carrier hands the packet off to another carrier for final delivery, you need to make sure that they are in fact, honoring the same QOS markings.    In one situation, though our carrier was handling DSCP as agreed, the carrier that they handed off the packet to for final delivery, did not use DSCP on the MPLS circuit in question.  Some carriers, by inter-carrier agreement, use the Experimental Bits to deal with QOS.  Be Careful as the techs you are working with may not even know this, swearing all the time that QOS is setup per DSCP value!

Give us a call if you want assistance on QOS setup for Voice and Video!

ShoreTel Database Replication and Manipulation of MAXDBQUERIES!

Posted on by DrVoIP

It really doesn’t matter what VoIP system you installed they all generally have one architectural characteristic in common; the configuration database.  Depending on the system, you might find a database engine that ranges in complexity from an Access Database to a full blown SQL database.  The database will store configuration information, status information and often, call detail records that document phone system activities.   The characteristic of the database that is consistent across all architectures is the fact that there can only be one “read/write” copy of that database!

Some phone systems distribute the database across multiple servers.  ShoreTel, for example, distributes components of the database to application servers and distributed voice mail servers that characterize the single image architecture in a multi-site environment.   We need to better how a change to the database effects the operation of the system, the bandwidth of the WAN links and the demand on the database engine.  First, what constitutes a change to the database?   Well clearly any configuration change that is made to the system.  For example, adding or deleting a User are clearly going to cause a database update!  Lets take a more subtle example, however. Lets consider what happens to a Agent in a Workgroup, located at a remote site, behind a distributed voice mail server.  Each change that Agent makes on their Call Manager represents a database change.   Logging into the system, and Logging out of the system are database changes.  How about, accepting a call being offered to the Agent by a Workgroup?

Each of these Changes is communicated to the database.  The change is first made on the “read/write” database and then replicated to the remote database copy.   ShoreTel system processes use MS Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) objects to share information from the configuration database among themselves and to write configuration  information to the database.  User configuration options are written to the database from Personal Call Manager, and the telephone interface.  Each ShoreTel service on a distributed server caches it own copy of the configuration database.  When a distributed server loses connection to the HQ server (read “read/write” database) any changes made are no longer received by the distributed server.   If a DVM restarts without a connection the HQ database, services are started but are not functional.  When the network connection is restored, the configuration is retrieved and again cached by each service as the services become functional.

If there is a flap in the WAN we note that the DVM will in fact reload a copy of the database.  This movement of the database between the HQ server and the DVM servers clearly uses bandwidth and also makes additional demands on the database engine.   In ShoreTel the database engine, is now MySQL.   The question becomes how many simultaneous database access (read, modify, write) transactions can the MySQL server handle at one time?  What happens if the transaction can not be completed?  Does it queue and retry?   In a large system of say 700 workgroup agents at a site, is it possible to overload the MySQL database with state change requests?   If you dig down through the Server registry you will find the MAXDBQUERIES is set by default to 100.  It has been our experience that, defending on the size of the system, it is sometimes necessary to dial this number back to eliminate overloading the database.   This adjustment should be made only on the DVM’s in the configuration and not on the HQ server.   You will need to reboot your DVM servers after making this change.  You should also note the difference between HEX and Decimal!

The following SILENT file clip demonstrates how to make this adjustment.