Building an AWS Call Center is the definition of a “Disruptive” technology”!

AWS Connect – A Game Changer!

It has been almost a year since we first took a look at the AWS Connect Call Center service and what a year it has been.   Since it’s pubic release, AWS is most likely the fastest growing Call Center solution in the global market.   The reasons for this are clear and unmistakeable.   We think AWS Connect is a game changer!   Our first experience with AWS Connect was the result of a contract to move a ShoreTel ECC to AWS.    ShoreTel had basically abandoned the ECC product with no new feature develops in several years and the product was stuck at Version 9.  Given the great unknown regarding the future of ShoreTel CPE solutions, this client made the decision to move to the cloud and we were choosen to make that move painless.

Why Move to AWS Connect?

AWS Connect is a cloud based solution that follows the AWS mantra of elastic, scalable, reliable and highly available!  There is nothing to install and nothing to license!  You pay only for ‘usage’ at a couple of pennies per minute!   One client was paying some $250K a year in cloud call center licenses before they even processed their first phone call!  On AWS Connect this same spend would yield over 900,000 7 minute phone calls!  Take that to your CFO and note the reaction!  At the AWS reInvent 2017 conference, Capital One the tenth largest American Bank announced that it had moved to AWS Connect and the list of companies grows by the hour!

The DrVoIP Challenge

AWS makes it easy to spin up a call center! In less than one hour, you can have a fully functional call center handling inbound phone calls to an agent population that can be geographically distributed anywhere on the planet that supports a quality internet connection.   More than likely, it will take you more time to upload or enter the names of your agents into the Connect dashboard then it will take to create the Connect instance and obtain a telephone number! In fact DrVoIP will build out a ten agent 3 queue inbound call center for you company to pilot in under one hour!   Just give us a shout and try us!

Customization and Functionality is limited only by imagination!

One of the challenges that the current crop of cloud based call center providers face is the need. to standardize their service offering.   If you are anyone on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, you are serving thousands of users.   You can NOT make a change to the platform as it impact every customer in that providers installed base!   If you want to add a new feature, you will have to follow that vendors “product road map”.

AWS Connect has full access to the complete range of AWS Services including Lambda functions, Speech Recognition, Text to Speech, Kinesis, Mobility,  Cloudwatch, DynamoDB and the full range of AWS Storage solutions including S3 and Glacia. (recording storage and historical reports)!   Though the base instance is easy to configure and comes fully functional with a “default” call flow, the range of potential application solutions is limited only by the talent of your implementation team and your companies vision of the perfect “customer experience”.

Artificial Intelligence?

Most of the population now carries around a personal communicator that has Siri or Alex or Google and folks have not only grown accustomed to these features, they now expect them!   Do you really expect to front end your call flow with a “touch tone” based “call tree” or IVR that expects them Press 1 for English?  Come on people!   It is the 21st century!   AWS makes Alexa like features available through a natural language chat bot named LEX.   Is it not about time your call center had a natural language interface to your customer service group?    Try asking your current provider to add that functionality and when you look at the licensing fee, if the feature is available at all, pick yourself off the floor and give us a call!

Text to Speech?

Historically, as call center scripting professionals,  we resist starting a project until all of the prompts required in the call flow have been scripted, recorded, converted to the proper wav format and made available to the implementation team.   We can’t tell you how many project hours have been burned because clients did not think out the IVR messages or record the automated attendant announcements!   AWS has a wonderful feature named Polly that can enable us to script, fill the prompts with “text” and not only have our choice of voice artist and accent, but our choice of spoken language immediately available.   We can prototype call flow announcements and make changes  on the fly without waiting for a recording to be scheduled!

Data Dips with Lambda and DynamoDB

We first got involved with AWS because as consultants, we get paid on project completion.   If we have a call flow that requires a database dip to pull back  a”custom answer prompt” and were told that we had to wait for IT to spin up a Windows Server, blah, blah, blah….we would just log into AWS and spin out our favorite LAMP server and finish the project while IT was still filling out purchase requisitions!   Now we don’t even spin up a sever!  AWS is at the forefront of “server less” technology and Lambda and DynamoDB make it possible for us to write the database functions and completely ignore what the server technology is, let alone what OS it is running on!  AWS even bundles about 1 million Lambda function calls as part of its free tier.

Limitations, ah “No”!

Every system has constraints.   We have only one constraint that we have found to date on AWS but it is the same Constraint we find in Cloud solutions like Five9 and even cloud solution provider Twilio.   We can not access the telephony side of the platform to manipulate SIP message headers of other Call Control signals.  Currently this is hidden from the AWS Connect instance.  We have however, never had this be a show stopper and have always found a way to implement a work around.    At the rate AWS cranks out new feature and services however, we fully expect to see a SIP interface that we as developers can access on the shortest product road map implementation schedule in the global market place!

We Build AWS Connect Call Centers!

DrVoIP can design, deploy, maintain and manage your call center at a cost that is arguably redefines “total cost of ownership.”   Give us a call or let us know what you are thinking and you will find us to be the most experienced group of “full stack” developers available to those seeking an AWS Connect deployment!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click2WebChat.com Browser Based Call Center featuring Video Chat & Screen Share!

Do you Text or Call?

Most call centers have learned that folks are not sitting at home on a wired land line phones calling for tech support,  or to make an appointment or to check on the status of an outstanding order!   These folks are rushing between jobs, kids and other responsibilities and nobody has a land line let alone time to sit at the kitchen table and with for the “next available agent”.    Everyone seems to have a portable, hand held computer doubling as a SmartPhone and as a result more folks are texting then making phone calls.

Can clients text your call center?

Over the last couple of years of working with ShoreTel and CISCO Call Center solutions, we have been repeatedly asked to enable text solutions.   We had been doing this as “one off” scripts for whatever vendor solution we were working with but we soon determined to apply the DRY (don’t repeat yourself) principle and began to productize the solution.  Initially we were focused almost entirely on text applications.   Then  a client who manufactured medical devices asked, can folks send us a picture?    So we enabled clients to text a picture to the technical support team at this company.  Apparently, attaching a photo to an email was to hard but texting a picture was a no brainer!

We then added SMS2List functionality to enable companies to create an “opt in” bulk text notification solution.    Creating a text  based list of customers that you can send a “special sale coupon” to or alert a “first responder” list of employees about an impending service outage or other emergency rapidly became typical use cases.     Additionally, a single incoming text number could support multiple applications as we enabled “keyword” message routing.    Preface your text message with a “keyword” and you could route it to a completely different group within your company.  Our “SMS2Email” quickly enabled text applications for call centers that already supported “email to the next available agent”.

Click to Call Back?

Adding a “click to call” link to a company website was next on the feature development list.    The application now supports the ability to generate a link or embed  code in your website or email signature that, when clicked on, prompts for a return number, calls your call center and when an agent gets online, completes a call to the person who clicked the link!   We even offer the option of recording the call.

Click to Video Chat?

Today, we have introduced “video chat” functionality to our quiver of customer service solutions.   You can now create a link or embed code in your company website that enables you to setup a real time voice or video chat with the next available agent!  Agents require nothing more than a Chrome or Firefox browser and a computer with microphone and camera.  In fact no formal call center is required at all.  This functionality can be established for any work group, anywhere on the globe that supports a quality internet connection.  Just log in and go!

AWS Cloud Infrastructure and subscription based!

The entire solution is built out using Twilio and AWS.   There is nothing to download or install.   The administrator or “campaign manager” creates a new campaign which generates the web hook and link or code to embed in your website and then defines the agents.   Agents log in using Chrome or Firefox (both browsers support WebRTC while Apple Safari and Microsoft IE figure out their own protocol route) on a computer that supports a camera and USB headset.   All interactions are logged with a unique ticket number that is archived and searchable by the campaign owner.

Presentation and Demo

Product development is a process not an event and this is where we are in the process. This is an exciting solution and we will continue to make it available as we enhance functionality and explore new use cases.   If you want to “give it a go” let us know by texting the work “DEMO” to 424-348-4000 and we will get you setup with a trial account.   We are always open to new use cases and application ideas so let us know what you are thinking.

 

 

 

 

An IP Blue soft-phone tool kit for serious CISCO voice engineers!

The trials of a Call Center Engineer!

As a consulting engineers, we spend a lot of time working remotely over a VPN connection!  Testing configurations, features and CSS access requires end points!  Typically more than one end point device!   Scripting for the call center applications is even more demanding as you need to be able to test call flows.  Now a VPN over CISCO Anyconnect that allows you to work long hours remote is always nice, is not the same as a point to point VPN.  You might get one IP Communicator up on your local machine, but it is often not practical to register multiple devices.  When testing a UCCX scripts you need multiple Agent and Supervisor Phones to really ring out (pun intended) your call flow.  How best to do this?

Enter IP Blue!

I was taking a CISCO certification class and noticed that the instructor somehow managed to get multiple IP communicators up on his desktop.  I immediately realized the value this would have for UCCX scripting in particular and CISCO CUCM work in general.  I did a bit of research and found a company named IP BLUE Software Solutions, the industry’s best kept secret!  They make some really innovative products, but the one that I now can not live without is the “VTGO-PC Multilab Softphone” a product without equal and one that is a must have for every serious CISCO VoIP Engineer.   With this product I can open some 5-8 7960 type CISCO phones on my desktop, all registered to call manager with individual extension numbers and separate sound interfaces (i.e. speakerphones).   I used to have one IP Communicator and one X-lite SIP phone open on my desk and that was the best I was able to do remotely.  Now I can open an entire call center on my desk!  Astonishing!

 

Softphone Feature Set

These softphones are fully featured CISCO 79XX models ranging from the 7960 through the 7975 and are completely configurable.   When working with multiple clients I can setup a phone for each system I remote into!  I can even right client on the Instance name and change it to a client name for future reference and quick setup when working on multiple simultaneous deployments! When working on a Call Center I can bring up a few agents, a supervisor and exercise the script for all the possible scenarios.  All on a single desktop!

The feature set includes some really nice, not CISCO features, like an answering machine function!  Very Powerful! Multiple softphone instances can run on a single PC, connecting to the same or different Call Managers.  Each softphone instance is independent from another, and can call any phone including other softphone instances.  This setup allows to easily simulate various call scenarios, verify Call Manager settings, troubleshoot VoIP issues and configure Call Center Scripts results!   If you are running a  lab while preparing for some certification exam, this tool is going to not only save space and electricity, but lower the overall air conditioning requirements!  Here are some of the other features:

  • Emulates Cisco 79xx line of IP phones with dual 14 button expansion modules
  • Tested and certified with CallManagers 3.2-4.1, CallManager Express
  • Supports Cisco Survival Remote Site Telephony, redundant CallManagers, DHCP option 150
  • High quality-low latency using multiple codecs (G.711, GSM 6.10, G.729), QoS support
  • Accessibility features for visually impaired users include text to speech and keyboard shortcuts
  • Supports Extension Mobility
  • XML telephony services
  • Configuration Wizard with user-definable profiles
  • Supports a wide range of external USB audio devices
  • STUN/UPnP NAT traversal, SKINNY fix-up protocol friendly
  • Call log with Callback
  • Call recording, storage and playback with email attachment
  • Integration with LDAP directories, MS Outlook, Windows Address Book, Instant Messengers (Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL)
  • Language Localization (English, Dutch, Danish)
  • Dialing from MS Outlook, Web pages and much more

This is the best kept secret in the industry and if you are a serious student or working engineer doing anything with the CISCO Collaboration suite, you need to own this software.  If you boss will not spend less than hourly rate he bills you out at, get it yourself!  The time you implementation and troubleshooting time you will save, will more than pay for itself in increase leisure and family time!    We rarely pitch products on this site, but this product was just so astonishing we had to share it with our readers!

 

 

Recording ShoreTel phone calls!

Call Center not Required!

Long the standard in boiler room call center applications, recording calls is often a requirement outside the call center.    There are any number of reasons to record calls for including compliance, clarity and certainty and just management of customer quality service.   There are a variety of recording solutions in the market and they all have very different feature sets.  Do you need the ability to annotate calls?   To search on more complex parameters that time and date?     If an employee is being recorded and transfers that call to the HR Director of the company, should that segment of the call be recorded?   Do we want to record inbound calls only?  Both inbound and outbound?  Do you have multiple locations in your deployment?   Do employees have the right to start and stop recordings?  Add notes?  You will also have to consider how recording are to be stored and for how long?  This can have a huge impact on hardware requirements.   Just some of the characteristics you might want to consider as you look for for a recording solution.  The list of features is long and there are many options to chose from.   It is best to get a solid requirements document together and to make sure that you fully understand that recording alone is not all there is!

Recording Server Applications

ShoreTel has an optional recording function that can be very effective!   It can be installed as a single server solution or as a multiple server, multiple site solution.   It can record all calls, or just in one direction only.   You can select who is recorded and you can also select the archive location and time frame.   The solution is deployed on a ShoreTel server, either HQ or DVS depending on the deployment model.    There are actually four modules that can be installed: the recording server; the client side, the web player and the administrative module.   The solution uses the integrated recording functionality of the ShoreTel phone system and most of the usual user group and class of service settings apply.

Generally you will create a route point with a call stack as deep as the number of calls you want to simultaneously record, and put it on the server that will host the recording application.   You will also need a route point for the player and you will need to create a user who will proxy the recording functionality.   The server install is very simple and conforms to the usual point and click install expectations of a Windows server application.  The configuration is very simple, just provide the route point extension number, note the port for recording and click install!

The Administration Application

The Administrative application enables you to configure the specifics of the recording server and  to create profiles.  This application can be installed on the server or on a PC that can reach the server.   The configuration options are very easy to understand and simple to enter.  Basically they deal with where files should be stored and for how long.  You also have the option of either saving the recordings to a file system, or saving them as a voice message.

recorderadmin

You then create profiles that are used to customize different groups of extensions.   For example, you might want persistent recording for some extensions and not others.   This means that the recording continues even if the call is transferred.  Do you want inbound and outbound recordings?   And exactly who should be recorded!  The profile also dictates if recordings are to be made all the time, or sampled as a percentage or by a defined schedule.

Client Side Options

The client side application is installed on a pc and is optional tray icon.   You would use this only if your profile enables users to start and stop recordings and to tag recordings.   If this is not a privileged that you want to extend to those be recorded there is no need to install this optional application at each desk.  The use of the client is profile dependent.

recorderclient

The Player Application

The last application defines the player and is very useful for visually managing recordings.  You can use a phone to play recordings , but most folks find this web application to be more useful.   The application must be installed on a server as it uses IIS, but the recordings are played locally on a windows machine that has a sound card!   Each extension is listed and there is a time and date stamp on the recording file.  You have the option of storing other file information, like ShoreTel call properties to enrich the identification of a recording.

ShoreTel Recording Player

 

All in all, the ShoreTel Recording Application is a sweet suite!  It gets the job done and at a price point that compares more than favorably with the third party Recording applications found in the market place.   We recommend it for both call center and general recording applications when you are on a ShoreTel iPBX!   Give us a call and we can help point you in the right direction or get this installed and configured for you!

 

 

 

 

TEXT-2-AGENT Sending text and pictures to your call center?

Can you send a picture to your ShoreTel or CISCO Call Center

We have been integrating SMS to CISCO UCCX and ShoreTel Call Center deployments for customer service scenarios for some time.  The interface is very simple:  Login, pick a number from anywhere on the planet; assign a “keyword” and match it to an email address or list!   When someone text your “keyword” to your number, the text is converted to email and sent on to that address.   The email recipient can then hit reply and we convert the email back to SMS and forward it back to the original Cell phone.  Optionally, you can build a membership list with and auto response and the ability to send a bulk text to the list!

smsportal

What is new in Version 3.1

We have released Version 3.1 and it now makes it possible to send not only text (SMS), but pictures (MMS)to the “next available agent” in your Call Center.    The application now supports:

  • Inbound SMS to email Address based on “keyword” match with REPLY ability; – this enables you to use one number and many different keywords that point to different email addresses.  The recipient can hit reply like any other email and send a response back to the sender of the SMS, usually a client who has a cell phone!
  • Inbound MMS to default email address – enables a cell phone to send a photo or picture into the customer service organization which will route to the default email address.
  • Inbound SMS to outbound SMS; – Stealth mode, you can forward an incoming SMS to another SMS.
  • SMS to List based on “keyword” match – This enables you to build an SMS marketing list.   Each list is built by “keyword” match and you are able to send auto responds and “bulk” SMS
  • Outbound email to SMS;
  • Email to SMS – enables a customer service representative to send a text from an email client.   The address can be a keyword group list or an individual cell phone number.

Each transaction has a unique “ticket” number, all transactions are searchable, logged and archived for HIPPA and PIC compliance.

We are finding that Insurance, medical, auto and tech support applications in particular are receptive to the concept of enabling clients to send a picture by text to a customer service representative.

sms1

Want A demo?

We can easily set you up with a demo account. A basic single number solution with 500 SMS credits is about $25 a month!  Send the word “DEMO”   (all ONE word, watch that auto correct) to 424-348-4000 and include your email address for an example of how this could work on a ShoreTel ECC or CISCO UCCX; or just create an account!

Note – Your do NOT need a formal call center to implement this technology.   An email distribution list to customerservice@yourcompany.com works just as well!

Customer Service by the Numbers – brightmetrics!

In business what is measured gets done!

We subscribe to the business adage that what is measured gets done! For this reason key performance indexes are absolutely essential to the success of any customer service environment. How many contacts did we manage today? How long did a contact have to wait on hold before we were able to engage them? How much time does an average customer engagement actually take? What is the rate of abandonment and how long did a caller tolerate waiting before they gave up and hung up the phone? Sometimes we have to refer back in time and search “historical” records to locate a specific caller and verify the fact that they actually called! Other times, we have to be aware of “real time” data and be alert to what is happening right now! How many callers are waiting to engage us? So where do you obtain this type of information no how easy is it to obtain?

ShoreTel Call Accounting

In a ShoreTel solution there are at least three separate databases that keep this kind of information. The ShoreTel iPBX can generate historical reports out of the internal Call Detail Records log using the integrated report generator that you access through the ShorewareDirector administrative interface.   A great solution if you want to generate total trunk activity reports showing the aggregate number of inbound and outbound calls. It has detail reports that can even list every phone call made by every extension user in the system.  Ask it a simple question like how many phone calls did we receive this month from 202-555-1234 and you will quickly learn the limitations of this system solution.

The ShoreTel ECC has an internal historical data repository and a primitive report generator that has mystical templates that you can modify to create performance reports. You can not however, directly access the data in that database! The internal historical report generator has some serious limitations however. For example, do you want to generate a Group Activity report, showing all the desired metrics for all Groups in your deployment?  You would have do to this one Group at a time using the ShoreTel provide tools.

The ShoreTel C2G is a veritable cesspool of disjointed data elements or “events” like, extension 123 went off hook;  IRN 155 received an incoming request for service and Agent 789 logged in. Not very useful unless you are an accomplished SQL programming genius and want to spend your career figuring out the ShoreTel data dictionary while writing custom reports that assemble all of these events into meaningful record.

Though ShoreTel has some “standard reports” the fact is, you will want to generate custom reports unique to your environment. No matter how many templates are provided, we have yet to encounter a call center that did not have unique one off requirement when it came to reporting performance metrics.   Where is the data?  Is it in the PBX? or the call center?    How do you track a call that came into the PBX, connected with the call center and transferred to an offsite backup answering service?  Do I have to retain a SQL programmer to figure this all out? (Fortunately brightmetrics has already done that for you).

BrightMetric Illumination!

brightmetrics has created a powerful, yet very simple to navigate report generator available as a hosted solution. Connecting with the various databases internal to your ShoreTel deployment,  brightmetrics can sort and integrate data from the PBX side, the Contact Center side and that cesspool of events that contain information from both sides of the data equation.  Are you running ShoreTel Workgroups?  BrightMetric puts wheels on the information that would otherwise require professional application software add-ons from ShoreTel.

The brightmetrics user interface is easy to understand and navigate. The portal has video based help files and report templates for almost every type of data assembly.  You can generate reports on demand.  Save reports and schedule reports for future delivery.  The administrator can setup user accounts that provide access to specific report profiles and easy to understand “dashboards”.

Call Flow Diagrams can save an Admin’s life!

One of the most useful none numerical feature of brightmetrics is the ability to diagram your call flow.   Have you every wondered about your automated attendant options, Hunt Groups, Route Points and IRN’s?  Where do all the options lead?   If you press 1 for customer service, where does the caller go and what are the possible outcomes for that caller?    Do you have a complex SQL data dip over an OBDC connector from you ShoreTel ECC?  Want to see where all the routing options might point to?  This feature will map and diagram call flow from an Automated Attendant, IRN, Workgroup, ECC service and even an ECC Script!

callflowmap

 

How about Real-time Reports?

Historical reporting is extraordinarily important to both customer service and employee productivity.     Real-time information is also very necessary and important.  brightmetrics has introduce a new element to the product mix and now offers Real-time displays suitable for framing!   If you have ever tried to make a Wall Board out of ShoreTel supervisor desktop, you now how frustrating getting status information in front of the Call Center team can be!    Using a real-time event feed, brightmetrics can display comprehensive  status information formatted for legibility and clarity!

real_time_screenshot

 

The brightmetrics team!

brightmetrics has been making incremental improvements in the product from day one and post all of there progress, both features and bugs!  Today the are generally recognized as the only viable solution for ShoreTel call accounitng accuracy and flexibility.   More importantly, the company behind the brightmetrics product family is an astonishing group of people.  Usually, pre-sale is about as good as it gets in American business!   Not the case with brightmetrics!   The real story begins after you sign on with them.   The folks in this company from Jim Lewis the founder and CEO through each and every person you meet on the team, will  treat you with a level of commitment and customer focus, that in this day of “Internet shopping carts” is very rare.   Ask a question, open a support ticket, make a suggestion even offer a criticism and these folks will overwhelm you with not only time  but focused attention.    We have worked with many clients who use the brightmetrics solution and we have always had the most positive and productive experience.   Technology is great but its people who make the difference!

Want a Free 21 day trial?   Just text the word STATS to 630-GANDALF or 630-426-3253

Call, Click or Text your Contact Center?

Mobile devices are the most ubiquitous devices on the planet! Text messages are read almost instantly, never miss their target and are high impact, high content messages. Why continue to increase the number of incoming telephone lines to your call center? All you will do is cause more people to wait on hold, lowering your customer satisfaction scores while increasing your operating costs. The call center market is moving toward “purpose built” communication solutions through smartphone aps that pinpoint customer solutions and map directly to customer satisfaction solutions. Why not allow your clients to send a TEXT message to your call center? Chances are the Caller ID will have a higher match rate to client records in your CRM system then that of a land line! You can automated the reply, or route the text to the next available agent! Your client either gets an immediate call back, or is offered a scheduled call.

Why call an 800 number, self-navigate through a maze of Automated Attendant menus only to hear the ever present “please hold for the next available agent and your call will be answered in the order it is received”. A simple text message or smart phone ap, could automated that entire process! Your client never has to wait on hold! You agent has all the contact information and can instantly reply with a return text confirming wait time or suggest a scheduled call back time. After all it is a mobile phone, we don’t have to worry about where they might be when we do call back!

Call, Click or Text! A truly unified contact center needs to offer customers a text option. If your contact center is already routing email to the next available agent, we can bring up a TEXT solution in hours, not days. Compare the cost of a text message to the cost of a phone call! Compare customer satisfaction scores with immediate text feedback when compared to and increased wait time. The benefits are astonishing!

Text the keyword DEMO to 424-348-4000 include your email and we will send you a demo account for an automated demo.  SMS numbers can be provided Internationally.  Optionally open an account at PriorityMemberServices.com and we can get your ShoreTel ECC or CISCO UCCX setup for SMS and MMS!

Understanding ShoreTel Connect ECC Shifts!

Why use Shifts at all?

Most call centers have “on hours” and “off hours” that route callers to different options based on time of day and day of week.  ShoreTel ECC has a concept entitled SHIFTS.   Shifts have day types:  Weekday, Weekend and Holiday.    You  go to System Parameters in the Contact Center Director, then Schedules and the create a Shift.  Name the Shift something useful, specific the day type and the time the shift action should occur.   You then  apply it to the IRN you want to alter, open or close based on your shift schedule.   If you do not understand shifts, however  and how they are utilized by the ECC you are at risk of shutting down your call center unintentionally.

Let’s take a closer look at how Shifts work!

Each IRN in the ECC that uses Shifts, has a default setting that specifies where the call should route, if there is no corresponding shift instruction.    The Shift might specify a Script, Service or Device.  For example you might have Shift named “M-F”  defined for day type Weekdays that is active at 8:00AM and specifies that the call should be routed to a script for handling calls during “on hours”.    You might then also add another Shift named “Lunch” for a day type Weekdays and set if to activate at 11:59 AM and point it to script that plays an announcement alerting callers that the call center is closed for lunch and invites them to call back at 1PM (never happen but it makes for a good lesson example).    Now we create another Shift also named “M-F” for day type Weekday and set it to activate at 1PM.  This action points the calls back to the script for “on hours”.   Clearly, you also created a Shift for “M-F” for day types Weekday and set the action time at 5PM.   The action is to send the call to the script for After hours.   Make sense?   Seem easy?

ShiftMenu

Danger – The trouble Spot with Shifts!

Let’s assume you have an IRN for Sales and an IRN for Technical Support and you apply the shifts we defined above, to both IRN’s, but on the sales IRN they do not close for lunch!   For this reason, you do not apply the Shift entitled “Lunch” to the Sales IRN.   Let’s assume the default route for the Sales IRN is the Closes script, so that after hours calls defaul if not specified in the Shift list to the after hours call handling.   So what do you think will happen to the Sales IRN at 11:59?

ShiftIRN

The fact that you created a Shift and one now exists for “Lunch” during the week is the important take away.   Once you apply Shifts to an IRN, ALL shifts apply even if you did not apply that shift to your IRN.  In this simple example,  the Sales IRN will follow the Default route because you did not specific an alternative destination in you shift list on the Sales IRN for Lunch time.   The fact that the Shift exists in the ECC database, requires that you specify an action for that Shift!   This is where most folks get into trouble!

What Version of ECC is your Shift definition?

In versions before Connect and ECC 8,  Shifts required you to open and close a shift.  After version 8,  you are not required to close a shift but it would be a good practice to do so!  You must account for all shifts, even if they are to relevant to your IRN.   The only way around this is to NOT apply any Shifts to an IRN.  If the IRN does not use Shifts at all, it will ignore all Shifts!   A bit confusing but once you “get it”  it is easy.

When in Doubt press Explain Shifts!

In the IRN definition press “Explain Shift” and then select the day you want to explore.   The list will populate with all the Shifts that impact that IRN.   Remember it does not matter if it is on your list!  What matters is that the Shift exists for the ECC and you must specify an action, or in the absence of a direction, the default destination for that IRN will be followed!

ExplainShift

 

 

Configuring Compliance Recording with CISCO Workforce Optimzaiton

For compliance will you Record Audio or Screen?

There are a range of products and services that can be used to “record” phone calls on a CISCO CUCM, UCCX and UCCE. These products range in sophistication from services that simply save a wav file of a recording which you can search for by time and date, to very sophisticated recorders with advanced index and search capabilities. Some products even include speech recognition functions that can be used to search files for a particular call or even handle a recording base on the audio content.  CISCO Workforce Optimization and Advanced Quality Management adds desktop screen recording and metrics that can also be used for evaluations and service observing.

All of these products have one characteristic in common; they require you to configure a recording capability in your CUCM to copy the media stream from the target source to the recording server. There are a number of options for doing this including SPAN recording and other options that require you to configure your Ethernet switches to accommodate the recording function.  The simplest method to copy media streams is to use the Built in Bridge or BiB of a CISCO phone.  Clearly this can only work for a specific set of CISCO phones, but most phones support this function.

General Recipe!

The following is a basic general recipe for setting up your CISCO CUCM for recording and identifies some of the decisions you have to make along the way.

  • Gateway or Phone;
  • Notification or not; Notify the caller, or the Agent or both?
  • Route Pattern for Recorder along with a Partition and Calling Search Space.
  • Create a Recording Profile;
  • SIP Trunk Setup between CUCM and Recording server; and options CUCM and Gateway;
  • Identify Users and add them to the proper CTI Recording and Monitoring Group;
    CTIPemissions
  • Enable BiB on the phone;
    BiB
  • Enable Recording on the DN;  Auto always or Selective and reference Recording Profile;

Basically you are creating a conference call between the “source media”, the CUCM and the Recording server.    The actual configuration has a lot of details and you will need to carefully consider each element, but the actual setup is routine for your average deployment engineer.   We summarized them below in video format.

You can also use CISCO XML services to enable SELECTIVE recording in which a phone is recorded only on the demand of the user.  This uses the Calabrio XML api and Phone Service option in CISCO.  This will enable the user to push RECORD, PAUSE, RESUME and STOP.  The second video walks you through the configuration options for that service.  This can also be deployed in Finesse as a desktop button!

Build ShoreTel Connect inside your own private Cloud using AWS!

Placing your ShoreTel HQ in the “cloud”?

Moving the ShoreTel HQ server to a data center to increase system resiliency, reduce or eliminate down time and increasing overall recovery times has always been high on the check list for business continuity and disaster preparedness.    Our preferred “data center” however is Amazon Web Services, or AWS for short!   We have been deploying ShoreTel in AWS as a “private” cloud solution for some time and have several blogs on the subject.

Do you already have an Amazon Account?

If  you have a regular old Amazon book buying account, you already have all you need to log into AWS and get started building out your own virtual private cloud!    Though there is a lot to learn,  in less than 15 minutes you can spin up a Windows 2012 Server in a virtual private network and then link it back to your onsite location with an AWS provided VPN Gateway!

The simplest ShoreTel/AWS deployment model

The simplest of VoIP deployment models is the placement of the ShoreTel Connect Server in an AWS Region and availability zone of your choice.    Typically, we defined a private subnet in three different AWS availability zones and then launched a ShoreTel Connect server.    The availability zones provide additional resiliency  options.  It is even possible to setup an Elastic load balancer than can move from one ShoreTel HQ server to a standby duplicate in another availability zone in the very unlikely situation of a AWS availability zone going off line!

You can interconnect your ShoreTel Connect VPC  with your remote sites over a VPN, ultimately moving to a “direct connect” circuit and only using the VPN for backup.   The remote sites will have ShoreGear resources to support localized carrier access and onsite user phone services.   The distributed nature of the ShoreTel architecture makes this a natural deployment model.   This is  by far the simplest of the deployment options and one that everyone who is considering moving a ShoreTel HQ server to a data center should consider.

Even Ingate in the Cloud?

With ShoreTel Version 14, virtual switch resources make it possible to create the entire deployment in your VPC.  You can even deploy your Ingate as a virtual Session Border Controller, in the AWS cloud and centralize your SIP carrier access.    This is a bit more demanding then spinning up a Windows server but now that AWS enables you to import vmware machines, it is an exciting option.

Importing vmware based ShoreTel machines

The secret to deploying ShoreTel vSwitches in the AWS cloud is to first build the machines as vmware machines in your local environment with an IP that can be duplicated in your private virtual network.   Once your machines are created, you can then import them into AWS.

The options for deploying VOIP in your own “private cloud” have never been more flexible.   Your CFO is going to be impressed when comparing AWS to the cost of building out your own data center or renting space in a collocation facility.   You have all of the benefits and none of the cost associated with a typical infrastructure build out.    Connection options are unlimited and you can access AWS facilities on a global bases!

The Video clip demonstrates a ShoreTel HQ and ECC Server in an AWS VPC, with a VPN back to the main office site.   The office site contains ShoreGear switches for SIP trunk access and 400 series phone support.  There is a synergy when integrating AWS and ShoreTel that every CIO should be seriously considering.    Give us a call and we can help make this happen for your company!