Cisco EIM and CAD single login

jevgep · ‎05-05-2009

Could anyone point me on document which describe hot to correctly setup CAD to work with Cisco EIM. As I understand it is possible to open EIM home page(http://eim/default) in CAD integrated browser. Is it possible to configure single login for CAD and Cisco EIM ?

geoff · ‎05-05-2009

The embedded browser and setting the home page is the easy bit. I've done EIM a few times and have never tried the idea, but what I believe some have done is write a CAD agent workflow attached to the successful login.

This would be an HTTP workflow to set up the query string passing agent ID and password in the required form and hit the EIM web site.

Cisco had mentioned that they had this working and would make the workflow available - but I have not seen it.

Regards,

Geoff

kimv · ‎11-30-2010

I have discussed this with several customers and will offer the following insight / feedback regarding the use of "single sign-on" of EIM Agent UI within the CAD Embedded browser. There is a bit of a discrepancy between CIM and CAD documentation surrounding what is supported / possible and how exactally the embedded browser would behave. Here is what I am referring to... the following [fairly generic] statement within the CIM SRND would indiate that it is "supported" and is a feature that is possible...

CIM 4.3.2 SRND, page 15 states, "The ability for agents to launch Cisco Interaction Manager within CAD Embedded Browser, and work with email, chat, and voice using a unified interface."

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/cisco_interaction_manager/cim_43/design/guide/im431srnd.pdf

However, the following statement within the CAD User Guide begins to notify users of possible caviates to look out for...

CAD User Guide, page 61 states, "The integrated browser is not a version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. While the integrated browser and Internet Explorer share the underlying operating systems browser engine, there are many features that are part of Internet Explorer (such as tabbed browsing) that are not available to the integrated browser."

This guide also states... Your administrator can configure specific web pages to display in each browser tab. If the administrator does not do this, the tab is blank.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/ipcc_enterprise/ipccenterprise8_0_1/user/guide/cad80cceug.pdf

My experience with some customers whom have opened TAC cases on this subject report the following types of faults; not having the ability to use scroll bars, some parts of the UI not able to fit within the embedded browser space due to not being able to use 'frames' witin the embedded browser, pop-up windows fail as they open within tabs which open as "about:blank" in CAD 8.0.

This inconsistancy in the documentation of the two items CIM vs. CAD is currently being discussed within an open TAC SR which (once resolved) should shed some light on this topic and clear up expectations.

I am continuing to monitor the progress of that SR and will make certain that the results / resolution is posted when avaialble.

geoff · ‎12-01-2010

Good insight, Kim. Thanks for posting.

Regards,

Geoff

villarrealed · ‎12-01-2010

I opened a TAC case a while back and received the folowing response from the TAC engineer:

In regards to this SR, 614149241 : CIM Desktop Single Sign On. I have come across an internal defect for a pending change to CIM documentation that I think speaks to your concerns / questions regarding Single Sign-on.

I am not able to share the defect ID with you as it is coded as internal and not visible via cisco.com, but the following are the details.

***********************************
Defect Title - "EIM / WIM 4.3 Single Signon limitation"

Description - To be removed from the CIM 4.3.x release notes. / "Single Sign-On and Single Sign-Off for Blended Agents: Single Sign-On provides the ability for blended agents to login to all media queues with a single click from an external utility that is configured to post the login URL with blended parameters. Inversely, Single Sign-Off results in blended agents getting logged out from all media queues, upon a single click of the Logout button. This capability can be used in conjunction with the Cisco Agent Desktop (CAD). When running the EIM-WIM user interface in the CAD integrated browser, the CAD workflow actions can be used to build an automated login/logout to EIM-WIM when the agent logs in to or out of CAD."

Reason / Explanation - As, this is possible through AS/PS engagement for CIM with IE. For CAD since a workflow needs to be configured for every user and username and password passed in clear text which is a security risk it is not feasible for CAD.

I was able to get it to work, but the result was not optimal. To Kim's point below, there are some issues with using the embeded CIM desktop. Two issues that come to mind are pop-ups that create a new tab in the CAD desktop rather than pop up and a 60 second wait for the CAD desktop to close after the agent logs out and presses the close button.

If you want to try the single sign on, I would recommend that you create a workflow that launches an external IE browser window and passes the agent credentials. Now this is a security risk because the credentials are passed in clear text and it requires that you have a standard password for all CIM agents. The URL that I used in testing single sign is:

http://YOURSERVER/system/web/view/platform/common/login/top.jsp?partitionId=1&userName=NA&password=NA&terminalId=NA&terminalPassword=NA&isAspectUser=false&locale=en_us

You will need to pass the username, AGENT ID in CAD workflow variables, as the userName parameter in the URL above and you will need to pass the password, either a standard password (12345) or the same as the username, as the password parameter in the URL above.

Since the CAD workflow variables only have the agent ID and agent name, you would also need to configure your agent's username to be the same as thier peripheral ID in Agent Explorer.