Ask the Expert: Finesse for UCCX, next generation agent desktop and transitioning from CAD

[ciscomoderator]

This topic is a chance to discuss more about the new agent desktop from Cisco - ‘Finesse’. The discussion will be more about generic capabilities of Finesse and how it fits into the UCCX environment. This is a chance to discuss more about the new features introduced into Finesse UCCX to provide a 100% parity with the features of CAD. We can also discuss about the transition from CAD to Finesse – best practices, support for migration, limitations and things to look out for.

Ask your Questions from March 13 through March 27, 2015

Abhiram Kramadhati is a Technical Solutions Manager with the Contact Centre business unit. He has been working with Cisco Contact Centre since he joined Cisco. During four years at Cisco, he has built his expertise around Cisco UCCX telephony applications, Java Telephony API (JTAPI) integration, Cisco UCCX system behavior, LDAP components, and Cisco UCCX as IP interactive voice response in Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) environments. He also works on other technologies, including Unified Communications Manager and UCCE. He has been involved in many technical escalations in the Asia Pacific region. Abhiram also holds a CCIE in voice (40065).

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[jimmy-mcintyre]

Hi Abhiram

Thanks for the reply.

We have a customer who wants to change the state of an agent, and is unwilling to use CAD.  I believe a workflow can be created in CAD to change the state of an agent at a specific time.

They do not have any logic within their existing script to define business hours, so if an agent stays logged in then the calls never go to the out hours/busy options.

I guess the solution is to always have this controlled within the script in future as there is no option within Finesse even with the ability to create customer workflows?

Regards

Jim

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

Hi Jim,

Going the way of Finesse would be the best way forward since CAD will not be present starting with UCCX 11.0. 

For this customer's requirement, the Finesse agent can be logged out from the supervisor. Here is a screenshot:

 

Do let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Abhiram Kramadhati, CCIE Voice # 40065

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi Abhiram 

Leaving aside for a moment that CAD is going to cease, what in your view are the best points around Finesse compared to CAD?

There are a few things that CAD can do, that Finesse cannot... so how would you encourage someone to switch?

Aaron

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

Hi Aaron,

That is a great question, thanks for that. 

Cisco Finesse is the next-generation agent desktop from Cisco which is browser based, against CAD which is a thick-client. This, according to me, is one of the biggest advantages over CAD and this provides scalability that has been asked in the field for a while. No more client side updates, no more windows updates blocking the agent software etc.

Finesse is completely browser based and incorporates the latest web technologies such as Web 2.0 and REST APIs. Staying on the web capabilities, one thing to note is that the true power of Finesse lies in the fact that it can be completely customised by the customer/partner by building their own gadgets. The Cisco Developer services has a great collection of sample gadgets in case you want to play with them: https://developer.cisco.com/site/finesse/downloads/sample-gadgets/

With gadgets, you can customise your agent desktop to include all your applications into one window - voice calls, emails, chats, CRM, 3rd party applications etc. so that the agents can perform all their activities without switching windows. The interaction between the servers and the browser is done via REST (REST APIs are now exposed by Cisco products such as Social Miner, MediaSense) which is the industry standard. 

The other feature is the integration of the CUIC Live data into the Finesse desktops. The CUIC Live Data is a new feature introduced to provide real time information, and by default these reports can be seen on the Finesse as gadgets which enables easier administration of the contact center by the supervisors.

These are just some of the things I can think of when I discuss advantages of Finesse, however there is a great white paper that talks about the comparison between Finesse and CAD and can help you in understanding the capabilities of both the agent desktops: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-express/white-paper-c11-730883.html

With UCCX 10.6, Finesse now has a feature-parity with CAD - voice (inbound and outbound), email, chat.

Cheers,

Abhiram Kramadhati, CCIE Voice # 40065

[ncraven]

"Feature-parity with CAD" in 10.6 for inbound voice? Aren't multiple layouts, and agent state-change and time-based workflows still missing? And the "built-in" variables for the layout do not include many of the call variables (such as calling and called party numbers) that are available with CAD. These limitations create interesting challenges when all I want to do is provide screen pops that resemble the ones currently used with CAD.

[Anthony Holloway]

+5

And the ability to send keystroke macros to other apps.

And the ability to run arbitrary programs.

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

Hi Anthony,

I couldn't agree more and the capabilities with the macros seem to be something that has been a major concern. I was working with Ryan on this to reduce. the gap between the requirements and the actual features - hopefully that should be done soon.

I would like to take this feedback mechanism in a more streamlined, official basis so that we can follow through on this and I have heard from Neil too about the challenges faced. 

If you would like, you could send me an email to akramadh@cisco.com with the most common challenges you have seen in migrating to finesse on UCCX and what are the most common features you see missing. A sense which I gather is that while we try to load the 'capabilities' of Finesse, the feature set required might have to be looked at more closely.

Cheers,

Abhiram Kramadhati, CCIE Voice # 40065

[James Hawkins]

Hello,

Thanks for answering the questions. With Finesse when an inbound voice call arrives the calling number and CTI port number are shown in the call control box. Is there any way of hiding the CTI port? - it is not much use to the agent.

On a second point does Finesse only support one XML layout for all agents or can it be controlled on a per team basis? - I cannot see how to do it on a per team basis but I have only done one Finesse deployment so far.

James

[Sivanesan Rathinam]

James - As per current design in 10.6 you cannot disable showing CTI Ports in Finesse Screen, Where as in Phone u can aviod those by enabling CLID 

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

Hi James,

Thanks for your question. 

As far as the CTI Port is concerned, you could explore adding a display name/number for your Call Control Group but it will always be the CTI port which will be displayed there when the call is delivered. There is a support for CallerID where the CallerID is displayed instead of the CTI Port on the phone. This is not supported with Jabber, but will work with other phones. Please note that this does not change the behavior on the desktop but the phone only. More details: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/crs/express_10_0/release/guide/UCCX_BK_RA1A036D_00_release-notes_release10.pdf

Regarding your second question - layouts can be set on a per team basis. You can go to the 'Team Resources' tab in the Finesse administration and modify the layout by clicking on 'Override System Default':

Hope that answers your question, but please let me know if you have any further questions or need any clarifications.

Cheers,

Abhiram Kramadhati, CCIE Voice # 40065

[ncraven]

The DN of the CTI port is only shown while the agent is reserved. But why is it shown at all? It has no meaning to an agent. The DN of the route point would be a far more useful. Better, yet, let me have access to CallControl.jsp so I can customize.

[Marcelo Morais]

Hi Abhiram Kramadhati,

 congratulations for this excellent topic.

 I have two questions:

1) License

 Will be any differences in license? Any roadmap to insert the Contact Center license in Prime License Manager, like CUCM & CUC? 

2) Finesse for UCCX and UCCE:

 Finesse will be the only Agent Desktop, for UCCX and UCCE, and CAD support will only be available till UCCX version 10.6. Are there any differences between 'Finesse for UCCX' and 'Finesse for UCCE', like Do's x Don'ts? As soon as we are going to have only one Agent Desktop (Finesse) ... is there any roadmap where we are going to have just one Contact Center, like CUCM?

Regards.

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

Hi Marcelo,

Thanks for your question. 

There are no changes to the licenses you would apply with the UCCX in terms of the agent. As in, the seat license count, the license consumption all remain the same. While on the same topic, just a quick reminder that the CUIC has been updated to provide a stock report of license consumption. We have had requests to  get a replacement to the command "show uccx cad license usage" and that is being considered. 

At this point, there is no specific information on the roadmap for the Prime License Manager for UCCX but allow me some time, let me talk to the product manager for this and provide a concrete update.

In terms of differences between Finesse for UCCX and UCCE, I don't see much from a user perspective. There are a few such as:

• Blind transfer support exists in UCCE, but not UCCX. This in turn comes down to how the call control APIs work in UCCX and UCCE. The differences are documented in the developer guide: https://developer.cisco.com/site/uccxapi/overview/
• Slight difference in the wrap-up code behaviour
• Agent state difference in non-ICD calls. Example: a non ICD outbound call in UCCX will show the agent to be in NOT-READY, but will show the agent to be in TALKING in UCCE. 

So there are a few differences in the way it works in the backend and how it works from a user perspective, but they are very minimal and just going thorough all your customer-specific agent actions will reveal the behaviour.

Cheers,

Abhiram Kramadhati, CCIE Voice # 40065

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

Hi Marcelo,

Just a follow-up on the prime licensing question - I had a chat with the product management. There are plans to adopt a single new licensing model - Smart Licensing Solution - across the product portfolio. UCCX too will be aligned with the same. 

We have no further details at this stage, but there will be announcements as and when there are more details available.

Having one Contact Center would be a very long shot considering the different agent capacities they address - UCCX (~400 agents) and UCCE (~12000 agents). To bridge and address the mid-capacity segment, the PCCE was launched (http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Packaged_CCE). However, looking at one single contact center is a different ball game altogether :)

I hope that clarifies, please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Abhiram Kramadhati, CCIE Voice # 40065

[Abhiram Kramadhati]

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