Monitor extension in UCCX

[Phil Bradley]

I am trying to find the best solution for line monitoring from another IP phone. We currently have UCCX with call manager 8.6. Basically what I need to accomplish is the ability to monitor and pickup an extension from a remote phone. I have an agent that stays logged in after hours (24-7 dispatch) and we have remote phones in break-rooms that they can pickup when away from their desk. This should parallel their deskphone so UCCX knows when that "extension is in use". Any ideas? I know that I can assign the DN to the remote phone but I am not sure how this will affect the UCCX system on detecting the phone in use.

[Phil Bradley]

One update on this. If I assign the same DN to another phone it creates an issue when trying to login to UCCX. The user cannot login once they logout because it states that the extension is on multiple phones.

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi Phil

I think you'll struggle somewhat with this. Any shared line, pickup or other scenario is typically not supported for UCCX due to the way it uses lines and CTI.

You may be better off simply sending calls to a hunt group that rings the break-room phones during the hours that staff aren't sitting in the normal contact center location (though this would have negative effects on reporting).

Alternately maybe have the staff log in to phones/IPPA when they go into the break room.

Or if you have wireless switch to a laptop/CAD/CIPC setup and allow them to take their laptops with them.

Aaron

[Phil Bradley]

Hello Aaron

Our dispatch center is manned 24/7 by one person and they use a 7965 desk phone when in the dispatch center. At night when they leave the room to take a break this is when the problem occurs. Our previous phone switch had call coverage in these situations where the phone would ring while away from their desk at locations such as break rooms and they had the ability to pick up the call from any of these phones. We also use headsets but they can lose coverage at certain locations in the building. I may look for better headsets to accomplish this also.

I am afraid if I put phones in these locations if they log-in then they may forget to log-out. I know there is a global setting to set the agents state to not ready if they dont answer but this is not a good solution overall since I do not want this effect on all agents phones. Maybe there is a way to accomplish this on certain agents only through scripting?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi

Anything you do with scripting (like diverting calls out to a hunt group or group of extensions if no one is logged in for example) would work, but would have negative effects on your reporting (basically sending calls off the UCCX system = no good reports on queue time, agent behaviour etc) and queueing .. which may not be an issue if it's quiet when you use this function.

Re: agents going auto not ready - the default is that agents that don't answer are made not ready. It's always a bad idea to disable this as it screws up queueing and reporting and effectively turns off state management. I've seen it turned off loads of times, and it's always when I'm dragged in to 'fix' it (i.e. explain to people what the system is designed to do, and turn it on again). Usually people turn it off to avoid having to 'force' their staff to click the green traffic light button...

Regards

Aaron

[Phil Bradley]

We actually have turned off the feature to change the state of an agent to not ready after no answer. I know this is not exactly related to the post of line monitoring but I need to make sure it doesn't create any unwanted "side effects" like you mentioned above. We only have the standard seats for UCCX so I am not sure we can even use CAD which I assume is the green traffic light that you are referring about above. Right now the agent logins via the service button on their 7965 and changes states from the phone also. I did not see a good way to monitor the state on the phone so I did not want the agent going to not ready if they missed a call since they would need the queue screen up on the phone to show their current state. I have not seen any bad effects of queueing yet but not to say I may be missing something. It appears that if they miss a call while logged in then the system keeps their place in the queue line but looks for the next available agent. Granted if the same agent is the only one ready then the call would get delivered back to them which is what I want. In the dispatch example above I only have one agent so I want the phone to keep ringing them until they answer. As far as reporting goes it looks like when they miss a call the number of calls presented verses answered is greater which is ok. Do I need to look for other issues? Sorry for the long post..

Phil

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi Phil

Yep - green traffic light is CAD, but it's the same as going 'Ready' via IPPA (albeit a bit easier).

There can be lots of side effects... it can screw over reports, so any that focus on the agent side especially will be bad. I've seen occasions where calls seem to stick on an agent when others are available and because there is always an available agent (even if someone has just wandered off from their desk for a while or gone home and not logged out) it limits what you can do with script logic once a call is queued. It also leads to scenarios where phones randomly ring on empty desks, so someone will helpfully set up pickup groups for the agents... then things really start breaking down. However, if it works for you, don't sweat it :-)

That said, I'd probably weigh up whether or not this dispatch chap needs to be an agent at all. Maybe a hunt group with his extension, plus a pickup group with audio/visual notification belling the break room phones might be an idea.

One other thing - it sounds like you are saying that the IPPA has to be called up by pressing Services on the handset? It should persist on the screen more (to the point where it limits some other phone functions). Usually this indicates the system is misconfigured - the 'telecaster' user isn't set up.

The best way to do this is to go into Desktop Administrator web page (https:///teamadmin/main.cda). In CAD Configuration settings there should be a spot you can put in a username/password. Basically the user needs the same rights (and same phone associations) as the UCCX RMCM user, so I set this user to the same creds as that service to cut down on maintenance. IPPA uses it to push stuff (like refreshes of the IPPA screen, enterprise data etc) to the phone displays. Once this is on agents have to manage calls a little differently.. you'll see what I mean.

Aaron

[Phil Bradley]

Hello Aaron,

Can you elaborate a bit more on the telecast user? This user was set at default and I have not messed with the CAD configuration. Right now we have standard seats in UCCX 8.5 and users hit the services button and then select the IPCC login option that we created for single sign on. Once they get logged in they then can see number of calls in the queue, state, and longest queue time. Their available softkeys are update, state, and cdata from this screen. If they hit the services button again it puts them to their phone homescreen. Here they do not see any data from IPCC such as their state and calls queued. They would need to hit the services button again to see this data. Are you saying that the telecaster user actually sends this to the home screen on the phone?

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi Phil

The telecaster user is used to make that services menu persist on the screen, rather than disappearing and having to be called up. I think it's also used to push enterprise data etc to the phones. It doesn't put anything on the 'background' screen, just controls the dispaly of the 'services' button stuff more closely.

Have a look on your CUCM, check the end users and app user menus to see if 'telecaster' has been added. Like I say, I prefer to set it to the same username/pass as the UCCX RM system user as it needs the same rights.

Aaron

[Phil Bradley]

Once I do have the CSQ stats screen up on the IP phone it will stay up until I hit the services button again. I also do receive state and queue updates real-time as long as I have this screen up. The telecaster user is not setup in CUCM but I did change the user in desktop administrator to match that of the RMCM user. I have not noticed anything different on the phone screen yet.

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi Phil

You'll need to restart the BIPPA service to see any difference at all in the behaviour.

Regards

Aaron

[Phil Bradley]

Hello Aaron,

I actually did restart the BIPPA service when I set the telecaster user to the RMCM user. The IPPA still appears to act the same way as it did before. Looking at the screenshots in the IPPA user guide it doesn't appear to be any different than what I see now. Is it possible that UCCX 8.5 does not require that telecaster to be setup for the IPPA agent? I have attached a screenshot of what I see on the 7945 desktop phone.

Thanks,

Phil

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi

It doesn't look different after this, it just acts a bit different. I

You should find that some actions that resulted in the screen you grabbed there dissappearing don't, and it's on the screen more than not. Also any enterprise data you push out should appear when a call is sent, wrap codes should work at the end of the call and so on.

Aaron

[Phil Bradley]

Hello,

Ok I do see the enterprise data when I click the CData softkey above. It appears that the CData does not refresh real-time though. This may be by design but it sure would be nice to put ANI on the CSQ screen above. I know the CSQ stats screen refreshes automatically which is nice however the IPPA agent cannot tell who the call is coming from on this screen. It only shows the CTI port calling. Since I have the telecaster user setup now is it possible to display ANI on the CSQ stats screen?

Thanks,

Phil

[Phil Bradley]

Hello Aaron,

I now have the issue resolved with the IPPA enterprise data not passing. The solution according to the CDA 8.5 install guide is that single sign on and the enterprise data login work in conjunction with each other. First the IPPA agent will click the single sign on service button and then click the service linked to the IPAgentInitial.jsp service to start passing the enterprise data. Thanks for your input on resolving this one. Do you know if there is a way that we can split this thread since the last part doesnt really pertain to the orginal post? I will go ahead and vote for your responses on the enterprise data and IPPA agent.

As far as the monitoring of an extension problem we will probably come up with multiple solutions to this. First they can use their wireless headset when visiting the locations such as the "breakroom". The second solution is to purchase a Cisco wireless phone and set it beside the main 7965 desk phone. This phone will always be logged out of the UCCX queue until they need it. So when they go to these other locations they will need to log out of their desk phone and then log into the wireless phone to take with them. This way if they do forget to logout or make themselves not ready then the phone will be beside their desk to answer and then logout.

Again thanks for all of the input!

Phil