cancel
Showing results forĀ 
Search instead forĀ 
Did you mean:Ā 
cancel
23071
Views
30
Helpful
62
Replies

Ask the Expert: Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (Unified CCX) 11.0 and Beyond: Feature Design, Deployment, and Troubleshooting

Monica Lluis
Level 9
Level 9

This topic is a chance to discuss more about  the new features in Unified Contact Centre Express 11.0 and what to expect in 11.5. The discussion will be focused around the new features and functionality such as Finesse IPPA, Remote Expert Mobile integration and so on. This is also a chance to discuss about upgrade mechanisms and planning for the 11.0 upgrading, while also positioning your customers for the 11.5 release coming in the next few months.

 

To participate in this event, please use the Join the Discussion : Cisco Ask the Expert button below to ask your questions

Ask questions from Monday, July 25 to August 5th, 2016

Featured Expert

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 his five 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 collaboration (40065).

Abhiram might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the  Contact Center Community 

Find other  https://supportforums.cisco.com/expert-corner/knowledge-sharing.

**Ratings Encourage Participation! **
Please be sure to rate the Answers to Questions

I hope you and your love ones are safe and healthy
Monica Lluis
Community Manager Lead
62 Replies 62

HI Seth,

thanks for the hint, that was one of the options, which we considered. Nevertheless as you say, I was wondering, if there is different mechanism in the plans, so that we can let users use their Jabber Voice, instead of CIPC and keep it simple :-).

Thanks.

Michal

Hi Michal, 

I guess Seth answered a part of your question (thanks, Seth!). But to add on to that, it could be something that is possible but that might not be the focus because the Finesse as an agent desktop is only bothered about the extension. So we add an observer on the extension and the corresponding device, and whatever device we wish to control needs to be taken care of by the CUCM. But selecting a device is only one part, the fundamental challenge is not to have two active CTI observers for the same line - that is what happens when there is a shared line. So, even though Finesse might choose to select a device, the CTI observer added on a line will be added on all the devices which are part of the shared line and therefore will cause a lot of issues in signalling. 

- When the reporting user/supervisor logs into CUIC to run the reports he/she has permissions for, there can be certain collections available to make sure, that the desired queues/agents can be selected to run the report on. Nevertheless, if you run the report only with the time range selected and other fields are left blank all of the data ( all queues, agents, etc) is shown. Any plan options how to make all of the fields of the filter as mandatory meaning, that the supervisor will be forced to select appropriate values without the possibility to leave the fields blank?

For this, I would suggest creating a copy of the report you are running and then setting the default filter.

1) Create a copy of the report
2) Set a default filter with the desired queues and agents selected: 
3) Select the 'Bypass Filter' checkbox: 
This will ensure that the report viewer does not have an option to select a wrong filter, and you get to control this. This might be a cleaner option because making all the filter options mandatory might not be the best way because there are certain reports that cannot accept more than one filter condition. So hopefully this recommendation works for you. 

Any options - how to trigger external application on agents PC from Finesse? (Similar to what is done from the Desktop Admin for the CAD?)

There is a sample gadget here which can trigger a windows CLI and thus a thick client pop-up. Something similar to this can be used, but it is not 1:1 with CAD because of the thick client vs thin agent desktop difference. Can you review this gadget and see if it helps?
https://developer.cisco.com/site/finesse/downloads/sample-gadgets/ (ThickClientScreenpop Sample Gadget 2.0)

Regards,
Abhiram Kramadhati
Technical Solutions Manager, CCBU
CCIE Collaboration # 40065

Hi Abhiram, first of all thanks for the answers.

I have one additional comment for the CUIC.

What you are suggesting is one option, which takes away from the supervisor to edit/choose the filter and time range them selves.

This is quite limiting if you need a bit of reporting, but you are not allowed to share this across the teams.

If there was the ability to choose, which field must be filled in from the fields provided for given report, that would solve this problem.

Thanks.

Hi Michal, 

Agreed, it might not cater to your requirement a 100%. CUIC 11.5 has a fully changed UI. Preview below:

The recent session from Cisco Live on 11.5 gives an insight into this: https://www.ciscolive.com/online/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=92550&backBtn=true, would really encourage viewing this. The user experience with running reports and items around it will be improved significantly. 

Regards,
Abhiram Kramadhati
Technical Solutions Manager, CCBU
CCIE Collaboration # 40065

Hi Abhiram,

Do you know what versions of UCCX will be supported by CUIC 11.5?

thanks

Seth

Hey Abhiram.

About UCCX Scripting.

  • In the "Get Reporting statistics" we can select different types of agent stats, but we are missing a state "OutBound Talking". Right now when a agent makes a outbound call (Non-IPCC), the state changes to "Not-Ready"
    • .
  • Be able to in the "Get Reporting statistics", "Not-Ready Resources" state to use Not-Ready Reason codes as and state option. We have a lot of customers where we should check if all the agents are in a specific not-ready reason code. 
  • Please fix the Timeout step in the "Make Rest Call" step. :-). This doesnt work, and right now it times-out after about 50 sec, if the url is unavailable. (Really long time for a customer to wait .-) )
  • A "Get JSON Document data" step like the "Get XML Document data" step.

CORE UCCX

  • A function like the CUCM CDR/CMR records export. Many customers wants to have the UCCX db data in there own dataware house. I could be really cool if we can provide this data "on the fly" like cucm does with it cdr/cmr data. Maybe a file for each table, that ftp/sftp data every 5/10/15 min or on a hourly basis if the is some new data. ?
  • More logic sorting in the different list in the uccx administration pages. For the RmCm list in the administration, you can sort the agent list by the different columns. but when you go into and agent and then goes back, the sorting in the list is back to default.
  • Be able to change Outbound dialer Type (Predictive/Progressiv) on a campaign.

CUIC

  • Live Data reports permalinks without authentication.

Just one question more.

At the "Partner Summit" in amsterdam back in marts, we had a long talk about feature request etc. Do you have that list ? I think we where nearly 100 partners that came with requests and more

Thanks

Thomas Johannesen

Hi Thomas, 

Good to know you were at the partner summit! It is run by my teammates, I am just in another part of the world - Sydney :) So that list is actively refreshed and many of the items from here make it to that list where we review it with the product management to ensure it gets into our new releases. 

Now, coming to the questions:

In the "Get Reporting statistics" we can select different types of agent stats, but we are missing a state "OutBound Talking". Right now when a agent makes a outbound call (Non-IPCC), the state changes to "Not-Ready"

The Get Reporting Statistics step is purely for a call routing purpose and from a call routing perspective, the UCCX considers any agent not available for a call to be NOT-READY. So, hence we don't make a difference between agents in not-ready based on their reason codes. This is however reflected in the live data reports, which is available for supervisors to be embedded in their finesse desktops.

Please fix the Timeout step in the "Make Rest Call" step. :-). This doesnt work, and right now it times-out after about 50 sec, if the url is unavailable. (Really long time for a customer to wait .-) )

I didn't realise this was broken, sorry about that. Which version are you trying this on?

A function like the CUCM CDR/CMR records export. Many customers wants to have the UCCX db data in there own dataware house. I could be really cool if we can provide this data "on the fly" like cucm does with it cdr/cmr data. Maybe a file for each table, that ftp/sftp data every 5/10/15 min or on a hourly basis if the is some new data. ?

There is a command that already exists for this: utils uccx dbcontents

This command dumps the contents of the specified database. This command can be used to recreate a customer database on a test system for troubleshooting. For each Unified CCX database table, a dump csv file is created. Because there are huge numbers of files, these files are created in a subdirectory which will have the name as DbContents_<TIMESTAMP>. After the completion of the command, the subdirectory name and subdirectory path are displayed.

Command syntax

show uccx dbcontents database_name

Arguments

database_nameā€”(Mandatory) Database whose contents will be output to CSV file

Requirements

Level privilege: 1

Command privilege level: 1

Allowed during upgrade: No

Example

admin:show uccx dbcontents db_cra
This operation may take a few minutes to complete. Please wait...
Database contents dump is in directory: uccx/cli/DbContents_1250666234370

Command successful.

You can then download this using SFTP or any other suitable method. But I do take your feedback on the automatic upload to a remote server and also about the other items, they will be added to the list and reviewed. 

Thank you for your questions!

Regards,
Abhiram Kramadhati
Technical Solutions Manager, CCBU
CCIE Collaboration # 40065

Hey Abriham

The Get Reporting Statistics step is purely for a call routing purpose and from a call routing perspective, the UCCX considers any agent not available for a call to be NOT-READY. So, hence we don't make a difference between agents in not-ready based on their reason codes. This is however reflected in the live data reports, which is available for supervisors to be embedded in their finesse desktops.

- Exactly. We need the different states so we can route the calls.

I have some scenarios :

My customers demand is that if all agent are in notReady reasoncode "Meeting" - redirect the call. Otherwise queue the call. This is not possible today.

  1. Scenario 1: Lets say that all agents is in notReady state with the reasoncode "meeting". Call should be redirected. .
  2. Scenario 2: All agents (5 logged in) is in notReady state (3 with reasoncode "meeting", and 2 because they are calling out). Call should queue (due to the 2 agents active as calltakers).
  3. Scenario 3: All agents (5 logged in) is in notReady state. The reasoncodes are : 2 in "meeting", 1 in "answering mails", 2 in "Level 2 support". Call should queue.

so we actually needs this for Routing discisions in the scripts. I have alot of customers who is asking for this.

Can the utils uccx dbcontents be scheduled ?

The "Make Rest Call" timeout is not working in both 10.6 and 11.0

Thanks

Thomas

Thanks for sharing, that is a good use case Thomas. It might not be immediate and I can already see challenges if these are for custom reason codes, because that would meen an additional layer of configuration - combination of Not Ready + x(custom reason code). However, if it is a system reason code we will have a smaller set - but I get the use case. 

The utils uccx dbcontents should be simple to be scheduled, a python script can be written and then shipped to an SFTP server. But one of the things that has prevented that is the load on the Informix instance. This command actually runs the unload command in the background. So, I am not saying it will cause issues but we haven't qualified it under load. How will the system perform when you unload tables every few min and then perform an SFTP operation? Manual unload commands of huge databases can take upto 30-40min. So we will have to build something which does this incrementally and so will need a separate service responsible for this (similar to CDR/CAR). So currently, it is a manually run command which we'll try to make it more usable to the use case you are mentioning. 

Regards,
Abhiram Kramadhati
Technical Solutions Manager, CCBU
CCIE Collaboration # 40065

+ 1 for "Get JSON Document data"

Seth Kusiak
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Abhiram,

I was thinking today about a few requests we have and was wondering if the following were considered as enhancements.

  • for agent-based routing, have an optional parameter to roll up reporting to a specific CSQ. For example, say a support queue is setup to first attempt route call to the agent assigned to their ticket, in an agent-based routing, that reporting data is not reflected in the support CSQ. Some managers would prefer that data be included in the CSQ report.

  • Secure Parameter Attribute - being asked if it was possible to accept payment information via a self-service IVR app, I first thought how can we prevent UCCX logs from capturing and storing input that would be considered secure and cannot be stored in logs. do you see the possibility of having a secure attribute that would ensure the system doesn't log those parameters in any log file?

Thanks again for all your feedback and help!

Seth

Hi Seth, 

I was discussing this with the architect, hence I couldn't reply earlier. 

1) For the first reporting option, we attach a call to every CSQ that it is ever routed to. So if it is routed to multiple CSQs, it is marked as dequeued/handled-by-other on the initial CSQs and then as handled on the final CSQ. So a particular callID definitely has the CSQ IDs and a per-CSQ disposition associated with it and written into the DB. Now, with your requirement we will probably have to look at having an additional parameter that says no matter how the call is handled, the call has to be reported against one particular CSQ? This would be do-able, but might conflict with the idea of how CSQs are seen from a reporting perspective because the entity that ties together all the pieces of data is a callID. So the request you have made might involve some amount of work on how the stored procedures are written in reading this information and then on creating a report that does this, so it will have to be taken as an enhancement. 

2) This has been a common ask and we hope to do this soon. How would a configuration parameter in the script sound? Like how we have checkboxes for variables, we could add another one that says 'secret' so that way we can mask that from being printed in the logs. This would however pose a potential problem to troubleshooting when a particular parameter is used for decisions and the script is not working as per the logic. This should not be a hard problem to solve and we hope to address this soon. I will keep you posted. 

Regards,
Abhiram Kramadhati
Technical Solutions Manager, CCBU
CCIE Collaboration # 40065 

greg.cas4
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Abhiram,

Hopefully you've seen this in the past; I have a Macbook Pro with VM Ware fusion running Windows7.  When I run CSD I cannot view or see any agents.  I am thinking it has to do with some ports being blocked.  Any thoughts?

thanks,

Greg

Hello Greg,

The solution to this is to change the virtual machine's network adapter to bridged mode -- CSD doesn't work in NAT mode. 

Hope this helps

Seth

Hi Greg, 

The communication is that the agents all report up to the Desktop Chat and the Enterprise Data (for real time stats) UCCX server and the CSD then pulls this information from the server. So given that you see the issue only on the CSD, the best way is to troubleshoot this is to run a netstat on the CSD PC. Once you do that, you can see which of the ports are actually being listed as TIME_WAIT and not connected. This represents the port on which the CSD is trying to talk to on the UCCX server and unable to do so. 

Once done, you can compare that port number with the ones listed in the port utilization guide and take the necessary action: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/crs/express_9_02/configuration/guide/UCCX_BK_P89325D5_00_port-utilization-guide-uccx-902/UCCX_BK_P89325D5_00_port-utilization-guide-uccx-902_chapter_01.html#UCCX_RF_C4D56BFD_00

What Seth is suggesting too is a very helpful suggestion (Thanks, Seth). 

Also, I am assuming the same supervisor can see the agents from another PC. Is that correct?

Regards,
Abhiram Kramadhati
Technical Solutions Manager, CCBU
CCIE Collaboration # 40065

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: