PCCE 12.6 & UCCX 12.5 SU1 DevNet Sandboxes now available!

[dekwan]

Guess what? DevNet is proud to announce that PCCE 12.6(1) and UCCX 12.5(1) SU1 sandboxes are now available for you to reserve for FREE!

Reserve a DevNet Sandbox

I invite you to come over and check out the UCCX 12.5(1) SU1 and PCCE 12.6(1) sandboxes. How? It is really easy, just follow these instructions:

1. Go to the DevNet sandbox catalog.
2. Log in with one of the listed accounts. If you do not have an account, you can sign up for a free DevNet account at https://developer.cisco.com/.
3. Click Collaboration under BROWSE BY CATEGORY.
4. Select the sandbox you want to reserve.
   • Packaged Contact Center Enterprise 12.6
   • Unified Contact Center Express 12.5-SU1
5. Click the RESERVE button in the upper right.
6. Under SCHEDULE, select the duration of your reservation (up to 1 week)
7. Click the RESERVE button.
8. It will take 20-45 minutes to be built (duration will depend on which sandbox was selected). You will get an email with VPN credentials when it is ready.
9. After receiving the email, click the link to your specific sandbox reservation under “To access your sandbox lab”.
10. In your sandbox reservation link, there will be a list of the sandbox hostnames, credentials, etc.
    • For UCCX, the information will be listed directly on the page.
    • For PCCE, download the Word document to view the information.

Finesse 12.6(1)

As part of the new PCCE 12.6(1) sandbox, you can explore Finesse 12.6(1). Let’s take a look at some of the new and updated features, deprecated features, removed features, and best of all, the changes to the Finesse REST and JavaScript APIs.

Please see the Contact Center Enterprise Release Notes for additional details as well as a full list of Finesse 12.6(1) changes.

New & Updated Finesse 12.6(1) features

• Agent Device Selection: Allows agents and supervisors to select which device to use when logging in. This is applicable for users who have different devices configured with the same extension. This feature allows users the flexibility to work from different locations such as in the office or at home.
• Maintenance Mode: Allows the Agent PG/Finesse to go into maintenance mode in order to perform administrative tasks without causing any disruption to contact center activities. This includes a phased migration of the Cisco Finesse desktops to the secondary node with minimal disruption to the agent activities.
• Multi-Tab Gadgets: Allows the consolidation of multiple gadgets in a single desktop view. This presents more information to the user in a concise and readily accessible manner​.
• Agent Answers: Allows agents and supervisors to receive real time recommendations based on the ongoing conversation between the caller and the agent. This feature requires a separate yearly subscription.
• Drop Participants from Conference: Allows agents and supervisors to drop other parties from the conference call where they are a participant. Prior to Cisco Finesse Release 12.5(1) ES3, only supervisors were allowed to drop a participant from a conference
• Connected Agents Gadget: Allows the administrator to view the list of agents that are signed in to the Publisher Side and the Subscriber Side.

Deprecated Finesse Features

• Notifications over BOSH (Long Polling): Support for notifications over BOSH (long polling) is deprecated. Applications should switch to WebSocket-based notifications (available from Finesse 12.0(1) and above) or notifications over direct XMPP (over TCP).
• Port 7443: The usage of port 7443 is deprecated. Applications should switch to use port 8445.

Removed and Unsupported Finesse Features

• Internet Explorer 11: Support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) has been removed. Users should use Edge Chromium (Microsoft Edge), Google Chrome, or Firefox. Please see the Supported Browsers in the Finesse Installation and Upgrade Guide for the full list of supported browsers.

New and updated REST & JavaScript APIs

• REST APIs: The following APIs have been added or updated:
  • Device—Get List of Devices for Extension: Allows a user to retrieve the list of devices associated with an extension. This API is to support the new agent device selection feature.
  • Finesse MaintenanceMode: These APIs allows the administrator to request Finesse to move to maintenance mode.
  • ConnectedUserInfo: These APIs allows the administrator to retrieve the number of users connected per connectivity type. This API is to support maintenance and other administrative activities.
  • User: New fields have been added to the payload of the object.
  • Single Sign-On: Optional parameters have been added to the request.
  • SystemInfo: New fields have been added to the payload of the object.
• JavaScript APIs: Updated to support the above REST API changes.
• jQuery: Version hosted by Finesse has been upgraded from 3.4.1 to 3.5.1.

What do developers need to do?

1. Since BOSH is deprecated in 12.6(1) and support may be removed in future releases, it is highly suggested that developers switch over to using WebSocket. Don’t panic though! We are here to help!

The first thing you have to do is check to see if the XMPP library you are using supports WebSocket.

• If the library supports WebSocket, all you have to do is switch the URI used for initiating the notification from http(s)://<hostname>:<port>/http-bind to wss://<hostname>:8445/ws
• If the library does not support WebSocket, you will unfortunately need to switch your XMPP library. The recommended library for browser-based clients is Strophe.js. To make it easier, we have provided sample code to show you how to connect to the Finesse Notification Service with WebSocket using the Strophe.js XMPP library.

If you are afraid to test this on your own environment, you can try it out on the PCCE 12.6(1) DevNet sandbox!

2. Since port 7443 is deprecated in 12.6(1) and support may be removed in future releases, it is suggested that you switch from using port 7443 to port 8445.
3. Since IE11 is no longer supported, developers should verify that any custom gadgets behave properly on Edge Chromium (Microsoft Edge).
4. Lastly, take a look at the REST and JavaScript API changes listed in the previous section. Since the APIs are 100% backwards compatible, no action is needed, but there may be new features or data that you might be interested in.

Well, I hope everyone takes advantage of the DevNet sandboxes and reserve the PCCE 12.6(1) and/or UCCX 12.5 SU1 sandbox!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask by replying to this discussion!

Thanx,

Denise

[bill.king1]

Thank you for posting this. Is there something that breaks down/compares the sandbox setup vs. say the offerings at dcloud?

[dekwan]

Hi,

I am not aware of anything that compares the difference between the DevNet sandbox and the dcloud offerings.

I don't use dcloud much, but as far as I know, access to dcloud is restricted to partners (with limited access to customers). Comparing the contact center offerings, a majority of dcloud's offerings seem to be demo focused.

The DevNet sandbox is available to anyone. The purpose is to allow developers to try out & develop against the APIs that are available in the solution. It has full license so that customers are not restricted. Of course, customers can reserve these sandboxes to test out the different new release features.

As of now, dcloud does not have a 12.6 offering.

Thanx,

Denise

[oabulaban]

Hi

We're having an issue with BOSH on 12.6. If an agent has no notifications for 2 minutes, the Notification session is closed by Finesse and the agent can no longer receive any notifications

I understand BOSH should still be working with 12.6, correct? Has anything changed in the protocol?

Thanks

Omar

[dekwan]

Hi,

Correct, BOSH still works in 12.6, it is just deprecated so will be removed in a future release.

As far as notification session closing after 2 minutes, is the BOSH connection keeping the session alive? Check the logs to see if the presence for the user goes "disconnected". When Finesse detects a presence disconnect, it will close the session.

Thanx,

Denise

[oabulaban]

Hi

Thanks for your response

Testing BOSH from Pidgin worked fine. However, the code developed is using smack library and that gets a timeout

In the openfire debug logs we see the following:

2022.07.29 09:53:23 org.jivesoftware.openfire.http.HttpSession - timeout event org.eclipse.jetty.server.AsyncContextEvent@b10fd2f for 6984661765212940 in session 98dbeswdv2

17 seconds before that it was still OK
2022.07.29 09:53:04 org.jivesoftware.openfire.http.HttpSessionManager - Session (id=98dbeswdv2) was last active 0 ms ago: 10434@<finesse fqdn>/smack

Any ideas where the issue might be?

Thanks for your help

[dekwan]

Hi,

I see that you have a thread going on here for the same topic: https://community.cisco.com/t5/contact-center/finesse-custom-cti-toolbar-integration-with-finesse-12-6/m-p/4666247#M13200

Please continue the conversation there.

Thanx,

Denise