Cisco Unified CM Assistant (IPMA) Compatibility

[mazloumi.arash]

Hello

For migration from Key System to IP Telephony network in our company we ordered cisco CP-9951 IP Phones for our Managers and CP-7931G for their Assistants, and one of the importatnt servicesl that we need is IPMA, but now we found that 9951 doesn't support IPMA and 7931G support only with sip.

I'd like to know what should i do now, is there a similar solution for that, or doing a trick in callmanager to provide service like ipma

Thanks

[dakeller]

Claudio,

There is work going on to imlement existing IPMA functionality on the 89xx/99xx phones, but since the project requires multiple teams to make changes (each on their own timeline), the timeframe is looking more like next year (aligning with a 10.0 release) when a number of features coalesce into a single version.

Thanks,

Dan Keller

Technical Marketing Engineer

[Stoyan Stoitsev]

Daniel,

This is an epic fail for Cisco. The 9900 phones are more than 3 years old and yet, there is no solution to this problem. Further more this is a real fail for the product managers that released a whole phone series targeted at managers, that lacks the MOST important manager function. Some guys need to go.

Stoyan

[dakeller]

Stoyan,

I won't go into the gory details on the history on this matter, but Cisco had planned on deploying a new version of IPMA that would leverage the new interface of the 99xx series phones and really demonstrate the power of the new interface.  But needless to say, the new IPMA application did not progress past the marketing requirements.

So you might be asking why Cisco didn't just port existing IPMA to the 99xx phones, the answer is because at that time, we couldn't.  The 99xx phones did not originally support softkeys templates and the PhoneStatus object required for IPMA.  Cisco has already added the PhoneStatus object to the code, but the 99xx phones still do not support softkeys.  The final step to get existing IPMA on the 99xx phones is to get softkeys in addition to Feature Keys.   That work is in progress.

Cisco has heard and understands the frustration about the lack of IPMA support for this phone model and we are working on getting these phones supported.

Thanks,

Dan Keller

Technical Marketing Engineer

[skilambi]

Thanks Dan. What would be best is not just focus on desk phones but also soft clients like Jabber. Lync already has manager like features such as call filtering, notifying the user if the same person calls back within a certain time etc. IMHO as clients move to a more soft phone model we need support in both directions.

Also I have communicated this to the Jabber BU too

Thanks

Srini

[dakeller]

Srini,

Although the current IPMA desktop app is not tied/integrated into the softclient directly, we have had a desktop application for IPMA since 2002.  This was well prior to the proliferation of mobile/soft clients and is still a good application for interfacing with IPMA.  But I think we can do a better job on integrating the capability of not only the IPMA client, but also attendant console into native softclient applications. 

Thanks,

Dan Keller

Technical Marketing Engineer

[skilambi]

Daniel

Yes I remember the old IPMA client very well. It was annoying to use that client for IPMA and then another for console. IMO both clients should have been merged a long time back since they perform overlapping functions.

As we move to a software client based world Cisco strength should be in both desk phone and soft phone. Hence super charging Jabber to have these functions would be great such as call delegate. Maybe that’s your “mini” IPMA client and a full blown attendant console augments that

Thanks

Srini

[Jiri Solc]

I've got workaround for proxy mode...

Use 2 lines on Manager phone, the 1st one is Manager phone which is reachable from all other phones. 2nd line is in partition reachable only from assistant phone and it's labeled "from assistant" in line text label.

Make 2 BLF Speed Dials on Assistant phone, one for each Manager line. Label them whatever you like. First will blink when manager have incoming call to his normal line, which can be picked up by assistant if necessary. When manager sets Call Forward All on his first line to Assistant, all calls will ring at her extension. She has a chance to Transfer call back to Manager on his 2nd line which is reachable only from Assistant's phone.

You can set different ringtone for Managers 2nd line to distinguish between them.

Dont forget to configure Call pickup Group between 1st Manager's line and Assistant's line.

BLF with Call Pickup feature makes solution quite more usable.

Hope this helps, even its not fancy solution.

I'm also looking forward for IPMA in Proxy Mode on new SIP 9900 Phones :-(

[Jiri Solc]

Another solution is to use Shared Line between Manager and Assistant and use Intercom feature to let Assistant tell the Manager to pickup a call on Shared line (with Barge).

[Esteban Tayo]

Hi Daniel,

Any updates for this topic? I have a licitation and we fullfilth every part with 9951 IPPhone but we do not have a "Manager Assistant application" today, do we?

Regards,

Esteban.

[skilambi]

IPMA is coming to these phones. It is targeted for Q4 CY 2013

Srini

[srichardson]

I'm only writing to add my "I'm bummed" comment to this thread. I never really loved IPMA, but for clients that require it (litigation firms and heavy executive requirements) and with the 89XX and 99XX phones becoming more of a defacto, this is very disheartening. I have a requirement for several IPMA clients that I'm only just now becoming aware I cannot do with the phones that have already been purchased. This is not a question typically answered in the presales process. It is a question that is usually only discovered in post and is embarassing. I'm disappointed, Cisco. The going forward rule for handsets should require zero loss in functionality. This is 2013.

[dakeller]

Stephanie,

I understand your frustration.  The IPMA functionality was originally intended to show off the new UI on the 99xx phones to be a better experience than the 79xx phones.  But that project never reached the field. 

But it has been field feedback that has caused Cisco to restart the development of the IPMA application on the 99xx phones. 

So why has it taken so long to get implemented?  When you look at the IPMA interface, IPMA uses passthrough softkeys.  This allowed an application to receive context specific instructions through CUCM.  So features like filters, DND, updates, etc) are IPMA specific softkeys that CUCM passes through to the IPMA process.  On the 99xx phones, the design of the sessions/line keys as well as Feature Control did not allow the IPMA application to define softkeys or interact directly with the 99xx phone. So Cisco is going to allow softkey templates on the 99xx phone that will allow IPMA to run on the 99xx phone.

The change to allow softkeys for IPMA use on the 99xx phone is not a trivial task so that is why it will take us over a year to get that support into a shipping CUCM and 99xx phone load. 

I know this does not speed up the process, but looking at where we stand today....it looks great compared to where we were 1 year ago. 

Thanks,

Dan Keller

Technical Marketing Engieer

[ma75]

It is now 10/2014, Still no support for 89XX phones???????????

I guess I will have to call our vendor and send all of these 8945 phones back

[mkrummen]

IPMA was offered on 8961, 9951 and 9971 since early 2014 with firmware release 9.4.1.

There has not been a plan to offer IPMA on 8945 and it is currently not road mapped.

The new 88xx series does offer IPMA as well since FCS in May/June 2014.

[ma75]

Thank you Sir, we do use the 9951 sets for executives. Looks like I will have to order a few more!