Installing Cisco Customer Response Applications 2.2 on the Cisco ICS 7750 - Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications [Cisco ICS 7700 Series Integrated Communication Systems]

Table Of Contents

Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications

Cisco Customer Response Applications

IP Interactive Voice Response

Cisco CallManager Extended Services

IP Integrated Contact Distribution

The Customer Response Platform

Integrating Customer Response Applications with Your Cisco IP Telephony Solution

Customer Response Platform Architecture

CRA Engine

Cisco CRA Editor

Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications

This section describes the Cisco Customer Response Applications (CRA) family of products and the Cisco Customer Response (CR) Platform.

This section has these topics:

•Cisco Customer Response Applications

•The Customer Response Platform

Cisco Customer Response Applications

The Cisco Customer Response Applications (CRA) product family provides a variety of contact processing functionalities for your Cisco IP Telephony Solution. Each product in the Cisco CRA family includes features for automating interactions with your customers.

These are the applications in the Cisco CRA product family:

•Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response (IP IVR)

•Cisco IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP ICD)

–IP ICD Agent Desktop

–Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting

Note When you purchase IP IVR, the package includes Cisco IP Auto Attendant (Cisco IP AA) and Extension Mobility features.

Each Cisco CRA product uses the Cisco Customer Response Applications (CRA) Engine to run application scripts and respond to customer inquiries. The software package you choose determines which steps, components, and subsystems that you receive.

The Cisco CRA Editor uses a graphical user interface (GUI) for creating and debugging application scripts for automating your customer interactions. The Cisco CRA Editor uses prewritten Cisco CRA Editor steps to build application scripts for each of the Cisco CRA products.

The Cisco CRA Software Developer's Kit (SDK) is used to create or modify Cisco CRA Editor steps for customized applications. It is an optional tool and must be purchased as an additional Cisco CRA tool.

Cisco CRA includes an industry-standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory for the application scripts that you build with the editor. You can store this data in the DC Directory that is part of Cisco CallManager, or you can use a remote LDAP directory service such as Netscape Directory Server or Microsoft Active Directory.

IP Interactive Voice Response

IP Integrated Voice Response (IP IVR) is a multimedia (voice, data, and web) IP-enabled Interactive Voice Response solution that offers an open and feature-rich foundation for the creation and delivery of IVR applications through Internet technology. In addition to handling traditional telephony contacts, you can create IP IVR applications to respond to HTTP requests and send e-mail.

IP IVR automates call handling by autonomously interacting with users. It also processes user commands to help command response features such as access to checking account information or user-directed call routers. The IP IVR also performs prompt and collect functions to obtain user data such as passwords or account identification. IP IVR supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) access to Microsoft Structured Query Language (SQL) servers, Oracle, Sybase, and IBM DB2 databases.

You can use IP IVR to extract and parse web-based content and present the data to customers by using a telephony or HTTP interface.

Cisco CallManager Extended Services

Cisco CallManager Extended Services, which comes bundled with Cisco CallManager 3.1, is a suite of enhancements using CRA technology. Cisco CallManager Extended Services provides the preconfigured IP Auto Attendant and Extension Mobility features by using prewritten application scripts and does not include the Cisco CRA Editor.

Note The IP IVR and IP ICD are additional applications that are purchased separately. These applications include both the CRA Engine and the Cisco CRA Editor.

When you purchase IP IVR, you also install the Cisco IP AA and Cisco Extension Mobility features. By using the Cisco CRA Editor, you can modify the prewritten Cisco IP AA application scripts.

For more information about Cisco CallManager Extended Services, refer to the Cisco CallManager Extended Services Administrator's Guide.

IP Integrated Contact Distribution

IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP ICD) is an IP-based automatic call distribution (ACD) system. IP ICD queues and distributes incoming calls destined for groups of Cisco CallManager users. You can integrate IP ICD with IP IVR to gather caller data and classify incoming calls.

IP ICD includes the web-based Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting system that you can use to monitor the IP ICD system, the Event Service Desk, and resource performance.

The IP ICD system has three major components:

•Resource Manager—Monitors the ICD agent phones and allows you to organize agents into resource groups. Resource groups comprise a collection of ICD agents that are capable of handling the same types of calls. You can configure the Resource Manager by using the Customer Response Application Administration web interface.

•Event Service Desk—Places incoming calls in queue and distributes them to the appropriate Resource Group as agents become available. You can configure the Event Service Desks by using the Cisco CRA Administration web interface.

•IP ICD Agent Desktop—An application program that ICD agents run on their desktop computers to log in to the system, change the ICD state, and monitor status.

The Customer Response Platform

The Cisco Customer Response (CR) Platform builds on the Cisco IP Telephony Solution foundation to provide interactive telephony and multimedia services for your customers.

The CR Platform provides a multimedia (voice, data, and web) IP-enabled customer-care application environment. The CR Platform uses Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, so your telephony network can share resources with your data network.

Because the CR Platform uses an open architecture that supports industry standards, you can integrate your applications with a wide variety of technologies and products, and you can integrate agent-assisted and self-service customer assistance.

The CR Platform does not require T1/E1 equipment to deploy interactive voice response (IVR) and private branch exchange (PBX) integrations. You can replace telephony hardware with computers running Windows 2000 and can upgrade simply by installing new software.

You can position your CR Platform application server anywhere on the IP network and administer your applications by using a web browser on any computer on the IP network.

Integrating Customer Response Applications with Your Cisco IP Telephony Solution

Figure 1-1 shows how Cisco CRA integrates with your Cisco IP Telephony Solution. The diagram shows Cisco CallManager and Cisco CRA systems running on separate servers or on system processing engines (SPEs), in the case of the Cisco ICS 7750. These applications can also be installed on the same server or SPE.

Figure 1-1 Cisco IP Telephony Solution Components

As shown in the illustration, a Cisco IP Telephony Solution system has five main components:

•Gateway—Connects the enterprise IP telephony network to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and to other private telephone systems such as a private branch exchange (PBX). In the Cisco ICS 7750, the Multiservice Route Processor (MRP) provides the gateway function.

•Cisco CallManager server—Provides the features required to implement IP phones, manage gateways, provides failover and redundancy service for the telephony system, and directs VoIP traffic to the Cisco CRA system. In the Cisco ICS 7750, the Cisco CallManager server runs on an SPE.

•Cisco IP Telephony Directory—Stores configuration information and Cisco CRA application scripts in an LDAP directory. The directory service can be DC Directory or a remote LDAP directory such as Netscape Directory Server or Microsoft Active Directory. The subdirectory that stores CRA scripts is called the Repository. Storing application scripts and configuration information in an LDAP directory allows you to load application scripts on any CRA server in the network. The Repository keeps one backup version of each script for recovery purposes. You can revert to the previous version if necessary.

•CRA server—Contains the Cisco CRA Engine that runs Cisco CRA applications. Cisco CRA applications use a series of steps that are implemented as Java Beans packaged in *.jar files. In the Cisco ICS 7750, the CRA server runs on an SPE.

•Cisco CRA Editor—Allows designers to create, modify, and debug Cisco CRA application scripts containing workflow steps.

Customer Response Platform Architecture

The CR Platform provides the tools to design your customer service applications and the infrastructure to run them.

These are the components of the CR Platform:

•Steps—Java-based building blocks of contact-processing logic and multimedia functionality.

•Cisco CRA Editor—Software that you use to assemble blocks of workflow steps into application scripts.

•Repository—Stores the completed application scripts.

•CRA Engine—Invokes the application scripts from the Repository to respond to customer contacts.

•Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting Interface—Provides detailed information on the performance of your applications.

CRA Engine

The CRA Engine executes your application scripts to create live applications. You can deploy the CRA Engine and Cisco CallManager on the same server or SPE. If you deploy them on separate servers, you can handle a higher call volume.

The CRA Engine uses JTAPI to request and receive services from the Computer Telephony Interface (CTI) Manager that controls the Cisco CallManager group. The CRA Engine is implemented as a Windows service that supports multiple applications.

You can administer the application engine and your Cisco CRA applications from any computer on the network by using a web browser. The Cisco CRA Administration web pages let you start and stop applications, configure system parameters, and monitor application activity. You can use Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting to view realtime and historical reports that include total system activity and application statistics, as well as the Integrated Contact Distribution (ICD) queue and agent performance.

Repository

The Repository stores your completed application scripts and CRA Engine configuration profiles. After you complete an application script, you use the Repository Manager program to check your application script in to the Repository.

You configure the location and authentication information for network resources, stored in the User Preferences (LDAP) directory, by using the Cisco CRA Administration pages.

CRA Engine Subsystems

Depending on which products you are using, the application server can employ up to seven subsystems for communicating with other services:

•Application—Provides common services for applications.

•Database—Controls the connections between the CRA server and the enterprise databases.

•E-mail—Adds components to the CRA Engine that allow it to send e-mail.

•HTTP—Adds components to the CRA Engine that allow it to respond to HTTP requests.

•ICM—Manages the connection between the CRA server and the Cisco Intelligent Contact Manager (Cisco ICM), which is part of the Cisco IP Contact Center (Cisco IPCC).

Note Cisco IPCC is not supported on the Cisco ICS 7750.

•JTAPI—Manages the connection between Cisco CallManager's CTI Manager and the CRA Engine.

•Resource Manager—Allows Cisco IP ICD to monitor agent phones, control agent states, and route and queue calls.

Cisco CRA Editor

The Cisco CRA Editor is a visual programming environment where you create telephony and multimedia application scripts. You can use the Cisco CRA Editor on any computer that has web access to the CRA server.

The Cisco CRA Editor simplifies application script development by providing blocks of contact-processing logic in Java-based steps. Each step has its own unique capabilities, from simple increment or decrement to complex database or Extensible Markup Language (XML) access.

Although the steps are written in Java, you do not need to understand Java programming to build an application script. You can assemble an application script by dragging step icons from a palette on the left side of the workspace to the design window on the right side of the workspace.

The Cisco CRA Editor supplies the code required to connect the steps, and you provide the variable definitions and other parameters. You can validate the completed application script and load it in to the Repository for debugging and deployment.

Cisco CRA includes sample application scripts for IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP ICD) and IP Interactive Voice Response (IP IVR). These application scripts are Cisco CRA Editor steps, which include prerecorded prompts. You can use these application scripts to create an IP IVR or IP ICD application without doing any application script development.

The sample IP IVR application script provides an auto-attendant application that allows callers to find an extension by entering the first few characters of an associated username.

The sample IP ICD application script establishes a simple call queue and routes callers to a group of agents. If an agent is available, the call is answered or the call remains in queue until an agent becomes available.

	Installing Cisco Customer Response Applications 2.2 on the Cisco ICS 7750
	Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications
Installing Cisco Customer Response Applications 2.2 on the Cisco ICS 7750 Preface Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications Preparing to Install Cisco CRA Installing Cisco CRA Configuring Cisco CRA Index	Download this chapter Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications Download the complete book Installing Cisco Customer Response Applications 2.2 on the Cisco ICS 7750 (PDF - 1 MB) Table Of Contents Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications Cisco Customer Response Applications IP Interactive Voice Response Cisco CallManager Extended Services IP Integrated Contact Distribution The Customer Response Platform Integrating Customer Response Applications with Your Cisco IP Telephony Solution Customer Response Platform Architecture CRA Engine Cisco CRA Editor Introducing the Cisco Customer Response Applications This section describes the Cisco Customer Response Applications (CRA) family of products and the Cisco Customer Response (CR) Platform. This section has these topics: •Cisco Customer Response Applications •The Customer Response Platform Cisco Customer Response Applications The Cisco Customer Response Applications (CRA) product family provides a variety of contact processing functionalities for your Cisco IP Telephony Solution. Each product in the Cisco CRA family includes features for automating interactions with your customers. These are the applications in the Cisco CRA product family: •Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response (IP IVR) •Cisco IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP ICD) –IP ICD Agent Desktop –Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting Note When you purchase IP IVR, the package includes Cisco IP Auto Attendant (Cisco IP AA) and Extension Mobility features. Each Cisco CRA product uses the Cisco Customer Response Applications (CRA) Engine to run application scripts and respond to customer inquiries. The software package you choose determines which steps, components, and subsystems that you receive. The Cisco CRA Editor uses a graphical user interface (GUI) for creating and debugging application scripts for automating your customer interactions. The Cisco CRA Editor uses prewritten Cisco CRA Editor steps to build application scripts for each of the Cisco CRA products. The Cisco CRA Software Developer's Kit (SDK) is used to create or modify Cisco CRA Editor steps for customized applications. It is an optional tool and must be purchased as an additional Cisco CRA tool. Cisco CRA includes an industry-standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory for the application scripts that you build with the editor. You can store this data in the DC Directory that is part of Cisco CallManager, or you can use a remote LDAP directory service such as Netscape Directory Server or Microsoft Active Directory. IP Interactive Voice Response IP Integrated Voice Response (IP IVR) is a multimedia (voice, data, and web) IP-enabled Interactive Voice Response solution that offers an open and feature-rich foundation for the creation and delivery of IVR applications through Internet technology. In addition to handling traditional telephony contacts, you can create IP IVR applications to respond to HTTP requests and send e-mail. IP IVR automates call handling by autonomously interacting with users. It also processes user commands to help command response features such as access to checking account information or user-directed call routers. The IP IVR also performs prompt and collect functions to obtain user data such as passwords or account identification. IP IVR supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) access to Microsoft Structured Query Language (SQL) servers, Oracle, Sybase, and IBM DB2 databases. You can use IP IVR to extract and parse web-based content and present the data to customers by using a telephony or HTTP interface. Cisco CallManager Extended Services Cisco CallManager Extended Services, which comes bundled with Cisco CallManager 3.1, is a suite of enhancements using CRA technology. Cisco CallManager Extended Services provides the preconfigured IP Auto Attendant and Extension Mobility features by using prewritten application scripts and does not include the Cisco CRA Editor. Note The IP IVR and IP ICD are additional applications that are purchased separately. These applications include both the CRA Engine and the Cisco CRA Editor. When you purchase IP IVR, you also install the Cisco IP AA and Cisco Extension Mobility features. By using the Cisco CRA Editor, you can modify the prewritten Cisco IP AA application scripts. For more information about Cisco CallManager Extended Services, refer to the Cisco CallManager Extended Services Administrator's Guide. IP Integrated Contact Distribution IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP ICD) is an IP-based automatic call distribution (ACD) system. IP ICD queues and distributes incoming calls destined for groups of Cisco CallManager users. You can integrate IP ICD with IP IVR to gather caller data and classify incoming calls. IP ICD includes the web-based Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting system that you can use to monitor the IP ICD system, the Event Service Desk, and resource performance. The IP ICD system has three major components: •Resource Manager—Monitors the ICD agent phones and allows you to organize agents into resource groups. Resource groups comprise a collection of ICD agents that are capable of handling the same types of calls. You can configure the Resource Manager by using the Customer Response Application Administration web interface. •Event Service Desk—Places incoming calls in queue and distributes them to the appropriate Resource Group as agents become available. You can configure the Event Service Desks by using the Cisco CRA Administration web interface. •IP ICD Agent Desktop—An application program that ICD agents run on their desktop computers to log in to the system, change the ICD state, and monitor status. The Customer Response Platform The Cisco Customer Response (CR) Platform builds on the Cisco IP Telephony Solution foundation to provide interactive telephony and multimedia services for your customers. The CR Platform provides a multimedia (voice, data, and web) IP-enabled customer-care application environment. The CR Platform uses Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, so your telephony network can share resources with your data network. Because the CR Platform uses an open architecture that supports industry standards, you can integrate your applications with a wide variety of technologies and products, and you can integrate agent-assisted and self-service customer assistance. The CR Platform does not require T1/E1 equipment to deploy interactive voice response (IVR) and private branch exchange (PBX) integrations. You can replace telephony hardware with computers running Windows 2000 and can upgrade simply by installing new software. You can position your CR Platform application server anywhere on the IP network and administer your applications by using a web browser on any computer on the IP network. Integrating Customer Response Applications with Your Cisco IP Telephony Solution Figure 1-1 shows how Cisco CRA integrates with your Cisco IP Telephony Solution. The diagram shows Cisco CallManager and Cisco CRA systems running on separate servers or on system processing engines (SPEs), in the case of the Cisco ICS 7750. These applications can also be installed on the same server or SPE. Figure 1-1 Cisco IP Telephony Solution Components As shown in the illustration, a Cisco IP Telephony Solution system has five main components: •Gateway—Connects the enterprise IP telephony network to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and to other private telephone systems such as a private branch exchange (PBX). In the Cisco ICS 7750, the Multiservice Route Processor (MRP) provides the gateway function. •Cisco CallManager server—Provides the features required to implement IP phones, manage gateways, provides failover and redundancy service for the telephony system, and directs VoIP traffic to the Cisco CRA system. In the Cisco ICS 7750, the Cisco CallManager server runs on an SPE. •Cisco IP Telephony Directory—Stores configuration information and Cisco CRA application scripts in an LDAP directory. The directory service can be DC Directory or a remote LDAP directory such as Netscape Directory Server or Microsoft Active Directory. The subdirectory that stores CRA scripts is called the Repository. Storing application scripts and configuration information in an LDAP directory allows you to load application scripts on any CRA server in the network. The Repository keeps one backup version of each script for recovery purposes. You can revert to the previous version if necessary. •CRA server—Contains the Cisco CRA Engine that runs Cisco CRA applications. Cisco CRA applications use a series of steps that are implemented as Java Beans packaged in .jar files. In the Cisco ICS 7750, the CRA server runs on an SPE. •Cisco CRA Editor—Allows designers to create, modify, and debug Cisco CRA application scripts containing workflow steps. Customer Response Platform Architecture The CR Platform provides the tools to design your customer service applications and the infrastructure to run them. These are the components of the CR Platform: •Steps—Java-based building blocks of contact-processing logic and multimedia functionality. •Cisco CRA Editor—Software that you use to assemble blocks of workflow steps into application scripts. •Repository—Stores the completed application scripts. •CRA Engine—Invokes the application scripts from the Repository to respond to customer contacts. •Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting Interface—Provides detailed information on the performance of your applications. CRA Engine The CRA Engine executes your application scripts to create live applications. You can deploy the CRA Engine and Cisco CallManager on the same server or SPE. If you deploy them on separate servers, you can handle a higher call volume. The CRA Engine uses JTAPI to request and receive services from the Computer Telephony Interface (CTI) Manager that controls the Cisco CallManager group. The CRA Engine is implemented as a Windows service that supports multiple applications. You can administer the application engine and your Cisco CRA applications from any computer on the network by using a web browser. The Cisco CRA Administration web pages let you start and stop applications, configure system parameters, and monitor application activity. You can use Cisco CRA Real Time Reporting to view realtime and historical reports that include total system activity and application statistics, as well as the Integrated Contact Distribution (ICD) queue and agent performance. Repository The Repository stores your completed application scripts and CRA Engine configuration profiles. After you complete an application script, you use the Repository Manager program to check your application script in to the Repository. You configure the location and authentication information for network resources, stored in the User Preferences (LDAP) directory, by using the Cisco CRA Administration pages. CRA Engine Subsystems Depending on which products you are using, the application server can employ up to seven subsystems for communicating with other services: •Application—Provides common services for applications. •Database—Controls the connections between the CRA server and the enterprise databases. •E-mail—Adds components to the CRA Engine that allow it to send e-mail. •HTTP—Adds components to the CRA Engine that allow it to respond to HTTP requests. •ICM—Manages the connection between the CRA server and the Cisco Intelligent Contact Manager (Cisco ICM), which is part of the Cisco IP Contact Center (Cisco IPCC). Note* Cisco IPCC is not supported on the Cisco ICS 7750. •JTAPI—Manages the connection between Cisco CallManager's CTI Manager and the CRA Engine. •Resource Manager—Allows Cisco IP ICD to monitor agent phones, control agent states, and route and queue calls. Cisco CRA Editor The Cisco CRA Editor is a visual programming environment where you create telephony and multimedia application scripts. You can use the Cisco CRA Editor on any computer that has web access to the CRA server. The Cisco CRA Editor simplifies application script development by providing blocks of contact-processing logic in Java-based steps. Each step has its own unique capabilities, from simple increment or decrement to complex database or Extensible Markup Language (XML) access. Although the steps are written in Java, you do not need to understand Java programming to build an application script. You can assemble an application script by dragging step icons from a palette on the left side of the workspace to the design window on the right side of the workspace. The Cisco CRA Editor supplies the code required to connect the steps, and you provide the variable definitions and other parameters. You can validate the completed application script and load it in to the Repository for debugging and deployment. Cisco CRA includes sample application scripts for IP Integrated Contact Distribution (IP ICD) and IP Interactive Voice Response (IP IVR). These application scripts are Cisco CRA Editor steps, which include prerecorded prompts. You can use these application scripts to create an IP IVR or IP ICD application without doing any application script development. The sample IP IVR application script provides an auto-attendant application that allows callers to find an extension by entering the first few characters of an associated username. The sample IP ICD application script establishes a simple call queue and routes callers to a group of agents. If an agent is available, the call is answered or the call remains in queue until an agent becomes available.
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