Cisco Unified Mobile Agent (Unified Mobile Agent) enables an agent
using any PSTN phone and a broadband VPN connection (for agent desktop
communications) to function just like an agent sitting in a formal
call center and using a Cisco IP Phone that is monitored and controlled by
Unified CM JTAPI.
Unified Mobile Agent for Unified CCE/Unified CCH supports call center agents
using phones that are not directly controlled by Unified CCE/Unified CCH. You can physically locate a Mobile
Agent:
Outside the contact center, using an analog phone in the home or
a cell phone
Within the contact center, using an IP phone connection that is
not being controlled by PCCE or an associated Unified CM
In addition, a Mobile Agent can be available through different phone
numbers at different times; the agent enters the phone number at login time.
The phone number only needs to be dialable through the Unified CM dial plan.
Figure 1. Agent at home using Unified Mobile Agent
With Cisco Unified Mobile Agent, contact centers can:
Add/enable temporary staff during seasonal high call volume who
can be brought on line with reduced startup costs
Provide agents with the flexibility to work from home with similar
quality, function, performance, convenience, and security as are available in
the corporate headquarters contact center
Allow agents to use the device they are most comfortable with,
which improves agent productivity, helps to retain agents, and reduces training
costs
Hire skilled employees where they live and integrate remote
workers into geographically dispersed teams with access to equivalent corporate
applications
The sections that follow highlight some of the benefits of Unified
Mobile Agent, and describe its features.
Unified Mobile Agent extends Unified CCE/Unified CCH capabilities
Prior to Unified Mobile Agent, Unified CCE/CCH used a JTAPI interface
to Unified CM to connect customer calls arriving on a voice gateway to an
agent's IP phone. Unified Mobile Agent extends the Unified CCE/Unified CCH architecture
by enabling it to connect customer calls to an agent phone that
is not controlled by Unified CCE/Unified CCH.
Unified Mobile Agent uses a pair of CTI ports that function as proxies
for the Mobile Agent phone and the caller phone. Two CTI ports (local and
remote) are required for every logged-in Mobile Agent, and the two CTI ports
take the place of the Cisco IP Phone monitored and controlled by Unified CM
JTAPI. The local CTI port DN is used by the agent at login and is where callers
are routed when this agent is selected. The remote CTI port calls the agent
either at login for a nailed (permanent) connection or upon being selected for
a call by call connection.
Cisco Unified Contact Center functionality remains intact whether an
agent is mobile or local:
Mobile Agents have the same capabilities and functionality that
local agents have.
Mobile Agents do not need any specialized equipment; they can
receive calls on an analog or cellular phone.
Unified Mobile Agent supports Cisco CTI OS Agent Desktop, Cisco
Agent Desktop (CAD), Cisco Agent Desktop-Browser Edition (CAD-BE), and Cisco Finesse.
Mobile Agent activity is recorded in the same contact center
reports as local agent activity.
Mobile Agent CTI and application data uses the same security
mechanisms as local agent data.
Unified Mobile Agent Provides Agent Login Flexibility
An agent, at various times, can be either a local agent or a Mobile
Agent, depending on how they log in.
Regardless of whether an agent logs in as a local or Mobile Agent, the
skill groups that the agent belongs to do not change. In addition, because
agents are chosen by existing selection rules, not according to how they are
connected, the same routing applies regardless of how the agent logs in.
In other words, if you want to use the scripting environment to control routing
depending on whether an agent is local or mobile, you need to assign the agent
to different skill groups and design the script accordingly.
Cisco Unified Mobile Agent allows system administrators to configure
agents to use either call by call dialing or a nailed connection, or the
administrator can configure agents to choose a connection mode at login time.
Mobile Agents are defined as agents using phones not directly
controlled by Unified CC, irrespective of their physical location. (The term
local agent refers to an agent who uses a phone that is under control of
Unified CC, irrespective of physical location.)
You can configure Mobile Agents using either of two delivery modes:
Call by Call—In this mode, the Mobile Agent's phone is dialed for
each incoming call. When the call ends, the Mobile Agent's phone is
disconnected before being made ready for the next call.
Nailed Connection—In this mode, the agent is called at login time
and the line stays connected through multiple customer calls.
Note
The administrator can select the
Agent chooses option, which allows an agent to select a call
delivery mode at login.
In a
call by call delivery mode, the Mobile Agent's phone is dialed for
each incoming call. When the call ends, the Mobile Agent's phone disconnects
before is it made ready for the next call.
The
call by call call flow works as follows:
At login, the agent specifies an assigned extension for a CTI port.
A customer call arrives in the system and, through normal Unified
ICM configuration and scripting, is queued for a skill group or an agent. (This
is no different than existing processing for local agents.)
The system assigns an agent to the call. If the agent's Desk Setting
is Unified Mobile Agent-enabled and configured for either call by call or Agent
chooses mode, the router uses the extension of the agent's CTI port as a label.
The incoming call rings at the agent's CTI port. The JTAPI Gateway
and PIM notice this but do not answer the call.
A call to the agent is initiated on another CTI port chosen from a
preconfigured pool. If this call fails, Redirect on No Answer processing is
initiated.
Note
In call by call mode, the Answer Wait Time is 3 to 15 seconds
longer than in a local agent inbound call scenario. Specify a Redirect on No
Answer setting large enough to accommodate the extra processing time.
When the agent takes the remote phone off-hook to answer the call,
the system directs the customer call to the agent's call media address and the
agent's call to the customer's call media address.
When the call ends, both connections are terminated and the agent is
ready to accept another call.
Note
In call by call delivery mode, callers often perceive a longer ring
time compared to nailed connection delivery mode. This is because callers hear
the ringtone for the duration of the call flow; ringing stops only after the
agent answers. From the Unified CCE reporting perspective, a Mobile Agent in
call by call delivery mode has a longer Answer Wait Time for the same reason.
In
nailed connection
delivery mode, the agent is called once, at login, and the phone line
remains connected through multiple customer calls.
The
nailed connection call flow works as follows:
At login, the agent specifies an assigned extension for a CTI port
from a pool.
A call to the agent is initiated on another CTI port chosen from a
preconfigured pool. The agent answers the call. (The agent must answer this
setup call to complete the connection and finalize the login procedure.)
A customer's call arrives in the system and, through normal
Packaged CCE
configuration and scripting, is queued for a skill group or an agent. (This is
no different than existing processing for local agents.)
The system assigns an agent to the call. If the agent's Desk Setting
is Unified Mobile Agent-enabled and configured for either nailed connection or
Agent chooses mode, the router uses the extension of the agent's CTI port as a
label.
The incoming call rings at the agent's CTI port. The JTAPI Gateway
and PIM notice this but does not answer the call.
The agent desktop indicates a call is ringing and the agent clicks
Answer.
When the agent indicates that they will answer the phone, the system
directs the customer call to the agent's call media address and the agent call
to the customer's call media address.
When the call ends, the customer connection is terminated and the
agent state is set to Ready.
The
Connect Tone feature in the nailed connection mode enables the
system to play a tone to the Mobile Agent via the agent's headset to let the
agent know when a new call is connected. In the nailed connection mode, you can configure an
audible connect tone in addition to a call arrival notice (on
the desktop only).
Connect tone is particularly useful when auto answer is enabled or the agent
is an Outbound agent.
Here are its features:
It is an audible tone (two beeps) that is sent to the Mobile Agent
head set when the call to the nailed connection Mobile Agent is connected.
It is a DTMF tone played by Unified CM and cannot be modified.
The Connect Tone plays only when the nailed connection Mobile
Agent receives a call, as in the following examples:
Consultation call is made to the agent.
Outbound call is made to the agent.
Outbound call is made to the agent.
Outbound call is made to the agent.
The Connect Tone does not play when the nailed connection Mobile
Agent initiates a call, as in the following examples:
You can use Agent Greeting for Mobile Agents only with parent/child
deployments that are approved by Cisco Assessment-to-Quality (A2Q) with Design
Mentoring Services (DMS).
Agent Greeting is a feature that you can use to record a message that
plays automatically to callers when they connect to you. Your greeting message
can welcome the caller, identify you, and include other useful contextual
information.
Requirements
The following requirements apply to the Agent Greeting feature for
Mobile Agents.
If a Mobile Agent hangs up when an Agent Greeting plays, the
customer still hears the complete Agent Greeting before the call ends. This
applies for both call by call and nailed-up calls.
If a Mobile Agent hangs up when an Agent Greeting plays, the
customer still hears the complete Agent Greeting before the call ends. This
applies for both call by call and nailed-up calls.
Note
In the Agent Greeting Call Type Report, this call does not
appear as a failed agent greeting call.
A supervisor cannot barge-in when an Agent Greeting is playing.
In the Agent Greeting Call Type Report, this call does not
appear as a failed agent greeting call.
If a Peripheral Gateway (PG), JTAPI Gateway (JGW), or PIM failover
occurs when an Agent Greeting plays for a Mobile Agent, the call fails. This
applies for both call-by-call and nailed-up calls.
Whisper Announcement
With Whisper Announcement, agents can hear a brief prerecorded message
just before they connect with each caller. The announcement plays only to
the agent; the caller hears ringing (based on existing ring tone patterns)
while the announcement plays. The announcement can contain information about
the caller that helps the agent to prepare for the call; for example, language
preference or customer status.
Configuration Requirement
The following requirement applies to the Whisper Announcement feature
for Mobile Agents.
You require a Media Termination Point (MTP) resource on an incoming SIP device.
Hardware and software requirements for the Unified Mobile Agent are
identical to those of Unified CCE. For more information about limitations and scalability for
Unified Mobile Agent, see the
Hardware & System Software Specification (Bill of Materials)
for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise & Hosted, Release
9.0(1).
Phone Requirements
A Mobile Agent can use an analog, digital, or IP phone to handle
calls.
Note
When Mobile Agent phones are located on a cluster and a SIP Trunk
is used to connect the cluster to another cluster under PCCE control,
you must either use SIP phones as Mobile Agent phones, or select
mtp required on the PCCE cluster to allow Mobile Agent
calls to work.
Conference requirements
To use Agent Greeting for Mobile Agents, it is recommended that you
configure external conference bridge (hardware) resources. To estimate the
number of required resources, you can use the following formula:
Number of conference bridge resources = Mobile Agent call rate ×
Average greeting time (in seconds)
CTI Port Requirements
You require two CTI ports (local and remote) for every logged-in
Mobile Agent.
Unified Mobile Agent uses Unified CM CTI Port as a proxy for the
agent's phone. When this proxy is set up, whenever a Mobile Agent is selected
to handle a customer call, the following happens:
The call is directed to the CTI port extension.
Unified CCE/Unified CCH, using the JTAPI Gateway, intercepts the call
arriving on the CTI Port and directs Unified CM to connect the call to the
Mobile Agent.
Unified Mobile Agent requires that maximum number of calls is set to 2 and busy trigger is set to 1.
For Unified Mobile Agent to work properly, you must configure two CTI ports:
One port to serve as the agent's virtual extension.
The other port to initiate calls to the agent.
One port is required per Mobile Agent. You must assign these CTI ports to theUnified
ICME application. The ports are recognized by Unified
ICME when receiving the Unified CM configuration.
Unified CCE support temporary uninstallation
while preserving Mobile Agent data.
For more information about temporary uninstallation, see the Installation and Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified
Contact Center Enterprise & Hosted
Mobile Agents can participate in outbound campaigns, but they must
use a nailed-up connection for all outbound dialing modes.
Unified Mobile Agent supports Redirect on No Answer (RONA). If the
Mobile Agent fails to answer, the agent is made Not Ready, and the call is
redirected to a RANA DN route point.
Unified Mobile Agent supports silent monitoring in CTI OS and in
Cisco Agent Desktop (CAD)
Unified Mobile Agent supports the same call control capabilities
as Unified CCE/Unified CCH (answer, hold, transfer, and so on). All call control is
done through the CAD.
Unified Mobile Agent supports G.711 or G.729 codecs.
There is no direct interaction between Unified Mobile Agent and
multichannel applications. Email and Chat are IP applications that continue to operate normally, assuming the Mobile Agent has a desktop with
enough bandwidth on the broadband connection to support them.
Unified Mobile Agent supports Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal
(Unified CVP) and Cisco Unified IP-IVR (Unified IP IVR).
Fault tolerance for the Unified Mobile Agent follows the behavior of
Unified CCE/Unified CCH:
The JTAPI Gateway, IPCC PIM, and CTI components record key events
related to Unified Mobile Agent as part of their normal logging.
As with standard Unified CC calls, if a Peripheral Gateway (PG)
component such as the JTAPI Gateway fails, the phone call is not lost, but
subsequent call control (transfer, conference, or hold) might not be possible
after a failover. The Mobile Agent is notified of a failure (on the desktop),
but they must log in again after a Unified CM or Unified ICM failure
occurs.
Where CTI data is delivered for screen pops, CTI data is
preserved.
Unified Mobile Agent can experience many of the same failure cases as
Unified CC:
Side A/B failure
IVR failure
Unified CM failure
CTI server failure
There are also some failure cases that are unique to Unified Mobile
Agent:
A situation where a Mobile Agent is using a cellular phone and the
connection is dropped due to non-availability of a signal, is deemed as
external failure. The agent must call back and log-in again.
If a Mobile Agent's phone line disconnects while using nailed
connection mode, the agent must log in again to receive new calls.
During failover, if an agent in call by call mode answers an
alerting call, the call can drop. This occurs because the media cannot
be bridged when there is no active PG.
During a prolonged failover, if an agent takes call control
action for a Unified Mobile Agent-to-Unified Mobile Agent call, the call can drop. This occurs because the activating PG might not have information
for all agents and calls at that point.
Unified CM failover causes a Mobile Agent call to be lost because
call preservation on H.323 devices is not supported.
If a call by call Mobile Agent initiates a call (including a supervisor call) and does not answer the remote leg of the call before PG failover, the call fails. The agent must disconnect the remote agent call leg and reinitiate the call.
Performance
Mobile Agent call processing uses significantly more server
resources and therefore reduces the maximum number of supported agents on
both Unified CM and the Unified ICM Agent PG.
For more information about sizing Mobile Agents, see the
Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise 8.x Solution
Reference Network Design (SRND).
For more information about this release, see the
Hardware & System Software Specification (Bill of
Materials) for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise & Hosted,
Release 9.0(1).
Because Unified Mobile Agent adds processing steps to Unified
CCE/Unified CCH default functionality, Mobile Agents might experience some delay in
screen pops.
From a caller's perspective, the call by call delivery mode has a
longer ring time compared with the nailed connection delivery mode. This is
because Unified CCE/Unified CCH does not start to dial the Mobile Agent's phone number
until
after the call information is routed to the agent desktop.
In addition, the customer call media stream is not connected to the agent until
after the agent answers the phone.
The caller hears a repeated ring tone while Unified CCE/Unified CCH makes
these connections.
Codec
The codec
settings on the Peripheral Gateway and Voice Gateway must
match. Perform the following procedure:
Launch the Peripheral Gateway Setup.
In the Peripheral Gateway Component Properties, select the UCM PIM and click Edit.
In the CallManager Parameters section, select the 6.711 codec from the Mobile Agent Codec drop down list.
Refer to the following figure.
Figure 3. Mobile Agent Codec Selection
Silent Monitoring
Unified Mobile Agent provides the following silent monitoring support:
Mobile Agent supports CTIOS server-based silent monitoring only. Unified CM-based silent monitoring is not supported.
Unified Mobile Agent requires that caller and agent voice
gateways be on separate devices if silent monitoring is to be used.
Unified Mobile Agent does not support desktop monitoring.
Note
For more information about Silent Monitoring requirements in a
Unified Mobile Agent environment, see
CTI OS System Manager's Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact
Center Enterprise & Hosted.
Mobile Agent scalability
Mobile Agent scalability may be contingent on specific Unified CM
versions. For more information, see the
Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise 8.x Solution Reference
Network Design (SRND).
Unsupported Features
The following is a list of unsupported features for Mobile Agent:
Web Callback
Blended Collaboration
Unified CM-based Silent Monitoring
Unified Mobile Agent call flows
This section
provides sample Unified Mobile Agent call flows for:
Inbound calls
Local consultation calls
Remote consultation calls
Remote conference
calls
In all Unified Mobile Agent call flows, the JTAPI
Gateway maintains the signaling association between the inbound and outbound
calls and, if necessary, performs further operations on the call. JTAPI
Gateway, however, does not terminate media; it uses CTI to deliver the customer
call from the inbound gateway port to the outbound gateway port.
This means that a Mobile Agent must use an agent
desktop application to log in, change agent state, log out, and perform call
control.
Show a caller and a Mobile Agent in a cellular network. However,
the same concepts apply whether the Mobile Agent is using an enterprise desk
phone, an IP Phone spanning another Unified CM cluster, standard analog phone,
or a third-party ACD phone.
Focus solely on call media flow; a Mobile Agent must use a CTI
Desktop with broadband access to perform agent state and call control.
Show only a sampling of the call flows possible with Unified
Mobile Agent.
Inbound call flow
The following figure shows an inbound call flow.
Figure 4. Mobile Agent inbound call flow
Note
Caller and Agent voice gateways can coreside on one device, except
in deployments where Silent Monitoring is required.
The following describes an inbound call flow:
The Mobile Agent becomes available to answer calls by:
Logging in to the corporate domain using VPN over the
ADSL/Cable connection
Launching the agent desktop interface and logging in to the
CTI server with their remote phone information
Entering the Ready mode
A customer call arrives at the Unified CC.
The JTAPI Gateway creates a Mobile Agent class to manage local and
network CTI ports for a Mobile Agent.
The Router passes the call to the
local CTI Port of a Mobile Agent.
The JTAPI Gateway places a call on a
network CTI port to the agent's cell phone.
The JTAPI Gateway uses local and network CTI ports of the Mobile
Agent to stream the media for the call from the inbound (caller) gateway port
to the outbound (agent) gateway port.
Local consult calls
The following figure shows a consult call flow between a Mobile Agent
and a local agent.
Figure 5. Mobile Agent consult call flow
Note
Caller and Agent voice gateways can coreside on one device, except
in deployments where Silent Monitoring is required.
The following describes a local consult call flow:
The Mobile Agent becomes available to answer calls by:
Logging in to the corporate domain using VPN over the
ADSL/Cable connection
Launching the agent desktop interface and logging in to the
CTI server with their remote phone information
Entering the Ready mode
A customer call arrives at the Unified CC.
The JTAPI Gateway creates a Mobile Agent class to manage local and
network CTI ports for a Mobile Agent.
The Router passes the call to the
local CTI Port of a Mobile Agent.
The JTAPI Gateway places Agent Connection Call 1 on a
network CTI port to the agent's cell phone.
The Mobile Agent places the customer call on hold and consults a
local Unified CCE/Unified CCH agent.
The JTAPI Gateway uses local and network CTI ports of the Mobile
Agent to stream the media for the call from the IP hard phone to the outbound
gateway port.
Remote consult calls
The following figure shows a remote consult call flow between two
Mobile Agents.
Figure 6. Moble agent remote consult call flow
Note
Caller and Agent voice gateways can coreside on one device, except
in deployments where Silent Monitoring is required.
The following describes a remote consult call flow:
The Mobile Agent becomes available to answer calls by:
Logging in to the corporate domain using VPN over the
ADSL/Cable connection
Launching the agent desktop interface and logging in to the
CTI server with their remote phone information
Entering the Ready mode
A customer call arrives at the Unified CC.
The JTAPI Gateway creates a Mobile Agent class to manage local and
network CTI ports for a Mobile Agent.
The Router passes the call to the
local CTI Port of a Mobile Agent.
The JTAPI Gateway places Agent Connection Call 1 on a
network CTI port to the agent's cell phone.
Mobile Agent 1 puts the customer call on hold and consults Mobile
Agent 2.
The JTAPI Gateway uses the network CTI port of Mobile Agent 1 and
the network CTI port of Mobile Agent 2 to stream the media for the call from
the outbound gateway port on Agent Gateway 1 to the outbound gateway port on
Agent Gateway 2.
Remote conference calls
The following figure shows a remote conference call flow between two
Mobile Agents.
Figure 7. Mobile Agent remote conference call flow
Note
Caller and Agent voice gateways can coreside on one device, except
in deployments where Silent Monitoring is required.
The following describes a remote conference call flow:
The Mobile Agent becomes available to answer calls by:
Logging in to the corporate domain using VPN over the
ADSL/Cable connection
Launching the agent desktop interface and logging in to the
CTI server with their remote phone information
Entering the Ready mode
A customer call arrives at the Unified CC.
The JTAPI Gateway creates a Mobile Agent class to manage local and
network CTI ports for a Mobile Agent.
The Router passes the call to the
local CTI Port of a Mobile Agent.
Unified CM redirects the media stream 1 from inbound gateway on
the Caller Gateway to the conference bridge during call merging process.
The JTAPI Gateway uses local and network CTI ports of Mobile Agent
1 to loop the Media Stream 2 for the call from the outbound gateway port on the
Agent Gateway 1 to the conference bridge.
The JTAPI Gateway uses local and network CTI ports of Mobile Agent
2 to loop the Media Stream 3 for the call from the outbound gateway port on the
Agent Gateway 2 to the conference bridge.
Outbound Option call flow
The following figure shows a Outbound Option call flow between a
customer and a Mobile Agent.
Note
Unified Mobile Agent supports Outbound Option calls in nailed
connection delivery mode
only.
Figure 8. Mobile Agent outbound call flow
Note
Caller and Agent voice gateways can coreside on one device, except
in deployments where Silent Monitoring is required.
The following describes an Outbound Option call flow:
The Mobile Agent becomes available to answer calls by:
Logging in to the corporate domain using VPN over the
ADSL/Cable connection
Launching the agent desktop interface and logging in to the
CTI server with their remote phone information
Entering the Ready mode
The JTAPI Gateway creates a Mobile Agent class to manage local and
network CTI ports for a Mobile Agent.
Outbound Option dials the customer number and, after reaching a
live customer, the Dialer redirects the customer call to the
local CTI Port of an Outbound Option Mobile Agent.
The JTAPI Gateway places a call on a
network CTI port to the agent's cell phone.
The JTAPI Gateway uses local and network CTI ports of the Mobile
Agent to stream the media for the call from the inbound gateway port to the
outbound gateway port.
Unified Mobile Agent Reporting
Unified Mobile Agent-specific call data is contained in Intelligence Center reports Agent Team Historical, Agent Real Time, and Agent Skill Group Historical. These “All Field” reports contain information in multiple fields that show what kind of call the agent is on (nonmobile, call by call, nailed connection), and the Mobile Agent’s phone number.
Notes about Mobile Agents and reporting:
The Mobile Agent must be
logged in through the agent desktop for call data to be
recorded in Unified CC reports.
Service level for Mobile Agent calls might be different than local
agent calls, because it takes longer to connect the call to the agent.
For example, a call by call Mobile Agent might have a longer
Answer Wait Time Average than a local agent. This is because Unified CCE/Unified CCHdoes not start to dial the Mobile Agent phone number until
after the call information is routed to the agent desktop.
In addition, the customer call media stream is not connected to the agent until
after the agent answers the phone.
For more information about Unified Mobile Agent fields in the database schema, see Database Schema Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise & Hosted.