InformaCast Advanced Notification Support
Configure and Troubleshoot Informacast
In general, Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 support multicast audio broadcasts, text notifications, and user feedback to the InformaCast server using the XSI APIs. InformaCast can be configured to use HTTP or Cisco Unified Communications Manager JTAPI interfaces to the Cisco Unified Communications Manager.
For more information about Configure and Troubleshoot Informacast, see Configure and Troubleshoot Informacast
Unsupported InformaCast Features
Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 currentlly doesnot support Push to Talk and Quick Page services. Phones subscribed to these services will have no way to activate the service on the device. Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 also does not support One Button Paging, where the QuickPage service is assigned to a Service URL button in the device’s Phone Button Template. As the phone does not allow configuration of buttons in the Cisco Unified Communications Manager.
Partially Supported InformaCast Features
Call Aware
Call Aware is primarily used to detect when a 911 emergency call has been dialed, which then triggers an InformaCast broadcast. It can also be used to detect calls to numbers other than 911, monitor calls that have been detected, and record those calls. For example, you could use it to trigger an InformaCast broadcast whenever someone calls the Front Desk, and a supervisor could elect to monitor those calls for quality assurance or record them for review later. Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 does not support monitoring and recording of calls.
Text and Audio Messages using Talk and Listen
InformaCast messages that contain both text and audio can be configured with the option to “Start a phone call with any phones in a recipient group and allow everyone to speak in real time (Talk and Listen)”. When Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 receives one of these messages, the “talk” and “exit” softkeys are not displayed, so the Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 can only listen to other phones that are transmitting audio.
Notes on InformaCast Features
Panic Button
Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 have a red button which by default is configured to be the Emergency button on the device. This function can also be mapped to other device buttons using the Buttons application. Using the Emergency app, you can configure the phone to trigger an alarm or make an emergency call through the CiscoPhone app when the user does either a long press, 2 short presses, or 2 short or one long press of the configured Emergency button. By default, no actions are taken.
InformaCast’s panic button service can be used with or without the configuration of the Emergency app. In the step where the Cisco IP Phone Service is configured on the Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Create an InformaCast XML Service (singlewire.com)), the Cisco IP Phone Service created must be named InformaCast (this is not case-sensitive), otherwise the device will not recognize it as a service configured for the Panic button feature, and there will be no way for the user to activate it.
If the Emergency App is enabled, it continues to do what it currently does when the panic button is pressed. If both InformaCast and the Emergency App are being used, the Emergency app should be configured to trigger the alarm after one long press of the button, because if 2 presses are configured, the InformaCast service will be triggered twice. The Red circular on-screen panic button press in the Emergency app will not trigger the InformaCast panic button service.
Other Notes
If the phone is not in an active call, the Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 displays a notification to the user when it receives a broadcast message from InformaCast.
The user can choose to view or ignore the message and stop the multicast audio stream by touching the corresponding button on the notification. If a broadcast contains audio only, this behavior differs from the 8821, which has no way of disabling the audio stream. If the phone is in a call, the multicast audio stream will not be played unless the user elects to play it by clicking on the button in the notification, which will place the existing call on hold.
If the phone is locked, the broadcast message is automatically displayed, and audio is played (if not in a call) without any user interaction. The user still has the ability to stop the audio through the stop button on the displayed message. If the user is in a call while the phone is locked, then ANSWER button in the notification must be clicked to hear the broadcast.
Phone vibration settings set on the InformaCast Broadcast Parameters page are ignored by Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860.
Cisco Wireless Phone 840 or 860 behaves as shown in the following table when multiple broadcasts are sent by InformaCast, depending on the configuration of the Enable Message Blending check box on the InformaCast Broadcast Parameters page:
|
Priority and Arrival Order |
Blending Enabled |
Blending Disabled |
|---|---|---|
|
Lower priority broadcast (A) followed by higher priority broadcast (B). |
Switches from playing broadcast A to playing broadcast B; once B is over, switches back to playing the rest of A. |
Switches from playing broadcast A to playing broadcast B; once B is over, switches back to playing the rest of A. |
|
Broadcast (A) followed by broadcast (B) with the same priority. |
Plays A in full, ignores broadcast B. |
Plays broadcast A in full, then switches to playing the rest of B. |
|
Higher priority broadcast (A) followed by lower priority broadcast (B). |
Plays broadcast A in full, then switches to playing the rest of broadcast B. |
Plays broadcast A in full, then switches to playing the rest of broadcast B. |
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