New Features
VPN-less Access to Finesse Desktop (For Agents and Supervisors)
This feature provides the flexibility for agents and supervisors to access the Finesse desktop from anywhere through the Internet without requiring VPN connectivity to the enterprise data center. To enable this feature, a reverse-proxy pair must be deployed in the DMZ. For more information on this feature, see the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide, Release 12.6(1) and Security Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise, Release 12.6(1).
Media access remains unchanged in reverse-proxy deployments. To connect to the media, agents and supervisors can use Cisco Jabber over MRA or the Mobile Agent capability of Contact Center Enterprise with a PSTN or mobile endpoint.
To use VPN-less access to Finesse desktop, you must upgrade Finesse, IdS, and CUIC to Release 12.6(1) ES02 or above. If you are using Unified CCE 12.6(1), you must upgrade Live Data to 12.6(1) ES02 or above. You can access the 12.6(1) ES03 Release and Readme from the following locations:
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Edge Chromium Browser Support
This release supports Edge Chromium (Microsoft Edge) . For more information, see the Supported Browsers section in the Contact Center Enterprise Solution Compatibility Matrix at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-device-support-tables-list.html.
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To enable this browser support in Administration Client Setup for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise, install the ICM_12.0(1)_ES65. |
Platform Updates
For information about the supported devices for this release, see the Compatibility Matrix at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-device-support-tables-list.html.
Platform Upgrades
This release supports both Common Ground and Technology Refresh upgrades.
This release allows in-place operating system upgrades to Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard and Datacenter Editions with Desktop Experience and Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard and Enterprise Editions, followed by upgrade of Unified CCE from previous releases. For further information, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-installation-guides-list.html.
Hardware and Platform Support
Cisco UCS C240 M5SX Server Support
Cisco Unified CCE, Release 12.0(1), must be installed on Cisco UCS C240 M5SX servers for TRC deployments.
Other servers are supported for specification based deployments.
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Upgrade to Cisco Unified CCE from an earlier release installed on an earlier server platform such as Cisco UCS C240 M4SX is supported. On Cisco UCS C240 M4SX servers:
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For more information about the server platform and deployment information for Cisco Unified CCE, see the Solution Design Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise
Upgrade VM to Hardware Version 11
Before you install this release, ensure that the Virtual Machine (VM) version installed is version 11.
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Before you upgrade the VM version to version 11, Power off the VMs. |
If you are upgrading the CCE deployment to Release 12.0(1), follow the steps provided in the Virtual Machine client documentation to upgrade the VM Compatibility to version 11 by selecting ESXi 6.0 Update 2 or later . ESXi 6.0 Update 2 or later provides the upgrade compatibility for VM version 11.
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Selecting an option other than ESXi 6.0 Update 2 or later may not upgrade the VM version to version 11. |
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Power on the VMs after upgrading the VM compatibility to version 11. |
Reference Design Layouts
The Reference Design layouts for the following Reference Designs have been modified for the Cisco UCS C240 M5SX server:
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2000 Agents
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4000 Agents
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12000 Agents
For more information about support for various Reference Designs introduced in this release, see the New Deployment Types topic.
New Deployment Types
This release includes new deployment types to enable increased scale in contact center enterprise solutions:
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Unified CCE solution deployment type that supports 24000 Agents.
For more information, see the Solution Design Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-implementation-design-guides-list.html .
Secured Connections
This release provides an end-to-end security of the transport channels that carry PII.
With this release, you can enable secured connections for:
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Self-service communications: By enabling secured connections in CVP and VRU PG.
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Outbound Options: By enabling secured connection in the CTI server, Dialer, and Media Routing PG.
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Agent Desktop Communications: By enabling mixed-mode connection in the CTI server and secured connection in the Cisco Finesse Server or in CTI OS, as applicable.
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Third-party integration: By enabling secured connection in the application gateway servers and clients.
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Multi-channel communications: By enabling secured connection between:
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ECE (Server) and MR PG (Client)
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CTI server and ECE (Client)
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Certificate Management and Monitoring
This release provides a new utility called CiscoCertUtil to manage the security certificates that are required to establish secured connections.
This release also includes a new service called the Unified CCE Certificate Monitor that monitors the SSL and TLS based certificates and keys. This service helps the system administrator to ensure that the systems are installed with valid security certificates without interrupting the Unified CCE services that are running. It alerts the system administrator about the validity and expiry of these certificates through Event Viewer.
For information, see the following guides:
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For more information about the Certificate Monitoring service, see the Serviceability Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html.
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Solution Design Guide for your solution.
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Security Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html.
Default Domain Name
This release includes a new option, Default domain name, on the Configuration Manager's System Information dialog. With this option, you can choose a default domain name to add to usernames in a non-SSO environment. If a username is not in UPN (or SAM account) format, Unified CCE attaches this global domain name to the username when required.
In non-SSO solutions, Unified CCE does not require a username to be in UPN format. However, activities like supervisor sign-in for multiple PGs might require you to sign in with UPN-formatted usernames.
Non-SSO solutions had to add the required domain names to be added to usernames in Release 11.5 or 11.6. Those solutions can now set a Default domain name and then remove the domain name from the usernames with the Bulk Editor tool. For detailed instructions on this process, see the Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise.
Contact Director Supports 3 Unified CCE Targets
This release increases the number of supported Unified CCE targets in the Contact Director Reference Design from 2 to 3. The Contact Director can handle up to 24,000 agents across a maximum of 3 target Unified CCE instances.
Expanded Call Context Payloads
This feature expands the flexibility of Expanded Call Context (ECC) variables. An ECC payload is a defined set of ECC variables with a maximum size of 2000 bytes. ECC payloads to a CTI client include an extra 500 bytes for ECC variable names that are included in the CTI message.
In earlier releases, you can only define 2000 bytes of ECC variables system wide. In this release, you can define as many ECC variables as necessary. You can create ECC payloads with the necessary information for a given operation. You can include a specific ECC variable in multiple ECC payloads. The particular ECC variables in a given ECC payload are called its members.
You can use several ECC payloads in the same call flow, but only one ECC payload has scope at a given moment. For information on support of ECC payloads by interface, see the Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise.
Default ECC Payload
The solution includes an ECC payload named Default for backward compatibility. If your solution does not require more ECC variable space, you only need the Default payload. The solution uses the Default payload unless you override it.
If your solution only has the Default payload, the solution automatically adds any new ECC variables to the Default payload until it reaches the 2000-byte limit.
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You cannot delete the Default payload, but, you can change its members. |
In a fresh install, the Default payload includes the predefined system ECC variables. When you upgrade to Release 12.0, a script adds your existing ECC variables to the Default payload.
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During upgrades, when the system first migrates your existing ECC variables to the Default payload, it does not check the CTI message size limit. The member names might exceed the extra 500 bytes that is allocated for ECC payloads to a CTI client. Manually check the CTI Message Size counter in the Expanded Call Variable Payload List tool to ensure that the Default payload does not exceed the limit. If the Default payload exceeds the limit, modify it to meet the limit. If you use an ECC payload that exceeds the CTI message size limit in a client request, the CTI Server rejects the request.
For an OPC message with such an ECC payload, the CTI Server sends the message without the ECC data. In this case, the following
event is logged, |
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The ECC payload feature is not available for Non Reference Designs. |
For more information, see the following documents:
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Solution Design Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise
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Scripting and Media Routing Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise
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Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise
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List Tools Online Help
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Script Editor Online Help
ECC Payload API
The ECC Payload feature includes an API. For details, see the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Developer Reference Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-programming-reference-guides-list.html.
Business Hours
The Business Hours feature lets you create schedules for regular working hours and extra working hours, and to close the contact center for holidays or emergencies. It provides the mechanism for routing these contacts to specific support teams based on the configured work hour schedules, holidays, emergency closures, or extra working hours. You can create Business Hour schedules for various scenarios for various contact center teams.
This feature helps you create and apply several Business Hour schedules to the same team. On the other hand, you could apply the same Business Hour schedule to several support teams. When a customer contacts the contact center, the response by the contact center is based on the status of the support team. This status is evaluated using the Business Hour configured for the team.
Use this feature to:
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Configure default working hours (regular hours) for contact center teams for each day of the week. This option is not applicable to 24x7 support teams.
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Configure the special hours for the contact center team or teams for any special days such as Sale days or holidays.
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Force Close the contact center for any emergency such as a natural calamity.
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Force Open the contact center on a holiday or a non-working day to cater to specific business requirements such as Sale days.
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Create and deploy customer notifications that are based on Business Hour status.
For more information about Business Hours, see the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide.
PCM (G.711) A-law Support
This release adds support for Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) A-law encoding to SIP dialers.
Now, SIP dialers support both the G.711 encoding laws, A-law and µ-law. The SIP dialers for Outbound Option do not require DSP transcoder resources on the CUBE for initial negotiation between the SIP Dialer and the SIP service provider. CUBE auto-negotiates the encoding law between the SIP dialer and SIP service provider.
For more information on the encoding, see the Outbound Option Guide for Unified Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-user-guide-list.html.