Considerations and limitations may exist for any feature that is listed in the table. For the features that were validated, see the feature descriptions at the end of the document for considerations and limitations.

In the following table, the Feature Name column lists features categorized into major categories. The Cisco HCS column includes the support, as indicated in the preceding legend. Finally, the Considerations column lists important information and cross-references to the corresponding feature description sections after the table.

You can play a configurable, automated agent greeting to callers, standardizing the caller experience. The greeting helps keep the agent voices fresh because they do not have to repeat the same greeting on every call. The Agent Greeting feature lets you record a message that plays automatically to callers when they connect to you. The greeting message can welcome the caller, identify the agent, and include other useful contextual information. With Agent Greeting, each caller receives a clear, well-paced, and language-appropriate introduction.

The process of recording a greeting is similar to recording a message for your voicemail. Depending on how your call center is set up, you can record different greetings that play for different types of callers (for example, an English greeting for English speakers or an Italian greeting for Italian speakers).

By default, greeting play is enabled when you log in to your agent desktop, but you can turn it off and on as necessary.

Agent Greeting is available to agents and supervisors who use IP Phones with Built-in-Bridge (BiB) that are controlled by the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE) and Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM). These agents are typically located within a contact center.

Congestion Control protects the Central Controller from overloading. When you enable the Congestion Control, the new calls entering that exceed the Calls Per Second (CPS) capacity of the contact center are rejected or treated by the Routing Clients at call entry point. This prevents an overload on the call router and ensures call-processing throughput when the system is subjected to overload.

The Congestion Control algorithm works in three levels; each level has an onset and an abatement value. The congestion can rise from any level to any level. However, congestion is reduced one level at a time

Configure the congestion control settings using the Congestion Settings Gadget and the Routing Client Explorer tool. Use the Congestion Settings Gadget to set the system level congestion control. Use the Routing Client Explorer tool to select the Routing Client level treatment options.

Courtesy Callback limits the time a caller waits on the phone for an agent to answer. Instead of listening to queue music, callers have the option to have their calls returned when an agent becomes available.

Each call has a calculated Estimated Wait Time (EWT). When a caller's EWT approaches zero, the script initiates a call back to the caller. When the caller answers the phone the caller is placed back into the queue in the order in which they first entered. Therefore, their call is transferred to an agent.

The Cisco Finesse agent and supervisor desktop for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise integrates traditional contact center functions into a thin-client desktop. A critical characteristic is that every desktop is 100-percent browser-based and implemented through a Web 2.0 interface. No client-side installations are required.

The Cisco Finesse desktop is designed to provide easy access to the applications and information that are required by customer service organizations through a customizable web-based interface. It offers customer care representatives an intuitive, easy-to-use desktop design to help improve their performance and satisfaction, which in turn enhances their ability to provide quality customer service.

See the Cisco Finesse 9.0 Data Sheet at http:/​/​www.cisco.com/​en/​US/​prod/​collateral/​voicesw/​custcosw/​ps5693/​ps11324/​data_​sheet_​c78-710136.html

See the Release Notes for Cisco Finesse Release 9.0.1 at http:/​/​www.cisco.com/​en/​US/​docs/​voice_ip_comm/​cust_contact/​contact_center/​finesse/​finesse_901/​release/​notes/​CFIN_​BK_​R158BCF1_​00_​release-notes-for-cisco-finesse_​chapter_​00.html

The Cisco Outbound Option, with its combination of outbound dialing modes, complements the inbound call-handling capability of the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise platform. You can build campaigns to use predictive, progressive, or preview dialing, which is integrated with inbound calls and compliant with contact center service levels to offer a blended solution. You can allocate agents to handle only inbound, only outbound, or both inbound and outbound contacts, offering an effective way to increase resource use in a contact center. Additionally, this application enables the contact center to dial customer contacts and direct contacted customers to agents or IVRs.

A Post Call Survey takes place after normal call treatment. This feature enables you to configure a call flow that, after the agent disconnects from the caller, optionally sends the call to a Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) configured for a Post Call Survey.

Callers can be prompted during IVR treatment as to whether they want to participate in a Post Call Survey. If they choose to do so, they are automatically transferred to the Post Call Survey after the normal call flow completes, for example, after the agent ends the conversation

The precision queue routing function of Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise provides the intelligent distribution of contacts as they enter the company network. When a contact requires redirection, the contact center application applies business logic, sending the contact to the best available enterprise resource. For contacts that are flowing between sites or among agents, precision queues, or IVRs, the routing optimizes each customer's interaction by retaining collected data, eliminating the need for the customer to restate information.

The Cisco "precision routing" engine gives call center managers granular controls over every aspect of skills routing. Managers also have the capability to tie agent training features, like product questionnaires, directly into the routing engine, partially eliminating the need to manually enter or update proficiency levels for each agent.

Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise extends the sources of data that are available for making contact routing decisions and for populating agent desktop applications. For instance, Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise can perform a lookup in the customer database during routing for information on how to route the call. You can also use information from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications to match customers with agents and expand the data available to popup window applications

Wherever an agent is based, the system delivers context call-event and customer-profile data as a contact arrives, allowing the agent or application to personalize service and help maximize efficiency.

Users have support for integrating fully automated self-service applications using dual tone multifrequency (DTMF), and advanced speech technologies such as automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies with the contact center. Other technologies that are supported include integration with enterprise websites for initiating features such as click-to-talk and real-time notification services for email and, with third-party products, support for fax and paging services.

For self-service and call treatment use Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal.

Unified CVP operates with both TDM- and IP-based contact centers to provide a call management and treatment solution with a self-service IVR option that can use information available to customers on the corporate web server. With support for automatic-speech-recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities, callers can obtain personalized answers to their questions and conduct business without the costs of interacting with a live agent.

With Cisco Unified CVP, users can pay a bill, order products and track delivery, locate a dealer, schedule a pickup, change name and address information, make travel arrangements, check payment status, receive notification of unusual activity, or request literature or product information.

Extend the boundaries of traditional contact center reporting. With Cisco Unified Intelligence Center, users can create a comprehensive information portal where contact center reports and dashboards can be developed and shared throughout your organization.

See the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center 9.0 Data Sheet at: http:/​/​www.cisco.com/​en/​US/​prod/​collateral/​voicesw/​custcosw/​ps5693/​ps9755/​data_​sheet_​c78-710575.html

Whisper Announcement lets agents hear a brief prerecorded message just before they connect with each caller. The announcement is played only to the agent; the caller hears ringing (based on existing ringtone patterns) while the announcement plays. Typically the announcement contains information about the caller that helps prepare the agent to handle the call. The information might be the caller's language preference, choices the caller made from a menu (Sales, Service), the customer status (Platinum, Gold, Regular), and so on.

Enable Whisper Announcement and specify which announcements to play in your Unified CCE call routing scripts. Because the announcements are controlled programmatically you can select which announcement to play based on various inputs. These inputs could include the dialed number, a customer ID lookup in your customer database, and selections made from a VRU menu.

Whisper announcement applies to any contact center line including Mobile Agents

Unified CCE supports Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP1 or later), both Standard and Enterprise Editions. Unified CCE 32-bit applications that use WoW64 compatibility mode on the 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system.

Active Directory on Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit) domain controllers with the domain functional level of Windows Server 2008 R2 is supported. The improvements in Active Directory 2008 increase the support and security of an Active Directory-based network. Windows Server 2008 supports Read Write Domain Controller (RWDC) and Read Only Domain Controller (RODC) as part of the security enhancements.

In Cisco Unified Contact Center, CTI OS (Computer Telephony Integration Object Server) is the integration of the communications media (that is, phone, email, or web) with the customer service platform (that is, customer databases, transaction processing systems, or CRM software packages). Integrating communications media with the customer service platform helps agents to service customers better and faster in two ways. First, it enables agents to leverage the information and events that are provided by the media to direct their workflow. Second, it increases the depth and breadth of customer information that is presented to the agent when the customer's contact arrives at the workstation.

See Related Documentation for information about the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center.

Cisco CTI OS .NET Toolkit supports for application development using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2010 and the .NET 3.5 framework. Existing .NET 2.0 controls do not need to be modified. Additionally, the CTI .NET CIL supports Visual Studio .NET 2010.

The Toolkit is designed for companies that require specialized, custom desktop capabilities that are tailored to meet the specific needs of their contact center operations. Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise can help you deploy a complete CTI strategy, including comprehensive functions at the agent's workstation. The solution offers a rich set of data for business applications, providing enterprise-wide call-event and customer-provided information to the agent's desktop. It sets a new standard for true enterprise-wide, network-to-desktop CTI with minimal custom development or systems integration, helping your organization implement CTI quickly and cost-effectively.

Java, .NET, and C++ CIL desktop clients are supported on the 64-bit versions of Windows 7, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.

If connection cannot be reestablished within X number of retries, where X = 60 / RetryIntervalSec (as defined in the CTI OS registry), CTI OS will restart. If the connection is reestablished, CTI OS Server checks whether the configuration has changed while the connection to the Connected Grid was not active. If the configuration has not changed, CTI OS becomes active without restarting. If the configuration has changed, CTI OS Server restarts with the changed configuration. If the Connected Grid connection fails before CTI OS Server completely loads the configuration; CTI OS server restarts and continues loading the changes.

CTI OS-based silent monitor allows a supervisor to listen in on agent calls in Unified CCE call centers that use CTI OS and requires a separate server. Supervisors can send silent monitor requests to agent desktops without the agent being aware of any monitoring activity. Voice packets that are sent to and received by the monitored agent's IP desk phone are captured from the network and sent to the supervisor silent monitor service that is connected to the supervisor desktop. At the supervisor silent monitor service, these voice packets are decoded and played on the supervisor system sound card.

Multisite support from Cisco Unified Contact Center allows a customer with multiple departments or offices that are geographically located in different areas to be managed from a single deployment.

Call routing connections refers to the ability to create, modify, and delete trunks, route groups, route lists, and route patterns using Unified Communications Domain Manager. Together, these elements enable call routing via a trunk, and the combined elements are treated as a logical connection. Each item is created in the context of this connection, and can be used with only that connection. Build the connection in a particular logical order and modify or delete with dependent records in mind.

The administrator can use Add Connection (Call Routing wizard) for quick setup, or individual modules for Connections, Route Lists, Route Groups, Trunks and Route Patterns, to create a custom connection.

Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise supports security and data integrity features and solutions. When deployed, the application servers are hardened to reduce the attack surface and system vulnerability. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is available on all web-based applications and Transport Layer Security (TLS) and IP Security (IPsec) support is available for sockets-based communications to secure data in transit across trusted and untrusted networks.

In addition to supporting antivirus applications from the major vendors, Cisco offers, as part of its unified communications solutions, the Cisco Security Agent, a host-based intrusion detection and prevention application that provides added protection. By analyzing behavior rather than relying on signature matching, Cisco Security Agent complements the capabilities of antivirus software to provide a robust solution to protect your network and reduce operational costs.

For more information, please visit:http:/​/​www.cisco.com/​go/​csa.