Messaging
A variety of messaging options are available to suit the needs of businesses small and large. The following table provides a summary of the options.
Cisco Unity Express
Unity Express is an ISR-based application that runs either on an AIM module or an NM module. AIM modules are connected to the main board as a daughter board addition and use flash memory for greetings and message storage. AIM modules therefore have less capacity for storage. NM modules are inserted into module bays in ISR routers, use a hard disk for greeting and message storage, and have greater capacity for storage than AIM modules. Unity Express supports from 4 to 16 concurrent sessions and 12 to 250 mailboxes (dependent on the module and platform installed). Unity Express is managed through the command line or a web-based GUI. It allows users to view and sort their voice messages using the IP Phone display, email application, or IMAP client. Unity Express can be deployed in conjunction with Unified CM or CM Express and can supplement a full Unity deployment.
Cisco Unity Connection
Unity Connection is a medium-size business solution with a full range of messaging features. It can be deployed on its own or as a coresident installation as part of Unified Communications Manager Business Edition on suitable MCS platforms. When deployed as part of CM Business Edition, Unity Connection supports up to 500 users; when deployed as a standalone application, Unity connection supports up to 3000 users per server (dependent on hardware). Scalability is achieved by networking up to 10 other Unity messaging products of any type. Fourteen languages are supported for deployments worldwide. Unity Connection also supports speech recognition, allowing users to speak commands to manage their messages hands-free. Multiple interfaces are supported for managing messages from an IP Phone, an email client, a web GUI, or Cisco Unified Personal Communicator. Users can define their own rules to transfer calls based on caller, time of day, and Microsoft Exchange calendar status.
Cisco Unity
Unity is the enterprise-class messaging application with support for up to 7500 users per server and up to 250,000 users in a multi server networked environment. Interoperability with legacy voice-mail systems, notably Octel and Nortel systems, allows a phased transition to IP messaging with minimal disruption to users. Unity supports 35 languages, facilitating deployments worldwide. Full unified messaging is possible with connectors for Exchange, Notes, and GroupWise, providing a single inbox for email, voice mail, and fax messages. Text-to-speech capability allows users to have their emails read to them over the phone by the RealSpeech engine; speech recognition is also available so users can instruct Unity to play, search, or record messages hands-free. Secure messaging is supported, allowing encrypted messages and preventing messages that have expired from being played. Access to messages is made simple, intuitive, and possible from almost anywhere.
Auto Attendant
An Auto Attendant is basically an advanced answering machine; instead of only one message, it can play several, depending on the date and time, which number was called, and most importantly, what numbers the callers pressed in response to the greeting they heard. If you have ever heard: "For service in English, press I. Pour service en Francais, appuyez sur le 2 . . . , " you have been served by an Auto Attendant. Typically, Auto Attendants allow callers to select the department or extension they want to call, and often they allow the caller to spell out a first or last name to search in the company directory. Cisco Unity, Unity Connection, and Unity Express all provide Auto Attendant functionality; Unity and Unity Connection include a simple web interface that makes it very easy to construct menus and test to see that they work as you intended.
Cisco Unified IP IVR
Although Auto Attendants are useful, their functionality is limited to pretty basic menu navigation. To scale this functionality up to call-center size, and especially to include speech recognition, prompt-and-collect ("Please enter your 10-digit account number, followed by the # sign"), Text-to-Speech, database integration, and Java application integration, a much more advanced IVR application is required. Cisco Unified IP IVR has all these advanced capabilities. Call centers that have a high call volume and many possible queues of callers waiting for different agent capabilities can effectively deploy Unified IP IVR to steer callers to the correct agent, or perhaps to an automated information source without the need to tie up an agent at all. Unified IP IVR includes the capability to provide both real-time and historical reports on its utilization and offers multiple-language support.
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal
For the very largest call centers, the Unified CVP product provides advanced IVR, including speech recognition, advanced queuing, integration with Cisco Unified Contact Center (Enterprise and Hosted), and powerful call routing, management, and reporting features.
Cisco Unified Contact Center
Cisco provides a range of Contact Center products for SMB, Enterprise, and Service Provider applications. Customer contact solutions provide multiple avenues to reach and interact with customers, including basic telephony as well as feature-rich web, email, and even video interaction. The three Contact Center products are described next:
- Cisco Unified Contact Center Express: Suitable for 10 to 300 agents, it provides sophisticated call routing, outbound dialing capabilities, comprehensive contact management, and chat and web collaboration in a singleserver, integrated "contact center in a box."
- Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise: Provides intelligent contact routing, call treatment, network-to-desktop computer telephony integration (CTI), and multichannel contact management. It combines multichannel automatic call distributor (ACD) functionality. Sophisticated monitoring allows customers to be routed to the most appropriate agent (based on real-time conditions such as agent skills, availability, and queue lengths) anywhere in the enterprise, regardless of the agent's location.
- Cisco Unified Contact Center Hosted: An application hosted by service providers, who then lease its functionality to customers who want a virtual contact center without the need to manage and maintain it themselves. Subscribing business customers can have IP or time-division multiplexing (TDM) infrastructures or a combination of the two. Contact Center Hosted provides all the advanced capabilities found in Contact Center Enterprise.
Cisco Unified Mobile Solutions
Today's workforce is mobile, distributed, and utilizes multiple technologies to communicate. The desire to have a seamless transition between the various ways in which people can be reached has spurred the development of mobility features in Cisco Unified Communications. The key products are the following:
- Cisco Unified Mobility: (a.k.a Single Number Reach) Allows multiple remote destinations (commonly a cell phone, a home office phone, or other work location) to be configured to ring at the same time as the worker's enterprise desk phone. Thus, when a customer calls your work number while you are on your way to a meeting, your cell phone can ring and you can answer without the customer realizing you are away from your desk. Furthermore, if you return to your desk, you can simply pick up your desk phone and continue the call. A related feature, called Cisco Mobile Voice Access, allows users to place calls from their enterprise desk phone from a remote location or a cell phone. By dialing a configured number and entering an access code, the enterprise system will prompt for the number you want to call, and the call will be placed as if you were at your desk. This is useful not only for presenting the preferred Caller-ID number to the customer, but also potentially for long-distance toll savings.
- Cisco Unified Personal Communicator: A desktop PC (or Mac) application that combines a software IP Phone, IM client, video, and online collaboration capabilities. Presence indications ("Busy," "In a call," "Away," "Do Not Disturb," and so on) can save time and enhance productivity because users can see the status of the person they want to contact before trying to reach them. Integration with an Outlook toolbar provides click-to-call or click-to-chat from a message or contact.
- Cisco Unified IP Communicator: A fully functioned software IP Phone, often characterized as a "7970 under glass." Users can place and receive calls from their PCs from anywhere that connectivity to the call agent can be established. This is typically achieved through a VPN connection; it is perfectly possible to place a call from an airport boarding lounge or your local coffee shop. Unified IP Communicator can be enhanced with Unified Video Advantage, which integrates a PC webcam for video calls.
- Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator: An application for smart mobile phones that provides access to enterprise directories, presence indicators, secure text/chat, voice-mail access, call history of any of the user's phones displayed on the mobile handset, and collaboration and conferencing integration with Unified Meeting Place.
- Cisco Unified Presence: A server-based application that extends the on/off hook status monitoring capability of Unified CM 6.x to include IM-like status messages. Status indications can be displayed or integrated with Personal Communicator, Mobile Communicator, IP Phone Messenger, the Microsoft Office Connector, and IBM Sametime Communicator.
Cisco Telepresence
Cisco Telepresence is a state-of-the-art high-definition videoconferencing system. A specially designed system of furniture, cameras, monitors, and microphones creates a life-sized illusion of a meeting whose participants may be half a world apart. With 1080p HD video, CD-quality spatial audio, and high-quality lighting, the experience is dramatic to say the least. In combination with the Telepresence Multipoint Switch, up to 36 locations can be included in a single conference with nearzero latency. This can only be described as a high-end solution, with commensurate demands on bandwidth.
No comments:
Post a Comment