If you ask your average IT professional what a T span is, the usual response will be that it is a 1.5MB connection to the internet. Ask your average telecom tech what a T span is and you will be told it is 24 channels of dial tone! As a VoIP Engineer what a T span is and you should get the answer:, “what do you want it to be”? One of the great challenges of implementing a VoIP solution is the absolute requirement that the implementation team possess an interdisciplinary skill set. The solution demands expertise in a range of specialized skills including IP network, switching, routing, supplementary telephony services , server technology management and application call flow integration. If the user group is going to fully realize the benefits of a VoIP implementation, then each of these specialized areas of technology are going to be necessary to a successful deployment. Traditional telephony vendors are comfortable with all things TDM. They like to punch things down on 66 blocks and use “butt sets” to test for “dial tone”. Network professionals have their area of comfort as to Microsoft or Linux server professionals. Call Center professionals understand caller greeting, salutation, screening, call routing, message acquisition and message retrieval at the application level, but seldom understand the underlying technology. At the end of the day, you can shop the internet and find out who can sell you a shiny new telephone thing cheaper, but finding a team that can execute the delivery of a VoIP solution is worthy of the time you would invest selecting a new CFO! You need to work with a team that can demonstrate proficiency in each of the required discipline and accept responsibility for every aspect of the implementation. From concept to “go live”, the voip solution provider you select must know the difference between a “dress rehearsal” and a “take”.
Category: Business Voip
Priority Call Management?
Are all your customers equal? Every business owner, large or small knows the answer to that question and the answer is no! We have Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze customers, each of which represents a different value to the business. For this reason, we often want to structure our call flow to prioritize these customers. You do not have to work in a “call center” to manage this priority scheme. The ShoreTel Personal Call Manager, for example, provides a visual call management tool that enables you to apply the concept of “priority call management”. I know the value of my current telephone conversation. It is the value of the next phone call that I want to be alert for. We have all had the experience of being on the phone talking and suddenly seeing the messaging waiting light illuminate on our phone! You immediately know that the very phone call you had been waiting for, slipped right past your ear and into the voice mail. With a personal call manager, I can see the next phone call as it arrives and take appropriate action. I can ask the current caller to hold. I have my ShoreTel Call Manager set so that a second important call to my desk can be sent to a greeting that says “Hi, I see you ringing in and if you hold the line, I will wrap up the call I am on and be right with you”. (Send me an email and I will share how I set that up). Optionally, I could have put the first call on hold and taken the second, higher priority caller. The issue is simply: when the financial, time or relationship value of the next call is more important, you will truly value having a visual, personal priority call manager only a click away!
VoIP System Design – Call Flow
Installing a VoIP solution has a wide range of technical issues that need to be addressed, organized and accounted for. From co-coordinating the “porting” of phone numbers from the old telephone carrier to the new carrier; to determining who has responsibility for providing DHCP and Time services to the new phone devices the technical detail is an endless check list. Generally, we always manage to get all of the technical details correctly identified and successfully implemented. The speeds and feeds all seem to work out and the phones come alive with dial tone and PSTN connectivity. The area that we as a professional service organization are always trying to improve, however, is the very important subject of call flow. Exactly what will an incoming caller to your place of business experience? Will there be a live answering point or will an automated attendant be used? How will calls be handled if the intended call processing solution, either the person or the automated solution is unavailable? Are calls received after normal business hours handled differently? If so how? What about holidays? Unfortunately, though the technical details of a new install are generally always successfully negotiated in time for the “go live”, the entire subject of “call flow” is often neglected until post cut over! Personally, I have found this area of a new installation to be the most demanding and least understood aspect of system design. If there is any area of a new system implementation that needs attention this would be it. The scripting of automated attendant and workgroup, contact center queues needs to be carefully crafted. Time needs to be allocated to the recording of these scripts and both on –hours and off-hour call flow testing needs to be accomplished. After all, the creation of a positive, effective and efficient call flow experience for your client base is what the telephone system is suppose to accomplish in the first place!
ShoreTel Version 9 Personalized Call Handling Options
Call Handling modes has always been one of ShoreTel’s most popular user features. The concept is simple: define how you want the system to process an incoming phone call to your desk in case you are “out of the office”, “in a meeting” or “sitting at my desk”. Before ShoreTel, the company receptionist would have the responsibility of putting a caller on hold, calling your extension, finding out you are away from you desk and then asking the caller if they want to leave a message. For me the most exciting aspect of the ShoreTel Call Handling modes is the fact that the Operator no longer has to be responsible for call deposition. The Operator plays the role of greeting and salutation, but now each ShoreTel extension user can create their own call flow eliminating the requirement that Operator stay with the call until the very end. Typically the message acquisition and retrieval functions kick in if you are away from you extension, but ShoreTel has enabled the individual user to create more productive call flow resolution strategies.
If your job role is part of a larger group, it may be more appropriate to ask the caller to press zero to speak to another member of you team. Let’s not defer a client request for assistance or a new sale opportunity just because you were not at your desk! For those “must be found” professionals, ShoreTel has a very flexible “find me” call flow strategy. Just ask the caller to hold the line for a moment while ShoreTel tries to locate you when VoIP solutions in general and ShoreTel in particular. These call handling options are set by the individual, under the individuals control without system administration training and without requiring the Operator to keep other callers holding while desperately taking messages or trying to locate you. Now that is an example a increasing worker productivity!
So how do you improve on this model? Well ShoreTel version 9 has done just that. Imagine the power of being able to create not only call handling modes, but call handling rules that are based on who is calling you! Maybe Friday phone calls need to be handled differently? What if we have several advertising campaigns and you want calls routed based on the number the caller dial (e.g. DNIS)? ShoreTel Version 9 has added a wealth of exciting new call flow options that are based on who is calling what number at what time. One of the most valued functions of a live Operator was the “call screening” function and now ShoreTel can even replicate that function, announcing the caller’s name and giving you an opportunity to accept or reject the call. The options for stream lining call flow to match client call handling goals are virtually unlimited.
In a VoIP world we no longer associate an individual to a specific desktop location or geographical. Using Call Handling modes and Personalize Call Handling options, every client call to your extension can be handled in a manner that best reflects your business goals. Operators do not have to keep an “in out” status board, or waste the valuable time of clients as different call resolution strategies are attempted. Each user now has complete authority to manage call flow excellence!
ShoreTel Contact Center C2G Interaction Reports
Prior to release of ShoreTel Contact Center Version 5.0, reporting was essentially statistical analysis. The Contact Center had very useful report generation capabilities that included the ability to add and delete columns to existing pre-defined reports. The reports, however, were generated largely as summary reports based on accumulated totals of events. For example, you could generate an Agent Performance report that could report the total number of calls presented; total call answered; average call holding time; average talk time over a specified interval. Though very useful for tracking aggregate call volume, the reports could not track individual agents events. The Shoretel Contact Center had no equivalent of the Call Detail Reporting that you might find in the ShoreTel IPBX database. What information was available, was derived by arithmetic manipulation of totals or the equivalent of “peg counters”. Each agent had a bucket for total calls, but the details of each call were not archived in the database. This led to reports that indicated total calls for the period were 19.2 as calls were averaged over an interval.
ShoreTel Contact Center 5.0 takes a major step forward in the area of reporting. A new feature named variously “interaction reporting” or “cradle to grave” reporting has made a major positive contribution to the contact centers already strong feature set. The database has also migrated from Sybase to MySQL, which completes the database migration strategy that ShoreTel began with version 7 of the IPBX. In the ECC database contains a table structure that can be generally summarized as a configuration database. A second database, named C2G has been created and does not appear in contact centers before version 5. This database contains about 22 tables of which four are effectively the equivalent of “CDR” records. A table named events, tracks all the incoming event detail and includes a GUID that can be used to link back to the CDR record in the IPBX. This database makes it possible to create very detailed reports. For example, assume you needed a report that listed each call handled by a specific agent over an specified interval. Additionally, you want the agent detail to include a call disposition status or wrap code. Prior to the C2G database, this type of report would have been impossible. With the new C2G database, you can generate the report very easily using any MySQL administration tool, like SQLyog. Interaction reporting is a major step forward for ShoreTel Contact Center and one that the market will be very excited to receive. Look for a video update in our online library for a “hands on” look at how to setup configure and make use of Interaction reporting!
To VOIP QOS or not to VOIP QOS?
In telephony, IP QOS is somewhere between a science and an art. Setting up VOIP QOS on your network is essential for toll quality voice from end point to end point, especially across a WAN. Historically, in ShoreTel, IP packets were marked with the DSCP value set in the Call Control Options page. Generally this is generally set as a value of 184 or Precedence Level 5, what CISCO would call Express Forwarding or EF. This value is represented as 184 (10111000 or 46) but as a TOS/Differential Service Control Point marking it is only applied to the IP layer and has no impact on your LAN. Additionally, IP packets were only marked on the media stream between IP phones, not between the switches or between the phones and the switches. Version 9 of ShoreTel, now reports “system wide” TOS/DSCP support, which represents a significant improvement in your ability to control VOIP QOS. At the LAN level, it is important to know that you are working with Ethernet frames and for this reason the only QOS marking available to you is a VLAN tag. Inside the VLAN tag, three bits have been set aside for precedence markings and are named COS for “class of service”. If you are NOT running SIP on your network, you have another QOS tool available to you. ShoreTel media streams in other than SIP environments run on UDP port 5004 enabling you to prioritize voice over data at the transport level. ShoreTel also provides the opportunity for you to establish “admission bandwidth control” per site, to assure that the next phone call does not exceed the limits you have set with this parameter. Beware that this parameter exists only within the ShoreTel architecture and has no real knowledge about the actual bandwidth utilization of your network. Establishing this threshold is left entirely to the engineer designing the network. In large part IP QOS is best determined at the IP level and is heavily dependent on establishing queue in your routers that service latency sensitive traffic, voice and video, over less sensitive best efforts traffic. Knowing about these different QOS markings is the science. Knowing how to pass markings from one level to the next is the art of QOS!
A VoIP Deployment will only be as good as your Network!
Remember those old SUN Microsystems commercials? “This is my dog, network. He can get you anything you need”. Well, regardless of the vendor, if you have a network that can barely keep up with user demand for internet access, you are definitely not going to have a successful VoIP deployment. This is why a network assessment is absolutely essential to the future success of your VoIP deployment. Let’s start at the lowest level of the OSI model and work up; cable or level 1. It is the 21st century but your company still has CAT3 cable in the office? This is not going to fly if you want to run VoIP do the desktop! How about those Ethernet switches you bought off eBay three years ago? Are they able to provide Power over Ethernet (POE)? Can you enable VLAN’s? How about interVLAN routing (switch many time, route once)? Ethernet switches and the functionality you need at L2 are mission critical in VoIP deployments. How about L3? If you are using your firewall for a router, you will need to know that “deep packet inspection” necessary to the functionality of a firewall, is a major source of latency in VoIP deployments, so find another default gateway! When you set up a WAN between your far flung, geographically dispersed business locations, will you have access to them? Or will you need to call your carrier every time you want to check your egress queue for QOS? At the end of the day it really will not matter if you went with Mitel, ShoreTel, CISCO, Avaya or Trixbox. If you do not have a properly engineered and managed LAN/WAN in place your VoIP deployment will suck and you will irritate your boss and alienate your users. Get both a network assessment and an ongoing monitoring and network plan in place, including an “acceptable use” policy before you deploy a VoIP solution.
Get The Most out of your ShoreTel Communications System
ShoreTel Training for Small Businesses
There are many incredible services available to help small businesses with ShoreTel training for their ShoreTel communications system. With all of the great opportunities for businesses to have one-on-one support as well as comprehensive online tutorials, it is easier than it has ever been to truly get the most from your ShoreTel VoIP system.
Some of the offerings available for this type of hands on ShoreTel training include online courses that can give small businesses the knowledge they need to install, configure, trouble-shoot and thoroughly learn the administrative process. However, by far the most powerful tool available for businesses is the ShoreTel training VoIP Solutions DVD. This incredible training DVD will give small businesses the power to effectively learn the skills they need to make their system as functional as possible. This includes managing IP phones; setting up and creating users, hunt groups, automated attendants, and trunk groups. This type of training gives businesses and business owners the tools they need to make their ShoreTel communications system work for them and make their VoIP solution as efficient as possible. Below you will find some of the administrative processes and other functions of your ShoreTel system that the ShoreTel training VoIP solutions DVD will allow your business to quickly and easily implement.
• Dialing Plan Definition
• SIP Basics
• Professional Call Manager Integration
• Configuring Application Servers
• Trunk Group Definition
• System Installation Overview
• Configuring IP Phones
• Setting Call Control Options
• Microsoft Unified Communications Server
• Configuring Switches