Is there any Patch or any way to get this?

[ranganathanr]

Hell Everybody,

I need a soultion got serious of doubt question on the AVAYA CT-TSP(Telephony Service Provider for TAPI) Driver and its capability.

I had been given two assignment in my organization. one is an preview dialler and the another is an predictive dialer using TAPI that talks to CentreVu CT.

I have achieved in preview dial(using AVAYA CT -TSP Driver & vb Tapiline as example)as it is just an outdial and even in that i am not satisfied as 'coz I was not getting a Busy,RingBack and Disconnect Event(did not bother abt it as of now as the organization initially wants only the voice to be automated)

But is there any way that i can achieve this, so is there any patch can AVAYA Gurus answer to this, i have one more query(need solution). As per AVAYA CT-TSP Developer Document it does not contain any Agent Staus API of TAPI but for my predictive dialer i need to know the agent status/skill... how can i achieve this using AVAYA CT-TSP is there a way? is there a patch?

Requesting AVAYA Guru's to reply for this, can send me if there any patch to ranganathanr@hotmail.com

 

[FoneFun]

Our company is also in the process of building our own cti apps with CentrVu CT.

When we first started, I recall poking around into either using the Avaya CentreVu CT-TSP/Tapi option or just using the CVCT-SDK (Software Develpment Kit) and communicate strait with the CentreVu CT server.

I think that the TAPI option limits what you can do. It was sorta flaky when we tested it so we decided to go with the SDK instead. The SDK is included on your CVCT cd. It's essentially a collection of C headers and DLLs that you can use to build applications.

I don't think you will get the predictive functions from the tapi drivers as these are probably not part of the tapi standard. You can get that through the CVCT SDK. In fact, commercially available predictive dialers are built on it.

At this point, we are using the CVCT for a CTI interface. We've got ANI and DNIS collection, incomming call event, call answer, call hold, call hold retreival, call conference, call transfer.

From what I gather from your email, I suggest you look into the SDK instead if you want to do predictive dialing.

Also, just as an FYI, if you want to do predictive dialing, you need the ASAI feature called Answering Machine Detection, otherwise you can't use the Make_predictive funciton.
On a G3 release 8.x it's found at:
display system-parameters customer-options
ASAI Optional Features- Answering Machine Detect : Y

On a Multivantage release 11, this option has disappeared, so I can only assume it's now always included.

You'd also need to play with the parameter Call Classification After Answer Supervision. This determins the number of call classifier cards you will need. If set to Yes, it only uses a call classifier chanel after the call is connected, if set to no, it will grab a channel as soon as the call is initiated by the switch and only release it after. Setting it to no results in a slightly more accurate Answering Machine detect, but uses alot more chanels.

And finally, you will need to adjust your SIT Treatment For Call Classification options using:
Change SIT-Treatment

I have
AMD Treatment: answered
(and let the software decide to drop it or let it through)

Pause Duration (seconds): 0.7
Talk Duration (seconds): 1.5

Hope this helps.

 

[ranganathanr]

Thanx Very much for that valuable tip and clearing my doubts, well the good news is that the preview dial is only going to be in AVAYA CT-TSP/Tapi but Predictive Dialing is gonna be using TSAPI.

My doubts on Developing Predictive dialing using TSAPI:

1)Is the function named makePredictiveCall is all(only) enough for developing an predictive dialer using TSAPI or should makecall function also be used.

2) I dont understand the part of how the predictive dialer will work using CVCT? I mean Logical Flow? how does the predictive dialer invokes 4-5 or more calls at a time and how are they transfered to a particular agent based on its availability? can u pls. elaborate this in detail? is there any documents available other the tsapi document by AVAYA for predictive dialer in particular?

3) Does predictive dialer uses any device other than telephone(6408d+) to invoke the call? To my understanding i believe that the predictive dialer does not use the phone to invoke the n number of call to initialize but it initialize the n no of call from the Trunk Card or Digital Card is it right?

3) can i get a sample predictive dialer code using TSAPI in the net?

Doubts on preview dialing using AVAYA CT-TSP/Tapi?

Is it possible to load the CVCT Client and AVAYA CT-TSP Driver in one PC and share them by all other clients who wants to do a preview dialing? rather than load CVCT Client and AVAYA CT-TSP in every PC? After all it is a matter of license isnt it?

 

[ranganathanr]

Thanx Very much for that valuable tip and clearing my doubts, well the good news is that the preview dial is only going to be in AVAYA CT-TSP/Tapi but Predictive Dialing is gonna be using TSAPI.

My doubts on Developing Predictive dialing using TSAPI:

1)Is the function named makePredictiveCall is all(only) enough for developing an predictive dialer using TSAPI or should makecall function also be used.

2) I dont understand the part of how the predictive dialer will work using CVCT? I mean Logical Flow? how does the predictive dialer invokes 4-5 or more calls at a time and how are they transfered to a particular agent based on its availability? can u pls. elaborate this in detail? is there any documents available other the tsapi document by AVAYA for predictive dialer in particular?

3) Does predictive dialer uses any device other than telephone(6408d+) to invoke the call? To my understanding i believe that the predictive dialer does not use the phone to invoke the n number of call to initialize but it initialize the n no of call from the Trunk Card or Digital Card is it right?

3) can i get a sample predictive dialer code using TSAPI in the net?

4)Is it possible to develop predictive dialing using TSAPI on VB? can you give me a comparise rate on which platform is best TSAPI on VB on TSAPI on VC++?

Doubts on preview dialing using AVAYA CT-TSP/Tapi?

Is it possible to load the CVCT Client and AVAYA CT-TSP Driver in one PC and share them by all other clients who wants to do a preview dialing? rather than load CVCT Client and AVAYA CT-TSP in every PC? After all it is a matter of license isnt it?

 

[FoneFun]

I can't help you with how to use makePredictiveCall as the app we are developping does not use it.
However, I we do use a commercial software that uses this and I can tell you a bit about how it works.

The dialer issues multiple calls based on it's algorithms. These calls "originate from a VDN on the switch". On this VDN, there is a vector that says queue to skill 1, where skill 1 is the skill used for this particular campaign.

Hunt 1 is configured to have no queue. So as long as agents are available, it routes calls to them. If no agents are available, it drops the call.

As I said, calls originate from the VDN according to the switch so it does not use your 6408D+.

As for dev platform, the TSAPI SDK is in C++ so you should either use C++ or something that can use that code. We use Delphi so we've converted it to work in our environment.

When agents receive the call, the dialer app takes this call and somehow pops the screen to the agent. I can only guess they do this with the dialed number or some other unique identifier.

Doubts on preview dialing wiht TAPI? None really, i think that should work, but if you are building both, you might as well stick to TSAPI so you don't have to do both.

And finally, TSAPI or TAPI on one PC? hm, I don't know, I do think that this works, as I seem to recall having both installed on my last PC, but I did not use both at the same time.

As for using TSAPI on one PC and sharing it, on our commercial dialer app, we don't install CVCT on each workstation. It's client/server so we have one server that takes care of the predictive algorithms and each agent connects to this server.

So in terms of boxes and connections we have:

PBX with MAPD
CVCT server
Dialer App Server
SQL server

The PBX MAPD card connects to the CVCT server over ethernet.

The CVCT server connects to the Dialer App Server over ethernet.

The Dialer connects to the CVCT server and to the SQL server.

And finally all the agents use the Dialer client to talk to the Dialer Server.

BTW, I'm sure you know this but developping the dialer app will be alot of work! Does buying one not work out to be less?

Good luck
This makes sense to do it client-server or otherwise your predictive algorithms will get messed up.

 

[ranganathanr]

Hi, I feel much comfortable and relaxed now after you gave a nice understanding on how the predictive dialing happens, got a small doubt on that u have mentioned that the call is initated from an VDN? what do u mean by that? i can understand the second part which talks abt the skill and the agent availability based on that the initiated call is transferred but my doubt only now is how is the n number of call initiated? i believe u have answered its from the vdn can u be little brief on that.

Lets say i have a trunkgroup and it has 60 lines, to my understanding the call has to be initiated by the predictive dialer through this 60 lines? Is this the VDN which you said is used by the predictive dialer for this?

You have mentioned that in your organization the dialer being developed or developed does not use predictive if you wouldnt as a curiosity and need of understanding of the how it works may i know what is the other way of achieving predictive dialing without using makePredictiveCall?

What is the difference between a Hardware based Dialer(Predictive) and Software based Dialer(Predictive)?

Plz. broaden the way the call is initiated in a predictive dialer which is bothering me a lot...
Thanx for the patient for all listening me and answering to my queries

 

[FoneFun]

Ok, again, as our predictive dialer is bought, I can only take some "leap of faith" guesses based on several years of debugging this thing.

Predictive calls originate from the VDN:
In our dialer config, we specify that for campaign X, we use VDN xxxx.

When I look at the phone logs (I out put the PBX logs to a sql database), I see that calls we did not handle originate from the VDN.

When the call is classified, it gets sent to the vector that the VDN points to.
In this vector it only has 1 line,
queue to skill x pri m

Here is the part i'm guessing:
The dialer probably makes a "makePredictiveCall" function that passes as a value the number to dial, and the VDN.
When the switch connects the call, it will send it to the vector.

The vector then queues it to the agent.
On the agent side, they have an application that talks to the dialer server. The dialer server is monitoring the CTI events of this agent station and detects they got a call, matches the unique callid and sends him the screen pop.

So there's my understanding of it.

Dialer initiates calls through the 60 lines question:
Not really relavant. The switch decides what lines to take based on the COR you assing to the ASAI / MAPD.

Other ways of predictive:
Sorry don't know of any other way with CVCT SDK & the PBX.
I know you can opt to use other hardware such as Dialogic cards. Then you can use a different SDK.
There's also IBM Callpath that works with the PBX and MAPD, but I hear its buggy.

Difference between hardware/software predictive dialer:
IMHO: There is no such thing. It's always hardware AND software. The only distinction may be where the software resides (Hard drives or ROMS), what platform or OS, and what hardware.
Reliability and detect ratios vary by software, platforms, and OS.

If you build it with CVCT, it's your software that decides on how to dial and when to dial, but the answering machine detect will be done by the PBX's call classifier cards.

If someone tries to sells you a hardware dialer, the truth is there is software in there anyways, otherwise it just won't work right?

One last comment, why do you want to build one anyways? If you are doing so to save cost, I highly do not recommend it. If you are doing so because your company wants to make a product to sell, AND you've got lots of money to spend on R&D, then go for it.

Predictive dialers are a plenty on the market. Some good some bad. Prices also vary of course.

 

[ranganathanr]

Hi,

Thank you so much for you support, The information which you have provided has given me a broader passage to my project, well i got some more queries which i would like to clarify they are as follows:

1) Does cstaMakeCall Function supports Call Treatment(Asnwering machine)? If so how can i achieve it?

2)Should the calling number in cstaMakePredictiveCall has to be only an VDN/skill/Hunt Group can it be an Agent Login ID or extension? If it is possible how can i do it?

3)What is the difference between an call monitor and event report?

4)Is an event report available for any call(an outdial using cstaMakeCall) which would give me the connect state(call established) as voice mail/answering machine/interactive voice so that i can treat a call according to it? Is that the way to achieve a call treatment(answering machine) when one uses cstaMakeCall Function?

As i am going merry round on the same question finally all i would like to know is two things One can cstaMakeCall Function be used to detect a answering machine an treat a call according to it? if not what is the other way to achieve it? Two I knew that Call Treatment is possible in the cstaMakePredictiveCall Function but the calling device can be either vdn/skill/huntgroup/announcement ext? what if the calling number has to be and Agent id or ext? is it possible how can i work it out?

I have a requirement where the cstaMakePredictive Function at a time initiates 10 calls where as all the 10 calls are transfered to a vdn(calling number), which intern qeues to a skill, now i would like all this 10 calls to reach to their respective agent(the 10 called no are picked from a group of list which is individual to an agent), but what happens is since they are qued to a skill these 10 calls are transfered to different agent so that the call1 which is suppose to go to agent1 is handled by the Most-Idle-Agent.

 

[FoneFun]

1. I don't think cstaMakeCall can support the call treatment, but since we've never tried so I couldn't say for sure. In our app, we only use it to transfer calls from one agent to another site.
2. Again, cstaMakePredictiveCall is not something we use in our developped app, just in the purchased one. I can only tell you about how that works and the bit I know from reading logs. In the purchased app, the predictive function only works with VDN as an originating point. I don't know if you can use an agent. When we want calls that go to specific agents, it goes and uses MakeCall, which dials the call from the agent station.

So IE: you have an outbound campaign, new leads go into predictive calling, routed to the MIA agent. Agent gets a lead but needs to call back tomorrow at a set time. The next day, the dialer will know to make that call at that time, but as the call needs to go to the agent, it will use a MakeCall from the agent station, and "power-dial" the call. No call classification needed as you have the worlds best call classifier with MakeCall (a human).

3. Sorry, don't know the answer to that one.

So to get to your 10 calls back to 10 specific agents, I would not use makepredictive as it defeats the purpose it was intended for. predictive is suppose to keep your agents talk time high, and reduce the amount of time spent waiting for answers, machines, busy signals, etc.
If you are doing a 1 for 1, I suggest you use makecall.