Hi everyone,
Not sure if this is the right place to submit this but here goes:

We have a client who has an AVAYA CM (Model G430) using Avaya 1608 and AVAYA 9608 Handphones. They do not currently have AES Server Session Manager Server or SIP protocol.

They have asked us to investigate the integration of our Cherwell ITSM/CRM system (.NET based application with support for web services and direct DB integration) with the AVAYA PABX to give the following features:

Click to call - outbound calling from Cherwell, whilst still utilizing the current handsets

Pop to screen inbound call answering with integration to Cherwell for call/person matching

Instigate Call conversation recording and saving of .wav file for reference in Cherwell

Display from within Cherwell Dashboards (near real time), call session information such as abandoned calls, average wait times for daily, weekly monthly and yearly graphical comparison.

Access Cherwell information to determine last operator to provide support to a customer for preferential routing of future calls

There are a few others but the above are the important items.

My question is: what components do they need to add to their System so we may have the interfaces required to implement the above.

My assessment is we need:

AES (Avaya Application Enablement Services)

SES (Avaya SIP Enablement Services)

SM (Avaya Session Manager)

Avaya Engagement Platform SDK and Server

Does anyone have knowledge in this area, that may be able to assist?
Thanks in Advance.

Hello, I think that with your list of requirements, you're going to be best off using AES only. Call recording would be done using the Device, Media and Call Control API.

By the way, SES hasn't been a supported product in a very long time. Avaya Aura Session Manager has replaced SES.

Hi Joel,

Thanks for the response.
So you are telling me all the requirements I listed can be provided by AES (Avaya Application Enablement Services) including call recording of conversations. I take it Device, Media and Call Control API is part of AES?

Also I though, to get historical information of calls, it was necessary to have AVAYA Session Manager, or is this feature also included within AES?

Geoff

HI Joel,

Another question.... Does Avaya ACE (Agile Comminications Environment) Foundation Tool-kit with its components replace AES?

And is there any prerequisites for using ACE on AVAYA CM?

Geoff

Hi Geoff,

Yes, DMCC is part of AES. Regarding ACE, it is not recommended to use ACE. If you want to develop the sorts of applications (such as call intercept / sequenced applications) that you'd develop with Foundation Toolkit, you should look at using EDP instead. Things that you can do with EDP that you can't do with AES (which I didn't see among your required functions) are:

- Intercept a call BEFORE it gets to the called party to inject custom logic to do things like block, redirect calls, play announcements and collect DTMF from callers, etc.

- Parallel fork a call to multiple destinations

- Launch a call to a person to play announcements, collect DTMF (think multi-channel broadcast). Technically this can be done with DMCC, but it's much easier with EDP.

- Launch a call between 2 people where the caller is not a Communication Manager station (call-me, call-you)

- Send email, SMS messages

There are more as well, check out the EDP overview guide.

Hi Joel,
Thanks again for your detailed response. Very informative.

Sounds like I will only need AES. We do not plan on doing any real complex call intercepts so EDP will most probably not be required.

One point I raised that you did not address was historical information of calls.
I thought it was necessary to have AVAYA Session Manager to record historic call information (say 2 years), or is this feature also included within AES?

Geoff

Right, I got carried away and neglected to mention that aspect. :-) You are correct that AES doesn't provide historical call data. Even with SM, however, I don't think that you'll be able to get data as old as 2 years back. I suppose it depends on the call volume.

Hi Joel,

Thanks... maybe we will have to warehouse teh data on a monthly basis. do you think that would work.
Can you do bulk queries to extract historical data or maybe even attach direct to the Session Manager DB using ODBC or something like that, to extract the data?

Geoff

I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about the Session Manager interface.