When the brunt of the storms rendered other Columbus, Ohio offices (and offices across the country, for that matter), non-operational, we were able to work from home thanks to our communications infrastructure and our own CallCopy software.  As the Avaya Insights blog points out, snow days don’t mean what they used to….

For many organizations, hazardous weather conditions have historically meant that when school districts close, parents are forced to either try to find a babysitter at the last minute or take the day off to watch their kids. Inclement weather also traditionally means longer, more dangerous commutes for employees, shorter work days, and above all else, lost productivity.

But that was then, and this is now: our software can record our work-at-home IP phones, and our tools can be accessed remotely via VPN. To ensure our continued operations, we utilize the same technologies that our customers rely upon.

One customer leveraging this functionality is Mohawk Flooring. Using CallCopy software alongside their Avaya Unified Communications infrastructure, Mohawk was able to ensure business continuity despite a crippling ice storm impacting their Dallas, Texas facility several months ago. Agents were able to work from home during the ordeal, eliminating risky commutes and decreased productivity.

To remain competitive, businesses need to be well-equipped to handle inclement weather or even more extreme scenarios such as a pandemic, flu outbreak or natural disaster.

Fortunately, CallCopy’s solutions allow businesses to rest easy knowing that their employees can maintain productivity regardless of the situation. Our contact recording and screen capture technology allows organizations to manage the performance of remote workers – so they remain both safe and productive.

• ACCE 2009 Conference & Expo

October 5-9, Las Vegas, NV

The 2009 ACCE Conference & Expo will include a comprehensive educational program, extensive networking opportunities and plenty of case studies and interactive discussions. You can choose from seven concurrent sessions of programming in four key areas.

Register Now for FREE Access to ACCE Call Center Exhibition! Register for your exhibit hall pass online using promo code FP2009 or use promo code CALL2009 and save $400 on the cost of any conference package.

• Avaya Global Sales & Americas Partner Conference 2010

October 11-15, Nashville, TN

The Avaya Global Sales & America Partner Conference will feature presentations by Avaya senior leaders, awards to top performing partners, breakout sessions, an Ask the Expert session on the new Avaya Connect program as well as a complete Conference Expo.

• Credit Union Call Center Conference 2009

October 18-21, Las Vegas, NV

The Credit Union Call Center Conference will address the challenges facing the credit union call center industry through three separate tracks: Executive, Managers and Lending.

In most cases, station side recording is preferred.  One key factor is that with trunk recording you are not able to record PBX calls.  For example, if one employee calls another employee, that call does not cross your inbound / outbound trunks and cannot be recorded via trunk tap.  With station-side recording, all internal calls can be recorded as well as other general inbound/outbound traffic.  

With station-side recording it is also easier to segment the calls, especially if you do not have a computer-telephony integration (CTI) module active on your ACD/PBX (TSPAI, JTAPI, TAPI, etc.).  The advantage in splitting the calls out is that a customer may call one department, and get transferred to another department.  Since two agents are handling the call, and recordings are commonly used for quality monitoring on your agents, having two recordings is preferred so the agents can be evaluated independently, and so you can permission access to the recordings differently.  You may not want a billing department supervisor to hear a tech support call and vice versa.

This kind of segmentation can be accommodated through a trunk-tap, but without CTI data this is done using SMDR information, which is not available until after the call has torn down and may not always be available in enough time for accurate use.  This is especially true if SMDR is being used to trigger a recording start or stop and not just to update recordings with details like ANI, DNIS, agent extension, or queue description.  Also, different switches may have limitation on how trunk channels are tracked and reported, making it difficult to match SMDR and even CTI data to recordings when a call has been transferred several times.

Most CTI-driven active integrations, such as Avaya DMCC (CMAPI), Nortel DMS, and Cisco JTAPI will behave like a station-side recorder.  This is also the same with passive VoIP recording (packet sniffing).  One exception is the ShoreTel TAPI/WAV integration, which behaves like a trunk recorder in the sense that is does not deliver audio for PBX calls; however you do have the ability to effectively separate recordings for each agent leg of the call.

Perhaps the biggest downside to station side recording is the wiring.  Station side recording can be a passive tap /cross connect at the 110-or 66-block in your telecom wiring.  Depending on what stations are to be recorded, you may also be able to do a split on a full amphenol cable between the PBX and the punch down blocks, which can be a cleaner wiring job. 

CallCopy is a gold-level member of the Avaya DeveloperConnection program, and we carry numerous certifications for active call recording with the Avaya Communications Manager and AES, as well as many passive recording solutions that do not require additional Avaya hardware or licensing.  cc: Discover can support both TDM and VoIP phone recording in a single server.

The licensing for cc: Discover’s call recording and desktop screen capture software is based on the number of devices enabled for recording.  A device can be a digital, analog, or VoIP phone; or it can be a Windows PC or thin-client desktop (e.g. Citrix) for screen recording.  It does not matter how many people use the device, or how much or how little the device is recorded. 

For example, at a single workstation in a 24×7 call center, you can record Agent A on-demand in the first shift, Agent B could be recorded randomly in the second shift, and Agent C could be recorded 100% (call logging) in the third shift.  One license covers all of these agents and all of these recording functions.  You can have an unlimited number of users access the system for playback and administration, and what’s more, our cc: Quality module is also included with each cc: Voice call recording installation at no additional charge.

The ease of use of our web-based administration adds value to the system.  Your internal staff will be trained to use this intuitive interface to quickly make adjustments to your recording schedules as your business needs grow and evolve.  CallCopy’s annual maintenance contract includes software upgrades, so you do not have to continually re-license your system to gain the advantages of new features.

cc: Discover can blend different methods of recording in a single server.  If you are in a TDM environment with digital phones today, but gradually migrate to VoIP, our cc: Voice telephone recording will work seamlessly through this transition.  cc: Voice can record virtually all major telephones, including Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, ShoreTel, NEC, Siemens, Altigen, Aspect, Alcatel, eOn, Toshiba, Inter-Tel, Mitel, Fujitsu, Ericsson, and Tadiran.  Even if you change your ACD/PBX, you can still continue to use your CallCopy system.  It’s one of the best technology investments you can make!

Desktop screen capture is available for all of our cc: Discover active and passive call recording software installations.  And, as always, quality is included in every system!  With our bundled cc: Quality package, you get a web-based interface to build custom quality monitoring forms with simple or complex scoring, and report on your evaluation results to calibrate your quality, and reveal trends in performance at the group and agent level. 

See you in San Diego!

Avaya had a sizable display right at the entrance to the demo hall, and they were flanked by Cisco and Mitel.  NEC and Nortel were also nestled toward the front of the room while Siemens, Interactive Intelligence (I3), and Ericsson were more dispersed through the floor.  I was somewhat surprised at how toned-down Aspect’s booth was compared to the other industry titans.

I have to admit that Motorola’s booth talent – a magician – was a good staffing choice for their booth.  He did an excellent job of getting a crowd to sit down for a performance that mixed a little magic, a little humor, and a little product pitching.  I liked the magic best.

ShoreTel’s booth also had a talented speaker, but they had a much stronger focus on their product.  They had a live phone system set up and invited audience members to take it for a test drive.  Honestly, there is no better way to really showcase a product’s intuitive design and ease of use than to have someone who has never used the application before navigate it like a pro in front of a crowd!   This is a strategy we have used many times in our cc: Discover demos, letting people search for recorded phone calls, replay screen capture sessions, and build quality monitoring forms.

Overall, it was a great experience…and that was only the demo floor!

cc: Voice and cc: Screen are among the core components of the cc: Discover suite. cc: Voice provides a platform for telephone recording, and it is able to blend VoIP call recording and TMD call recording. cc: Voice can record Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, Aspect, ShoreTel, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Ericsson, NEC, Mitel, and many other makes and models of telephone. Our passive IP recording software can record many VoIP protocols, including SIP, H.323, Avaya H.323, Cisco Skinny, Nortel Unistim, Siemens protocol, NEC protocol, MGCP, ShoreTel protocol, and Mitel MiNet protocol.

c: Screen is a desktop screen capture application that can record thin-client desktops (i.e. record Citrix desktops or record terminal services desktops). cc: Screen can also record dual-monitor configurations.

Station-side call recording method is suitable for recording analog phones, as well as recording digital phones made by Avaya, Nortel, NEC, Mitel, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Siemens, Aastra, Alcatel, Aspect, Bosch, Ericsson, Inter-tel, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Telrad, and Tadiran.    

Trunk-side recording or trunk logging is often used for total recording of all inbound and outbounf traffic.  This solution is suitable for recording T1 lines and recording E1 lines.

Our VoIP recording through packet sniffing is software based, eliminating the need for extra hardware and keeping total cost of ownership low.  cc: Voice is able to record the following protocols through packet sniffing: SIP, H.323 (standard and Avaya H.323), Unistim (Nortel proprietary protocol), Skinny (Cisco proprietary protocol),  and MGCP.  We can record the following VoIP codecs: G.711 and G.729.

CallCopy is a Gold Level member of the Avaya DeveloperConnection program, and is certified on three types of recording, including DMCC (CMAPI).  We are also members of the Cisco developer community and the Nortel developer community.

CallCopy’s desktop screen capture application, cc: Screen, is able to record screens on Windows PC’s, including screen capture for dual monitors.  cc: Screen is able to record thin client desktops such as Citrix and Windows Terminal Services.  cc: Screen was developed by CallCopy, the desktop screen recording technology is not licensed from a third-party.  

Our most recent Avaya certification is for Device Media Call Control, or DMCC. Our certification was granted in September 2007. Our application notes were released in December of 2007, and the news hit the wire in January 2008.

DMCC recording was formerly called CMAPI. This method uses the TSAPI events from the AES, but instead of having a T1 interface to the ACD/PBX it uses IP connections. DMCC is an excellent solution because it does not require telephony boards to be installed in the server, cutting down on hardware costs, virtually eliminating any wiring needs aside form power and network connections, and providing greater scalability. It is suitable for recording TDM pones, VoIP phones, or a blend of the two.