Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified Communications Manager

Call centers are expected to guarantee the quality of customer service their agents provide to callers. To that end, the ability to monitor and archive agent-customer conversations is critical to call center business. The Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) silent monitoring feature allows a supervisor to eavesdrop on a conversation between an agent and a customer without either party knowing that they are being monitored. The call recording feature allows a supervisor or system administrator to archive conversations between two parties for review, analysis, or legal compliance.

OverviewTo begin a discussion of how silent monitoring and recording is handled by Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1), some terms need to be defined:

AgentMonitored party SupervisorMonitoring party (although supervisors can also be monitored by other supervisors) CustomerExternal or internal caller

RecorderRecording party Built-in-bridge (BIB) a Cisco Unified IP Phone's internal DSP resources, not the Ethernet port

(unique to a Cisco Unified Communications Manager solution)Certain Cisco partners have provided customers with the ability to monitor and record using separate applications. Within Cisco, products such as Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise can perform call monitoring. These products deal with the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams at the computer telephony integration (CTI) application layer. The observer receives RTP through a personal computer. Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) is often required to monitor and record calls.The drawbacks of this approach include:

SPAN is difficult to configure.1Cisco Unified Communications System for IP Telephony Release 6.0(1)

Site-specific equipment is often required. Monitoring applications have limited scalability. Supervisors must listen to monitored and recorded calls through their computer. No provision for call admission control (CAC) or region-based codec negotiation

Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified Communications ManagerCisco Unified Communications Manager Silent Monitoring FeatureCisco Unified Communications Manager Silent Monitoring Feature

Using Cisco Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1), the silent monitoring capability: Allows supervisors to monitor agents through a Cisco Unified IP phone. Allows monitored calls to be managed like normal calls (for example, these calls can be transferred,

held, or added to a conference). Does not require SPAN. Is network topology-friendly. Plays through a phone, not a personal computer. Supports CAC, bandwidth reservation, and codec negotiation. Provides notification tones when legal compliance is required.

The Unified Communications Manager silent monitoring and recording feature is invoked through CTI using Java Telephony Application Programming Interface (JTAPI) or TAPI instead of the previous method of using SPAN ports. Silent monitoring has no perceptible effect on the agents or customer's visual display. Also, there is no perceptible audio artifact that might alert the agent or customer that their call is being observed.When a monitoring session begins, the supervisor device goes off-hook and makes a special call to the agent device. This special call is answered automatically and silently. DSP resources in the agents phone (for example, BIB) mix the customer and agent streams together to form a single, combined RTP stream that is delivered to the supervisor device under Unified Communications Manager control. CAC, bandwidth reservation, and codec negotiation rules are automatically applied to the monitored call. The supervisor monitors the customer-to-agent call through a standard Cisco Unified IP phone.Call monitoring in Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) is supported by all 3rd-generation phones (Cisco Unified IP Phone 7911G, 7931G, ,7941G, 7941G-GE, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, and 7971G-GE models).For legal compliance, an explicit notification in the form of a periodic tone can be made audible to the agent, customer, or both to indicate a monitoring session is in progress. The tone can also be disabled.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Recording FeatureUsing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) there are two recording modes available:

Automatic recording All calls are recorded on line appearance; recording is invoked by Unified Communications Manager.

Selective recordingThe supervisor and/or recording server can elect to record temporarily based on business rules and events.

When a recording session is invoked automatically or selectively, Unified Communications Manager delivers the unadulterated speech (two RTP streams) to the recording server through a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk established between the Unified Communications Manager server and recording server. This allows call centers to take advantage of speech analysis technologies that scan for speech patterns and behaviors which might indicate a problem during the call. Silent recording has no perceptible effect on the agents or customer's visual display, and there is no perceptible audio glitch that might alert the agent or the customer that their call is being recorded.2Cisco Unified Communications System for IP Telephony Release 6.0(1)

Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified Communications ManagerSilent Monitoring/Recording ArchitectureCall recording in Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) is supported by all 3rd-generation phones (Cisco Unified IP Phone 7911G, 7931G, ,7941G, 7941G-GE, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, and 7971G-GE models).

Silent Monitoring/Recording ArchitectureCisco has adopted an IP phone-based approach for silent monitoring instead of the typical SPAN approach. The agent's phone mixes the media streams of the agent-to-customer call and sends that stream to the supervisor.

Cisco has also adopted an IP phone-based approach for call recording. The agent's phone relays the two media streams of the agent-to-customer call to the recorder.Both features rely on the phone's internal DSP resources (BIB). Figure 1 shows the signaling interaction and voice streams for both monitored and recorded calls using this feature.

Figure 1 Silent Monitoring and Recording Voice Streams and Signaling

How Does Silent Monitoring Work?If a supervisor chooses to monitor a call, the following steps occur:1. A customer calls into a call center.

2. The call is routed to an agent who answers the call. 3Cisco Unified Communications System for IP Telephony Release 6.0(1)

Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified Communications ManagerSilent Monitoring/Recording Architecture3. The supervisor's desktop application shows that the agent has an active call. 4. The supervisor selects the call and clicks a button to start a monitoring session (such as clicking the

Start Voice Monitor button on Cisco Supervisor Desktop Release 7.2(1) or later).5. Cisco Unified Communications Manager instructs the supervisor's IP phone to make a special

monitoring call to the agent phone.6. The agent phone's BIB answers the monitoring call automatically and begins to send a single, mixed

RTP stream (agent and customer) to the supervisors phone.During the monitored call, neither the agent nor the customer can hear the supervisor. An optional monitoring tone can be configured to play to the agent, the customer, or both.

How Does Recording Work?If an administrator configures a line for automatic recording, the following steps occur:1. A customer calls into a call center.2. The call is routed to an agent who answers the call.3. Cisco Unified Communications Manager automatically sends two call setup messages to the agent

phones BIB. The first call provides the agent RTP stream and the second call provides the customer RTP stream.

4. Unified Communications Manager sends SIP INVITE messages to the recorder, inviting it to record both calls through a SIP trunk.

5. The Recorder accepts both calls and receives RTP streams from the agent phones BIB.While the call is being recorded, an optional recording tone can be configured to play to the agent, the customer, or both. This recording tone overrides any monitoring tone when a call is being both monitored and recorded simultaneously.When a supervisor or the recorder starts a recording session (Selective Recording), the following steps occur:

1. A customer calls into a call center.

2. The call is routed to an agent who answers the call.3. One of the following occurs:

The supervisor manually starts a recording session (for example, by selecting the call and clicking the Start Record button on Cisco Supervisor Desktop Release 7.2(1) or later).

The Recording server start a recording session based on business rules.4. Unified Communications Manager receives the recording request through CTI (JTAPI or TAPI).5. Cisco Unified Communications Manager automatically sends two call setup messages to the agent

phone BIB. The first call provides the agent RTP stream and the second call provides the customer RTP stream.

6. Unified Communications Manager sends SIP INVITE messages to the recorder, inviting it to record both calls through a SIP trunk.

7. The recorder accepts both calls and receives RTP streams from the agent phones BIB.While the call is being recorded, an optional recording tone can be configured to play to the agent, the customer, or both. This recording tone overrides any monitoring tone when a call is being both monitored and recorded simultaneously.4Cisco Unified Communications System for IP Telephony Release 6.0(1)

Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified Communications ManagerSilent Monitoring/Recording ArchitectureWhen recording a call, data is provided in the SIP header passed from Unified Communications Manager to the recording system, including CallID (RefCI), Directory Number (DN), Device Name (MAC address), Line Display Name, and Near-end/Far-end. Other call specific data is retrieved through the CTI using the CallID field as a reference. If the recording vendor's system uses a SIP Proxy to provide this service, then a Route List can be configured with two or more SIP trunks to provide multiple SIP Proxy and recording server redundancy. The IP phone sends the recorder streams using a codec determined by the original codec used for the agent-to-customer call. Region settings are not applied. Some third-party recording vendors transcode for storage.

Call Detail RecordsDuring a monitored or recorded call, call detail records (CDRs) are generated as follows:

Each silent monitoring call generate one CDR and each call counts as a single call towards the Busy Hour Call Attempt (BHCA) cluster capacity.

Each call recording session generates two CDRs and count as two calls towards the BHCA cluster capacity.

Recording CDRs use the onBehalfOf field, indicating the calls were redirected by the recording feature. The Global Call Identification (GCI) fields in the recording CDR will be the same as the call that was recorded. The original conversation ID in the recording CDR will match the agent's call that was recorded.5Cisco Unified Communications System for IP Telephony Release 6.0(1)

Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified Communications ManagerOverviewCisco Unified Communications Manager Silent Monitoring FeatureCisco Unified Communications Manager Recording FeatureSilent Monitoring/Recording ArchitectureHow Does Silent Monitoring Work?How Does Recording Work?Call Detail Records

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