Category Archives: Unified Communications Manager

Blocking Calls at the Gateway by Caller ID

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Sometimes administrators have to block calls harassing, scam, or other undesirable calls. In newer versions of CUCM, this can be done in CUCM, or it can be done on an h.323 or SIP gateway.

Which should you use? There are good reasons to use both. Blocking on CUCM centralizes call routing, so you don’t need to touch gateways, and can be configured so that placing a number in once blocks it at all gateways. Blocking it at the gateway can be easier to implement, and stops the call at the ingress, so that no internal resources are ever used. Properly configured, blocking at the gateway will maintain protection in SRST, as well. So either way has benefits, use the one that fits into the existing environment best.

Blocking on the gateway uses translation profiles, which can be applied to the ingress port, and the inbound or outbound dial peers. Placing the blocking patterns on the port stops them right away, but may require placement on multiple ports. Continue reading →

Reading Data From XML Documents in UCCX

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Have you ever wanted to do any of the following from a Contact Center application?

  • Read a schedule from a local document, rather than having to use script editor to edit schedules
  • Be able to load a schedule from a web server, so you didn’t even need to touch you CCX server
  • Bring in external data without UCCX Premium
  • Bring in external data from a database there isn’t a driver for

All these and more can be done by reading XML formatted data either stored in the local repository, or served from an external web server, and retrieved using the Create URL Document or Make REST Call steps. Since you are able to read from a web server, any web programing language, like PHP, ASP, or JSP, could be used to retrieve and format the data.

Once UCCX has the XML formatted data, the Get XML Document Data step uses the XPath syntax to get data out of the document. This is a powerful syntax for reading data from XML formatted documents, as we will explore here.

In this post, we will use the Make REST Call step to retrieve information from the REST interface on the UCCX server, which provides easy access to a remote source of XML formatted data. Continue reading →

Impressions of the 8861

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I recently had the opportunity to pick up a couple of 8861s for my lab/home phones, and thought I would do a writeup on my initial impressions. The 8800 series phones offer an updated look, and a number of new features.

The 8800 series also continues the move from soft keys to more hard keys, with hard Back, End Call, Hold, Transfer, and Conference keys added to the Voicemail, Settings (now combined with services), Directories, Headset, Speaker, and Mute buttons on the 7900 series. I don’t know how I feel about the move to more hard keys. Soft keys have the advantage that only the necessary ones are displayed, but sometimes important ones can get buried. Hard keys will also have an advantage when using apps like IP Phone Agent, since the call control soft keys are hidden by the application soft keys.

Also, in keeping with the new Cisco phone lines, they are SIP only, no option for SCCP.

phones-_DSC0386

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Time of Day Routing in CUCM

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Time of Day routing allows for calls to be treated differently based on the time of day and day of week. This allows for things like automatically rerouting calls to a different destination when the company is closed, not allowing PSTN calls after hours, or requiring a Forced Authorization Code outside of business hours. Another real-world example I have worked with is patient rooms in hospitals, which should not receive outside calls at night.

CUCM uses the standard Partitions and Calling Search Spaces, with the addition of a Time Schedule that specifies when the Partitions will be active, to perform time of day routing. Outside the time schedule, the partition is effectively invisible to call routing. Appropriate ordering of in a CSS allows the calls to be routed to an alternate number when the partition is not available.

An important consideration in designing the Partitions and CSSs is whether you want calls to be able to route to the phone off hours at all. For instance, with the patient room example, should internal numbers be able to call the rooms, and only outside calls be blocked? We will look at two examples, one that allows for some calls to go through, one that does not.

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Prime License Manager

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With the upgrade to Cisco UC 10, Enterprise License Manager (ELM) is “replaced” with Prime License Manager (PLM.) This is really just a rebranding of the existing ELM, although there are a few differences.

There is a standalone PLM OVA and ISO to install PLM. in 9.x, you installed a standalone ELM server from the UCM install media, and used the smallest OVA to create the virtual machine. PLM uses an even lighter footprint OVA, and has it’s own install media.

PLM is also installs co-resident with CUCM and Unity Connection. Unfortunately, it still installs automatically on every CUCM/UConn server you install. I would like to see an option so you can enable/disable PLM when you install the server, or at least only install on the publisher.

PLM 10 supports both version 9 and 10 licenses. To support version 10 licenses in ELM 9.x, you need to install a COP file (elm_LicenseDef_9_1_v1.cop.sgn) to allow ELM 9.x to recognize the version 10 licenses.

Here is more information on ELM.

Simplified PLAR on CUCM

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Sometimes it is necessary to have a phone dial a preset destination any time it goes off hook. This is common in lobby phones, or the push button intercoms used on doors and gates. This configuration is called Private Line Automatic Ringdown, or PLAR. The way Cisco has handled this is to have you create a calling search space (CSS) that contains a single partition that contains an empty translation pattern with the called party mask set to the destination you want the phone to ring to. While this works fine, it can require a huge number of partitions and calling search spaces if you need to configure a lot of PLAR phones.

Starting with CUCM 8, there is is a feature that allows you to achieve this with only 2 partitions and Calling Search Spaces, plus translations, no matter how many source/destination sets you have. This significantly reduces complexity and the likelihood of error. A configuration example follows. Continue reading →

Addressing Challenges Specific to Multi-Site Deployments

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Deploying Unified Communications Manager to geographically diverse sites adds a number of challenges not experienced in single-site deployments. The primary new challenges are:

  • Bandwidth usage and call quality over WAN links
  • Availability during WAN outages
  • Call routing to the PSTN, especially for emergency numbers
  • Potential for overlapping dial plans

After the cut, we will take a brief look at each of these issues, and some ways to to overcome them.

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Configuring Local Route Groups

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Local Route Groups were introduced in CUCM 7 as a cleaner way to configure PSTN routing for multiple sites. Prior to Local Route Groups, the only way to route calls out a local gateway was to configure a partition for each site, and configure the various PSTN patterns in each one. With local route groups, you can tie a route group to a device pool, and then send route patterns to a route list that includes the “Standard Local Route Group.” Calls matching that pattern will then use the local route group configured for their device pool.

Configuration  example after the cut.

Continue reading →

Problems with MoH and Conferencing with Recording Profiles

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On a UCM system I have worked on, we were running into problems with both Music on Hold and ad-hoc conferencing when a recording profile was applied to DNs. Music on Hold would not play, and conferences could not be initiated. The problem turned out to be codec related: parts of the call were G.722, parts G.711. Once the recording starts, it locks the codec for the call. If MoH or a conference tries to renegotiate it, you get the behavior we experienced.

To correct this, we chose the option to disable G.722 on the phones that were set to be recorded, so there was no need for codec renegotiation. You could also disable G.722 on the cluster, but the customer did not want to take that option.

Blocking Calls by Caller ID in CUCM

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PBX administrators are sometimes called on to block calls coming from specific numbers, such as telemarketers or other harassing calls.

Until Communications Manager 8.x, the only way to block incoming calls based on the calling number was to use an H.323 or SIP gateway, and use translation rules on the gateway to reject the number. While there are still good reasons to do this, starting in 8.0, UCM has the ability to block or reroute based on calling number via the “Route Next Hop By Calling Party Number” feature on translation patterns.

Depending on the circumstances, blocking at the gateway may still be your best option, but by configuring it in UCM, you can apply the same blocked numbers to multiple gateways.

The rest of this post, we will build an example of the configuration described in this Technote.

We are assuming a basic setup with all internal phones in a partition called “Internal_DNs_PT,” a gateway with a CSS “Inbound_Routes_CSS” that searches for translations in a partition called “Inbound_Routes_PT”

Call flow for inbound calls:

  • PRI to MGCP Gateway
  • Receiving 10 digits from Telco
  • Translation pattern in “Inbound_Routes_PT” Translates 123555XXXX to XXXX
  • CSS “Internal_Routes_CSS” finds 4 Digit DNs in the Internal_DNs_PT.

Goal: Block all inbound calls from (890)555-1212.

Step 1: Create a Partition named “Blocked_Numbers_PT” and CSS named “Block_By_Calling_CSS”.

Step 2: Create a Translation Pattern in “Blocked_Numbers_PT,” with a pattern of “!” to match all calls, and a CSS that includes Internal_DNs_PT. This allows any calls not specifically blocked to be routed. No actual number translations should be performed.

Step 3: Modify the translation pattern in Inbound_Routes_PT to use the Block_By_Calling_CSS, and select the option to “Route Next Hop by Calling Party Number.”

xlate-for-blockingAt this point, a call comes in, 10 digits are presented from the Telco, the translation pattern in Inbound_Routes_PT strips the initial digits to leave the 4 digit extension. UCM then looks in Blocked_Numbers_PT, finds the ! pattern, which does not make any changes, but searches Internal_DNs_PT for the extension, and passes the call on.

Step 4: Create translation patterns in Blocked_Numbers_PT with the number to be blocked as the pattern, remembering to include any access codes, etc. that the number would have at that point, and the Route Option set to Block This Pattern with the error you want.

blocking-xlate

Alternatively, you could translate the called number to a security officer or something similar. I personally want to route one to Unity Connection or a CCX application playing this recording, but I have never gotten the chance to.

Once you have this configured, you can test it by blocking a number you have control over, like your cell phone, and making sure it is blocked.

If you want to only block calls to a specific number, leave the 123555XXXX to XXXX translation pattern using a CSS searching the Internal_DNs_PT, and then create more specific translations that route through the blocking configuration.

For instance, creating a translation pattern for 1235550987 to XXXX using Block_By_Calling_CSS, and the “Route Next Hop by Calling Party Number” option will only block calls to 1235550987 from the numbers in Blocked_Numbers_PT, but allow those numbers to call other DNs. An instance where you might use this if a FAX machine keeps calling a voice line, and you want to prevent those calls while still allowing FAXs to be sent to legitimate FAX machines.

Interested in learning more about CUCM? Check out our other posts here.