IVR Corner

UCMA 3.0 Programs Without Lync Server

Ken Stauffer — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:06:00 GMT

So it is well known that for some smaller application you can write stand alone programs in UCMA 3.0 workflow or core technologies that can operate without the over head of a Lync server, and without any domain controller, or edge server. Here we will go over what is needed do do this.

A working UCMA workflow or core program that does not use the chat object. The AVcall is supported as is voice recognition and text to speech, but any IMcalls must go through a Lync server. Any of the supplied workflow sample apps will do to start.
A 64 bit computer running newer windows OS, including Windows 7.
Download of UCMA 3.0 runtime install (installs most everything you need, warns if there is anything else missing.
Your app needs to use an application endpoint is set as register = false and defaultendpoint = true. User endpoints will not work here. Basic how to can be found in Speach Teach Blog
You need a way to call that works with OCS type TCP connections. Xlite newer versions no longer send a TCP message with ;transport = TCP appended to sip uri. (more about this posed soon)
Add a Setup program to your project, How to on Microsoft site

Just install the project, start the ap and it should listen and accept calls. Call it as mentioned in the speach teach blog linked above, Let me know if you run into problems, or I missed anything. As I find time I will add details of making these apps more robust.

8 reasons you REALLY don't need a Hosted Phone System (IP PBX).

Ken Stauffer — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:28:00 GMT

I came across this post by David Hirsch from Network Voice and DATA in NY who really said it better than I can myself! Below are 8 facetious reason why you would want a hosted phone system form someone who works with them,

"I can give you some true reasons why you need hosted VOIP (Phone system).
1) you would like to pay 50 to 150% more than you will if you have CPE and carrier services and management.
2) you like the cool sounding effect of jitter and delay on your phone calls.
3) you enjoy having your network decide when your completed calls end
4) you enjoy not being able to make and receive calls on a regular basis
5) you enjoy having your hosted provider take ownership of your telephone numbers and letting them decide weather you can keep them when you switch providers
6) you enjoy putting all your eggs in one basket and trusting one entity for all your voice and data communications
7) you enjoy calling the hosted provider's customer service to ask them about what you can do about above problems and having them tell you to contact your ISP, It's not our problem
8) you enjoy putting your business at risk and loosing your job for making an uninformed rash decision.
If you expect freedom to choose and shop your phones, your management interface your carrier access, who can manage your system, the newest and most up to date and continuously updated features and applications, you will quickly cast out every hosted provider."

Todays in house IP PBX systems are very affordable and get around all of the problems described above. We would be happy to provide more details!

Guest Blog- Future of OCS/Lync in IVR Development

Ken Stauffer — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:15:00 GMT

I’ve been working with Speech Server and later Microsoft’s OCS/Lync Server 2010 platforms since late 2003. During that time I have developed a reputation of being the guru of speech. I don’t know if that is deserved or not but it has caused a lot of questions to come my way from other developers. What do I do now that Speech Server 2007 is going away? Should I move to UCMA 3.0 workflow or Vxml? Should I use the Core APIs? How do I get started with UCMA and what tools should I learn?

When my friend Ken asked me to do a guest blog post I thought that answering some of these questions would make for a great post. So I am going to address the things that I think are important for a speech or IVR developer to know and do in order to stay current in this field.

What do I do now that Speech Server 2007 is going away?
I think that you should start learning UCMA and the newer way of doing things. But keep in mind that Speech Server 2007 is still a viable solution path. A lot of the controls you are used to in Speech Server 2007 are simply not available in UCMA 3.0. If your application depends on say recording a voicemail or it is an outbound app and you need answering machine detection then you will have to write those yourself in UCMA. You should always chose your tools based on what your application needs to do. Speech Server will still be around for a few more years and developing your new app in it is not the preferred way but it is still viable. Especially if you need something that it offers and UCMA doesn’t have.

Should I move to UCMA 3.0 workflow or vxml?
This is really a matter of preference and my personal preference is workflow. I have never been a big fan of Vxml and I avoid it when I can. If you have a lot of Vxml expereince or want to port some existing Vxml then go ahead and use it. It wil port with some minor changes while a Speech Server 2007 workflow app will need to have its workflow rewritten. Also I have always found call control to be much easier in workflow or Core than Vxml. Still, as I said it is mostly a matter of preference.

Should I use the Core APIs?
Here again it is mostly a matter of preference. Workflow is easier to work with but Core lets you get down into the internals of UCMA and will give you more control if you need it. But there is no reason why you can mix the two.

How do I get started with UCMA and what tools should I learn?
Well this is where it gets complicated some. There are no books on UCMA 3.0 available at the moment so the code samples that are installed with the SDK are your best bet. There are a couple of books due out this summer and I have seen the early drafts (and wrote a development chapter for one of them) so things will be looking better soon. In the meantime the online help and the Visual Studio debugger are your best friends. IntelliSense can also help as you use it to dig down into the different objects in the SDK. IntelliSense is the main tool I used to solve the impersonation issue I had last week.

As for things you need to learn I think you should spend some time learning Silverlight and PowerShell. Silverlight seems to be Microsoft’s main user interface these days and is portable (with some limits) across devices. Microsoft is moving more and more towards PowerShell for an administrative platform for their server applications. In fact there are over 500 PowerShell cmdlets for administering Lync Server 2010. Microsoft even has a Lync PowerShell blog that is very informative. Lots of good information there along with some good bloggers that are willing to help. I have found the Lync Server 2010 PowerShell cmdlets map to the fields in the Lync Server Control Panel.

Finally if you don’t have an environment that you can learn in I suggest you head on over to GotUc.Net and check us out. After joining you can get a Developer Sandbox account so that you can develop your apps and test them against a real Lync Server 2010 environment with all the bells and whistles. We are in the process of reworking the GotUC.Net website and there are some exciting things happening in the near future that you will want to get involved with.

Well I hope I have addressed some of you most pressing questions but if you still have questions the drop me a line.

Marshall Harrison,
Lync Server 2010 MVP
GotSpeech Consulting LLC
www.GotSpeech.Net | www.GotUC.Net

* marshall@gotspeech.net |* marshall@gotuc.net |( 904.342.6205

IVR Customer self service

Ken Stauffer — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:36:00 GMT

When checking out at local stores i often use the self checkout. Normally there isn't any line, isn't really hard to do, and I can just pay for my items and go! ! We all think of the web as a customer self service medium, but why not voice? Our Advants product line began in 1992 as an acronym for Automated Data, Voice and Network (meaning web) telephony systems! All of our IVRs are capable of being true multi channel customer service tools, housing both your interactive web site, and speech applications.

This empowers your customers to find the information they seek round the clock 24/7/365, a key factor in increasing customer satisfaction rates while lowering operational costs. By thinking of this as a self-service customer care solution, instead of just automating customer service we encourage higher percentages of your customers to resolve requests without agent intervention. Delivering reliable and accurate information to your customers is essential in sustaining customer loyalty and maintaining customer satisfaction, and voice in an excellent example of a technology that can accomplish this task.

never on hold, ill, on holiday, or busy
capable of using AI to learn and improve
natural language input and high quality voice synthesis

Will that be paper, or plastic?

Hosted IVR vs premises based IVR - why hosted is not for everybody!

Ken Stauffer — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:56:00 GMT

We all know that cloud computing is becoming very popular, and of course IVR and VOIP telephone technologies are available over the cloud. At Stauffer technologies we have been hosting ivr systems and phone calls for over 6 years now, and we have always said that although this is not always the best way to go, it can make a huge difference in some applications. Here is some research that can help contrast the benefits and draw backs of each approach. Diane Myers at Infonetics Research recently published an in-depth look at hosted IVR, including a cost analysis — the full report is available at connected planet online dot com. To boil down what experience and this survey have taught us, hosted systems are sometimes very cost effective especially in the sort run when the company has low volume and limited capitol. Premises based systems are often significantly less expensive in the long run Especially for high volume users, and have the highest quality audio (some voip systems compress the sound which makes it not as "High Fidelity". There is also now High Definition audio available with some equipment.

Key factors we have found in selecting an ivr (at least from us):

hosted ivr - never have to replace or upgrade
hosted usually lower up front costs
in house usually lower long term costs
Either can be managed by supplier.
You often will be sharing the hosted equipment
Hosted usually has a per call or per minute charge.
in house more flexibility of legacy equipment/better quality audio.

Ask for a free no obligation evaluation and examples of typical savings!

Brillo pads and Tide are the duct tape and WD-40 of boat cleaning!

Ken Stauffer — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:43:00 GMT

Sometimes the best approach an excellent but simple one!!

Okay, so i know this is called tech corner, and I usually write about exciting stuff like interactive voice response systems, but everybody has to have a hobby, right? Well mine is boating, which is really fun until fall when you have to winterize and put things away for the winter (at least you need this here in Northern Ohio).

So I have a sailboat, a jet ski, and a dinghy. The dinghy stays in the water and the bottom is truly gross by october, even though i take it out and clean it once in a while. The waterline of my sailboat is equally gross, it has bottom paint on it, but the area just above the line where the bottom paint ends has several inches of green slime growing there as well. Ditto for the back of the jet ski, as well as several fenders that hold my boat away from the dock during storms. If you allow this growth to dry, they literally become part of the boat, extremely hard to remove. If you go to your local boat store or web site they will tell you that you need somewhat expensive products to properly clean these, there is a separate product needed for boat bottoms, and a gel for waterlines, etc. These contain some sort of acid, and you need to wear gloves, and apply this stuff several times, and still scrub and scrub. So I was out of all of this today, and just tried a Brillo pad and some Tide on the bottom of the dinghy. WOW! came clean soooo easy compared to the more expensive methods, so i decided to see about my waterline, same thing!! So here, this new convert went around scrubbing all day, effortlessly removing a whole seasons lake scum buildup off everything within reach of my dock, Fortunately my dog was safe inside the boat!

I say, move over, WD-40 and duct tape, we all know there are tons of testimonials dedicated to your wonders, I found a few old time products that also don't cost much and work great!!

What does this have to do with this web site? Simple! here at Stauffer Technologies we strive to create excellent but simple products that make your life easier in everything that we do!! Anybody else ever tried this, or has any other wonder products?!

Doesn't interactive voice recognition just annoy people?

Ken Stauffer — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:41:00 GMT

Many people I talk to tell me they hate automated systems. I thought I did as well, until I found a few that worked for me. Having the ability to have a call answered on the first ring, and then being able to get the information i need quickly, is to me much better than waiting on hold for long periods of time, waiting until normal business hours, or talking to "Rudy" in Pakistan! Voice recognition menus can be worked with in a hands free driving application. The basic premise of a modern speech recognition system is to handle 60 - 70 percent of the routine calls, which it can often do as well, if not more efficiently than live people, and to get the exceptions to a live operator as quickly as possible. Here is a check list of things that can improve customer satisfaction in an IVR system.

Plan system for a finite list of tasks, make sure obvious to users
Have context sensitive help available in all menus
Use Global system commands to avoid large number of menu trees
have voice recognition menus fall back to touch tone when call is noisy and a live agent is not available
Use Artificial Intelligence backed up by human approval as well as (partially automated) customer feedback to improve satisfaction going forward

Using the above best practices can save money by automating the more common customer service tasks, while improving customer satisfaction.

Unified Messaging - Connecting OCS to the rest of the world!!

Ken Stauffer — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:17:00 GMT

OCS 2007/Lync 2010 is a great unified communications product, but one limiting factor has been the inability to connect devices via UDP. Microsoft says that they limit the connections to TCP only devices for security purposes. This article is not a commentary on why, but a discussion of how to overcome this limitation. Also, this shows 2 methods to connect to asterisk, but the sip proxy should work with many other IP PBX systems as well, and almost everything can connect to asterisk, so with these tools we should be able to connect to just about everything out there.

There are two technical hurdles to overcome, one is the convert the UDP message to TCP, which is easy, the other is to interpret and handle a 302 moved temporarilly message sent from OCS. You can connect via a commercial sip proxy, but of course they are expensive. Many other sites have posted how to do this with SER, another sip proxy. Internally at STI we have been successful with two open software approaches, both are well tested, easy, and very stable One is a shareware sip proxy named repro, and the other is via the built in TCP support in asterisk 1.6.

Using Repro

Repro is part of the ReSiprocate project, is available for download as source, and although you have to build it for windows, it comes with scripts and is really easy to do. This is a very stable product that requires a separate machine (cant run directly on the OCS server) . It is a little tricky to get working, but once you do it just runs and never crashes or causes problems.

You can download a non supported copy of repro that was compiled for windows by us here.

after you run install you can start repro with a command line similar to (please note the ip is the ip of the machine this proxy is running on)

repro --disable-auth --recursive-redirect --record-route=sip:192.168.42.2 --force-record-route --admin-password=admin --log-level=DEBUG > c:\reprout

Then you can log in and configure on port 5080 of your local machine with the url localhost:5080

Then set up Domains: I found you need to add three ip addresses, this proxy, the OCS server or edge server, and Asterisk server.

Once the 3 domains are added all you have to do is to add a route each direction to tell repro which protocol it expects.

We need all traffic to the OCS server to be TCP, and anything to the asterisk server to be UDP. In this case the ip of the asterisk box it 192.168.2.118, so our uri would be look like

^sip:(.*)@192.168.2.118

and its destination would look like

sip:$1@192.168.2.118;transport=udp

So once you have both routes set up, restart repro and it should work ok! If not look in the log file and you should be able to see whats wrong.

Repro full instruction page is located here.

Also, you should have repro start as a service, which is also very easy, just use srvany, directions from Microsoft are here.

Using Asterisk 1.6

For direct connection from Asterisk I have tested with Trixbox, and as long as you use the 1.6 version it connects just fine. As almost everything out there can connect to Asterisk, this interface should be able to bridge the gap to just about anybody out there. Connection is really straightforward (probably more than one way to accomplish this, but this one is well tested). You set up a trunk. You merely have to tell asterisk it's ok to use TCP and also about the 302 message, which it calls promiscuous redirect. the username is not important, but you have to put something. In your trunk settings enter something like the following:

canreinvite=yes
context=from-internal
host=IP-OF-OCS-Machine
username=3335
qualify=yes
transport=tcp,udp
promiscredir=yes
type=peer

thats all you need, feel free to post a comment below if you have a problem, or find an error! Also please let me know if you have found other ways to make this work!!