CS1000e 7.5, AACC6 SIP & Callpilot

[ansellrk]

Good morning,

Is anyone out there running CS1k 7.5 (System manager & Session manager) with the SIP version of AACC6? we are looking to upgrade our Nortel CC6 (AML) to AACC6 (SIP) and running the two side by side for a short time to migrate users across. However, we were always under the impression that Callpilot could be removed from the CC mix with AACC6 SIP and instead use the MAS server but this is not the case apparently?!

So, my question is... can I run CS1K 7.5 with AACC6 SIP and a MAS server and do away with Callpilot for providing IVR?

Thanks

Rob

[Michael McNamara]

Hi Rob and welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately there isn't too much CS1000 traffic here (yet)... I'm currently deploying Avaya Aura Messaging with System Manager, Session Manager and a CS1000 7.5. We're having issues using the CS1000 as a SIP tandem gateway to connecting to 6 other CS1000 which are all H323 (not yet upgraded to SIP).

I can ask the question of my reseller and Avaya, perhaps that will help. So you are looking to remove CallPilot from the picture and leverage AAM?

Cheers!

[ansellrk]

Hi,

Our old configuration was CS1K (5.5), CC6 & Callpilot.  Callpilot is handling all the IVR & voice prompts for CC6 and although we had the HA version of Callpilot we have dropped it back to a single server due to the issue around CC6 and stability!

This leaves me with a problem that if Callpilot needs to be bounced or it fails for any reason it takes out all my CC6 IVR and voice prompts which obviously causes disruption especially as we have some 24/7 contact centres.

So, when upgrading to CS1K 7.5 with System Manager & Session Manager we moved all the SRG/SMG's over to SIP and all is well. It took a fair amount of 'messing' to get us to this state and one 22 hour shift but now we have a stable CS1K on 7.5 and we are encrypting all the traffic over it too (even traffic to the Audicodes for faxes and analogue ports)

My next step was to upgrade CC6 to AACC6, install a MAS server and completley seperate Callpilot away from the CC environment.  We are likely to move away from Callpilot to Exchange in the not too distant future, so the Callpilot environment will be decomissioned completley.

BUT...and this is a BIG BUT... we have been told that even with AACC6 we still need to use Callpilot for IVR provision!!!  With AACC6 I was intending to have resilient servers, resilient MAS and with our resilient CS1K that would leave us in a very strong position but with Callpilot involved I am back to square one.  I find it hard to believe that AACC6 requires Callpilot for a little bit of IVR (the MAS handles all other voice prompts).  Apparently AACC6 can't handle "Press 1 for this, 2 for that"... it can't handle digit input so it uses Callpilot for this function.

So (sorry for the essay) I want to know if this is really the case?!

Thanks

Rob

[Michael McNamara]

I asked a resource today and heard that you can use a MAS (no longer called a MAS though apparently) with either the AACC6 the AML or SIP version. This was a five minute conversation with an sales engineer but you might want to have your reseller check again. The CallPilot is ONLY an option with the AML version and is NOT an option with the SIP version.

Cheers!

[ansellrk]

Thanks for that info.  I will ask my provider again to see if they can get some more concrete information.  There does appear to be some uncertainty about it all to be honest so I'll try and get an accurate view from Avaya and I'll update when I have this.

[markr]

the Callpilot can still be used to front end announcemants and company directory( you have reached XWZ company for tech support press 1 etc)  but the Integrated SIP mas server must be used for give IVR and delay announcements.

The big question is why do you want to go to SIP AACC?     It will totally change the way your agents do business and IMO is not ready for prime time.

Some of the issues is that if you are keeping the existing telephones, the agents can not use them for anything but a place to plug the headset into.  If they try to manually answer, xfer, conf or make an outbound call it will corrupt the AACC database.   They have to use the Desktop agent for everything and it still does not support all of the telephony features. 

my recommendation would be to upgrade to the AML version of AACC which works very well and migrate to SIP when it is ready.

[ansellrk]

Thanks for the replies.

The reason for going SIP is to remove Callpilot which is the only component of my telephony infrastruture that isn't resilient across my two main sites.

I have had the following statement from Avaya...

I should say first that the best positioning for CS1000 customers currently is to upgrade to AACC 6.2 and maintain the AML connection to CS1000. This avoids the issue of having to replace the Auto Attendant functionality in regard to CallPilot (AML connected also).  One thing to definitely understand is that the AMS (Media Services) cannot currently provide the auto attendant replacement if the customer moved to a SIP connected AACC. Eventually (likely over the course of this year) the AMS will be the replacement for this CallPilot feature.

So, there is no point us upgrading to AML AACC6, it gives me absolutley nothing more that I have now or need. We will wait until the SIP version uses the AMS as the replacement for Callpilot and do the upgrade next year. I want the extra functionality of the agent desktop and the multimedia intergration that the SIP version gives and we believe that we can run our existing version (Nortel CC6) and the new version side by side if we go fully SIP which will allow us plenty of time to 'ease' our users into the new version.

I can wait... 

Rob