UCX Suite features summary for RFPs
In this KB you can find the description of Imagicle applications for tenders in matter of Call Accounting and billing, Fax server, Corporate Directories, Operator Console, Manager-Assistant, Auto Attendant, Call & Screen Recording and Hospitality Services.
This document applies to Cisco on-prem and Cloud-based calling platforms.
Call Accounting and Billing
Architecture
Call Accounting application shall be designed to collect call details data from multiple calling platforms, also from different vendors; the manufacturer and solution certification are required.
The application shall support multi-site architectures, as well as multi-cluster, multi-Country, multi-time zones and multi-currency and shall be scalable from a few tens to tens of hundreds user. It shall rely on Microsoft® SQL Server for data management, to grant security and performance even when managing data for millions of calls.
The application must support the configuration of different Trunks/Voice Gateways, SBC, Locations, Sites (up to hundreds).
The application shall natively collect CDRs from on-prem or cloud-based Cisco Calling Platforms, interpret call dynamics (internal, incoming, outgoing, transferred, diverted, conferenced) and associate user and Company information as well as calculate call costs.
User management and business organization
The application shall be capable of acquiring extension numbers from retrieved CDR and automatically provision actual extensions in use.
It must be allowed to import and synchronize users too, along with departments and cost centers information, directly from Cisco Unified Communications Manager by means of AXL protocol, from Webex Control Hub via APIs, or from external sources such as Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID or company LDAP servers, with SSO/MFA authentication.
For each user, the level of privacy on call billing shall be configurable, resulting in a replacement of the last digits of a called or calling remote number with asterisks (i.e. 02250677**).
The application shall support overlapping and non-overlapping numbering plans, using site and/or partition information to differentiate.
Interface, reports and statistics
The application shall provide a web interface for accessing the configuration settings, management and statistics, for administrators, supervisors and users.
User profiling shall grant administrators the right to access all calls; supervisors shall instead access their department or Cost Center or Office Location calls; users to only their own calls.
Vendor should also provide Call Accounting application access from Cisco Jabber and Webex Desktop clients, allowing each user to directly access reports and browse call registry for incoming/outgoing calls performed from any phone device associated to own extension number.
Ready to use reports shall offer different types of analysis such as call list, cost center grouping, cost analysis, trend analysis, phone lines usage, pin code statistics, device type usage. Reports shall offer customization options by defining one- or two-level grouping on different fields. There must be a report for tagging calls as business or private.
The reports shall be refined using advanced filters on date, caller, called, cost center, department, call type, user’s name and shall offer the options of exporting data to PDF and excel file, either manually or through scheduled automatic email sending to single users, group of users, all users. Reports sending shall also provide the option to dynamically filter contents, to provide different recipients only the relevant, own data.
Specific report for Cisco Hunt Groups should be provided, to monitor the volume of calls hitting those answering groups and relevant outcome.
The application should provide the option to save scheduled reports in a shared Windows folder, for further processing by a third-party tool.
Those reports customized with specific grouping and filters shall offer saving facility for quick reference and e-mail scheduling.
The application shall offer the definition of a customized web dashboard, displaying reports for a quick overview of the situation and a start page displaying summarizing gauges and system vital parameters.
Alarms
Furthermore, the application shall offer the option of defining event-triggered alarms so that specified users receive email warnings in case a defined event occur (i.e. in case of missed calls, exceeding a specific amount of money, calls to blacklisted numbers).
Budget Control
The offered solution should include a Budget Control module that can smartly assign a phone calls budget to users, departments or cost centers and receive notifications in case the budget went further the defined limit. In that case, it should be able to lock the phone line and prevent it from making further calls (Please check the Phone Lock section).
Budget Control module should include a custom tab for Cisco Jabber and Webex Desktop clients which shows to each user his/her current monthly phone costs and remaining budget available for outgoing PSTN calls.
Imagicle Budget Control should support overlapping extension numbers, allowing to selectively lock phone lines, if associated to different phone devices.
Specific Budget Control reports should be available, to show budget trends and organization analysis. An audit trail file should be accessible to report each user usage and data exchange.
Phone Lock
A phone lock application for Cisco Unified Communications Manager only should be included with the provided solution, to lock Cisco phone lines so that it is no longer possible (except for calls admitted by configuration, i.e. Emergency calls) to trigger or receive calls. The application should provide the following features:
Prevent external or internal calls if desired in case the phone line is locked.
leverage TAPI and/or CURRI protocols.
Can be triggered by an administrator or a department supervisor, by leveraging specific web API to globally lock all phone lines in a department.
Should give the administrator the option of transferring the call to a voicemail in case the phone is locked.
The ability to lock and unlock own phone line from Cisco IP Phone, by accessing the relevant Phone Service menu and entering a PIN code. Once the phone is locked, a “lock” icon should be displayed to inform the user that own phone line is locked.
Users should have the option of locking/unlocking their phone using the following:
Web interface
Jabber custom tab
Webex custom tab
IP Phone
The PIN code of the lock/unlock phone service may be changed directly from the IP phone to give the user more flexibility and security.
Lock the phone, after a defined idle time.
The phone locking feature should be linked to the windows login and logout in the following way: when a user logs into Windows his phone is automatically unlocked. In case he logs out the phone is locked so that no other user can use it.
Tariffs and recalculation
A tool for configuring and updating call costs tariffs shall be provided. Such tariffs shall be assigned to each single site, to calculate the call costs.
The user shall have the possibility of recalculating costs of already imported calls and reprocess discarded calls, even within a specific timespan, to update data with any change that may have occurred on user information, cost center or tariffs.
Third party integration
The applications shall offer Web APIs for querying call database and get the extract of calls within a determined period, for one or more user, to feed an external application.
High Availability
Call Accounting system should support hot standby redundancy model, which allows phone traffic data access even upon primary server failure, without any manual intervention. Call detail records generated during failure period are retrieved by Call Accounting application when primary server comes back in service.
Hardware and software requirements
The application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022/2025. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed application, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited call data storage within vendor’s cloud.
Fax Server
Architecture
The application should be completely software-based (IP Fax Server) and shall support native integration with on-prem and cloud-based Cisco Calling Platforms by means of a SIP/SIPS trunk, negotiating both T.38 and fallback to G.711 pass-through.
The application shall solely license per number of channels (concurrent inbound-outbound fax transactions), regardless of the number of users.
User management and business organization
The application should allow download and synchronization of the user information’s and fax box numbers directly from Cisco Unified Communications Manager by means of AXL protocol, from Webex control Hub via APIs or from external sources such as Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID or company LDAP Servers, with SSO/MFA authentication.
It should allow to automatically add on a user base, specific area codes for caller-based routing management, for single user or user groups.
Fax Reception and transmission methods
The application should support fax transmission from any workstation equipped with e-mail client or web browser and via multifunction printers.
Vendor should also provide fax server application access from Cisco Jabber, Cisco Webex Desktop clients, allowing each user to directly browse fax inbox and outbox and moreover allow fax sending to single or multiple fax recipients.
The integration with company mail servers should occur via SMTP/POP3/IMAP/OAuth2 protocols and may use secure connections (TLS/SSL) and a HTTPS/SOCKS-based proxy server.
E-mail fax transmission syntax should support fax recipient in the email subject or in the “To:” field, for example: 123456789@fax.mycompany.com
The web interface should allow to send through a simple form allowing to select one or more recipients, supporting extended phonebooks and cover pages.
The application should allow to send via e-mail, web, Jabber or dedicated mobile app one or more attachments in different formats, without requiring the installation of additional applications on the server: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, txt, bmp, jpg, jpeg, png, gif, tiff, tif, wri, rtf.
Fax boxes should be assigned to single users (personal fax number) or to a group of users (departmental fax number), allowing to access received/sent fax folders via the web interface as well as from any email client, with relevant attachments.
Received fax should be printed, if required, directly using a network printer, or archived to a network folder using a customizable file name syntax.
Virtual fax printer
The application should provide a virtual fax printer driver to be installed in Windows workstations, to allow fax users to send a fax from any application by invoking standard “Print” option and selecting virtual fax printer. The driver should ask for destination fax number and feed the fax transaction to the Fax Server application.
MFP and network scanner interface
The application should allow fax users to send a fax in paper format by leveraging any network MFP or scanner including “scan-to-email” feature. Paper document should be scanned and relevant document is fed to the Fax Server application via email.
Application APIs
The application must include web APIs in order to allow third party applications to interact with fax server and trigger outgoing fax transactions. Web API should provide the following functionalities:
Submit Fax
Get Outbound Fax Details
Download outbound fax document
Get Outbound Faxes List
Get Inbound Faxes List
Get Inbound Fax Details
Download Inbound fax document
EPIC Integration
Fax server solution should provide native Epic integration, to allow EPIC users to send faxes and know their status directly from the EPIC ecosystem.
Reporting
The application shall include a range of reports about fax traffic volume generated by users and fax channels’ usage. A detailed fax transactions report must be available, including the list of all incoming/outgoing faxes performed by one or multiple users during a certain time interval. All reports must include a scheduling option, to automatically send report results by email. Report export to Excel, Word or PDF formats is also required.
The application should provide the option to save scheduled reports in a shared Windows folder, for further processing by a third-party tool.
Solution reliability
The Fax Server shall support hot redundancy to grant continuous service as well as load balance without manual intervention, thus guaranteeing, even in disaster recovery architecture, no data loss when primary server fails (RPO=0). Moreover, automatic service restoral on secondary DR site must be granted within 2 hours (RTO=0).
RPO=0 and RTO=0 require to be supported at hardware level too.
Hardware and software requirements
The application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed applications’ suite, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited fax data storage within vendor’s cloud.
Corporate Directories
Architecture
The application shall grant access to company phonebooks from Cisco IP phones registered to Cisco Unified Communications Manager system.
IP phones may access phonebooks through XML protocol via intuitive menus.
The application shall send caller ID information Cisco IP phone display for incoming calls.
Vendor should also provide phonebook application access from Cisco Jabber and Webex Desktop clients, allowing each user to directly search and browse contacts, and relevant phone numbers, in all authorized directories. Each user should initiate a phone call straight from own softphone, by simply clicking on any phone number available in phonebooks.
Vendor should also provide a connector to integrate directories access, dialing and call transfer, from Cisco Finesse web client in a Cisco UCM environment.
Phonebook types
Phonebooks shall be profiled for user access and shall be public, group or personal.
Profiles shall allow a user to create personal phonebooks and contacts only accessible from the user’s own phone devices, accessing phonebooks of its own group and accessing public phonebooks.
Adding, modifying and deleting contacts can be performed from Cisco IP Phones (CUCM only), web interface, Jabber/Webex Desktop clients.
It must be possible to associate special privileges to users, to let them fully manage their group phonebooks or the public ones.
Phonebook contact management
The application shall allow, through a web interface, the definition of multiple phonebooks with contacts that may be added manually, imported statically from CSV file or automatically synchronized with external sources such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, LDAP, CRM/ERP, other ODBC compliant database.
User management and business organization
The application shall be capable of automatically importing and synchronizing user and group information a user belongs to, from Cisco Unified Communications Manager through AXL protocol, from Webex Control Hub or from external sources such as Microsoft Active Directory or Company LDAP servers, with SSO/MFA authentication.
In a multi-tenant environment, the application should allow the separation of corporate directories by tenant, avoiding mixing internal/external contacts across multiple customers.
Contacts Search & Click to dial
The application shall provide an easy and fast “google” like search method, that allows customers to submit a search in all the directories available using the “contains” operator. It shall search directories from any workstation and initiate a call to the desired contact with just one click.
Search results should include entries with any diacritic marks associated to same letter.
It should be possible to select a phone number from any application and trigger the call from Cisco Jabber client, by using a configurable hotkey (Select & Dial).
Fast Search (CUCM only)
The application shall provide the possibility to search in all directories or single directory using Cisco IP Phone’s numeric keypad, in a similar way as “T9” contact search on legacy mobile phones (i.e. if you need to search for all contacts named “Wilson”, you should enter the digits 945766).
1.1.7 Speed Dials
In a Cisco Unified Communications Manager environment only, The Application shall provide the capability to associate numbers (i.e. mobile phone numbers) to a speed dial number: each Users’ mobile phone numbers can be associated with user’s extension with a prefix (i.e. if John number is 780, dialing 1780 calls John’s mobile phone)
Caller ID
For incoming calls from PSTN, Phonebooks application should automatically search and lookup caller name from the list of user’s authorized directories. If matched, caller information is displayed on user’s Cisco IP Phones, Jabber/Webex Desktop clients (CUCM only) and Operator Console.
Multi-tenant support
Native support for corporate directories separation in a multi-tenant environment should be available. Users imported from an external source should be automatically split in different directories by Company, thus allowing a distinguished directory access from IP Phones, Jabber/Webex clients, operator console and web portal.
Hardware and software requirements
The application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022/2025. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed applications’ suite, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited contacts’ data storage within vendor’s cloud.
Operator console
Architecture
Operator’s Console features shall provide a client-server architecture, where operator’s console client shall install on user PC that will connect to the call control server. Client should be to Windows 10/11 PC workstations.
An unique client application should offer different profiles (standard users, Visual impaired users, blind users) and shall be profiled dynamically profiled on the relevant license activated on the server side. The same Client application should also be used as Supervisor bar.
The server shall allow a centralized inbound call-treatment through defining one of more queues, providing welcome/closing/waiting messages and dispatching to operators.
Operator’s Console should also provide the possibility to add or modify an external contact to directories directly, to let Users be faster and easier in filling and maintaining the company directories.
The server shall connect to the offered Calling platform via SIP and Secure SIP, and provide audio announcements via G.711 and G.729 codecs without external/additional transcoding resources being a requirement.
It shall monitor the operator’s and user’s phone status via centralized Cisco TAPI Service Provider or through native Webex Calling APIs.
The CTI Link with the PBX must be centralized on the server, without any component to be installed and maintained on the clients. Configuration profiles must be centralized on the server, allowing operators to retrieve their own settings from any workstation (free seating).
Queuing and call distribution management
The solution should be SIP based and should feature a Web interface allowing the definition of different queues, being each queue composed of a given number of operators, as well as loading new MP3 or Wav announcements and a calendar for automatic management of the day/night/holiday mode. It should also support the possibility to specify the local time zone associated to each queue, to handle queue opening/closing timetable in different time zones from the same instance.
For each queue, the following may be specified:
Maximum waiting time;
Maximum queued calls;
Overflow triggers for each unattended queue (no available operator).
In case of overflow, the following actions can be triggered:
Busy tone and hang up;
Voicemail system integrations to receive messages on the system voice mail;
Call Diversion to an external configurable number.
For each queue, welcome announcement, unavailable operator announcement, and music on hold shall be configurable by selecting it among a full set of predefined voice prompts in 6 languages (IT, EN, SP, FR, DE, AR), as well as loading new announcements through the web interface. Position in the queue announcements should also be available.
The system shall support phonebook definitions, caller ID resolution for both internal and external contacts, VIP treatment when required so that the call is immediately escalated to the top of the queue.
Application APIs
The application must include web APIs in order to allow third party applications to interact with queuing application and automate the provisioning. The system shall therefore include automation REST APIs for queues and services CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete).
Wallboard APIs
The application should integrate web APIs to retrieve real-time and historical information about traffic volumes on queuing system, like: number of served, abandoned calls in a given time range; average waiting time, answering time, call duration in a given time range; longest wait time for a given queue; number of calls waiting; maximum wait time; logged in Agents list, agents currently on call, number of abandonded calls, number of overflow calls.
Call features
Operators configured on a queue may log in and out to the service, directly from their phone/softphone, via Operator Console client or from a web portal.
Operator Console client shall allow incoming call identification and display the required information like caller’s number, name, company name (if available in the phonebook). Moreover, the operator can pick-up or transfer the call in a click, via drag-and-drop or using the keyboard with dedicated and configurable Hot-Keys.
Supported call features are:
Call trigger and hang-up
Call hold and restore
Blind transfer
Consultation, transfer completion or restore
Conference
Standard call parking
Smart call parking (Camp On), to park a call on a specific extension regardless the status, to dismiss the operator
The operator, using its Operator Console client, can directly receive a call from the server or select the call to answer from the list of the queued calls.
On screen Pop-up notifications shall warn about the presence of queued or camp-on calls, as well as missed calls.
Emergency button
Operator Console should integrate a large and visible softkey within its GUI, which can be used by the operator to trigger an emergency procedure by calling a specific phone number.
User management and business organization
The Client shall provide Busy Lamp Field features to monitor the status of colleague’s telephones, automatically provisioned from Cisco Unified Communications Manager through AXL protocol, Webex Control Hub or from external sources such as Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID or company LDAP servers, with SSO/MFA authentication.
Rich Presence integration
The client should seamlessly display real-time rich presence data coming from multiple sources like Webex Control Hub, Microsoft Teams or Cisco UCM Presence Server (CUPS).
Microsoft Calendar Integration
The Client shall provide real-time calendar information about corporate colleagues, retrieved from an on-prem Microsoft Exchange server or from cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 service.
Accessibility
The client shall provide different profiles for:
Normally sighted users
Partially sighted users, with a Text Magnifier software support
Blind users with a certified vocalizer software and Braille keyboard
Font resizing option should be provided, for each operator.
Supported languages
Operator Console client should support at least eight different languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German, Portuguese, Dutch and Italian. Language change must be applicable on the fly, without having to restart the client.
Phonebooks, favorites and contacts
The Client shall furthermore offer both a local and server-based phonebook system, to allow the access to external contacts to click-to-call and display the caller’s name for incoming calls (Caller ID).
One or more favorite contact panels displaying internal numbers and external contacts shall be available. The application shall feature Advanced Search capability, allowing to search for colleagues and contacts based on specific filters (Name, Surname, Company, Department, etc.).
Search results should include entries with any diacritic marks associated to same letter.
Embedded Call Recording buttons
If Voice Recording feature is required, Operator console client should embed specific buttons to start/stop and pause/resume conversation recording (Cisco UCM only).
Call registry
The Client shall provide a registry for monitoring at one’s convenience, inbound and outbound telephone traffic as well as call duration, date, time and missed calls. If Call Recording feature is required, call registry should include a button to directly access to own recordings on web browser.
Hot keys
It shall support keyboard shortcuts for all call features such as: number dialing, quick search, call pick up, hang up, redial, hold, transfer, conference, queue login/logout, queue statistic display.
It shall also be possible to select a number from within any application or browser to call simply through an Hotkey (Clip&Call).
Third Party application pop-up
Operator Console should allow interfacing with web based or Windows thick client based third party applications. Upon incoming call, caller phone number is forwarded to external application, which automatically recalls and shows caller party’s data (if available in its archive). Operator Console should allow the configuration of user’s access credentials and to choose which information to transfer to external application.
Agents’ monitoring and barge in
In a Cisco Unified Communications Manager system only, ACD Supervisor should be enabled to silently monitor agents’ conversations and, if required, suggest best practices to agent, without being heard by remote party. Specific buttons to trigger these two options should be available on Operator Console’s supervisor dashboard.
Reports
Queue analysis and agent’s work shall be monitored in order to allow prompt adjustments of the offered services, thus enhancing efficiency. The possible reports are:
Historical reports
Real-time dashboard
Historical statistics shall allow the following analysis:
Call volume analysis per queue
Average hold time per queue
Distribution by outcome (abandoned, off time, served …)
Average call treating time with outcomes by time intervals
Welcome service level by time interval and aggregate for each queue
Queue report detail
Call distribution by operator, aggregate per queue
Call trend (answered, missed, short calls)
The application should provide report scheduling feature, for automatic report sending via email, together with the option to save scheduled reports in a shared Windows folder, for further processing by a third-party tool.
Real-time reports shall point out how many operators are available for each queue and, how many are engaged in a conversation and shall allow opening/closing queues as well as logging in/out an operator, via Operator Console’s PC client.
Solution reliability
The solution must support high reliability with clients registering to the secondary server in case of maintenance or failure of the primary, thus maintaining queuing and dispatching capabilities thanks to the configuration that is automatically aligned to the primary.
Hardware and software requirements
Call Queuing and distribution application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022/2025. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed applications’ suite, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited call data storage within vendor’s cloud.
Operator Console clients shall support installation on local PCs running Windows 10/11, 32 or 64 bit and compatible with VXI infrastructures for use with virtual desktop/thin client.
Auto Attendant
The solution should be SIP/SIPs based and natively integrated with any Cisco on-prem or Cloud-based Calling Platform. It should feature a Web interface for the administration and configuration and integrated IVR capabilities, including automatically selected answers, such as courtesy messages, day/night messages and multi-level selection.
It should allow to define incoming calls greet call flows, including different types of stackable “behaviors” to create a multi-level tree structure, with selectable multiple choices using DTMF phone keypad. Every Auto Attendant service is associated to weekly timetable, for a simple day/night/holidays management and relevant Auto Attendant behaviors. Time zone should be supported as well.
An easy and intuitive web interface allows multiple Auto Attendant services definition, including the following behavior types:
Menu: Block which includes a welcome message playback and subsequent multiple choices selection through DTMF keypad. Depending on choice, call flow proceeds with further behaviors chained to this one.
Transfer to: Block which includes an optional message playback and subsequent call transfer toward:
Phone extension
Queue
Fixed or mobile PSTN phone
Another Auto Attendant flow
This behavior includes an alternative route for failed call transfer, with an error prompt and subsequent flow continuation or hang-up.
Audio playback: This simple behavior allows voice prompt playback, with optional periodical prompt repetition or proceed to next behavior or hang-up.
Dial in: This behavior requests caller party to enter the extension number of desired contact using phone keypad. If ext. is correct, call is transferred to extension. Else, a new phone number is requested.
Voice Bot: This behavior allows to trigger a Cloud AI-based Voice Bot or automated attendant module, optionally included in the solution, to take over the call control and provide self-service, operator-less services to calling parties, based on voice recognition and voice synthesis interactions.
It should also have advanced administration capabilities (i.e. ability to assign one or more superusers to each configured Auto Attendant Service, so that each superuser to modify Auto Attendant script, voice prompts, timetable, without having to demand this changes to main system administrator).
The solution should also make available advanced and detailed reporting and filtering (i.e. retrieving traffic information about number of accesses to Auto Attendant services, channels usage and a detailed list of caller numbers, filtering by date, specific Auto Attendant service and relevant behavior, call classification and termination cause). It should allow reports to be exported to CSV/Excel, Word or PDF file.
The application should provide report scheduling feature, for automatic report sending via email, together with the option to save scheduled reports in a shared Windows folder, for further processing by a third-party tool.
Hardware and software requirements
The application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022/2025. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed applications’ suite, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by the Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited call data storage within vendor’s cloud.
Manager Assistant
Manager Assistant application for Cisco Unified Communications Manager environments should provide enhanced call handling and delegation during the working day. Both Managers and Assistants should access to respective web panels from Cisco IP Phones, Jabber Desktop client or from any web browser and configure forward options and whitelists to handle inbound phone traffic to executive office.
Manager Assistant application should offer each Manager the option to associate one or multiple Assistants and, vice versa, every Assistant might be associated to multiple Managers to provide flexibility.
The manager should handle in a flexible way how the calls are forwarded, based on contacts in whitelists.
Upon incoming call, the Assistant should forward the call to Manager’s desk phone, softphone, mobile phone, voicemail or an alternative number in a simple manner, according to Manager’s choice.
The application must include a whitelist feature, where relevant contacts can directly reach the Manager, without Assistant filtering, depending on Manager’s real-time phone status.
Both Managers and Assistants should leverage existing LDAP/Active Directory credentials to login to Manager Assistant panel in six different languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Turkish.
Voice Recorder
Architecture
The solution shall be completely software-based and shall provide active audio recording without the need of any SPAN port on the network.
It shall support native integration with Cisco on-prem and cloud-based Calling Platforms without requiring extra hardware or components. It should support Integration with Cisco Finesse, to enable audio calls recording for Cisco UCCX/UCCE/WxCC agents and give access to recording directly within Cisco Finesse (CUCM only) or WxCC Agent Desktop through a dedicated gadget. Recording can be manual through the control buttons in the gadget, or automatic via Cisco Finesse workflow design.
It shall connect via SIP and Secure SIP, support recording based on Cisco native Built in Bridge and Network Based Recording technologies (CUCM only), TAPI-based automated Dial-in conference (CUCM only), free-seating manual dial-in conference (any calling platform), standard SIPREC and native Webex Calling APIs. It should support Cisco Jabber/Webex selective recording, with the possibility to start/stop and mute/unmute recording via Cisco Jabber/Webex gadget for Desktop clients.
The application licensing should be based on number of channels (concurrent inbound-outbound recorded conversations) or number of recording-enabled named users.
User management
The application should allow download and synchronization of the user information’s directly from Cisco Unified Communications Manager by means of AXL protocol or from external sources such as Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID or company LDAP Servers, with SSO/MFA authentication redirection for a seamless usage of user credentials.
Role-based administration shall be available. Furthermore, administrators shall be able to assign specific permissions to any user, thus allowing or denying specific users to view, search, playback, download or delete audio recordings, according to specific criteria.
The application shall also support multiple Users' permission level to allow call recording and prevent such users from accessing (listen, download, delete, …) to own recordings, to guarantee privacy and data security.
Application APIs
The application must include web APIs to allow third party applications to interact with recording server and trigger automated operations. The exposed API shall allow external application, like a CRM or ERP system, to retrieve at least the following data:
List Recordings
Upload a new Recording
Retrieve a single recording
Retrieve Recording Media
Retrieve Active Recordings
Start a Recording
Stop a Recording
Pause/Resume Recording
Recording methods
The application should support both Always-on and On-Demand recording, with Rec button to start and stop recording directly on Cisco phones/softphone and Operator Console. Pause and Resume should also be supported, where required.
It should also be possible to start recording at any time and configure Recording application to record calls from the very beginning of the call, without losing the part of the conversation before the recording button was pushed.
It should also support recording of calls redirected to external phones/mobile phones and Cisco Jabber/Webex clients (both Desktop and Mobile).
Recorded conversations must be automatically tagged with info about the recording agent/user, tenant/group, external number, date/time, recording ID for these fields to be available in the search interfaces.
Screen recording add-on
Voice recorder should include an optional module to capture screen content of enabled users, from the moment the actual voice recording is triggered, up to the call is ended or after a configurable wrap-up time.
Recorded screen session should be available to download from a web portal as standard video file, to be played-back from any off-the-shelf video player.
Recording announcement
Voice recorder should provide an automatic announcement prompt (typically a privacy statement) upon recording trigger, for both incoming and outgoing calls.
Search and Play web portal
The web interface should allow simple users to access their own voice and screen recordings, assign notes, search with filter on specific fields and listen/export selected recordings.
Supervisors must have access to the recordings of their department/tenant and administrators to all the recordings.
Vendor should also provide Voice Recorder application access from within Cisco Jabber/Webex Desktop clients, allowing users to directly browse, tag and listen to their own recordings.
Security and Privacy
It should support secure SIP for encrypted signaling, over a Transport Layer Security (TLS) connection that protects sessions from sniffing. Support of secure RTP (sRTP) for decryption of messages passed through the RTP-based communication protocol, to maximize also the recording content security.
It should support tampering detection, with digital signature of recordings to avoid tampering.
It should support audit trail, to track of users play, download and delete activities on each recording, for control and traceability.
Storage and Archiving
The solution should allow to store recordings in an encrypted format locally or in an external storage supporting CIFS/SMB protocol.
The solution should support the archiving of recordings to an external file system/NAS, based on automatic export with configurable rules and frequency. It should also support the automatic purge of recordings on the recording server to avoid disk saturation.
All locally or externally stored recordings should be encrypted with a proprietary digital signature, to avoid data tampering. The automatic purge should be configured to enable recording retention mechanism and an external, long term permanent archiving of all recordings, as unencrypted MP3 format.
Additionally, a user-based retention tag should be available for single recordings, to selectively tag specific recordings for a longer retention.
Reports
Volumes of recorder conversations should be monitored, to allow prompt adjustments of the offered services, thus enhancing efficiency. Available reports should be at least:
Recording List – to list recorded calls
Recording Busy Channels – to check the amount of concurrent recordings against available licenses in a time period
Recording Volume by User – to show recorded call volume by user(s)
Recording Volume by Group - to shows recorded call volume by recording group(s)
Recording Volume by Server Node - to shows recorded call volume by recording node(s)
The application should provide report scheduling feature, for automatic report sending via email, together with the option to save scheduled reports in a shared Windows folder, for further processing by a third-party tool.
Email integration
The solution should allow to send recordings via email, choosing to enable this functionality for each user; the email should include all recording info and attached recording file, if not exceeding a configured size limit.
International compliancies and regulations
Voice Recorder application should fully comply with the following international regulations:
GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation.
HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
PCI-DSS - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
MiFID II - Market in Financial Instruments Directives
FINMA - Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
Voice Analytics add-on
Recording system should include a Cloud AI-based add-on module which allows to transcribe the content of audio conversations saved in Voice Recorder application, with transcription export feature. The application should include a keywords/sentences search feature, available to single recording or across multiple recordings.
Same application should leverage AI algorithm to detect the sentiment of the conversation, considering both local and remote parties mood.
By configuring Voice Recorder for automatic recording upload or by manually selecting the audio files to transcribe, these recordings should appear in a dedicated web portal, ready to be analyzed for content and sentiment.
The application should also include an alert feature, based on transcription content or sentiment, with automatic email notification to supervisors or administrators.
Hardware and software requirements
The application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022/2025. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed applications’ suite, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited audio recordings storage within vendor’s cloud.
Hospitality Services
Architecture
The Hospitality Services application shall be designed for Cisco on-prem and cloud-based Calling Platforms environments; the manufacturer certification is preferred. It should manage multi-property scenarios.
The application shall collect hotel guests and staff phone traffic information from Cisco UC system and associate them to guest names/room numbers and staff names/offices, as well as calculate call costs.
Moreover, the application shall manage typical hotel services for guests and staff, by acting as a middleware application between Cisco Unified Communications environment and PMS (Property Management System) application, thus offering the following services:
Enable room’s phone and set guest name and guest language acquired from PMS during Check in
Enable a dedicated, multi-language Voice Mailbox for each hotel room (CUCM only)
Allow wake-up call to be scheduled by the operator from PMS or directly by guest from own room’s phone
Perform wake-up alerting at scheduled time, using configurable multi-language voice prompts or music
Allow housekeeping staff to setup room status from room’s phone, with personal PIN identification
Detailed phone bill for each room
Support of Do not disturb (DND) configuration at room phone if set by PMS, for maximum privacy and comfort (CUCM only)
Support for MWI annotation, to light up MWI on rooms’ phones directly from the PMS, to signal the presence of a predefined message that invites to call the reception for details (CUCM only)
Possibility to disable external calls for room phone by PMS after check in, based on guest request to avoid bill surprise (CUCM only)
The application shall support multi-site architectures, including multi-property PMS architectures, as well as multi-Country and multi-currency and shall be scalable from a few tens to tens of hundreds user. It shall rely on Microsoft® SQL Server, to grant security and performance even when managing data for millions of calls.
It should support PMS interface redundancy, Based on active-hot standby mode, with automatic connection of the backup server to the hotel PMS interface, for best reliability in Hotels and Cruises.
Whenever necessary, different Unified Communications/telephone system integration shall be supported, as well as retrieving and processing CDR’s produced by remote sites in case Survivable Remote Site mode is applied whenever connectivity issues on main site arise.
Telephony Users’ management
The application shall be capable of importing and synchronizing hotel guests’ and staff’ phone users directly from Cisco Unified Communications Manager by means of AXL protocol, from Webex Control Hub or external sources such as Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID or Hotel LDAP servers, with SSO/MFA authentication.
The application shall support overlapping and non-overlapping numbering plans, using room number as internal extension line.
PMS Integration
Hospitality Services application shall allow a direct interface to existing PMS system available in the hotel. The following PMS protocols shall be supported:
FIAS ver. 2.11
UHLL, with Comtrol Lodging Link
MITEL 3300 ICP (SX2000)
Oracle Hospitality Cruise SPM
Micros Fidelio Cruise V.7.30.x o superiore
Two-way communications between Hospitality application and PMS shall allow to accomplish the following task:
Send phone billing information to PMS
Send room status information to PMS
Receive check-in information from PMS, in order to enable room’s phone, relevant voice mail and show guest name on IP Phone display (if available)
Receive check-out information from PMS, in order to disable room’s phone, reset voice mail and guest name.
Receive a “room move” instruction from PMS and react accordingly to move guest information, wake-up calls and voice mail messages from one room to another (if PMS supports the instruction).
Receive scheduled wake-up calls from PMS and return wake-up call results.
Send wake-up calls scheduled from room’s phone to PMS and inform PMS about wake-up call results
Supported Phone Sets
Hospitality Services application shall support any type of phone set available for hotel guests and staff, including analog phones. If room’s phones include a multi-line display, then they shall provide phone status (enabled/disabled), guest name and caller ID (if directory services are available).
Optional Functionalities
Hospitality Services application shall also support a number of hotel guests and/or hotel staff optional services, all of them included into the same appliance or virtual machine where Hospitality Services application is running. The following list highlight the additional services to be supported by the offered Hospitality platform:
Fax server application, to allow hotel guests and staff to send and receive faxes using own email (internal or outsourced email service), with network printer and MFP support.
Operator console for Concierge staff, to allow convenient management of incoming calls to hotel reception, with queuing functionalities and quick call forwarding to hotel guests or hotel staff.
Directory services for hotel guests and staff, allowing the definition of different phone directories including utilities, entertainment, catering, internal hotel department numbers, etc. Each directory must be accessible from IP Phones (CUCM only), with selective permissions for each public, guests only, staff only directory.
Hardware and software requirements
The application shall be installed on actual servers or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2019/2022/2025. Moreover, vendor should make available a Virtual Appliance including both Windows Server operating system and pre-installed applications’ suite, to ease large scale deployment. Solution must be based on Microsoft SQL Server database, included within the OVA file, in line with relevant Database Vendor’s licensing model (i.e. MS SQL Express – that can be licensed to Commercial version when required). The applications’ suite shall also be available to work with external MS-SQL databases, as required by the Customer.
VMware virtual machine shall also support high reliability mode using vMotion or fault tolerance.
In a Cisco Cloud-based telephony environment, the application should be offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), running in vendor’s Cloud. The solution should provide unlimited call data storage within vendor’s cloud.