Call Profiles can be of two varieties in the ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center. They are either System Mandatory or User definable. ( Actually, to be absolutely correct, we need to acknowledge that “Skill Sets” are another type of call profile, but we are including them as User definable). The system assigns a number of Call Profile parameters automatically as the call moves through the system. These profiles are variables that change with each phone call. Examples of system call profiles [...]

It really doesn’t matter what VoIP system you installed they all generally have one architectural characteristic in common; the configuration database.  Depending on the system, you might find a database engine that ranges in complexity from an Access Database to a full blown SQL database.  The database will store configuration information, status information and often, call detail records that document phone system activities.   The characteristic of the database that is consistent across all architectures is the fact that there can [...]

Historically, there were three services in the ShoreTel architecture that were no distributed to other servers.   To over simplify, this meant that if the HQ server (read primary server) was unavailable, the services that were not distributed would not function.  The three services were Route Points, Account Codes and Workgroups.   For example, if a user group was set to “forced” account code verification and the server was unavailable, that service would fail and the effected user would not be able [...]

Recently, while working with a third party Call Accounting vendor, we had an opportunity to revisit ShoreTel CDR records.  ShoreTel stores CDR records in two locations for two different purposes.  Historically, the the first format is basically the “Legacy CDR Text Files” and they are stored in the Shoreline Data folder as log files.  The log files are written to \Shoreline Data\Call Records 2 and are written out at Midnight to a file named CDR-YYMMDD.HHMMSS.log.   This is the file that [...]

Of late we have seen a growing interest in building “disaster recovery” solutions for both the data and the voice applications so critical for business operation.  First, we need to make sure we understand the difference between redundancy, resiliency and other configuration options to assure business continuity.  Many more installations now include the use of a remote “collocation” facility as an key  component of the installation plan.  What is the best way to configure a ShoreTel HQ server, for example [...]

Many Call Center applications have an Automated Attendant front end call tree.  Typically, you  might have an Automated Attendant that plays the familiar On-Hours recoding: “Thank you for calling our company, press 1 for technical support and 2 for sales support”.  The question asked in today’s blog is: should the Automated Attendant be located in the PBX or in the Call Center? There are very interesting ramifications for each of these options. Generally, with out thinking this question through, the [...]

Stuck on how to get a WAV file of a professionally recorded voice mail greeting into the right ShoreTel Voice Mail box? After all there is no import utility as there is during the creation of an Automated Attendant. I can’t speak for you, but I was curious to know if I could just copy the WAV file to the mailbox? Where was the mailbox anyway? Now that you mention it, where are the voice messages. ShoreTel has always had [...]

“Historically”, excuse the pun, we always had a challenge with ShoreTel Contact Center Historical report! There were two issues. First, though you could schedule a report to be run automatically at a present time, you had to chose between printing to a file or printing to an actual print device. If you choose to print to a file, you could not set the path for any location other than that set by the default path of the ShoreTel Contact Center. [...]

When installing the ShoreTel PCM 9.1 call manager software on a PC that has been upgraded to Windows XP service pack 3, occasionally there is a Microsoft Installer error that prevents the ShoreTel software from being installed. The error is “Error 1720 – A script required for this install to complete could not be run”. The installation will then fail requiring the issue to be corrected and the installer to be ran again. This is caused by an issue with [...]

With all the talk about “health care” you would expect growing demand for  more application integration for this particular industry vertical!  The ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center can process “dial lists” that enable the system  to make outbound phone calls.   The “dial list” typically gets a list of phone numbers from a MySQL database that can be populated by some other application, like scheduling software.   It would not be out of the realm of possibility for the ShoreTel ECC [...]