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 [...]

On more than one occasion I have actually had to telnet into a clients router or switch using nothing more than a mobile phone!  Now, that is either an example of superior customer service or an indication of creeping insanity.   When you have to, you have to!   Sometime ago I moved to an Iphone and that actually makes RDP, VNC  or Telnet actually usable on a mobile phone in a pinch. To say I think the Ipad is [...]

Having managed 1000′s of telephone system deployments over my career, one subject continues to be the project “speed bump”.    You might think that the core issues of network configuration, WAN traffic planning, QOS and DHCP services might be the issues that cause a phone system deployment to go “sideways”, but you would be wrong.   Those issues clearly need to be defined, planned, developed and tested, but we always seem to get the technical issues worked out.  The speeds [...]

“Can we route calls to a Workgroup based on the Area Code of the Caller”, asks our intrepid Sales representative!  ”The prospect wants each Area Code in the country to be handled by a different Workgroup”.    Interesting question.   Now if we were talking about the Enterprise Contact Center, routing by Area Code would be easy, but we are talking about you basic ShoreTel IPBX and that type of routing is not obvious.     If we could get [...]

Recently a client discoverd that at terminated employee, gone for almost a month, was still answering his office extension from his cell phone!  We have so many technology options for mobility today that the HR deparment most be going nuts trying to keep the “exit interview” check list up to date!   Without commenting on the HR ramifications, IT system administrators have long had to contend with terminated employees and how to handle remote access, email and the other regular [...]

Setting up QOS on your routers to support ShoreTel VoIP across a WAN connection requires that you employ some creativity in your configuration.   Think of Class Marking as a way of “coloring” packets so that the routers no how to treat the packets when there is any kind of congestion.   We want voice packets to have a priority over data packets, so we color them and tell the carrier or WAN router which color is voice.   Generally, QOS strategies employ [...]

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 [...]