DrVoIP on Shoretel

So which device has the wrong default gateway?   That takes some dedective work.   Generally you will telnet into the ShoreTel SG media gateways and check the configurations.   Media stream between phones generally do not need an SG switch beyound call setup.  The media stream, once the call is setup, is between the two phones.   For this reason, you will want to tenet into the phone and "see" the network from the phone's percepective!   To do this, you will need to know the ShoreTel methodology and process.

Security on the SG switches and phone, requires that you start the process from the ShoreTel HQ server.   There is a specific subdirectory that you need to be in to launch the various utilities.  This silent viedo walks you through the process of using one utility, phoneCTL, to telenet into a phone and look around.

This is one of those trouble tickets that keeps an engineer awake at night. A V switch was installed at a remote site to provide Automated Attendant and Voice Mail services for that site.   The V switch was one of three switches at that site and each switch had analog CO lines connected.   For reasons that nobody could explain, the observed behavior was that the AA would not change from On Hours to Off Hours as scheduled. An observed behavior, does not really state the problem!  (read: lesson learned) What we learned is that the AA did in fact actually change per the schedule, but only the lines connected to the two other non V switches received the correct prompt per the schedule.   The CO lines connected to the V switch, (which included the main number and next three lines in hunt, but of course) ,  did not get the correct AA greeting.    Now, as nightmares go, this was about as difficult as they get when you are attempting to distill a problem statement.   As everyone called the main line,  everyone thought the AA was not changing per schedule.   Only by calling lines not terminated on the V switch did the real problem statement emerge.

ShoreTel has now assigned a known defect number to this behavior. "The issue you are experiencing has been addressed in defect 1-34192469.  The defect has been corrected and is pending a patch release.   Once the patch release hits our QA group for testing and validation, we will be able to provide a rough estimate on a release date".

I could have listened to my mother and finished law school, but no.  I wanted to be a telecom entrepreneur ......

Here is what you need to do.  First, connect to the ShoreTel MySQL database with a utility like SQLyog.   Find the TABLE for USERS.   This contains all of the attributes that define a user, including one name ROLE ID.   This will be a column  within the USER TABLE similar to any othe column like name and extension number.   Find a user that you know the password for.  Scroll through the database on the row for that user and find the column for "ROLE ID, change it from NULL (e.g. plan vanillia user) to the integer number 1, and you have just made that user a System Administrator with God Level previledges!   Save the change log out of the ShoreTel MySQL database.  Bring up ShoreWare Director and log in as the user who's password you know.  You will find that you are now a full System Administrator and you can add yourself as a System Administrator and change the other user back to plain vanillia.

This is a great strategy, simple and easy to accomplish.  The video clip demonstrates just how to do it! 
 

Prior to 5.x, the only report database is actually more of a statistical peg counter and has not detail behind it.   You might track the number of phone calls received by an agent, but not have any detail about the nature of the events that make up those phone calls.   Average talk time, for example, is arithmetically derived and is not the result of actual detail as captured in the C2G database.  One of the more interesting learning experiences you can have with the ECC is to examine the actual SQL query that is generated when you run a report!  Very instructive.   Each time you run a report, a SQL query is created.   Where does this query live?    If you look in the default path D:\ShoreTel\Contact Center Server\Log you will find a SUSQL.TXT file.  This file contains the actual query that was generated when you ran one of the canned reports on the ECC.   This file will be overwritten each time you generate a new file, but it does contain the most recent report query.   It is a great source of educational information on how to write query's!   The attached video is a quick visual summary of this blog!/p>

"We are sorry, but all available agents are working with other clients.  Please hold the line and the next available agent will be right with you.     Unfortunately,  callers might tire of the music on hold and predictable care messages, and ultimately give up and then hang up!   This is generally an "abandoned call" in most contact center environments and reports.    The ShoreTel Contact Center has a facility for capturing this information and doing something producitive with it.

Back to the concept of  "Peaks and Valleys".  What if we could take the "abandoned calls", capture the caller id and feed them to our agents during valleys in the calling periods?  After all the staff is sitting there, logged in and idle!  Lets just put them to work.   In a ShoreTel system this is very easy to setup and is a powerful productivity tool.  First, the system "reserves and agent".   The agent gets a little pop up window that informs them that they are being reserved for a call back.  They have to accept it, or they are put in "release" as if they turned down an incoming phone call (time for management tutoring).   When the agent accepts the reservation, the ShoreTel places the outbound phone call and then connects the call to the agent.   With the exception that they acknowledged the reservation request, the agent experiences the call as if it were any other in bound call to the contact center.

Optionally, you can play a file to the callED party before you send the call to the agent.  I have found however, that it is better to send the call to the agent immediately after it is dialed.  This is because the agent is better able to deal with "positive answer supervision" using the human ear, then the machine is able to tell the difference between a fax machine, answering machine or someother non-human answer.

Making use of the abandoned call feature is something that every Contact Center can do to increase agent productivity and customer satisfaction.   You can even setup a group that specializes in abandonded call backs, and route all calls to that "win back" group.    The following video describes how to set this up in your ShoreTel Contact Center (or you can just call us, and we can do it for you)!  

Signing into the Agent tool bar prompts you to enter three items of information: Agent ID, Agent Extension and Email Address.  The Agent Email address is only used when your ShoreTel Enteprise Contact Center is setup to route incoming email messages to the next available Agent, in a manner similar voice calls.  Once logged in, there is an icon for Agent tool bar setup.   There are four basic areas of tool bar setup:  Telephony, ACD, Window and Other.  The Telephony setup enables you to add icons for common phone features like transfer, hang-up, conference and Divert incoming call!   The ACD setup enables wrap up, release and other common functions including the ability to request Supervisor Intervention.   There is a Call Window, Queue monitor, Telephone manager and Desktop Wall Board in the Window setup section and currently the "other"  option enable you to create an icon for launching an external application.  There are also tabs for setting Preferences, Contact Information, Ring and Queue Alerts.

 At the bottom of the tool bar there is a "status" line that displays information.   Idle, Ringing, Connected and Held are common staus indicators, but you can also "write" to the status line.   This is another advantage of this tool bar over the integrated tool bar.  Similarly you can change the information that is displayed on the Queue Monitor or Agent Wall Board which are pushed out or available to the Agents.  Some of this information is contained in the system defined Call Profiles, while other information is contained in the user defined Call Profiles.  (Call profiles are described in detail on the www.drvoip.com instant online video training library).  These options work together to create a very powerful desktop call management center, in a compact GUI.   The silent video demonstrates the various configuration options and shows the easy with a customized tool bar can be created.  The actual tool bar in this example, is a Supervisor tool bar in ECC 5.0 but it looks the same as an Agent tool bar!