Introduction%20to%20Telecommunication%20Equipment:%20PBX,%20ACD,%20IVR,%20CMS,%20CAS%20and%20Workforce%20Management

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Introduction to Telecommunication Equipment PBX,
ACD, IVR, CMS, CAS and Workforce Management
or How to Select Telephone Systems Services to
Fit Your Needs Bill Brackin Program Director,
North Sound 2-1-1 And Telephone Systems
Manager Volunteers of America Western Washington
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• Telephone Services
• Dial Tone
• Long Distance
• Networking
• Telephone Systems
• Centrex with Single Line Phones
• Software as a Service with Single Line Phones
• Switches
• Digital Switch
• VoIP Switch
• PBX
• Optional Special Features

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• Telephone Services
• Dial Tone - POTS Lines
• POTS Plain old telephone line
• POTS lines are the simplest telephone line you
  can buy.
• They are often referred to as business lines.
  Even in complex applications POTS lines have
  their place. They provide backup lines, fax
  lines, and other simple applications. They are
  usually delivered as analog lines.

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• Telephone Services
• Dial Tone T Carrier Lines
• T1 means any data circuit (including voice
  packets) that runs at the 1.544 Mb/second line
  rate. T-1s are point-to-point digital lines that
  can have multiple unique numbers (DIDs) assigned.
  Each T-1 is a dedicated leased digital line that
  is connected to a Private Branch Exchange (PBX)
  from the central office (CO). Features are
  provided by your telephone system.
• T2 and T3 circuit channels carry multiple T1
  channels multiplexed, resulting in transmission
  rates of 6.312 and 44.736 Mbit/sec, respectively.

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• Telephone Services
• Dial Tone T Carrier Lines
• T1s come in a couple of versions
• T1, which has 24 paths for incoming and/or
  outgoing traffic.
• T1 PRI, which in North American includes 23 voice
  channels 1 data channel. The D channel carries
  control and signaling information, including
  caller ID.
• Fractional T1 - 256, 348, 512, 768 Kbps services
  providing less than 23 voice channels.

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• Telephone Services
• Long Distance Services 3 Classes
• In the United States, long distance can refer to
  three different classes of calls that are not
  local toll-free calls. The most common class of
  long-distance is often called interstate
  long-distance, though the more accurate term is
  inter-LATA interstate long distance.
• Another form of long-distance, increasingly
  relevant to more U.S. states, is known as
  inter-LATA intrastate long distance. This refers
  to a calling area outside of the customers LATA
  but within the customer's state.
• Often, in large LATAs, there is also a class
  known by the oxymoronic name local long distance,
  which refers to calls within the customer's LATA
  but outside of their local calling area. This is
  sometimes also referred to as intra-LATA long
  distance.

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• Telephone Services
• Long Distance Services Purchasing
• Before buying any long distance services make
  sure you know what rate will be charged for each
  of these three categories. Intra-LATA calls can
  legally be billed at a much higher rate than are
  Inter-LATA calls, and often are. This may be a
  point of negotiation.
• It is also very important to know the approximate
  minutes of each of these categories of calls that
  your agency makes, so that you can evaluate the
  financial impact of a long distance proposal on
  your agency specifically.
• You can buy long distance services from your dial
  tone provider, or anyone else you want to do
  business with. You will need to tell your dial
  tone provider which long distance carrier you are
  going with, because they need to program that
  into their systems.

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• Telephone Services
• Long Distance Services Slamming and PIC Freezes
• Slamming is the illegal practice of changing a
  consumer's telephone servicelocal (intra-LATA),
  toll (inter-LATA intrastate), long distance
  (inter-LATA inter-state), or internationalwithout
  permission.
• To prevent slamming you can arrange in advance
  with the local exchange carrier (local telephone
  company) to initiate a PIC Freeze to prevent
  unauthorized changing of the long distance
  telephone carrier. It stipulates that your
  carrier may not be changed without your written
  consent. This feature is free of charge. If in
  the future you want to change carriers, remember
  to submit a written request to remove the PIC
  Freeze before placing your change order.

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• Telephone Services
• Networking
• If you plan on tying together multiple locations
  into a common telephone and/or data system, you
  will need to design a networking system.
• Your specific telephone system may dictate the
  options that you have available to you. Some
  systems wont work well with DSL networks, for
  example. Some work very well with them.
• Networking is a very technical area, and your IT
  staff or consultant should help you make this
  choice. Dont be afraid to ask lots of dumb
  questions. This is complicated stuff, and each
  option comes with good and bad features, security
  considerations, installation and operational
  costs, maintenance and support issues, and more.

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• Telephone Services
• Networking
• Here are some, but not all, of the many items to
  consider
• Is your telephone system VoIP capable or not?
• Size of the data packets that your VoIP telephone
  system sends across the network.
• The reliability of each type of networking
  service.
• Is the proposed network point-to-point,
  cloud, or some other design?
• Who manages the maintenance, security, and
  upgrades?
• Do you need to purchase the routers, or are they
  provided as part of the service?
• Does your telephone system have the capacity to
  add the networking service, and if not, what will
  it cost to add that capacity?
• How long of a contract must you sign in order to
  get a reasonable price?
• Is the provider using compression, and if so,
  how much?
• Can the vendor give you access to existing
  customers who are using the proposed system in a
  similar way to what you are proposing?

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• Telephone Systems
• Centrex with Single Line Phones

Switching Software is Located Here
Call Center or Agency
Agent at Home
Local Central Office (CO)
Centrex lines are analog lines provided by the
local telephone service provider that provide
programmable features on the line. The cost is
based on usage and features programmed for each
line and monthly service fee. Hardware and
software maintenance is included in the monthly
costs. No technical staff is required to operate
such a system. Agents can easily be set up to
work from home.
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• Telephone Systems
• Software as a Service with Single Line Phones or
  Telephone Systems

Switching Software is Located Here
Call Center or Agency
Local Central Office (CO)
Agent at Home
SAAS Provider Switch (s)
Software as a Service rides on analog or
digital lines provided by the local telephone
service provider. It includes additional
routing, call center management, voice mail, etc.
provided by a different provider than your local
telephone company. The cost is based on usage
and features programmed for each line and a
monthly or per-call service fee. Hardware and
software maintenance and upgrades are included in
the monthly costs. There may be an initial setup
fee. No technical staff is required to operate
such a system. Agents can easily work from home,
and center can easily be relocated during
emergencies and disasters.
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• Telephone Systems
• Switches

A telephone switch is a system of electronic
components that connects telephone calls. It is
hardware that is controlled by software in modern
telephone systems. In the past switching was
often done manually. A switch can be located in
a local or long distance telephone companys
office or on your premises. Telephone switches
are a small part of the large telephone network.
When a switch is in-house, it is often referred
to as the telephone system or PBX (Private Branch
Exchange). In-house switches require you to pay
for maintenance and hardware and software
upgrades as needed. They are more challenging to
set up for at-home agents, and are not as easily
relocated during emergencies or disasters. They
usually need you to hire technical staff or to
contract with a maintenance provider to make
changes, upgrades, or maintenance. In large
agencies, where IT staff is already available,
they may provide a lower cost solution.
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• Telephone Systems
• Digital Switch
• A digital switch is a type of switch that
  connects two or more digital circuits together.
  It is a type of switch that has been used by
  telephone companies, agencies, and businesses for
  a long time. They operate on time tested and
  reliable telephone engineering. If you have a
  switch that is five or more years old, you
  probably have a digital switch.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch
• Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) refers to
  communications servicesvoice, facsimile, and/or
  voice-messaging applicationsthat are transported
  via the Internet, rather than the public switched
  telephone network (PSTN). The basic steps
  involved in originating an Internet telephone
  call are conversion of the analog voice signal to
  digital format and compression/translation of the
  signal into Internet protocol (IP) packets for
  transmission over the Internet the process is
  reversed at the receiving end.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch
• Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous
  with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony,
  voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony,
  and broadband phone.
• Because these systems connect telephones and
  switches by way of the Internet, they are
  typically easier for IT staff to deal with than
  digital switches. They do require firewall
  security systems, as do computer networks.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch Quality of Service Considerations
• The underlying IP network is inherently
  unreliable, in contrast to the circuit-switched
  public telephone network. It does not inherently
  provide a mechanism to ensure that data packets
  are delivered in sequential order or provide
  Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Because of
  this VoIP implementations face problems
  mitigating latency and jitter.
• The receiving node must restructure IP packets
  that may be out of order, delayed or missing,
  while ensuring that the audio stream maintains a
  proper time consistency. Variation in delay is
  called jitter.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch Power Considerations
• Traditional residential and business analog POTS
  line services are usually connected directly to
  telephone company phone lines. They provide
  direct current to power most the basic analog
  handsets independently of locally available
  power.
• In a VoIP installation you must plan for power
  and power backups, since the phones, servers, and
  switches will not work without local power being
  supplied.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch 911 Considerations
• A fixed line phone has a direct relationship
  between a telephone number and a physical
  location. If an emergency call comes to 911 from
  that number, then the physical location is known.
  
• In the IP world it is not so simple. A broadband
  provider may know the location where the wires
  terminate, but this does not necessarily allow
  the mapping of an IP address to that location.
• IP addresses are often dynamically assigned, so
  the ISP may allocate an address for online
  access, or at the time a broadband router is
  engaged. The ISP recognizes individual IP
  addresses, but does not necessarily know what
  physical location to which it corresponds.
• The broadband service provider knows the physical
  location, but is not necessarily tracking the IP
  addresses in use.
• Since IP is portable, the location may be a
  moving target. 911 calls will often mis-locate
  the caller. This has resulted in known deaths
  because of responders being directed to an old or
  incorrect address. It is critical that you
  maintain tables in your VoIP phone system to
  locate all extensions.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch
• With all of these considerations VoIP has still
  become the standard. Why?
• Low cost, especially when combined with Internet,
  cable TV, and computer data networking.
• Easily transportable. Software can be placed on
  a laptop to mimic a telephone set. This is
  called a softphone.
• VoIP service is nearly indistinguishable from the
  PSTN.
• VoIP phones allow VoIP calls without the use of a
  computer. Of course, Internet connectivity is
  still required.
• VoIP allows for more flexibility and
  interchangeability of software and hardware in
  many cases.

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• Telephone Systems
• VoIP Switch

Fractional T1 512k
Remote Agent
Internet Cloud
Call Center
Central Office
256k committed rate
Full T1 1.544m
384k committed rate
Central Office
Call Center
Central Office
Call Center
VoIP Hardware and software that allows people
to use Internet protocols to make telephone calls.
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• Telephone Systems
• PBX
• A private branch exchange (PBX) is a telephone
  switch that serves a particular business or
  office, as opposed to one that a telephone
  company operates for many businesses or for the
  general public.
• PBXs make connections among the internal
  telephones of a private organization and also
  connect them to the public switched telephone
  network (PSTN) via trunk lines like T1s.
• PBXs are differentiated from key systems" in
  that users of key systems manually select their
  own outgoing lines, while PBXs select the
  outgoing line automatically. Hybrid systems
  combine features of both.

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• Telephone Systems
• Optional Special Features
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
• Skills Based Routing
• Voice, Email, Fax, Chat
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
• Speech recognition
• Call Center Software
• Call Recording
• Call Accounting
• Voice Mail
• Workforce Management (WFM)
• Online Hiring Software
• Integrated Training Tools
• Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)
• Work at Home or Remote Agents
• Contact Management System (CMS)
• And more.

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• Telephone Systems
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
• Routing incoming calls is the task of the ACD
  system. ACD systems are often found in call
  centers or offices that handle large volumes of
  incoming phone calls from callers who have no
  need to talk to a specific person but who require
  assistance from any of multiple persons (e.g.,
  customer service representatives) at the earliest
  opportunity. The routing strategy is a rule-based
  set of instructions that tells the ACD how calls
  are handled inside the system. This capability
  may include e-mail, fax, and/or chat as well as
  voice.
• Many switches already include an ACD in their
  software.

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• Telephone Systems
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
• Skills Based Routing
• Call routing can send calls to the agent best
  suited to handle that call. For example, Spanish
  speaking callers can be routed to agents who
  speak Spanish if they are available. A person
  with disabilities can be routed to an agent who
  specializes in services and resources for persons
  with diabilities.
• Call routing can also be based on other factors
  such as the caller ID of the caller, the number
  that was dialed by the caller, a database that
  establishes priority of certain callers, etc.

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• Telephone Systems
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
• IVR is an interactive technology that allows a
  computer to detect voice (speech recognition) and
  keypad inputs.
• IVR allows customers to access a companys
  database via a telephone touchtone keypad or by
  speech recognition, after which they can service
  their own inquiries by following the
  instructions.
• IVR systems can respond with pre-recorded or
  dynamically generated audio to further direct
  users on how to proceed. IVR systems can be used
  to control almost any function where the
  interface can be broken down into a series of
  simple menu choices.

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• Telephone Systems
• Call Center Software
• Many telephones systems come with ACD built in,
  but if you want more than just call distribution,
  you will need to add call center software, and
  possibly a server, to your telephone system.
  These usually provide a better agent interface
  through their computer screen, a customizable
  real-time supervisor screen, statistical reports,
  and more.
• Call Recording
• Call recording software or call logging software
  allows a party to record a telephone conversation
  to a digital file, usually in .wav or mp3 format.

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• Telephone Systems
• Call Accounting
• A Call Accounting System is a software or
  hardware application that captures, records, and
  costs telephone usage events. Call accounting
  systems detect outbound and inbound calls, call
  ring outs, call routings, abandoned calls, and
  other activities.
• Voice Mail
• Voice Mail is a centralized system of managing
  telephone messages for a large group of people.

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• Telephone Systems
• Workforce Management (WFM)
• Workforce management software provides a tool to
  manage scheduling needs for the agency. WFM
  collects information on the number, length and
  time of day of calls and calculates the number
  staff needed for each shift. It also provides
  trends from historical data with a variety of
  reports. Managers use Workforce software for
  planning meetings, time off or vacation time for
  staffing based on service levels.
• Online Hiring Software
• Some systems offer optional hiring management
  software that pre-screens candidates, introduces
  the applicants to your company, gives online
  tests, and introduces the candidates to the
  position that is being offered.

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• Telephone Systems
• Integrated Training Tools
• Call centers often have slow times. Integrated
  Training Tools can observe slow periods and feed
  short training modules to idle agents to make the
  best use of the time. These trainings can be
  linked to assessment tools in some systems so
  that the training modules are the ones that will
  be most helpful to that specific agent.
• Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)
• CTI enriches your callers experience by
  retrieving caller-specific information and
  matching it with the best agent to help them.
  Also, the screen pop feature saves both the
  callers and the agents time by automatically
  opening the right screen directly to the agent's
  desktop.  Finally, CTI lets a caller utilize
  self-service by getting or setting his own
  account information over the phone without
  talking to a live agent.

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• Telephone Systems
• Work at Home or remote Agents
• Functionality in your telephone system or
  services that allow agents to work from home,
  relocate to another location, or to work in a
  mobile environment. Check with your vendors to
  see what you need to do to add this
  functionality.
• Contact Management System (CMS)
• A Contact Management System (CMS) is an
  integrated solution that allows organizations to
  record relationships and interactions with their
  callers. This information includes all emails,
  documents, jobs, faxes, calendar and more.

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• And more..
• If you can think of it, a telephone systems
  manufacturer has probably already developed a
  system to handle it. Ask your vendors.
• Questions???

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More Information
Bill Brackin, Program Director North Sound
2-1-1 [phone] bbrackin_at_voaww.org