Cisco Cisco Customer Voice Portal 8.0(1) Design Guide

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified  CM) is the main call processing component of a Cisco 
Unified Communications system. It manages and switches VoIP calls among IP phones. Unified CM 
combines with Cisco Unified Intelligent Contact Manager Enterprise (Unified ICME) to form Cisco 
Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE). Unified CVP interacts with Unified CM primarily as 
a means for sending PSTN-originated calls to Unified CCE agents. SIP gateway calls are routed to an 
available Unified CM SIP trunk, and H.323 gateway calls are routed to an available Unified CM H.323 
trunk.

The following common scenarios require calls to Unified CVP to originate from Unified CM endpoints:

A typical office worker (not an agent) on an IP phone dials an internal help desk number.

An agent initiates a consultative transfer that gets routed to a Unified CVP queue point.

A Cisco Unified Outbound Dialer port transfers a live call to a Unified CVP port for an IVR 
campaign.

A single Unified CM can originate and receive calls from both SIP and H.323 devices. PSTN calls that 
arrived on MGCP voice gateways registered with Unified CM can also be routed or transferred to 
Unified CVP via either SIP or H.323, depending upon the deployment model chosen.

Unified CM is an optional component in the Unified CVP solution. Its use in the solution depends on the 
type of call center being deployed. Pure TDM-based call centers using ACDs, for example, typically do 
not use Unified CM (except when migrating to Cisco Unified CCE), nor do strictly self-service 
applications using the Unified CVP Standalone Self-Service deployment model. Unified CM generally 
is used as part of the Cisco Unified CCE solution, in which call center agents are part of an IP solution 
using Cisco IP Phones, or when migrating from TDM ACDs.

Only specific versions of Unified CM are compatible with Unified CVP solutions. Unified CVP is 
supported with SIP only if Cisco Unified CM 5.0 or later release is used. Unified CVP is supported with 
H.323 for Cisco Unified CM 4.x or later releases. For full details on version compatibility, consult the 
latest version of the Hardware and System Software Specification for Cisco Unified CVP (formerly 
called the Bill of Materials), available at: 

Either Cisco Unified CCE or Cisco Unified Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) is a required 
component when advanced call control (IP switching, transfers to agents, and so forth) is required in 
Unified CVP. The Hosted versions of these products might also be used for this purpose. Unified ICM 
provides call-center agent management capabilities and call scripting capabilities. Variable storage 
capability and database access through the Unified CCE or Unified ICM application gateways are also 
powerful tools. A Unified CVP application can take advantage of these capabilities because Unified CVP 
applications can be called from within a Unified CCE or Unified ICM script in a non-standalone Unified 
CVP deployment model.

The Unified CVP Call Server (Call Server) maintains a GED-125 Service Control Interface connection 
to Unified CCE or Unified ICM. GED-125 is a third-party-control protocol in which a single socket 
connection is used to control many telephone calls. From the point of view of Unified CCE or Unified 
ICM, the Call Server is a voice response unit (VRU) connected to Unified CCE or Unified ICM, just as 
all other GED-125 VRUs are connected. Unified CVP is simply a VRU peripheral to Unified CCE or 
Unified ICM.