Cisco Cisco Customer Response Solution Downloads Design Guide

Unified CCX allows integration with Media Resource Control Protocol (MRCP) compliant Automatic 
Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-To-Speech (TTS) servers.   Nuance and Scansoft are the only ASR 
and TTS providers whom have been tested and will be supported. ASR and TTS software must be 
purchased from one of these vendors. These vendors can provide design and server sizing requirements 
for their software. Cisco no longer re-sells Nuance ASR and TTS as an Unified CCX option. 

From CRS Administration, you must configure the address of an MRCP server and the number and type 
of resources provided by that MRCP server. The MRCP servers (ASR and TTS servers) are not 
considered to be part of the Unified CCX cluster. Multiple Unified CCX clusters can interact with the 
same MRCP servers. An Unified CCX cluster can also define multiple MRCP servers, and resources 
from those servers are selected based upon the system and application configuration.

Calls requiring ASR require the CRS Engine to pass the media stream from the CTI port to the ASR 
Server. This activity impacts system performance and system sizing. The impact is reflected in the 
Unified CCX 4.1 Configuration & Ordering Tool.

When using ASR, the ASR resource is allocated at the time of the first step that uses ASR.  The ASR 
resource is then allocated for the duration of the call.  When using ASR, you must calculate the required 
number of ASR resources (ports) similar to the way you calculate any IVR port requirement. You will 
need the average time the ASR port is used (similar to average call treatment time) and the number of 
calls using ASR in the busy hour. You can then apply this data to any Erlang-B traffic calculator or other 
tool to compute the number of ASR resources required. In environments where you have long queue 
times, it might be economical to transfer the call to another CTI Route Point and pass call data to the 
second application in order to allow the ASR resource to be released.

For TTS, each 'Generate TTS Prompt' allocates and releases a TTS resource, and the TTS resource is 
typically only allocated for a couple of seconds and then released (this might vary depending on the 
application). To determine the number of TTS resources, use the same methodology described above for 
ASR resources. 

A product bulletin is available to help with the configuration of the speech software. It is posted here:

Unified CCX can also be implemented as a child ACD of Cisco Intelligent Contact Management 
Enterprise (Unified ICME) 7.x software.   The Unified CCX integration with Unified ICME software 
requires an IPCC Express Gateway PG process to be co-resident on the Unified CCX server with the 
CRS Engine. This integration provides the following capabilities:

The ability for Unified CCX to send agent, queue, and call state changes to the Unified ICME.

The ability for Unified ICME software to intelligently route and load balance calls across multiple 
ACD sites which can include one or more Unified CCX systems, Unified CCE systems, or 
traditional ACDs (that are supported by Unified ICME). Calls routed to a Unified CCX application 
can also be sent call data so that it can be popped onto an agent’s screen.

The ability for Unified CCX to send post-route requests with call data to Unified ICME in order to 
request intelligent routing instruction. This could be in response to a transfer request from an agent 
or from a step within and Unified CCX application running on a CTI port.

The ability for Unified ICME to provide multi-site ACD reporting for a mixed network of ACD sites 
which can include one or more Unified CCX systems, Unified CCE systems, or traditional ACD's.