Cisco Cisco IP Contact Center Release 4.6.1 Design Guide

If the agent has conferenced the call to a number that is not within the Unified ICM Dialed Number Plan, 
then the caller will be conferenced anyway. The destination for the conferenced call depends upon the 
number that was dialed and what is configured in the Unified CM dial plan. Conferences not using the 
dialed number plan are not recommended because of agent roaming restrictions, call data not following 
the call, and reporting limitations.

When the Unified CM PIM receives the label from the Unified ICM router indicating where to 
conference the call, the Unified CM PIM tells Unified CM to initiate a consultative conference to the 
number specified in the label. Unified CM places the original caller (or parties) on hold and makes a 
consultative call to the number specified in the label. The caller generally hears tone on hold while the 
conference is being completed. The exception is that if it is already a conference call, the parties will 
still be able to hear and talk to each other but not the agent who is controlling the conference. There is 
a Unified CM configuration parameter for music on hold that, if enabled, will play music to the 
participants.

When the target agent phone begins ringing, Unified CM generates a Consult Call Confirmation message 
and a Device Ringing message.

The Consult Call Confirmation message causes the Unified CM PIM to notify the conferencing agents 
desktop that the call is proceeding, and it enables the Conference Complete button. The conferencing 
agent can hear the target agent's phone ringing (assuming auto-answer is not enabled for the target 
agent). At any time after this, the agent can click the Conference Complete button to complete the 
conference (before or after the target answers their phone).

The Device Ringing message causes the Unified CM PIM to pop the target agent's desktop with call data 
and to enable their Answer button (assuming auto-answer is not enabled). When the target agent clicks 
the Answer button (or auto-answer is invoked), a voice path between the conferencing agent and target 
agent is established (assuming the conferencing agent has not clicked the Conference Complete button).

Generally the conferencing agent will not click the Conference Complete button before the target agent 
answers because the probable reason they used consultative conference was that they wanted to talk with 
the target agent before completing the conference. However, the conferencing agent can click on the 
Conference Complete button at any time after it is enabled.

If the agent is conferencing the call to a generic DN to find an available agent with a particular skill, but 
no such agent is currently available, then the Unified ICM routing script should be configured to route 
the call to an IVR for queuing. In this scenario, the conferencing agent would hear the Unified IP IVR 
queue announcements. The conferencing agent could press the Conference Complete button at any time 
to complete the conference.   This particular scenario is known as warm transfer. The caller and the agent 
would then begin hearing the Unified IP IVR queuing announcements while the agent still guides the 
caller or continues to process the call while waiting. Upon availability of an appropriately skilled agent, 
the Unified IP IVR conferences the call to this target agent and pops any call data onto their screen.

If the agent is conferencing the call to a number that is not in the Unified ICM Dialed Number Plan and 
a number that is not valid on the Unified CM, the conferencing agent will hear the failed consultation 
call and will be able to reconnect with the original caller, as explained in the section on 

.