Cisco Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise 9.0(2) Design Guide

The devices that the ICM monitors and controls are the physical phones. The Unified IP IVR does not 
have real physical ports like a traditional IVR. Its ports are logical ports (independent software tasks or 
threads running on the Unified IP IVR application server) called CTI Ports. For each CTI Port on the 
Unified IP IVR, there needs to be a CTI Port device defined in Unified CM.

Unlike a traditional PBX or telephony switch, Unified CM does not select the Unified IP IVR port to 
which it will send the call. Instead, when a call needs to be made to a DN that is associated with a CTI 
Route Point that is associated with a Unified IP IVR JTAPI user, Unified CM asks the Unified IP IVR 
(via JTAPI routing control) which CTI Port (device) should handle the call. Assuming the 
Unified IP IVR has an available CTI Port, the Unified IP IVR will respond to the Unified CM routing 
control request with the Unified CM device identifier of the CTI Port that is going to handle that call.

When an available CTI Port is allocated to the call, a Unified IP IVR workflow is started within the 
Unified IP IVR. When the Unified IP IVR workflow executes the accept step, a JTAPI message is sent 
to Unified CM to answer the call on behalf of that CTI Port (device). When the Unified IP IVR workflow 
wants the call transferred or released, it again instructs Unified CM on what to do with that call. These 
scenarios are examples of device and call control performed by the Unified IP IVR.

When a caller releases the call while interacting with the Unified IP IVR, the voice gateway detects the 
caller release and notifies Unified CM via H.323 or Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), which 
then notifies the Unified IP IVR via JTAPI. When DTMF tones are detected by the voice gateway, it 
notifies Unified CM via H.245 or MGCP, which then notifies the Unified IP IVR via JTAPI. These 
scenarios are examples of device and call monitoring performed by the Unified IP IVR.

In order for the CTI Port device control and monitoring to occur, the CTI Port devices on Unified CM 
must be associated with the appropriate Unified IP IVR JTAPI user ID. If you have two 150-port 
Unified IP IVRs, you would have 300 CTI ports. Half of the CTI ports (150) would be associated with 
JTAPI user Unified IP IVR #1, and the other 150 CTI ports would be associated with JTAPI user 
Unified IP IVR #2.

While Unified CM can be configured to route calls to Unified IP IVRs on its own, routing of calls to the 
Unified IP IVRs in a Unified CCE environment should be done by the ICM (even if you have only one 
Unified IP IVR and all calls require an initial IVR treatment). Doing so will ensure proper Unified CCE 
reporting. For deployments with multiple Unified IP IVRs, this routing practice also allows the ICM to 
load-balance calls across the multiple Unified IP IVRs.

The ICM has the capability to provide a multichannel contact center that includes email and web 
collaboration. It does this through interactions with Cisco E-Mail Manager and Cisco Collaboration 
Server. (See 

.) The ICM has three integration points that are used for its multimedia 

subsystems:

Media Routing (MR) interface — The MR interface is through the MR Peripheral Gateway (PG). 
Cisco E-Mail Manager and Cisco Collaboration Server use this interface to tell the ICM that they 
have a new task that needs to be serviced, and they would like an agent to be assigned.

Agent Reporting and Management (ARM) interface — The ARM interface is through the CTI server 
on the PG to which a given agent is assigned. Cisco E-Mail Manager and Cisco Collaboration Server 
use the ARM interface to tell the ICM when the agent is working on a task in their subsystem, and 
to monitor the status of agents in the ICM.