Cisco Personal Assistant User Manual

Cisco Personal Assistant Installation and Administration Guide

Release 1.4 Revised November 29, 2004

Corporate Headquarters

Cisco Systems, Inc. 170 West Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134-1706 USA http://www.cisco.com Tel: 408 526-4000

800 553-NETS (6387)

Fax: 408 526-4100

Text Part Number: OL-4590-03

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Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

Preface ix

Overview ix

Audience ix

Overview

Preface

This preface describes who should read this publication and its document conventions.

The Cisco Personal Assistant Installation and Administration Guide provides you with the information you need to understand, install, configure, and manage the Cisco

The following table provides an overview of the organization of this guide.

Personal Assistant application.

Audience

Chapter Description

Chapter 1, “Planning for Personal Assistant” Explains what Personal Assistant does for your

users, how it works, and how it fits into your IP telephony network.

Chapter 2, “Installing and Upgrading Personal Assistant”

Chapter 3, “Configuring Cisco CallManager for Personal Assistant”

Chapter 4, “Configuring Personal Assistant” Provides procedures for configuring

Chapter 5, “Preparing Users for Personal Assistant”

Chapter 6, “Troubleshooting Personal Assistant” Provides tips for resolving problems with

Appendix A, “Personal Assistant Administration Page Reference”

Outlines the tasks and provides procedures for installing and upgrading Personal

Provides procedures for configuring Cisco

CallManager for use with

Personal

Describes information you should communicate to your users.

Personal

Describes the fields on the pages used in the Cisco interface.

Assistant.

Personal Assistant Administration

Assistant.

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Network engineers, system administrators, and telecom engineers should review this guide to learn the steps required to properly set up Personal

Assistant in the network.

Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

Help and Document Conventions

The Personal Assistant Help system provides task-oriented Help and context-sensitive Help that is available from every window that contains a Help menu or button.

Preface

Using Help

The Help system includes an index and is organized the same way as the Personal Assistant documentation set.

You can access Help in any of the following ways:

• From the Help menu:

–

Access Help for the page you are viewing by selecting Help > For This Screen.

–

Access the contents of the Help system by selecting Help > Contents and Index.

• For a printed version of the manual associated with the application, or to view or search an Adobe

Acrobat version of the Help system, click the PDF button in the top left of the Help system. If you have Adobe Acrobat installed (either as an independent application or as a plug-in to your browser), the document opens.

From Acrobat, you can search the entire manual, print the entire manual or selected pages, or read the manual online. Click the Bookmarks and Page button to view a table of contents for the document in the left-hand margin if it is not already displayed. The bookmarks provide an easy way to navigate through the document.

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Preface

Document Conventions

The Cisco Personal Assistant Installation and Administration Guide uses the following conventions:

Convention Description

boldfaced text Boldfaced text is used for:

< >

(angle brackets)

italic text Arguments for which you supply values are in italics.

(right angle bracket)

• Key and button names. (Example: Click OK.)

• Information that you enter. (Example: Enter

Administrator in the User Name box.)

Angle brackets are used around parameters for which you supply a value. (Example: In the Command Prompt window, enter ping <IP Address>.)

A right angle bracket is used to separate selections that you make:

• On menus. (Example: On the Windows Start menu,

click Settings Modem Options.)

• In the graphical user interface of the

Personal

> Control Panel > Phone and

Assistant Administration.

Obtaining Documentation

The Cisco Personal Assistant Installation and Administration Guide also uses the following conventions:

Note Means reader take note. Notes contain helpful suggestions or references to material not covered in the

publication.

Caution Means reader be careful. In this situation, you might do something that could result in equipment

damage or loss of data.

Obtaining Documentation

Cisco documentation and additional literature are available on Cisco.com. Cisco also provides several ways to obtain technical assistance and other technical resources. These sections explain how to obtain technical information from Cisco Systems.

Cisco.com

You can access the most current Cisco documentation at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/home/home.htm

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Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

Documentation Feedback

You can access the Cisco website at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com

You can access international Cisco websites at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/public/countries_languages.shtml

Ordering Documentation

You can find instructions for ordering documentation at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/es_inpck/pdi.htm

You can order Cisco documentation in these ways:

• Registered Cisco.com users (Cisco direct customers) can order Cisco product documentation from

the Ordering tool:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/ordering/index.shtml

• Nonregistered Cisco.com users can order documentation through a local account representative by

calling Cisco Systems Corporate Headquarters (California, USA) at 408 North America, by calling 1 800

Preface

526-7208 or, elsewhere in

553-NETS (6387).

Documentation Feedback

You can send comments about technical documentation to bug-doc@cisco.com.

You can submit comments by using the response card (if present) behind the front cover of your document or by writing to the following address:

Cisco Systems Attn: Customer Document Ordering 170 West Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134-9883

We appreciate your comments.

Obtaining Technical Assistance

For all customers, partners, resellers, and distributors who hold valid Cisco service contracts, Cisco Technical Support provides 24-hour-a-day, award-winning technical assistance. The Cisco Technical Support Website on Cisco.com features extensive online support resources. In addition, Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) engineers provide telephone support. If you do not hold a valid Cisco service contract, contact your reseller.

Cisco Technical Support Website

xii

The Cisco Technical Support Website provides online documents and tools for troubleshooting and resolving technical issues with Cisco products and technologies. The website is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/techsupport

Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

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Preface

Access to all tools on the Cisco Technical Support Website requires a Cisco.com user ID and password. If you have a valid service contract but do not have a user ID or password, you can register at this URL:

http://tools.cisco.com/RPF/register/register.do

Note Use the Cisco Product Identification (CPI) tool to locate your product serial number before submitting

a web or phone request for service. You can access the CPI tool from the Cisco Technical Support Website by clicking the Too l s & R e so u rce s link under Documentation & Tools. Choose Cisco Product

Identification Tool from the Alphabetical Index drop-down list, or click the Cisco Product Identification Tool link under Alerts & RMAs. The CPI tool offers three search options: by product ID

or model name; by tree view; or for certain products, by copying and pasting show command output. Search results show an illustration of your product with the serial number label location highlighted. Locate the serial number label on your product and record the information before placing a service call.

Submitting a Service Request

Using the online TAC Service Request Tool is the fastest way to open S3 and S4 service requests. (S3 and S4 service requests are those in which your network is minimally impaired or for which you require product information.) After you describe your situation, the TAC Service Request Tool provides recommended solutions. If your issue is not resolved using the recommended resources, your service request is assigned to a Cisco TAC engineer. The TAC Service Request Tool is located at this URL:

Obtaining Technical Assistance

http://www.cisco.com/techsupport/servicerequest

For S1 or S2 service requests or if you do not have Internet access, contact the Cisco TAC by telephone. (S1 or S2 service requests are those in which your production network is down or severely degraded.) Cisco TAC engineers are assigned immediately to S1 and S2 service requests to help keep your business operations running smoothly.

To open a service request by telephone, use one of the following numbers:

Asia-Pacific: +61 2 8446 7411 (Australia: 1 800 805 227) EMEA: +32 2 704 55 55 USA: 1 800 553-2447

For a complete list of Cisco TAC contacts, go to this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/techsupport/contacts

Definitions of Service Request Severity

To ensure that all service requests are reported in a standard format, Cisco has established severity definitions.

Severity 1 (S1)—Your network is “down,” or there is a critical impact to your business operations. You and Cisco will commit all necessary resources around the clock to resolve the situation.

Severity 2 (S2)—Operation of an existing network is severely degraded, or significant aspects of your business operation are negatively affected by inadequate performance of Cisco products. You and Cisco will commit full-time resources during normal business hours to resolve the situation.

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Severity 3 (S3)—Operational performance of your network is impaired, but most business operations remain functional. You and Cisco will commit resources during normal business hours to restore service to satisfactory levels.

Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

xiii

Obtaining Additional Publications and Information

Severity 4 (S4)—You require information or assistance with Cisco product capabilities, installation, or configuration. There is little or no effect on your business operations.

Obtaining Additional Publications and Information

Information about Cisco products, technologies, and network solutions is available from various online and printed sources.

• Cisco Marketplace provides a variety of Cisco books, reference guides, and logo merchandise. Visit

Cisco Marketplace, the company store, at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/go/marketplace/

• The Cisco Product Catalog describes the networking products offered by Cisco Systems, as well as

ordering and customer support services. Access the Cisco Product Catalog at this URL:

http://cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/pcat/

• Cisco Press publishes a wide range of general networking, training and certification titles. Both new

and experienced users will benefit from these publications. For current Cisco Press titles and other information, go to Cisco Press at this URL:

http://www.ciscopress.com

Preface

• Pack et magazine is the Cisco Systems technical user magazine for maximizing Internet and

networking investments. Each quarter, Packet delivers coverage of the latest industry trends, technology breakthroughs, and Cisco products and solutions, as well as network deployment and troubleshooting tips, configuration examples, customer case studies, certification and training information, and links to scores of in-depth online resources. You can access Packet magazine at this

URL:

http://www.cisco.com/packet

• iQ Magazine is the quarterly publication from Cisco Systems designed to help growing companies

learn how they can use technology to increase revenue, streamline their business, and expand services. The publication identifies the challenges facing these companies and the technologies to help solve them, using real-world case studies and business strategies to help readers make sound technology investment decisions. You can access iQ Magazine at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/go/iqmagazine

• Internet Protocol Journal is a quarterly journal published by Cisco Systems for engineering

professionals involved in designing, developing, and operating public and private internets and intranets. You can access the Internet Protocol Journal at this URL:

http://www.cisco.com/ipj

• World-class networking training is available from Cisco. You can view current offerings at

this

URL:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/learning/index.html

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CHA P TER

Planning for Personal Assistant

Before you install Cisco Personal Assistant into your production network, you should take the time to understand it and how it fits in the rest of the IP telephony network. You should also determine the best server configuration to support your users.

Use the following sections to learn about the features and components of Personal Assistant, how it works, and how it fits into your IP telephony network:

• Understanding Personal Assistant, page 1-1

• Understanding the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server, page 1-8

• Creating Server Clusters, page 1-10

• Intercepting Calls with Personal Assistant, page 1-16

• Customizing Implementation of Personal Assistant, page 1-23

• Preventing Toll Fraud, page 1-24

Understanding Personal Assistant

Personal Assistant can selectively handle your incoming calls and help you make outgoing calls. The following sections provide you with an overview of Personal network:

• Personal Assistant Features, page 1-1

• Cisco IP Telephony Terminology, page 1-3

• Role of Personal Assistant in the Cisco IP Telephony Network, page 1-5

• Personal Assistant and User Interactions, page 1-7

Personal Assistant Features

Personal Assistant provides the following features:

Follow-Me Call Transferring

Users can tell Personal Assistant to use an alternate phone number as their primary location for a period of time. Personal a hotel room phone during a business trip.

Assistant routes calls to the follow-me phone. For example, a user could route calls to

Assistant and its role in the IP telephony

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Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

1-1

Understanding Personal Assistant

Proxy Access

Users can give other users permission to access and manage their Personal Assistant accounts.

Rule-Based Call Routing

Personal Assistant can forward and screen incoming calls based on rules that users devise. Incoming calls can be handled according to caller ID, date and time of day, or the meeting status of the user based on the user calendar (considering information such as office hours, meeting schedules, vacations, or holidays). Personal call to a desk phone can be routed to a cell phone, home phone, or other phone, based on the call routing rules that your users create. An incoming call can even generate an e-mail-based page.

To use rule-based call routing, you must allow Personal Assistant to intercept incoming calls. See the

“Intercepting Calls with Personal Assistant” section on page 1-16 for additional information.

Your users set up these rules through a web-based interface, and activate different sets of rules through the interface or by talking to Personal

Personal Assistant,” for information on how users access the user interface.

Simple Automated Attendant for Dial by Name

You can set up a simple automated attendant to allow callers to reach people by saying their names rather than having to know their phone numbers. See the

page 4-15 for more information.

Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

Assistant can also selectively route calls to other phone numbers. Thus, an incoming

Assistant over the phone. See Chapter 5, “Preparing Users for

“Creating a Simple Automated Attendant” section on

Speech-Enabled Directory Dialing

Users can dial phone numbers by telling Personal Assistant the applicable name. Personal Assistant obtains the phone number from the corporate directory or personal address book.

To use any speech-enabled feature, you must add a sufficient number of speech and license servers to your Personal

Assistant installation. See the “Creating Server Clusters” section on page 1-10 for

additional information.

Speech-Enabled Simple Ad Hoc Conferencing

Users can initiate conference calls by telling Personal Assistant to set up a conference call with the desired participants or groups.

Speech-Enabled Voice-Mail Browsing

Users can use voice commands to browse, listen to, and delete voice mail messages.

Support for Multiple Locales

You can support users or outside callers who speak different languages. For your users, Personal Personal

Systemwide Rules

Assistant uses the language they select through the user web interface. If you create a Assistant automated attendant, callers can switch between supported locales.

You can set up rules to apply to all calls that come through the Personal Assistant system. For example, you might want to send all incoming calls to user voice mail after regular work hours. See the

“Setting

Up Systemwide Rules” section on page 4-19 for more information.

1-2

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Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

Cisco IP Telephony Terminology

Personal Assistant and other components of the IP telephony network, such as Cisco CallManager, use terminology and concepts that might not be familiar to you. The following sections explain these concepts and how Personal

• Personal Assistant Interceptor Ports, page 1-3

• CTI Route Points and Media Ports, page 1-3

• Partitions and Calling Search Spaces, page 1-4

• Cisco CallManager Clusters, page 1-4

• How Personal Assistant Uses Directories, page 1-5

Personal Assistant Interceptor Ports

The Personal Assistant interceptor ports identify the phone extensions that Personal Assistant will intercept from Cisco and identify them in the Personal Personal

Assistant to intercept the calls.

Assistant uses them:

CallManager. You configure these ports in Cisco CallManager as CTI route points

Understanding Personal Assistant

Assistant server configuration. The route points configuration allows

You can use wildcards when creating the route points so that one route point covers many extensions. For example, the route point 1XXX covers all extensions from 1000 to 1999.

When you configure the interceptor ports, you should also set up the call forwarding configuration for interceptor port error handling to allow calls to go through to the extension if the Personal server is unavailable. The way you configure interceptor port error handling will differ depending on the version of Cisco

Handling” section on page 1-23 for additional information on interceptor port error handling).

CallManager that the system uses (see the “Why You Need Interceptor Port Error

CTI Route Points and Media Ports

When you assign a phone number to a Personal Assistant server, you must define the extension as a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) route point in Cisco

Personal Assistant Number” section on page 3-8). The number you assign as the CTI route point is the

phone number your users use to access Personal Assistant.

A CTI route point is a virtual device that lets the Personal Assistant server receive multiple calls simultaneously.

When a user calls the Personal Assistant server phone number that is defined as a CTI route point, Personal add one media port for each simultaneous Personal

Ports for Personal Assistant” section on page 3-10). For example, if you need 24 simultaneous sessions,

add 24 ports. Then, in the Personal Assistant server configuration, you enter 24 as the number of media ports (see the

Assistant assigns the call to an available media port on the server. In Cisco CallManager, you

“Server Configuration” section on page A-16).

Assistant

CallManager (see the “Setting Up the

Assistant session you require (see the “Adding Media

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If all media ports on a Personal Assistant server are in use, subsequent callers receive a busy signal unless you have set up load balancing (see the

section on page 1-13).

Note If you use Personal Assistant to create an automated attendant, you also create a route point for the

attendant phone number. The attendant uses media ports in the same manner as Personal Assistant.

Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide

“Setting Up Personal Assistant Server Load Balancing”

1-3

Understanding Personal Assistant

Partitions and Calling Search Spaces

In a Cisco CallManager setup, each phone extension is assigned to a partition and a calling search space.

A partition is a group of devices with similar reachability characteristics. Devices you can place in partitions include IP phones, extensions, and gateways. By default, extensions are assigned to the “none” partition. The “none” partition is a default setting in Cisco non-existent partition.

A calling search space is an ordered list of partitions. When a user makes a call from an extension, the call can only be completed if the dialed number is within a partition identified in the calling search space. The calling search space always includes the none partition.

Calling search spaces and partitions make it possible to separate parts of your phone network. This can be useful if you are providing phone service to a large building occupied by separate companies or organizations (such as an office tower).

You must configure partitions and calling search spaces in Cisco CallManager to enable Personal

Assistant to intercept calls and support rule-based call routing.

Cisco CallManager Clusters

Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

CallManager that is treated as the null or

Cisco CallManager allows you to create clusters of Cisco CallManager systems that share a common database. Cisco across a converged IP network infrastructure to support IP telephony, to facilitate redundancy, and to provide feature transparency and scalability.

If you are using Cisco CallManager clusters in your IP telephony network, it is important to understand how Personal Personal

Cisco CallManager Clusters and Personal Assistant

The pool of addresses that you create in Cisco CallManager to support Personal Assistant (interceptor ports, CTI route points, translation patterns, and media ports) is registered with the primary Cisco

CallManager server in the cluster. Each Personal Assistant server can register with multiple primary Cisco ports belong.

When the primary Cisco CallManager system of a media port goes down, the Personal Assistant server is notified and attempts to register with the secondary Cisco proceeding in a round-robin fashion. Once Personal Cisco

CallManager server, it registers the media port with it. When the primary Cisco CallManager system is online, the Personal

Cisco CallManager Clusters and Rule-Based Call Routing

To understand how Cisco CallManager clusters affect rule-based call routing, assume that you have two users whose IP phones are configured within the same Cisco Personal to User B, the call is not intercepted as an incoming call; it is simply transferred. Any Personal rules configured by User B do not take effect.

However, if these two users are in separate Cisco CallManager clusters, calls are not simply transferred. Instead, the transferred call from User A (in Cisco to User B (in Cisco B has configured go into effect. This might erroneously cause calls for User A to have rules processed and applied as if they were calls to User B.

CallManager clusters provide a mechanism for distributing call processing seamlessly

Assistant interacts with them. The number of clusters you have affects the number of

Assistant servers you need.

CallManager servers, based on the telephony provider to which these route points and

CallManager systems in the cluster,

Assistant establishes a connection with a secondary

Assistant server will re-register with it.

CallManager cluster. User A configures a

Assistant rule that forwards all her calls to the extension of User B. When the call is transferred

Assistant

CallManager Cluster 1) is treated as an incoming call

CallManager Cluster 2). Because it is treated as an incoming call, any rules that User

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Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

How Personal Assistant Uses Directories

With Personal Assistant, you must have a supported LDAP directory installed, to meet network requirements. The directory contains records for each user in your organization, and includes information such as name, phone extension, e-mail address, and office location. This LDAP directory is typically called the corporate directory. Personal Personal

Personal Assistant also uses the directory to maintain Personal Assistant configuration information and some Personal user). For this information, Personal uses.

You can also use the Cisco CallManager directory as the corporate directory, but this is not required. Many installations prefer a corporate directory that is independent from Cisco Personal integrated with Cisco for information on identifying the directory to Personal Assistant.

The Personal Assistant system configuration includes a setting for unique user name attribute. This is the name of the field within your directory that is unique for each user. Ask your directory administrator for the name of this field if you do not know it. See the

page A-3 for information on updating the Personal Assistant configuration with this information.

Assistant to dial a number by telling Personal Assistant the applicable name.

Assistant user information (for example, the call routing rules and spoken name of a

Assistant fully supports this separation. Or, your corporate directory might already be

CallManager. See the “Configuring the Corporate Directory” section on page 4-7

Understanding Personal Assistant

Assistant accesses this directory when a user asks

Assistant automatically uses the directory that Cisco CallManager

CallManager, and

“Corporate Directory Settings” section on

Role of Personal Assistant in the Cisco IP Telephony Network

Personal Assistant interacts with many elements in your IP telephony network. Some network elements need to be informed of the presence of Personal Personal voice-over-IP network in place before installing Personal

Assistant and do not require such information. You should have a fully-functional

Assistant; other elements interact indirectly with

Assistant in your telephony network.

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1-5

Understanding Personal Assistant

Figure 1-1 illustrates the connection of Personal Assistant to the IP telephony network.

Figure 1-1 Personal Assistant in the IP Telephony Network

Personal Assistant

server clusters

LDAP

Personal Assistant and User Interactions

The following sections can assist you in understanding how Personal Assistant interacts with users:

• Interaction Terminology, page 1-7

• Incoming Call Handling, page 1-7

• Access to Personal Assistant, page 1-8

Understanding Personal Assistant

Interaction Terminology

The following terms can be useful in understanding how Personal Assistant works:

• A grammar includes a list of words and possible sequences in which a user can state them.

• An utterance is a user response or command that Personal Assistant recognizes as valid.

• A dialog is a prompt from Personal Assistant, followed by a response from the user.

• A session represents any interaction with Personal Assistant or call interception by

Personal (interaction), or when Personal

Incoming Call Handling

The following sequence illustrates the processes involved when incoming calls arrive at extensions configured to use Personal

1. An incoming call arrives at a Personal Assistant-enabled number.

2. Because a Personal Assistant interceptor port (CTI route point) is configured for this extension,

Cisco

3. Personal Assistant retrieves user information from the LDAP directory.

4. If the user has configured rules, the rules initiate depending on the type of destination included in

the rules:

–

Assistant. For example, a session occurs when a user uses the dial-by-name feature

Assistant routes a call based on a user rule (interception).

Assistant:

CallManager routes the call to Personal Assistant.

Calendar information—Personal Assistant accesses information from the Exchange Server.

An e-mail or page—Personal Assistant sends e-mail by using the messaging system.

Phone number—Personal Assistant transfers the call through Cisco CallManager.

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1-7

Understanding the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server

Access to Personal Assistant

The following sequence illustrates the processes involved when users access Personal Assistant:

1. Users dial the Personal Assistant number (the extension of the CTI route-point configured for

Personal

2. The call is routed to the first available media port. If no port is available, the call is rejected and the

caller hears a busy signal.

3. If a media port is available, the speech channel opens, and Personal Assistant plays a welcome

prompt. Users can then dial other users by name or access voice mail.

If speech resources are not available, Personal Assistant opens a non-speech session with the user, enabling the user to use the phone keypad for touch-tone dial-by-name.

4. If users use dial-by-name to call another user:

a. User says: “Call ‘John Smith’.”

b. The command is received and processed by the speech-recognition server.

c. The user name is passed to Personal Assistant, and Personal Assistant retrieves user

d. Based on the confidence level, Personal Assistant either prompts the user, or transfers the call.

Assistant in Cisco CallManager).

information from the LDAP directory.

Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

Understanding the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server

Personal Assistant has a modular structure, which allows you to install various pieces of the product on different server platforms. This provides a fault-tolerant redundant structure that you need for ensuring that the Personal

The following sections provide information about the Personal Assistant servers and their interactions with each other:

• Speech-Recognition Server, page 1-8

• Personal Assistant Server, page 1-9

• License and Resource Managers, page 1-9

• Interactions of the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server, page 1-10

Speech-Recognition Server

If you plan to implement any of the speech-enabled features of Personal Assistant, you must install at least one speech-recognition server. During installation, you are given the option to install a speech-recognition server, and you can either install it on the same system as the Personal server or on a separate one.

The speech-recognition server prompts users and recognizes user responses based on a pre-defined grammar, which includes a list of words and possible sequences in which a user can state them. During a call to Personal commands. Also, the Help included with the Personal by using examples of valid prompts and responses.

Assistant system is always available to your users.

Assistant, you can ask for help and Personal Assistant will tell you the available

Assistant end-user interface defines this grammar

Assistant

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Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

For specific items, such as user names in the corporate directory, the grammar is generated and automatically compiled during the system refresh (see the

page 4-4). As new users are added to the directory, their names are automatically recognized after the

refresh.

Personal Assistant Server

The Personal Assistant server manages the interaction between the user and Personal Assistant, processes call routing and dial rules, and manages the overall configuration of the Personal system.

You must install the Personal Assistant server during installation, and you manage its functions and processes from the administrator web-based interface (see the

Personal Assistant Administration Interface” section on page 4-3 for information about accessing the

interface).

You can have more than one Personal Assistant server configured. In fact, you should do this if you want to provide failover protection (see the

Understanding the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server

“Configuring Speech Recognition” section on

Assistant

“Logging On to and Out of the

“Creating Server Clusters” section on page 1-10 for details).

License and Resource Managers

The license and resource managers are subcomponents of the Personal Assistant server; they are installed with it. However, they actually work in conjunction with the speech-recognition and Personal services, they are closely linked, in that every system that functions as a license manager also functions as a resource manager.

License Manager

The license manager maintains the license for the speech-recognition software. The speech-recognition servers work only if there is at least one active license manager with a valid license. Although every Personal license manager.

You only need one license manager within a single Personal Assistant server cluster, although Cisco recommends that you define two license managers for redundancy.

Resource Manager

The resource manager manages the interaction between the Personal Assistant server cluster and the speech-recognition servers in the speech-recognition server cluster. Although every Personal server includes a resource manager, only one resource manager is used as the active connection between the Personal automatically chooses the resource manager to be used, and if that manager becomes disabled, another resource manager takes over.

Once a resource manager establishes a connection between a Personal Assistant server and an available speech-recognition server for a particular call, the Personal server interact directly for the duration of that call. The resource manager is not a permanent communication link between the servers.

Assistant servers. Although the license manager and resource managers provide different

Assistant server includes a license manager, not every Personal Assistant server needs an active

Assistant server cluster and the speech-recognition server cluster. Personal Assistant

Assistant

Assistant server and speech-recognition

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The resource manager does not manage communication between Personal Assistant servers; Personal

Assistant servers communicate directly.

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Creating Server Clusters

Interactions of the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server

Personal Assistant separates the speech-recognition functions from call routing and other basic functions of the Personal interaction between the cluster of Personal servers. This section describes how the clusters interact, and what you need to do to enable the interaction.

Figure 1-2 illustrates the Personal Assistant server structure. The dotted line between Personal Assistant

server B and speech-recognition server 3 illustrates the direct interaction between these servers after the connection is established through the resource manager on Personal

Figure 1-2 Personal Assistant Server Structure

Assistant server. Because these functions are separate, you must configure the

Assistant servers and the cluster of speech-recognition

Assistant server C.

Personal Assistant Server Cluster

PA server A

PA server B

PA server C license mgr,

resource mgr

Speech-Recognition Server Cluster

51291

Figure 1-2 assumes that you are installing Personal Assistant servers and speech-recognition servers on

separate platforms. However, you can install the Personal Assistant servers and speech-recognition servers on the same platform. When installed on the same platform, the servers still establish communications through a resource manager, even if the resource manager is on the same system. In fact, you could create a redundant Personal Personal

Assistant server, license manager, and speech-recognition server. Logically, this minimal

cluster looks the same as the one illustrated in

Assistant speech cluster with two systems, each running a

Figure 1-2.

To enable the interaction between the Personal Assistant servers and speech-recognition servers, you must identify the license managers to a Personal

Assistant server. See the “Configuring Speech

Recognition” section on page 4-4 for information on how to do this.

Creating Server Clusters

Personal Assistant servers and speech-recognition servers work together in server clusters. This makes it possible to share the load among servers, and to set up failover relationships so that if a server becomes disabled, another server can take over with minimal interruption for your users.

To set up the server clusters, you must:

1. Determine your server and speech-recognition requirements and install the Personal Assistant

server and speech-recognition software on an applicable number of servers.

The number of servers required is based on the number of sessions each server supports, the number of users you are supporting, and how many users you are willing to support per session.

It is also affected by the number of Cisco CallManager clusters you have, and the distribution of WAN connections between them.

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During server installation, you must specify the same Cisco CallManager publisher for all of the Personal

2. Configure the Personal Assistant servers.

During server configuration, you can configure the Personal Assistant servers either to balance the call load among themselves or to support failover. If you use failover, you need more servers than you would otherwise need for a given number of media ports.

3. Configure the speech-recognition servers.

You must also identify at least one license manager for the speech software. The speech software requires that an active, valid license be available at all times for it to work. See the

Speech Recognition” section on page 4-4 for information about adding speech-recognition servers

to the server cluster.

See the following sections for detailed discussions on determining the number of Personal Assistant servers required, how to use load balancing, and how failover affects your calculations:

• Determining the Required Number of Personal Assistant Servers and Speech-Recognition Servers,

page 1-11

• Setting Up Personal Assistant Server Load Balancing, page 1-13

Creating Server Clusters

Assistant and speech-recognition servers in the same Personal Assistant cluster.

“Configuring

• Creating a Personal Assistant Server Cluster With Failover, page 1-15

Determining the Required Number of Personal Assistant Servers and Speech-Recognition Servers

The quantity of servers you install should be adequate to support the number of sessions defined in the Personal the cluster).

The number of Personal Assistant servers and speech-recognition servers that are required in your clusters depends on several factors:

• The number of concurrent calls to Personal Assistant that you need to support. For example, a sales

Assistant server cluster (that is, the sum of sessions on all active Personal Assistant servers in

and marketing organization that is very phone-dependent would probably need more servers than an engineering group that uses the phone less frequently.

When considering this, you should make separate calculations of the number of simultaneous sessions with Personal

Assistant and the number of simultaneous sessions with the

speech-recognition server. For example:

–

Call-interception sessions—the number of users who will set up rules to enable Personal

–

Speech-recognition sessions—the number of users who will access voice mail and dial other

Assistant to intercept calls for them.

users by name.

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• The server model that you use. A more powerful server can support more concurrent calls than a less

powerful server.

• Whether you run the Personal Assistant servers and speech-recognition servers on the same system.

Running both servers on a single system reduces the number of concurrent calls the server can support.

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Creating Server Clusters

• Whether you enable automatic failover for Personal Assistant server redundancy. Failover ensures

that if a server goes down, another server takes over the responsibilities of the failed server. If you configure failover, you should enable only half of the ports that would otherwise be supported on a server.

• The number of Cisco CallManager clusters in your network, and the distribution of WAN links

between them.

Because you can easily add and remove servers from a cluster, you do not have to be precise on your first estimate. As users become familiar with Personal increases, you can add servers to accommodate the increased usage.

Estimated Number of Simultaneous Sessions

Table 1-2 explains the estimated number of simultaneous sessions supported on each server platform,

based on server model and session type. However, depending on your particular system usage, these values can vary considerably. Use the information in needs.

Ta b l e 1-2 Estimated Number of Simultaneous Sessions

Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

Assistant, and their use of Personal Assistant

Table 1-2 as a starting point to estimate your server

MCS-7825 Series MCS-7835 Series

Server Installation

Personal Assistant server and

Interceptor Ports

Media Ports

50 sessions 24 sessions 70 sessions 36 sessions

Interceptor Ports1Media Ports

speech-recognition server installed on different systems

Personal Assistant server and

22 sessions 20 sessions 30 sessions 24 sessions speech-recognition server installed on the same system

1. We recommend that you estimate approximately 25 users per session using interceptor ports.

2. We recommend that you estimate approximately 50 users per session using media ports.

When evaluating the information in Table 1-2, keep in mind that:

• Media port sessions indicate how many simultaneous sessions use speech-recognition features such

as dialing by name, browsing voice mail, and initiating conference calls. In these sessions, users are directly interacting with Personal

• Interceptor port sessions indicate how many simultaneous sessions involve Personal Assistant

Assistant.

intercepting incoming calls for users. In these sessions, once users have configured their dial rules, they do not directly interact with Personal

Assistant. Personal Assistant seamlessly routes the

incoming calls based on the dial rules.

• As an initial guideline, we recommend that you estimate approximately 25 users per

call-interception session, and approximately 50 users per speech-recognition session.

• These estimates represent the system capacities and might not necessarily reflect the number of

licenses you have purchased.

Using the Session Estimates in Your Planning

To estimate how many ports you need to support your users, consider the following example:

1. Determine the number of users, for example 1750.

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Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

2. Choose a server, for example the MCS-7835-H1-IPC1.

3. Determine how to install the Personal Assistant components, for example, whether you want the

Personal

4. Determine how many sessions you must support for your users:

–

1750 users divided by 25 = 70 call-interception sessions

–

1750 users divided by 50 = 35 speech-recognition sessions

You need enough servers to support at least this number of sessions. When you configure the servers, you specify the actual number of ports in use, so if you intend to use fewer than the maximum, take this into consideration when determining the number of servers that you need.

5. Use the information in Table 1-2 to determine that if you install the Personal Assistant server and

the speech-recognition server on separate MCS-7835-H1-IPC1 systems (for a total of two systems) you can support:

–

70 call-interception sessions

–

36 speech-recognition sessions

Therefore, you can support 1750 users by using two MCS-7835-H1-IPC1 systems: one system for the Personal

6. Be sure to add the servers by using the Personal Assistant administrative interface:

Creating Server Clusters

Assistant server and speech-recognition servers on separate systems.

Assistant server and one system for the speech-recognition server.

–

Add the speech-recognition servers to the System Configuration settings. See the “Configuring

Speech Recognition” section on page 4-4.

–

Add the Personal Assistant servers to the Server Configuration settings. See the “Configuring

Personal Assistant Servers” section on page 4-10.

7. You also must add the number of supported ports by using the Personal Assistant administrative

interface:

–

Add the supported number of media ports in the Server Configuration settings. See the

“Configuring Personal Assistant Servers” section on page 4-10. Although your selected server

configuration supports up to 36 ports, you only need 35 ports for your users.

–

Add the interceptor port addresses in Server Configuration settings. See the “Configuring

Personal Assistant Servers” section on page 4-10. In this setting, enter the interceptor ports that

cover all 1750 users. Although your configuration supports 70 simultaneous sessions, the interceptor ports must cover all users you are supporting.

8. Consider configuring load balancing (see the “Setting Up Personal Assistant Server Load

Balancing” section on page 1-13) or adding failover servers (see the “Creating a Personal Assistant Server Cluster With Failover” section on page 1-15) for greater redundancy.

Setting Up Personal Assistant Server Load Balancing

A single Personal Assistant server can handle a number of simultaneous sessions, which you define when you set the number of media ports (see the all media ports are being used, new callers receive a busy signal from Personal Assistant unless you set up load balancing among the Personal

Assistant servers in each Personal Assistant server cluster.

If you are not using failover servers, and if a Personal Assistant server becomes disabled, no other server takes over the media ports of the disabled server. This reduces the number of available simultaneous sessions with Personal

Assistant. However, you can set up load balancing in the cluster to mitigate the

effects of a disabled server.

“Server Configuration” section on page A-16). When

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Creating Server Clusters

To create a simple Personal Assistant server cluster, do not specify failover servers in the server configurations when you configure each server through the Personal (See the

“Configuring Personal Assistant Servers” section on page 4-10 for information on configuring

the Personal Assistant servers into a cluster, and the “Server Configuration” section on page A-16 for reference information on the server configuration settings.)

The following sections describe how to configure load balancing:

• Configuring Load Balancing, page 1-14

• Effect of Load Balancing on Users Who Access Personal Assistant, page 1-14

• Effect of Load Balancing on Rule-Based Call Routing, page 1-15

Configuring Load Balancing

Personal Assistant load balancing is based on the “call forward busy” and “call forward no answer” numbers assigned to each Personal these settings correctly in Cisco calls for busy servers without the knowledge of your users.

If you create a chain of servers, your users will need only one phone number to reach Personal Assistant. This can make it easier for your users to use Personal

Table 1-3 shows an example setup in which three Personal Assistant servers are chained so that they

share the call load. In this example, users have been told to call extension 5600 to reach Personal call. If it does not have an available media port, the call is forwarded to 5700 (Personal

2). If Personal forwarded to 5800 (Personal available media port, the call is forwarded to 5600 (Personal Personal

Assistant. If Personal Assistant Server 1 has an available media port, it handles an incoming

Assistant by calling Personal Assistant Server 2 or 3 directly.

Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

Assistant administration interface.

Assistant server phone number (CTI route point). If you configure

CallManager, the Personal Assistant servers in the cluster can answer

Assistant.

Assistant Server

Assistant Server 2 has an available media port, it handles the call; otherwise, the call is

Assistant Server 3). If Personal Assistant Server 3 does not have an

Assistant Server 1). Users can also reach

Ta b l e 1-3 Personal Assistant Server Load Balancing

Personal Assistant

Cisco CallManager Setting

Server 1

CTI route point (phone number) 5600 5700 5800

Call forward busy 5700 5800 5600

Call forward no answer 5700 5800 5600

Effect of Load Balancing on Users Who Access Personal Assistant

If you are using load balancing without a failover server, and if a Personal Assistant server becomes disabled, all calls that the server is currently handling are cut off. However, if Personal already completed its role in the call process (for example, has transferred a call based on call-routing rules), the call remains in progress. Subsequent calls to the disabled server are forwarded to another server based on the “call forward no answer number” configured in Cisco number of available simultaneous sessions is reduced because the active server must support the sessions from the disabled server in addition to its normal load.

Personal Assistant Server 2

CallManager. However, the

Personal Assistant Server 3

Assistant has

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Effect of Load Balancing on Rule-Based Call Routing

If you are not using failover servers, and if a Personal Assistant server becomes disabled, the interceptor port route points registered with that particular server are unavailable. Because the remaining servers were not configured as failover servers, these interceptor ports cannot re-register with these servers. Instead, Personal for the affected users will be unavailable and all calls will ring directly through to the applicable extensions.

Assistant cannot intercept calls for these extensions. Thus, all rule-based call routing

Creating a Personal Assistant Server Cluster With Failover

If load balancing, as explained in the “Setting Up Personal Assistant Server Load Balancing” section on

page 1-13, does not provide you with sufficient redundancy, you can configure failover servers in the

Personal Assistant cluster.

If you are using failover and a Personal Assistant server becomes disabled, the failover server takes control of the media ports and interceptor ports that were configured on the disabled server. For example, if you configured 15 media ports on the disabled server, the failover server would add 15 media ports to its configuration. Thus, if you use failover servers, you must have twice as many servers for a given number of media ports as would be required if you were not using failover servers.

Although the failover server takes on the media and interceptor ports of the disabled server, it cannot take over active calls. Any active calls on the disabled server are dropped. However, if Personal has completed its role in the call process (for example, it had transferred a call based on call-routing rules), the call remains in progress.

In addition to taking over the disabled server ports, the failover server registers itself with Cisco

CallManager as the disabled server CTI route point.

Creating Server Clusters

Assistant

When the disabled server becomes active again, it asks the failover server to return its ports. The failover server returns the ports as they become available; no active calls are dropped. When the reactivated server regains all media ports, it reregisters itself as the CTI route point with Cisco

There are two main techniques for setting up failover servers:

• Using Active Personal Assistant Servers for Failover, page 1-15

• Using Spare Personal Assistant Servers for Failover, page 1-16

Using Active Personal Assistant Servers for Failover

When you use an active Personal Assistant server as a failover server, the server works as a regular Personal

However, if the primary server becomes disabled, the failover server must be able to handle the media and interceptor ports of the disabled server, as well as its own. Thus, you must have sufficient capacity on the failover server to accommodate the ports defined on the disabled server.

For example, if you are using two MCS-7835-H1-IPC1 Personal Assistant servers, each server supports a maximum of 36 media ports (see you must reduce the media ports on each server to no more than 18. So, if server A goes down, server B will take over the 18 ports of server A, and server B will temporarily run with 36 ports (its original 18 plus the 18 of server A).

Assistant server managing calls with users. The server is not idle.

Table 1-2). If you use the servers as failover servers for each other,

CallManager.

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Intercepting Calls with Personal Assistant

If you defined more than 18 media ports on server A and server B, the servers will not be able to take on the full load of the other server if it becomes disabled. For example, if you define 18 ports on server A and 24 on server B, and server A fails, Personal load exceeded 36, calls would be dropped (because each server supports a maximum of 36 media ports) and the quality of service experienced by your users would deteriorate.

In general, if you use active Personal Assistant servers as failovers, you should divide the ports per server in half, and double the number of Personal

Although you can assign more than one Personal Assistant server to handle failover for any given server (for example, server A could use server B and server C as failovers), only one server is actually used if a server becomes disabled. The disabled server ports are not distributed among the designated failover servers.

Using Spare Personal Assistant Servers for Failover

When you use a spare Personal Assistant server as a failover server, it sits idle unless an active server becomes disabled.

To create a spare server, do not define a CTI route point in Cisco CallManager for that server. When an active server becomes disabled, the spare server registers itself with Cisco point, in place of the disabled server.

Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant

Assistant assigns 42 ports to B. If the simultaneous call

Assistant servers in the cluster.

CallManager as the CTI route

When adding a spare server to a Personal Assistant server cluster, do not define any media ports or interceptor ports (see the being used for anything except failover.

Because a spare failover server does not have any active ports, it can take over for a fully-loaded Personal spare servers, you can configure 36 media ports on the active server. If the active server becomes disabled, the spare will be able to take over the 36 media ports.

Because servers should seldom become disabled, you can have fewer failover servers than you have active servers. For example, you might define two failover servers for six active servers. The ratio you use depends on your network reliability and uptime service level agreements. The key is that a failover server must be able to take over all the media ports you define on an active server.

Assistant server. For example, if you are using MCS-7835-H1-IPC1 systems for your active and

“Server Configuration” section on page A-16), thus preventing the server from

Intercepting Calls with Personal Assistant

Personal Assistant interacts with Cisco CallManager to intercept incoming calls to user extensions. By intercepting these calls, Personal can configure a rule that instructs Personal

Although Cisco CallManager does not require that you set up partitions, you must create partitions if you install Personal Personal

If you are not yet using partitions and calling search spaces in Cisco CallManager, the following examples provide tips on setting them up with the minimum amount of effort. If you do not set up and configure partitions and calling search spaces, Personal however, still use the speech features provided by Personal speech-enabled voice mail access (see the

The following sections provide examples of using partitions and calling search space in your IP telephony network before and after adding Personal

• Using Partitions and Calling Search Spaces Without Personal Assistant, page 1-17

Assistant.

Assistant and want to enable the rule-based call routing feature or

Assistant can redirect them based on user rules. For example, a user

Assistant to send all incoming calls to voice mail.

Assistant cannot intercept user calls. You can,

Assistant, such as dial-by-name and

“Speech-Recognition Server” section on page 1-8).

Assistant:

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+ 116 hidden pages

Cisco Personal Assistant User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Cisco Personal Assistant Installation and Administration Guide

CONTENTS

Overview

Preface

Audience

Related Documentation

Help and Document Conventions

Using Help

Document Conventions

Obtaining Documentation

Cisco.com

Documentation Feedback

Ordering Documentation

Obtaining Technical Assistance

Cisco Technical Support Website

Submitting a Service Request

Definitions of Service Request Severity

Obtaining Additional Publications and Information

Planning for Personal Assistant

Understanding Personal Assistant

Personal Assistant Features

Cisco IP Telephony Terminology

Personal Assistant Interceptor Ports

CTI Route Points and Media Ports

Partitions and Calling Search Spaces

Cisco CallManager Clusters

How Personal Assistant Uses Directories

Role of Personal Assistant in the Cisco IP Telephony Network

Personal Assistant and User Interactions

Interaction Terminology

Incoming Call Handling

Understanding the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server

Access to Personal Assistant

Speech-Recognition Server

Personal Assistant Server

License and Resource Managers

Creating Server Clusters

Interactions of the Personal Assistant Server and Speech-Recognition Server

Determining the Required Number of Personal Assistant Servers and Speech-Recognition Servers

Estimated Number of Simultaneous Sessions

Using the Session Estimates in Your Planning

Setting Up Personal Assistant Server Load Balancing

Configuring Load Balancing

Effect of Load Balancing on Users Who Access Personal Assistant

Effect of Load Balancing on Rule-Based Call Routing

Creating a Personal Assistant Server Cluster With Failover

Using Active Personal Assistant Servers for Failover

Intercepting Calls with Personal Assistant

Using Spare Personal Assistant Servers for Failover