ExecutiveAssistant Call Recording for 3Com NBX

• BrightArrow ExecutiveAssistant Call Recording
  
  With so many new ExecutiveAssistant features being added and discussed recently, it’s been awhile since I last updated you about one of the product’s core features: Call Recording.
  
  Over the years, ExecutiveAssistant Call Recording has grown and expanded, both in terms of functionality as well as robustness. The essence to call recording is that you set up the NBX to route calls through the ExecutiveAssistant server and its associated “conference bridge” technology. That enables the audio of the calls to remain securely scrambled on the network, but streams the audio to disk as needed for recording purposes. It also allows the recording of any calls, including calls on non-NBX phones or even remote (cell) phones.
  
  Many of the competing IP phone systems only offer packet sniffers as their recording mechanism. Sniffing is a simple idea as long as the customer has the appropriate equipment to deliver necessary port mirroring on the switch. Unfortunately for those systems, the typical way of delivering sniffing is to configure the phone system to unscramble or un-encrypt the audio on the network (thus opening up the system for unauthorized sniffer-based spyware). Packet sniffing doesn’t allow recording of calls to/from cell phones, analog phones, or calls on the other side of a VTL – but ExecutiveAssistant call recording can record those devices. In addition, because packet-sniffing is a read-only approach, it becomes virtually impossible to be in compliance with taping laws for many states.
  
  3Com NBX Uniquely Allows Organizations to Record Legally
  
  Please understand that I am not an attorney and would never offer legal advice – you should be consulting an attorney in your state or province to identify the laws and associated penalties. Instead, I am relaying (in a non-legal sense) opinions stated on Web sites that detail taping laws (like http://www.rcfp.org/taping/). In that site, for example, you will see that the states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington require consent by all parties for calls to be recorded. In addition, any organizations that call from one-party states to those states list above probably need the consent of all parties, because it is typically advised that you follow the laws of the stricter state in inter-state calls. In other words, if the organization will ever call any of the above states, then they need a mechanism by which the call recipient knows the call is being recorded.
  
  Implied consent of all parties is fairly easy when calls are coming into an auto-attendant or a call center. Most organizations take care of that by including a “your call may be recorded” in the incoming greeting.
  
  Consent of all parties is trickier, however, for DID incoming calls, and is extremely difficult for outbound calls. Many offices that need to record calls want to record all types of calls, including calls coming into DID’s as well as outbound calls. Depending on the phone system and how it manages DID’s, many systems are not well-equipped to play a warning before passing the DID call off to the employee’s telephone.
  
  When it comes to outbound calls, the 3Com NBX with ExecutiveAssistant is uniquely qualified in its feature of including a periodic beep to cover legal requirements of all-party-consent for outbound calls. ExecutiveAssistant has an option to play a background periodic beep tone when a call is being recorded, or is even on-demand for its retroactive record feature.
  
  The potential criminal penalties for not following the taping laws listed in the Web sites include stiff fines and imprisonment in many states. Call recording is a powerful and useful tool, and once you start using it for business you find it irreplaceable, but it also is a tool that should be used legally. The ability of empowering your customers to obey the law provides you with a competitive sales advantage over other phone systems.
  
  Recent Enhancements with ExecutiveAssistant Call Recording
  
  For those of you who haven’t worked with ExecutiveAssistant call recording recently, I thought I’d update you on the nuts and bolts of some of the recent changes, the bulk of which were designed to make the recording mechanism seamless and reliable:
  
• With NBX R6.0 and CDR R6.0.7 (and using the latest ExecutiveAssistant) the CDR reports are now automatically scrubbed to remove the references to WAV phones that affected some of the reports in earlier versions.
  
• An ExecutiveAssistant installation typically includes the installation of the Sentry Service on a different PC (can be a shared PC that is always running but need not be logged in), to ensure call coverage for inbound and extension-to-extension recorded calls. With earlier R6.0 releases of the NBX, there was a problem relying on the Sentry Service with calls from the NBX auto-attendant that were to be recorded, but that was fixed with NBX R6.0.41.
  
• In some cases, sites reported audio problems or latencies when calls were routed through the EA server. This is not a problem with the software, but instead of the environment – it is a correctable condition. When such conditions have been reported to and investigated by 3Com, they have been corrected by doing one (or more) of the following:
  
  - On the server, turn off real-time virus scanning, software firewalls, hyper-threading and spyware scanning (instead you can have it do a nightly scan)
  
  - On the switch, make sure that packets coming out of the server are explicitly Tagged as Voice – particular important in a VLAN environment
  
  - Put the EA server explicitly on the same switch as the NBX
  
  - Turn off hyper-threading if using an Intel processor
  
  - Make sure you haven’t exceeded your recommended CPU speed for the number of Media Ports installed
  
• Parking recorded calls did not originally play music-on-hold. Also, a Parked call that timed out wasn’t reporting as such to the Parker to whom it returned. Those have both now been corrected.
  
• Several years ago, Caller ID was not displayed in the LCD display with recorded calls. That was corrected starting with Version R5.0.6 of the NBX. If you are not seeing Caller ID, make sure your TSP version is compatible with your NBX version, and that you have the telephone extensions listed in the TSP.
  
• Outbound Caller ID Presentation was not displaying for outbound calls going through recording. That is now corrected with the concept of a Personal Media Port.
  
• Earlier versions of the 3Com Media Ports were not as reliable as the current Media Ports. 3Com has reworked the drivers to be able to handle high-volume call centers, without failing. In addition, ExecutiveAssistant has built-in mechanisms to make sure calls still flow even if the server goes down for normal “Windows” reasons.
  
• You can now record outbound calls from your cell phone (in addition to the inbound cell phone call recording that was always available with Find Me Follow Me) with the help of a new feature for allowing you to call into the NBX and out again through an NBX trunk.
  
• The system can now automatically compress the recordings to .WMA format, which takes only about 65KB/minute of storage.

We have enhanced the document that explains how to set up call recording with step-by-step instructions and some new troubleshooting tips. I suggest you read the latest document to better understand the bits and bytes of 3Com Call Recording technology. You can find this at:

http://www.brightarrow.com/sales/EA/3Com_ExecutiveAssistant_Recording_Technical_Guidelines_Ver_5.00.85.pdf

You also can get a detailed sales brochure for call recording, at:

http://www.brightarrow.com/3Com_NBX_Call%20Recording_5.00.pdf

If you are using ExecutiveAssistant Call Recording, I would highly recommend that they upgrade to the latest version to take advantage of the above improvements and optimizations. If you have had the product for over one year, they will need to purchase a Maintenance Agreement to be upgraded, but those agreements are very reasonably priced – please contact your reseller (or BrightArrow) for specifics.

ExecutiveAssistant Find Me Follow Me: Ultimate Mobility

The flexibility and power of the Find Me Follow Me feature in 3Com’s ExecutiveAssistant is different from features with this name of this type on other phone systems. In most of the other brands of phone systems, what they call “Find Me Follow Me” is usually Call Forwarding with a few enhancements. On non-3Com systems, you sometimes are offered multiple number call forwarding, but that is not even scratching the surface of the Find Me Follow Me that 3Com offers with ExecutiveAssistant.

Top ten reasons why ExecutiveAssistant Find Me Follow Me is better than the basic version of that feature available on most phone systems:

1. If you are not available on your cell phone, the call is pulled back to your NBX voice mail box (although you can choose to still send the voice mail to the remote phone’s voice mail).
2. If you want it to try you on multiple phones (such as cell and home, or cell and colleague’s cell), it can try multiple phones and still pull the call back to your NBX voice mail box.
3. If you turn on Call Screening for the Away State, you can be told the name of the person who is calling before you decide whether to accept the call.
4. If the call has Recording (always or on-demand) enabled, additional features include:
   - Caller can hear your special audio-on-hold (including caller opt-out) while system is
   trying to find you.
   - Remote (cell phone) call can be recorded or monitored.
   - In ExecutiveAssistant 6.0, PBX features from cell phone, such as transfer and
   conference, are available from remote phones such as cell phones.
5. If doing Find Me Follow Me for a department, it can be set to Linear or Circular “finding” – that latter option designed to have it try to call the “next” person in the list every time a new call arrives.
6. You can set speed-dials on your cell phone to change your Away State dynamically. For example, you can change your Away State from “Available Wireless” to “In a Meeting” with a single speed dial. That way, you don’t receive calls, but the caller is explained why.
7. You can choose to have only some callers ring you via Find Me Follow Me while others are sent right to your voice mail box, based on caller priority as matched by their spoken name (and thus not reliant on their Caller ID number).
8. On some away states, such as home phones, you can require the recipient to enter a PIN so that other people (or children) who answer the calls cannot pick up your business calls.
9. You have the option of using the Hot Desking feature of ExecutiveAssistant from a remote phone so that you can automatically receive calls from any location by dialing in and logging in from the remote phone.
10. An unlimited number of Away States, any combination of which can be selected at any time.

There is no more powerful way to sell a feature than to show your prospect how useful it is for you. To that end, I would like to share with you details of some common ways to configure 3Com ExecutiveAssistant Find Me Follow Me. If you haven’t already, I would suggest that you consider setting up your in-house NBX to use Find Me Follow Me for yourself, with one of these options.


Configuration A: Ring to your desktop phone, unscreened, when present; follow your active Away State when away from desk; control present state from PC screen
The idea here is that the software rings your telephone when you are at your desk, but the system tracks you down when you are away. To configure the system, leave the Screen My Calls setting at the default “No Screening.”

Then click on Find Me/Follow Me button, followed by “Away Settings” to open up the following screen:

Leave the settings default, except for the three items circled in red.

To accomplish this objective, when you arrive at the office, you start ExecutiveAssistant. When you leave your desk, you can either exit the program or click on Find Me Follow Me.

If you step away from your desk and forget to press Find Me Follow Me, you can call in from outside and change your Away State remotely. For details on how to configure remote dial-in, refer to Page 5-7 of the 3Com ExecutiveAssistant Sales Guide.


Configuration B: Ring to desk when present; follow active Away State when away from desk; control present state using telephone (desktop and/or cell phone)

This is the way of using Find Me Follow Me without running the software at your desktop PC, except for the time you (or an administrative assistant) initially set it up. You control your Away States entirely from your desktop telephone by setting a speed dial on your telephone that is sent to EA’s “Set Away State” hunt group.

You mark yourself as present when they arrive by pressing your Set Away State speed dial on your NBX telephone and choose Zero (0) as the chosen Away State.

When you step away from your desk, you can press their Set Away State speed dial and choose the appropriate Away State. You can choose among some of the default options such as “Away From Office,” “Send To Wireless,” “In A Meeting,” “Sent To Home,” “Vacation.” Or you can create options specific to where they might be, such as “Out To Lunch,” “In Court,” or “Away On Business Trip.” Ultimately, each Away State is assigned a number that is used for you to change your Away State using your desktop phone. This is set in the “Shortcut Touch Tone” field shown in red:





Your cell phone can be used to call in and change your Away State as easily as your desktop phone. Therefore, if you forget to change your Away State when you leave your office, you simply need to press the appropriate speed dial on your cell phone.


Configuration C: Announce calls at PC when present; follow active Away State when away from desk

This is the way I use ExecutiveAssistant’s Find Me Follow Me. I find it very helpful for EA to announce a new caller on my PC (and PC’s speaker), because many times a call arrives I am on the phone with somebody else. It lets me much more effectively handle multiple calls than having a 2nd call appear only on a telephone. This is because I get better information about who is calling (by optionally asking for the caller’s name), and they are played my customized audio-on-hold so that they are held long enough for me to finish my current call.

This is the best configuration for people who are on the phone a significant percentage of the day, managing multiple calls. It makes use of the PC’s speaker as a paging mechanism for new calls, without disrupting the current call. You can also choose whether you want to ask the caller their name. If you do, then you have maximum information about the caller. If you don’t the call is still presented to you at your PC, but only with Caller ID information. You can choose whether to ask for the caller’s name using the checkbox marked in red below:



To make sure the call is presented to the PC instead of going to the telephone, you click on “Screen My Calls” on the main screen, and Uncheck “No Screening” as shown here:



Finally, when you step away from your office, you click on Find Me/Follow Me from the main interface and can choose your current Away State. If you filled in the Find Me Follow Settings button as in Configuration A, then the system will follow your current Away State when you press it, but also when you are not running the software at all.


But Wait, There’s More

As you probably can imagine by looking at the various Find Me Follow Me options, there are many different ways to configure this feature. Over the years, so many different special scenarios had to be accomplished that the interface has quite a range of options to allow those varied requirements. The above examples are the three most common ways of configuring Find Me Follow Me, but there are many more.

New Digital Voice Dialer 2009

July 6, 2009 (Bellevue, WA). BrightArrow Technologies announces the general release of Digital Voice Dialer 2009.

Digital Voice Dialer 2009 represents the next generation of mass voice notification. Digital Voice Dialer has successfully helped schools, government organizations, healthcare facilities, utilities, and commercial organizations to reach out to constituents, customers and prospects.

Brochure: http://www.brightarrow.com/Digital_Voice_Dialer_2009.pdf

The software is unique in that it uses the latest Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology to deliver the most powerful, flexible and high quality voice notification solution on the market, at a small fraction of the cost of the existing dialing services that typically use legacy “PSTN” technology.

This latest version also no longer uses Skype. We have contracted with a group of VoIP providers to ensure secure connection and bandwidth, without relying on a single provider.

Customers who have switched to Digital Voice Dialer from other dialing services report that they save 50%-75% of their annual cost by using this software, yet they accomplish what they were doing before, typically with better results because of the streamlined easy-to-use and flexible software interface.

Already a powerful and flexible system, Digital Voice Dialer 2009 further enhances previous functionality with enhancements in the following areas:

• Instant Delivery of voice calls. The software can deliver as fast as your local phone carriers can handle for instant mass notification.
• Ability to dial in from a telephone to launch a mass notification without needing to touch a computer – particularly useful in scenarios of power outages and weather cancellations.
• New “Group” feature allows you to synchronize to a single database or master list, and it will automatically update various sub-groups. For example, if you have created Groups for different schools, grades, and participants of specific extracurricular activities, all separated by the parents’ home language, every time you generate a new master list from your Student Information System (or when it is generated automatically), all of the Groups’ phone numbers and members are updated accordingly.

Schools find the software to be beneficial in the following ways:

• Increase Attendance with automated daily absentee and tardy notifications to parents.
• Improve Safety with the ability to call all parents within minutes of an urgent event or notification.
• Simplify Cancellations by reaching all parents and staff within minutes of a decision to cancel or delay school, even if there is a power outage.
• Improve Parent Involvement by reminding them of meetings and events.Increase Collections by transmitting reminders of overdue lunch or library fees.
• Enhance Flexibility by empowering extracurricular and event activity coordinators to reach out to relevant parties for changes in venues and schedules.
• Easy Implementation integrating with Student Information Systems (Infinite Campus, AERIES, PowerSchool, etc.) has never been this secure and easy.

For more information, 425-558-2100 (say “Sales”), or contact BrightArrow at Sales@BrightArrow.com.