Your contact centre agents can now handle customers using their own personal devices with Cisco’s PCCE/UCCE solution. Cisco’s Mobile Agent enables an employee to use their mobile, tablet or even a PSTN analogue phone and have access to the same capabilities as if they were sitting in the office.

This allows the agent to use different phone numbers at different times of the day thus providing them with the flexibility to work from home with similar quality, function, performance, convenience, and security as if they were seated in the corporate headquarters. Another major benefit is it allows the employee to use any device they are most comfortable with, which improves agent productivity, helps to retain agents, and reduces training costs. (Note for agent desktop interactions a broadband VPN connection would be needed.)

The mobile contact centre agent enters their phone number at login time which uses a pair of CTI ports in Unified Communications manager which function as proxies. Every logged-in Mobile Agent requires two CTI ports (local and remote). The two CTI ports take the place of the local Cisco IP Phone and is controlled by CUCM’s JTAPI interface. The agent at login enters the local CTI port DN which is provisioned in Unified Communications Manager.

When this mobile contact centre agent is selected, unified communications manager transfers the caller to corresponding CTI port that matches the agents telephone number. The remote CTI port calls the agent either at login for a nailed (permanent) connection or upon being selected in a queue by queue, call-by-call connection.

The important part is to pay attention to is the naming convention (LCP for Local and RCP for remote) as suggested in the configuration steps I have provided below.

Configure Unified CM CTI Port for Unified Mobile Agent Perform the following steps to configure CTI Ports.

Procedure

Step 1. In Unified CM Administration, select Device > Phone.

Step 2. Click Add a New Phone.

Step 3. From Phone Type, select CTI Port.

Step 4. Click Next.

Step 5. In Device Name, enter a unique name for the local CTI Port pool name; click OK when finished.
Using the naming convention format LCPxxxxyyyy:
• LCP identifies the CTI Port as a local device.
• xxxx is the peripheral ID for the Unified CM PIM.
• yyyy is the local CTI Port.
The name LCP5000F0000 would represent CTI Port: 0 in a local CTI Port pool for the Unified CM PIM with the peripheral ID 5000.
The name LCP0000 represents the local port.

Step 6. In Description, enter text that identifies the local CTI port.

Step 7. Use the Device Pool drop-down list to choose the device pool to which you want to assign the network CTI port pool. Do not select Default. (The device pool defines sets of common characteristics for devices.)

Step 8. Click Save.

Step 9. Highlight a record and select Add a New DN.

Step 10. Add a unique directory number for the CTI port you just created.

Step 11. In Maximum Number of Calls, enter 2.

Step 12. In Busy Trigger, enter 1.

Step 13. When finished, click Save, and click Close.

Step 14. Repeat the preceding steps to configure the network CTI port pool.
In Device Name, using the naming convention format RCPxxxxyyyy, where:
• RCP identifies the CTI port as the Remote CTI port where the call between the agent’s remotedevice and the Unified CM Port is nailed up at agent login time.
• xxxx is the peripheral ID for the Unified CM PIM.
• yyyy is the network CTI port.
The name RCP5000F0000 represents CTI Port: 0 in a network CTI Port pool for the Unified CM PIM with the peripheral ID 5000.

Step 15. In Description, enter text that identifies the network CTI port pool.

Step 16. Use the Device Pool drop-down list to choose the device pool to which you want to assign the network CTI port. Do not select Default. pool. (The device pool defines sets of common characteristics for devices.)

Step 17. Click Save.

Step 18. Highlight a record and select Add a New DN.

Step 19. Add a unique directory number for the CTI port you just created.
The extension length can be different from the extension length of the LCP Port if your dial plan requires it.

Step 20. When finished, click Save, and click Close.

The primary benefit of utilizing the Cisco Remote Mobile agent feature is that it allows the hiring of skilled agents which live in different geographical areas. This makes it much easier to construct a varied team which may speak different languages in order to best serve your customers. It also enables organizations to add or enable temporary staff during seasonal high call volumes who can easily be brought on line with reduced costs.