The Cisco UE Greeting Management System

Cisco UE is a low-end entry-level system that does not assume that you have sophisticated offline recording facilities or a studio available to create your AA prompts. You can certainly use such facilities if you have them and upload the resulting professionally created prompts to the system. Cisco UE also offers a built-in facility to record and manage prompts via any telephone that can call into the system (a local IP phone or PSTN phone). This feature is called the GMS.

Like the AA and voice mail pilot numbers, the GMS also has a pilot number assigned. When calls arrive at the GMS pilot number, the caller is put into an interactive session where you can listen to existing prompts and record new ones.

Calling into the GMS requires an extension and personal identification number (PIN) for security authorization. The extension/PIN combination is the same one used for your mailbox access authorization. Any user defined on the Cisco UE system with a mailbox can, therefore, theoretically access the GMS. However, actual access is restricted to users who also have administrative privileges on the Cisco UE system (those who belong to the administrators group). This is much more likely to be just one or two of the users defined on the system.

The GMS itself runs a Workflow script within the Cisco UE system and can, therefore, be seen when a listing of all the system scripts is given (the script is called promptmgmt.aef). The GMS offers two main features related to the Cisco UE AA, as discussed in the following sections:

• Recording or deleting the EAG
• Recording and listening to custom prompts

Prompts on the Cisco UE system must be a specific .wav file format to be played correctly. You can record prompts with the GMS or offline with a PC or studio sound equipment and then upload them to Cisco UE. You can download prompts already resident on Cisco UE to your PC as .wav files. Uploading and downloading prompts works just like uploading and downloading scripts, as discussed earlier, in the section "Uploading and Downloading Scripts."

Recording or Deleting the EAG

You can record the EAG via the GMS. Calling into the GMS guides the administrator through the process of recording or deleting the alternate greeting:

Step 1.	The script prompts the caller (administrator) to enter his or her extension and PIN to determine if the caller has administrative rights on the system.
Step 2.	After the caller is authenticated, the script checks to see if an EAG exists on the system. If it does not, the script prompts the administrator to record one.
Step 3.	As soon as the EAG is recorded and saved, it becomes active, and new callers to the AA start hearing the EAG before the regular welcome prompt.

If the EAG already exists on the system, the script prompts the administrator to delete the existing greeting. If the administrator deletes it, the EAG is deleted from the system, and new callers into the AA hear only the regular welcome greeting as their first prompt.

The system has no default EAG. If the EAG exists, it must have the filename AltGreeting.wav. If you record the EAG via the GMS, it automatically has this filename. If you record it on an offline system and upload it to the Cisco UE system, you must ensure manually that the .wav file has this name so that it will be recognized by the Cisco UE system as the EAG.

Example 9-5 shows the GMS conversation for managing the EAG.

Example 9-23. GMS Menu Flow for Managing the EAG

Please enter your Extension
Please enter your PIN Number
Welcome to the Greeting Management System
Press 1 to administer Automated Attendant Alternate Greeting
 If (Alternate Greeting exists)
 The Alternate Greeting is currently active
 Press 1 to hear the Alternate Greeting
 Press 2 to re-record the Alternate Greeting
 Record the Alternate Greeting at the beep. To finish recording,
 press the # key
 Press 1 to save and activate the Alternate Greeting
 Press 2 to hear the Alternate Greeting
 Press 3 to re-record the Alternate Greeting
 Press 3 to deactivate the Alternate Greeting. Deactivating the Alternate
 Greeting will delete it from the system
 else
 Press 1 to record the Alternate Greeting
 Record the Alternate Greeting at the beep. To finish recording,
 press the # key
 Press 1 to save and activate the Alternate Greeting
 Press 2 to hear the Alternate Greeting
 Press 3 to re-record the Alternate Greeting
Press 2 to administer custom prompts
...

 

Recording and Listening to Custom Prompts

Similar to the EAG, all other prompts used by the AA scripts can be managed via the GMS. From the GMS, an administrator can listen to, record, and delete any prompt used by the system. After a prompt is recorded, it is given a filename in the format UserPrompt_mmddyyyyhhmmss.wav, where mmddyyyyhhmmss shows the system date and time that the prompt was recorded. The file shows up in the prompt list when viewed via the GUI or CLI.

To assign more meaningful names to the prompt files, you can download the prompt to a PC, change the filename, and then upload the file back to Cisco UE.

Caution

If you change the name of a prompt file while an AA script already refers to the prompt filename, be sure to change the script parameter (the one referring to the prompt file) to the new prompt filename before you delete the old prompt file. Otherwise, you will introduce a script runtime error.

Example 9-6 shows the GMS conversation for managing the prompts.

Example 9-24. GMS Menu Flow for Managing Prompts

Please enter your Extension
Please enter your PIN Number
Welcome to the Prompt Management System
Press 1 to administer Automated Attendant Alternate Greeting
 ...
Press 2 to administer custom prompts
 Press 1 to record a new prompt
 If limit reached
 Sorry you have already recorded <> prompts
 Else
 Record a new prompt at the beep. To finish recording, press the # key.
 ...
 You have recorded the new prompt as follows
 Play recorded prompt
 Press 2 to save the prompt, Press 3 to delete it
 Press 2 to play previously recorded custom prompts
 There are <> recorded prompts
 In a loop {
 Prompt <>
 Play prompt <>
 To delete it, press 3, to skip it, press #
 If 3 pressed, delete the prompt
 }

 

Prompt File Format

All prompts on the Cisco UE system must meet the following .wav file format requirements to be able to play correctly:

• G.711 µ-law
• 8 kHz
• 8-bit
• Mono

Prompts recorded via the GMS are automatically of this type. Prompts recorded offline and uploaded to the Cisco UE system must be manually checked to ensure they are of this type, or they will not play properly. No system format checking occurs when prompts are uploaded into the system. If they are of the wrong format, they simply do not play correctly.

Setting Up a Cisco UE Automated Attendant