| Computer Telephony Integration |
Article Index for Computer |
Shopping Integration |
Website Links For Computer Telephony Integration |
Information AboutComputer Telephony Integration |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION | |
| telephone service enhanced features | |
|
COMMON FUNCTIONS The following functions can be implemented using CTI.
FORMS OF CTI Generally, there are two forms of CTI.
CTI APPLICATION EVENT FLOW A typical CTI application manages the event flow that is generated by the telephony switch during the lifecycle of a call. This typically proceeds along the following sequence:
Other call events that are typically handed by a CTI solution include the following:
CTI HISTORY The origins of CTI can be found in simple Screen Population (or "Screen Pop") technology. This allows data collected from the telephone systems to be used as input data to query databases with customer information and populate that data instantaneously in the customer service representative screen. The net effect is the agent already has the required screen on his/her terminal before speaking with the customer. This technology started gaining widespread adoption in markets like North America and UK/Northern European countries. There were several standards which had a major impact in the ´normalization´ of in the industry, previously fully closed and proprietary to each PBX / ACD vendor. On the software level, the most adopted interface by vendors is the CSTA standard, which is approved by the standards-body ITU . Other well known CTI standards in the industry are JTAPI , TSAPI and TAPI : JTAPI, the Java Telephony API is promoted by Sun; TSAPI, originally promoted by the AT&T (later Lucent) and Novell, by far the most adopted in large scale contact centers; Microsoft pushed their own initiative also, and thus TAPI was born, with support mostly from Windows applications. Among the key players in this area, Lucent played a big role and IBM acquired ROLM Inc, a US pioneer in ACDs, in an attempt to normalize all major PBX vendor interfaces with its CallPath middleware. This attempt failed when it sold this company to Siemens AG and gradually divested in the area. A pioneer startup that combined the technologies of voice digitization, Token Ring networking, and time-division multiplexing was ZTEL of Wilmington, MA. ZTEL's computer-based voice and data network combined user-programmable voice call processing features, protocol conversion for automated "data call processing," database-driven directory and telset definitions, and custom LSI chipset technology. Unfortunately, ZTEL ran into funding and management problems, and it ceased operation in 1986. Another player more successful in that mission was Digital Equipment Corporation which developed CTI software, including a vendor abstraction middleware. It was sold to Dialogic, which in turn was purchased by Intel. On the hardware level, there was a paradigm shift since 1993, with emerging standards from IETF , which led to several new players like Dialogic, Brooktrout, NMS offering telephony interfacing boards for various networks and elements. Several early CTI vendors and developers have changed hands over the years. An example is Nabnasset, which was a consulting firm in Massachusetts that developed a CORBA based CTI solution for a client and then decided to make it into a general product. It was eventually bought by the Quintus CRM company, which went bankrupt and was purchased by Avaya Telecommunications. Smaller organisations have also survived from the early days and have leveraged their heritage to thrive. However, many of the 1980's startups that were inspired by the "Bell Breakup" and the coming competitive telephony marketplace, did not survive the decade. |
|
|