Interactive Intelligence Communite Unified Messaging System

Transcription

1 Jay Lassman Product Report 17 November 2003 Interactive Intelligence Communite Unified Messaging System Summary With its latest version, Communité 2.2.2, Interactive Intelligence has added a variety of options, such as group mailbox, Web-based administration, additional mail package support and an enhanced voice form for Exchange. Table of Contents Overview Analysis Pricing Competitors Strengths Limitations Recommended Gartner Research Insight List Of Tables Table 1: Capacities and Features: Interactive Intelligence Communité Table 2: Price List: Interactive Intelligence Communité Base System Table 3: Price List: Interactive Intelligence Communité Options List Of Figures Figure 1: Vox Form Toolbar Figure 2: Administration Screen Figure 3: Interaction Designer Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 Corporate Headquarters Interactive Intelligence Inc Interactive Way Indianapolis, IN 46278, U.S.A. Tel: Fax: Internet: Overview Interactive Intelligence first released its unified communications and messaging product, called Communité, v.2.0, in December Communité leverages the company s established interaction management software engine to offer a full-featured unified communications offering that is positioned as a replacement to legacy voice mail and fax solutions. Communité also is designed to work with traditional PBX systems and Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications systems, providing large distributed organizations with consolidated enterprisewide multimedia messaging and real-time communications. The original release of Communité offered the following features: Unified messaging with universal inbox Multichannel access, such as by telephone, desktop PC, Web browser or any personal digital assistant (PDA) device User status and presence management Call control with call screening and rules-based call routing Find-me/Follow-me services Fax services Message notification Communité supports central administration and the storage of unified communications user records in a centralized Microsoft Active Directory. This centralized directory approach enables traffic load balancing for distributed enterprises with hundreds of thousands of users, across multiple servers and locations. Integration to voice-enabled technology is also available. Communité 2.2, released in July 2002, added a variety of features, including the following: A wireless user interface that allows personal settings and message management from wireless PDAs using the Interactive Intelligence Mobilité product A file-based message option thatallowsvoic andfaxmessagestobestoredoncommonfile servers for non- users Enhanced Voice Protocol for Internet Messaging (VPIM) support to allow two-way networking in a multivendor voice mail system environment, which allows the forwarding, replying and broadcasting of messages across a WAN/LAN to a VPIM-capable voice mail platform. With Communité VPIM users can be included as part of the same directory as non-vpim or file-based users for 17 November

3 message broadcasts. As an example, users can add contacts themselves using VPIM-formatted addresses from other companies. Broadcasts can be made from the telephone or desktop to mixeduser types. Voice over IP (VoIP) and telephony choices, including: Cisco Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) VoIP protocol Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Dialogic and Aculab telephony board options Telephone-based productivity features, including on-demand outbound calling, calendar access, personal distribution and access to personal contacts. Users can access personal contacts and use the system to initiate calls by dialing contacts (personal, nonemployees and other employee users) by name/number or placing calls to ad hoc numbers from the same telephone user interface from which they are retrieving voice mail, faxes and s. Users can also return to where they were in the voice mail retrieval process when calls are completed. They can also do an autocallback (based on telephone or extension number), or reply or broadcast to personal groups or distribution lists with a voice mail to internal and external users that are in a user s personal contacts directory. Security and administration enhancements, including new maximum log-in attempts, lock-out duration, administrative notification and support for multiple extension and fax numbers for individual users Upgraded user desktop through the addition of a Microsoft Outlook tool bar and voice mail form that allow for ad hoc voice message creation, voice reply, forward and calling using the desktop PC Knowledge-base add-on that enables integration to e-faq, an Interactive Intelligence Web-based solution for knowledge management and auto response to frequently asked questions (FAQ). Personal contacts, groups and user directory support that allows the broadcast of group messages and the directory look-up of user status and availability information using Web-based, desktop and wireless interfaces. Communité 2.2.2, released in October 2003, adds a variety of new features, including the following: Group mailbox. This feature allows for multiple users to be assigned the same voice mail extension. The administrator simply assigns two or more users with the same extension. When a call is received for that extension, a dynamic interactive voice response (IVR) menu is presented to the caller asking which person they were trying to reach. This allows each user to have a secure private mailbox as well as all the other personal settings while sharing a common phone. Additional mail package support. This release of Communité supports MS Exchange/Active Directory, IBM Notes/Domino, SunONE Message server/directory Server (formerly iplanet) and Mirapoint/OpenLDAP. Web-based administration. With the added support for new Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP directories, Communité now ships with a common Web-based administration used for provisioning/creating users, as well as the normal message authentication codes (MACs) done in the unified messaging (UM) system. Redesigned personal settings pages. The Web pages utilized by the Communité users have been updated to include options that allow the user s personal Telephone User Interface (TUI) option to be set 17 November

4 from a Web page. Personal preferences, like Oldest first, Verbose Menus, that previously had to be controlled from a phone interface are now available to the users on their personal Web page. Additionally, support for other browsers, including Netscape and MAC, has been added. New Voice Form. An enhanced voice form for Exchange adds support for increase/decrease of the playback, support for multiple WAV files and the ability to add audio into an existing voic from the desktop. Table 1: Capacities and Features: Interactive Intelligence Communité Description Specification Software Release Storage Hours Dependent on message store disk space Number of Voice Server dependent with N+1 scalability across multiple servers Channels (Ports) Number of Fax Server dependent with N+1 scalability across multiple servers Channels (Ports) Number of Voice Tested for 250,000 Mailboxes Number of Fax Tested for 150,000 Mailboxes Number of Desktop Dependent on message server Messaging Users (Clients) System PBX integrated, Windows NT/2000 server-based software solution Configuration Vendor Systems Uses Intel-based PC servers. Supports any PBX with SMDI* in-band integration or Supported other proprietary PBX systems using third-party integration devices Processor Intel Pentium III or higher Memory 256MB RAM (Minimum) Redundancy Support Optional (Scalable load balancing in N+1) Disk Shadowing Standard (redundant array of independent disks [RAID]) TUI Support for Optional Speech Recognition IVR Support Standard (Integrated IVR) Text-to-Speech Standard (SAPI 5** Engine) (TTS) Support *Simple Message Desk Interface. **Microsoft Speech Application Programming Interface (SAPI) version 5.0. (SAPI 5.0) is a programming standard that provides tools and components to speech recognition and text-to-speech software applications. Analysis Architecture 17 November

5 Communité is based on the Interaction Center Platform event-processing engine from Interactive Intelligence, which integrates with traditional PBX systems and IP communications platforms, stores user information in LDAP and Active Directory, and leverages or file-based servers as the primary message store. Specific architecture details are as follows. Directory To support numerous servers, organizations and users across multiple locations, Communité utilizes LDAP and Active Directory as central components for storing user attributes. Information such as addresses, preferences, telephone numbers, rules, message notification logic and details used for features, such as Follow-me, are all stored in LDAP. Users can be defined as , file-based or VPIM users, allowing for extension, group list or name-based voice mail addressing for broadcasts to mixed user types, including user-defined personal contacts. Because LDAP is employed as the primary user database, Communité servers can be deployed in an N+1 configuration at a single site or across distributed environments. This LDAP-based approach allows for larger organizations or hosting organizations to partition users based on organization and suborganizations. LDAP also is the basis of Communité s scalability in that LDAP directories are designed to hold tens of thousands of entries. User Configuration Components Communité utilizes a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to support an integrated Outlook interface. In turn, this interface allows Web-based uniform resource locator (URL) access for personal settings, such as status-based call handling, contacts, presence and availability management for other users on the system, personal group lists and partitioned directories, in addition to conditional rules for inbound calls, fax messages and notification. Directory Access Protocol-based class-of-service settings and services available to users are dynamically displayed to logged-in users via the IIS application. Message Storage and Compression For voice mail and fax storage, Communité makes use of a single message store for all message types. Message delivery is accomplished via queuing, ensuring that messages are reliably delivered to servers, such as Microsoft Exchange. Also, with the introduction of Communité 2.2, Communité supports a voice mail-only option that allows messages to be stored on a file server without requiring an account for users. To assist with migration to Communité, the Communité solution can deliver messages to VPIM-capable voice mail platforms across a LAN/WAN or the Internet. To optimize network use and storage, Communité uses TrueSpeech technology to compress voice mail WAV files to 1.1 Kbps of recorded audio. This means a 30-second voice mail message will be stored as about 30KB of storage on the or file-based server. The TrueSpeech compression method allows for maximum compression, although GSM, Microsoft ADPCM, MuLaw PCM, G.726 and IMA ADPCM are also available configuration options. Client Components From a unified communications user/client perspective, organizations have the option to make use of installable voice mail forms for voice mail playback, fax viewers for fax management or fax print drivers for outbound faxing. Alternatively, organizations can operate without client components, since voice mail messages arrive as industry-standard WAV files, while fax messages can be delivered in a TIF file format. Messages are decompressed using TrueSpeech, which is widely supported on most PCs running Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh operating systems. Digital Networking 17 November

6 Although Communité can use the VPIM to interface with legacy voice mail platforms, it doesn t require digital networking for Communité servers deployed across multiple sites within an organization. Instead, the Communité system leverages a single message store and centralized LDAP directory. Using this approach, Communité avoids the added network load caused by synchronizing message and user status information, which is required to keep message status up to date and consistent between two servers, and between the desktop and telephone modes found in dual message store environments. Communité therefore offers a range of communication solutions for distributed enterprises and hosting organizations, including the following features: Personal settings can be made via Web, desktop PC and telephone, plus optional wireless user interfaces. Status control status settings, such as Available, In a Meeting, Out of the Office and others, can be configured to cause unique call treatment, such as send directly to voice mail, forward or follow-me based on user selection. Presence and availability users have the ability to view the statuses of other users via the desktop PC, Web or optional wireless interface. Personal groups allows users to configure groups to view user status and perform message broadcast. Status-based personal greetings based on configured statuses, Communité system can prompt play status-based greetings to outside callers, such as Joe Jones is in a meeting until 2 p.m. Automatic call back/reply from the telephone user interface, users can press 5 to automatically reply to a voice mail message or call back to an originating number. Forward includes the ability to forward messages to other users, personal contacts or broadcast lists. Personal prompts provides the ability to record a personal name and voice mail greeting. Auto-attendant offers an automated IVR capability to allow extension, dial-by-name and department dialing. User tutorial nonactivated mailboxes prompt new users to assist them with setting up their voice mailboxes. Message management enables retrieve, play, delete, forward, save or reply to messages functions. Forward faxes enables the forwarding of fax messages to nearby fax machines or other users. Configure personal message notification enables personalized routing for pager, telephone number to call or addresses. File-Based Messaging Communité offers an enhanced file-based platform that allows voice mail and fax messages to be stored and accessed via traditional file servers. This capability supports voice mail retrieval and fax management by using a TUI. In addition, fax messages can be redirected from the TUI to ad hoc or pre-set fax numbers. Unified Messaging 17 November

7 Communité allows voice messages and fax messages to be delivered in the same user inbox along with messages, in an message format. The following features are available: Universal inbox users can access and manage voice mail, fax and messages from office telephones; cellular phones; wireless PDAs, such as Palm Pilots; and the BlackBerry, the desktop and Web-based user interfaces. Personal contacts users have the ability to add personal contacts that can be used in groups as well as when performing telephone dial-by-name from the TUI. Directory search allows users to conduct searches for status and information about other users. Integrated Communité Outlook icon enables users to easily manage personal options and configurations. Listen to messages using TTS from the telephone-user interface, users can listen to messages in order. folder access offers the ability to navigate sub-inboxes within Exchange and access sent message folders. Message Waiting Indication supports Message Waiting Indication (MWI) through PBX system integration for delivered message notification. This allows a message waiting light or stutter dial tone to be activated on a user s telephone on receipt of new messages. Message access via or the telephone automatically deactivates MWI. Personal notification settings can be configured to provide message waiting notification via other devices, such as pagers, addresses or cellular telephones. Reply to messages users can record a message and send it as a WAV file attachment to an message. Manage fax messages and play text as optional add-on, users can play message body via Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Delete all messages users can quickly delete all messages from the same sender or subject, such as message threads. Built-in voice mail form supports desktop voice message playback and control, voice message creation, call back and redirection form, and message playback to remote numbers, speakers or user extension. Included fax driver and viewer designed for viewing and sending fax messages from the desktop. Manage deleted messages users can restore and access deleted messages from the TUI. Unified Communications Interactive Intelligence also offers business applications integration and applications programming interface (API) software links that allow organizations to access business applications through a central unified communications solution. At its broadest level, unified communications supports user interaction with any content transmitted through any network to any device, any place, any time, via any media. It makes use of openness to achieve integration at the technical level, bringing together varied communications technologies, including unified messaging, into a coherent architecture. Examples include: 17 November

8 Multimedia messaging Wireline and wireless real-time voice communications Paging Conferencing Information sharing Group applications Directory applications Specifically, Communité provides a number of integrated unified communications functions using a single server, including the following: Find-me/Follow-me to two or more pre-configured numbers. User call screening through recorded caller names and real-time call management. This capability allows users to answer, transfer or send incoming calls to voice mail. Calendar access allows users to listen to appointments for specific days. Call rules allows call-handling exceptions based on calls coming from specific telephone numbers or contacts, such as send to voice mail or transfer to a specific telephone number. Fax rules offers the ability to specify conditions such as date/time, status and originating telephone numbers to cause unique actions, like forward or notify, for fax messages. Notification rules offers the ability to specify conditions such as date/time, status and originating telephone numbers to cause unique notification actions, like notify via pager or phone, for delivered messages. Outbound dialing while retrieving messages from the telephone user interface, users can initiate return calls automatically based on originating numbers, user extension or ad hoc. Additionally, users can access company directories and personal contacts via dial-by-name to allow outbound call initiation. Desktop voice mail and controls users can record, send and broadcast voice mail messages, reply and forward with a voice recording and even initiate ad hoc calls from a desktop toolbar add-in. (See thefigure Vox Form Toolbar. ) Figure 1: Vox Form Toolbar 17 November

9 Source: Interactive Intelligence Wireless Unified Communications Interactive Intelligence offers an optional upgrade that adds wireless access to Communité s unified communications features and settings, including: Directory services for user information and status. Voice mail and fax message management for message listening, forwarding and reply. Personal settings to control personal settings and configuration options. Status changing to control call handling and greetings. IVR The optional Interactive Intelligence Vocalité IVR application for customer self-service and related-service needs enables customers to interact with an organization using natural language speech input. Other features include TTS and multilingual capabilities with customized menu choices to allow departmental dialing and automated data-driven menus. Integrated e-faq Option Integration of the Interactive Intelligence e-faq solution adds an easy-to-use icon that allows Communité to handle frequently asked questions and issue FAQ auto responses. PBX and IP Integration Communité supports a variety of telephony boards from Intel Dialogic and Aculab to allow traditional PBX or public switched telephone network (PSTN) connectivity. Additionally, Communité has the ability to trigger MWI and support integration with most major traditional PBX systems and IP PBX platforms from manufacturers such as: Avaya Cisco Inter-Tel Fujitsu Harris Mitel NEC Nortel Networks Siemens Enterprise Networks Centrex integration is also supported with central office-based switches from Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks and Ericsson. System Administration Communité ships with Web-based administration. These Web pages allow the administrator to manage all aspects of the Communité users from a browser. This allows the administrator to browse any part of 17 November

10 the LDAP infrastructure for users that he or she would like to provision as Communité users. It also supports bulk provisioning to speed the cut-over process when migrating groups of users to UM/Unified Communications (UC). Alternatively, Communité includes import scripts that can be used to support bulk imports that will allow user databases in various formats to be batch imported/added to Active Directory vs. manually inputting users. Multitenant organization and suborganizations can also be created and issued inherited rights for services and privileges. Communité-specific attributes are stored in their own container, which does not adversely impact performance of Activity Directory for other applications. (See thefigure Administration Screen. ) Figure 2: Administration Screen Source: Interactive Intelligence Network Management and Monitoring Communité integrates with SNMP*-based products to support network management and monitoring functions with software tools, such as NetIQ, Tivoli and HP OpenView. *Signaling Network Management Protocol. Reports With Communité, reporting details and statistics are logged and stored in a central database, such as Structured Query Language (SQL) or Oracle. A number of standard or custom reports can be generated using third-party reporting software, such as Crystal Reports. 17 November

11 Customization Tool Communité supports an application customization tool to modify established logic and build entirely new applications. This customization tool features a graphical logic flow interface that allows for customization of established logic flows through the use of tool steps that can be selected from a tool palette. For example, customers can incorporate unique database and LDAP queries, use telephony tools for dualtone multifrequency (DTMF) inputs or add or change voice prompts, use , fax, Extensible Markup Language (XML) and various tools to interface with nontelephony systems to build or modify established functionality or build new applications. (See the figure Interaction Designer. ) Figure 3: Interaction Designer Source: Interactive Intelligence Speech Recognition and TTS Communité can interface with speech recognition engines, including Nuance. A packaged interface that leverages this technology is planned for mid To support high-quality TTS for playback and dynamic prompt playback, most verified SAPI 5 engines can be utilized and run on the same server as Communité or supported in a TTS farm for larger implementations. Pricing Pricing for Communité is based on options selected. Base voice mail-only systems (25 users with eight ports) start at about $24,000 (28,320 euros) and include budgetary pricing integration services and 17 November

12 certified hardware. List price ranges from $45-$125 ( euros) per user and $1,000 (1,180 euros) per port for software components. Final pricing is dependent on final configuration. Table 2: Price List: Interactive Intelligence Communité Base System Description Includes Voice Mail and Auto Attendant List Price US$ (European Euro) 8 ports and 25 users $7,725 (9,116 euros) 12 ports and 300 users $23,900 (28,202 euros) 72 ports and 3,000 users $170,120 (200,742 euros) Table 3: Price List: Interactive Intelligence Communité Options Description Additional TTS Sessions UM Right to Use per User VPIM Networking Redundant Server Software Components Fax Components IVR List Price US$ (European Euro) Vendor Specific. Standard TTS (Microsoft SAPI 5) is included with each Communité server and upgrade TTS vendors (for example, Loquendo) start at $700 (826 euros) per dynamically allocated session. Starts at $60 (71.80 euros) per user plus applicable ports at approx. $1,000 (1,180 euros) per port. Included in base licensing. Optional with pricing dependent on servers selected. Interaction Designer Tool $5,000 (5,900 euros) List, there are a number of alternative per-server options, such as Advanced fax, OCR and speech recognition, that can be added as well. Fax per user license starting at $15.00 (17.70 euros) per named user. Included, but may require per-server license for tools (for example, Database Access Tools) that cost $7,500 (8,850 euros) per server. GSA Pricing Pending. Competitors Communité 2.2 competes with unified messaging systems, such as the following: Active Voice Repartee VM for Windows 2000, Repartee UC for Windows 2000, Repartee LX and Kinesis Avaya INTUITY Server and Modular Messaging Applied Voice and Speech Technologies (AVST) CallXpress* Cisco Systems Unity Key Voice Interchange Nortel Networks CallPilot** Siemens HiPath Xpressions v.3.0 TOPCALL Unified Messenger *CallXpress product line sold to AVST in September 2003 by Captaris. 17 November

13 **Does not support integration with third-party PBX systems, such as those from Avaya, Mitel, NEC and Siemens Strengths Communité is based on an open system concept that provides integration and access to many traditional, IP and wireless interfaces. Communité utilizes a single message store standardized around or a file-server vs. the dualmessage store approach used by traditional voice mail providers. Communité is highly scalable because user records are stored in a centralized directory server, such as Active Directory. Communité supports the two-way VPIM protocol to allow the forwarding, replying and broadcasting of messages across a WAN/LAN to a VPIM-capable voice mail platform in a multivendor environment. Integrated unified communications and real-time call control features are supported on a single server. Integrated fax messaging and wireless access are supported on the same server. The single-message store eliminates the need to administer and manage multiple directories and message stores. By default Communité supports the TrueSpeech compression method that allows voice mail compression of WAV files down to 1.1 kilobytes per second, which reduces transmission time and storage space. Communité s architecture is especially suited for widely distributed corporate organizations. Many telephony interfaces are supported, including Aculab, Intel, TAPI and SIP. Communité s software-only approach is intended to save hardware and administration expense. Applications development (AD) or LDAP directory interface used to look up addresses and extension numbers enables administrators to maintain only one directory for voice, and fax mailboxes. Single-point administration is possible from anywhere on an enterprise intranet or the Internet. If the server should be out of service for some reason, messages are queued for delivery, and when the server becomes available, they will be deposited and not lost. An optional message store can be used to allow for retrieval of messages even in the event the production server is unavailable. TTS is currently available in Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish Argentine, Spanish Castilian, Spanish Mexican, U.K. English and U.S. English. Limitations A packaged speech recognition interface is not currently available, although one is planned for mid November

14 Communité doesn t support graphical user interface (GUI) emulation of telephone functionality, such as the ability for users to dial, answer, transfer, hold, screen and conference calls by clicking and dragging a mouse. Custom integration is required to support industry-standard Audio Messaging Interchange System (AMIS). Prioritizing the listening of messages using TTS in combination with the TUI is not available. Recommended Gartner Research Gartner Voice Mail and Unified Messaging Systems: Comparison Columns, DPRO Insight Communité Unified Messaging enables companies to utilize their established network analysis and administration tools for all aspects of information technology, including telephony, thereby improving their return on investment. The system is a true software solution that leverages best-of-breed platforms, file servers, reporting packages, standards and hardware. Communité eliminates duplicate expenses and administrative processes by allowing user information and attributes to be stored and managed in a centralized or replicated LDAP/Active Directory server. Lastly, the open architecture of Communité allows for not only scalability with distributed large-scale organizations but also continued integration with future standards-based platforms and applications. 17 November