Need some info ASAP on upgrading to Aspect IP suites please help!

[hirobb]

Hi folks,

Apologies for the long post. My request really is ASAP as I need to know some bits for tomorrow!!!!

Been an telephony professional for quite a few years now and up until 2008 worked constantly with Aspect ACD (8.4, 9.1x). the usual creating call routes, agent admin, upgrades etc etc.

Towards the end of 2008 I moved to a different company where while they did have an Aspect, it was an old 8.4 ACD, and was only for one site, they mainly used genesys and Nortel on the main sites which I supported from then. Unfortunately, I was made redundant by said company just before xmas. Being towards the end of financial year, then general election here in the UK, no one was hiring so I've had several months on the bench.

Anyway to my point.

I've got chance of a gig helping a company move from a Aspect ACD on to a Aspect IP only suite.

I know the Aspect IP stuff is a different kettle of fish to the old ACD, but having been benched for several months I'm a bit behind times with the latest and greatest Aspect docs and knowledge. I'm fairly confident with call routing, IP NIQ, director / producer, tables and fields and all that stuff, so it's stuff like what servers will be installed for the new IP stuff, config of softphones and that sort of thing I'm a bit hazy with.

I'm assuming the company are going from say 8.4 to 9.3, and I know Aspect themselves will do a lot of the work i.e installing the hardware etc etc

Looking on the Aspect support site for reading material has left me very confused as with all the products now on there I don't know where to start.

So I'm after a bit of general pointers from you experts on what products docs / implementation guides etc I should be reading up on. Really I'm after a general overview of the server estate on a Aspect IP site. So on 8.4 for example, you'd have the ACD running 8,4, Crystal Enterprise servers etc etc.

What does that estate look like after Aspect have been in and put in a IP contact centre.

Any help, pointers etc really gratefully appreciated. I have an interview tomorrow and really want to go in looking as professional and up to date as possible.

Kind regards.

Rob

 

[phrk]

Hi Rob,

Having been in the same boat, I can appreciate. I'm sure any organization upgrading from good old Aspect Call Center to the new Unified IP will be fortunate to have someone like you on-hand to assist, especially given your experience on their original ACD. The most important thing is a willingness to learn new things, because the learning curve is steep on this thing. The primary thing to remember is that there are no more CCTs. Yes, I don't know why they did away with them, but they did. CCTs are now accomplished basically in their IVR called M3, which is actually pretty nice. The concept of applications remains, but there are no longer agent groups or super groups. An agent group is now called a service. Services can be inbound or outbound and agents are either assigned directly to the services or assigned to skills which are assigned to services, or both. This is basically an outbound dialer with inbound functionality. There is still the concept of a canvas, but it is now called Unified Command and Control. The only bit of hardware besides the servers is a small card cage/gateway called a DCP which terminates the PRIs and VOIP Ethernet connections. The product is in perpetual change and sweeping changes are anticipated soon. The good news is is that in about a year you'll know as much as everyone else. The best thing to do is request a technical support account on the Aspect website:

http://portal3.aspect.com/AccountRequest/newcustomer.jsp

This is the only way to get to the documentation. You need your site's system ID. Even though the docs have inaccuracies and pale in comparison to technical documentation on past systems, it is required reading. You may also want to request a login for the user group, asuga.com which is also very good.

There's a lot more I could blab about, but the best thing is to keep your cool, look them in the eye, and tell them you know what you're doing. <Firm handshake>