Nortel i2050 SoftPhone - Where is TN stored?

[DameSlap]

Hello all,

We're using about 50 Nortel i2050 SoftPhones in our call centre and have implemented a rudimentary click-to-dial function in our intranet site using TAPI, whereby our users can look up customer details and when they find them simply click a link to have our Succession switch dial and connect the call to their SoftPhone.

However, it relies on the user having set their TN number correctly at the beginning of their session and currently we have to do this manually.

What I'd likt to know is:

Does anyone know where in the registry / file system, the softphone software stores the current / last known TN number?

If we start the softphone software for the first time on any machine we have to set the TN manually (66-12 for example), but subsequently, unless you interrupt it, the next time you start the software it "remembers" that you last chose to use TN number 66-12.

This suggests it is amongst the acres of hex stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Nortel Networks\Soft Phone\ but we've really looked hard and can't find anything that looks even vaguely like the TN numbers we set.

It would be really useful if we could identify it (it's definitely being stored somewhere!) because we've found we can't rely on the users to identify and enter their TN correctly, which results in calls being connected to the wrong SoftPhone (and therefore irate customers).

Any help very much appreciated.

 

[DameSlap]

Hmm...

Just done some more testing. I ran a packet capture, limited to traffic to and from my own workstation, then ran up the SoftPhone software.

It seems that the server is telling the SoftPhone which TN it last used, I can actually see a packet from the server to the softphone containing the TN.

That's going to put a spanner in the works ...

 

[Riaanl]

Where are you situated?????we have a simmilar setup here

 

[acewarlock]

If your using the word spanner, it has to be the UK.

 

[DameSlap]

Yes indeed, SouthWest UK.

I'm now certain that the server is supplying the SoftPhone with it's last known TN number. That should have made things fairly easy, except for the fact that the server is not part of our domain (installed by third-party with the rest of the phone system), so we can't pull the information directly from it.

At the moment we are looking at maintaining a manual list of hostnames against TN numbers that our web application can do lookups against in order to chieve this.

Not the best, but time is pressing.

 

[Riaanl]

Just trying to understand what u wanna do. Do you want the PC to remember what the tn info is everytime the user logs in?

 

[DameSlap]

No, it's not that. The SoftPhone already "remembers" the last TN it used (in fact, it's told that by the server when it connects).

Our call centre staff use an IIS based intranet application, developed by us to update customer information. When they look up customer info, we have given them the option to click a "Call this customer now" button. When the user clicks on the link, the web server sends a request to our TAPI server asking the Succession switch to dial [customer number] and connect it to [TN Number].

At the moment though, we are relying on the users to enter their TN number (through another page in our intranet application) correctly. The page then makes them a cookie, which is used later to supply TN to the TAPI server when the user clicks on the "Call this customer now" link.

Really we'd like to take this part away from the users, so the system automatically works out what their TN is, but it doesn't seem to be stored locally on the PC, and because we can't interact with the SOftphone server (cause its in another domain) we can't get the list off that either.

Sadly, I think the answer is:

1. Maintain a manual list of PC hostnames against TN number
or
2. Get a trust relationship between the Succession server and our domain so we can query the list on that.

Netiher is much fun.

 

[Riaanl]

We have exactly the same setup here - Called Click and Dial - It works fine here. When the users click on the number it start dialing.
How is the Web Page written? HTML?
Maybe I can speak to one of the developers.....

 

[DameSlap]

Thanks Very much Riaanl,

The page is ASP. The bit I'd be very interested in, is how, when your users click the "dial" link, the web server tells TAPI which TN number to connect the call to.

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Riaanl]

Question. Do you make use of ADS?

 

[DameSlap]

Yes, we do have Active Directory Service within our own domain. At the moment, the servers that make up the phone system are in a seperate (untrusted) AD.

 

[Riaanl]

Not active directory - we make use of something called agent dialer. Its developed by a third pary company - it works in conjunction with ICM. This is to replace symposium