Recording live voice calls

[snootalope]

hello

I'm researching what can give me the ability to record live voice calls that are coming through our CCM's.. Or, better yet, actually be able to listen to a live call that is between an off-net caller and an internal caller..

I see that Cisco Customer Responce Apps's does voice recording, but I don't think it has everything I need..

Anyone know what the best software is for this??

thanks
-snoots

 

[Dunstan]

I would look at Nice systems

http://www.nice.com

 

[BuckWeet]

the NICE system will give it to you at PRI/T1 level, if thats what you would like..

BuckWeet

 

[snootalope]

I don't understand.. "at the PRI/T1 level" I'm talking abouit something that'll run parallel to the CCM's. That's why i was inquiring into the Cisco Customer Response App, it says it'll do some of what i want. I'll have to check into that Nice system. But, that doesn't replace our CCM's right?

 

[BuckWeet]

No, it works with the CCM.. basically your PRI/T1's pass through it, then it records it at that level, not at an IP packet level..


BuckWeet

 

[Dunstan]

It can be configured in many different ways but it is an adjunct as Buckweet said. In this case you would record trunk side (if I understand your needs correctly). That is what BuckWeet is speaking to when he says at the T-1/PRI level.

 

[snootalope]

anyone got an idea on the price range i'm gonna be lookin at with that NICE software? just so i don't have to get some sales rep from there callin me every 20 minutes...

snoots

 

[AdmanOK]

If they keep calling you back every 20 minutes then you're being way to nice when they call... may favorite thing to do after a couple of call backs is to tell them that I have their number to call them when *I* am ready to do something, and if *THEY* call me again without me having called them first they can forget about *EVER* making a sale.

 

[Dunstan]

It is not cheap...That said it is one of the best available. Cost is based on how many and types of PIPES and or bells and whisltes. It is almost impossible to give you just an avg price.

 

[scaine]

You should also look at the Witness system - ContactStore 7.2. We've been using it for the past year. It was pretty unreliable until 7.2, but so far around 6 months without a problem (touch wood!).

Cost for a dual-resilient system based on 70 channels of PRI over 3 circuits was around £60K. That didn't include the servers that they are running on, but did include a secondary ContactStore "lite" software license which you would likely not need.

Nice, at the time, were much more expensive and the best they could do a year ago was price-match Witness.

There are two methods for call recording. Witness uses "mirror" ports (SPAN or MONITOR ports in Cisco terminology) to record both the SKINNY protocol and the PRI E1 traffic. Then, you tell it to record a list of extensions. When the Witness system sees a call you have asked it to record - bang! It becomes a wav file on a SQL-indexed file system. An excellent web based front end allows administrators to play back calls. Also, since it's web-based, you can also create user accounts to allow standard users to play back only their own calls. It's fairly versatile.

Nice, on the other hand only use one SPAN port, for the E1 traffic. They use a CTI route point to monitor when to start recording the E1 taffic. I'm not sure what the front end is like either.

Also, not sure if Nice support the "instant record" feature of Witness. This is a feature whereby you add a "record this call" to the user in question's phone. Effectively, the Witness system records every phone they make from that point on, but then deletes the recording at the end of the call /unless/ they press the "record this call" button. Usefully, this model of recording allows you to press the button at the end of the call, but still preserve the recording from the very beginning.

Hope this helps.

 

[snootalope]

Thanks Scaine, I'll check that out..

The problem i'm running into with a few different vedors now is that they all seem to only offer Enterprise-wide worthy programs. Programs for monitoring call centers with hundreds and hundreds of phones. I'm needing this stuff to record maybe 8 users at the most.. There's gotta be something simple, cheap, and resource friendly out there. If not, i'm gonna design the damn thing myself and market it cause this is rediculous!!

--snoots

 

[scaine]

Aye, it's true - Nice and Witness are the big boys out there.

I remember a linux program which did the same thing - basically just a packet to wav assembler. It's delightfully called "Vomit".

Maybe worth googling that to see if anyone has taken this little app further - it was no more than a basic shell script when I heard about it a year or so ago.

Good luck.

 

[snootalope]

yeah..a simple google turned it up.. Vomit is still kickin, but only for *nix. I'm an MS only shop right now :-(

snoots

 

[commsguy]

i have tested CallRex and it worked pretty well. I don't care much for the interface but it was cheap.

commsguy

http://www.convetech.com

 

[bombacm]

You can use a basic sniffer and save the file as a .cap file. Inside Unity there is a program called cap ripper. Here are in the instructions:

Create a .cap file containing RTP audio by using NetMon or Sniffer Pro.

Step 2 Copy the .cap file to the \CommServer\Utilities\Audio directory on the Cisco Unity server.

Step 3 At a command prompt, browse to the \CommServer\Utilities\Audio directory, and enter capripper <Name of .cap file>.

For example, enter capripper capture1.cap.

WAV file output is generated for each unique IP source/destination combination. For example:

Creating 10.93.248.235(31640) to 10.93.248.227(22818).wav

Creating 10.93.248.227(22816) to 10.93.248.235(31640).wav

Step 4 Use the -s option to provide additional troubleshooting information about timing delays and sequencing of packets. For example, enter capripper -s capture1.cap.

The output shows detailed information from each of the WAV files. For example:

10.93.248.235(31640) to 10.93.248.227(22818).wav
RTP packets processed 275
Start seq 4881 End seq 5155
Format g729a
No packets out of sequence
Avg. time between packets 20.03ms
Longest packet delay 20ms
Total frames in .cap file 1433

Step 5 If you receive the error message "No voice RTP packets found" when attempting to extract audio from a .cap file, verify that the capture file you are working with contains RTP packets.

If you are using a NetMon capture, and you are sure that the file contains RTP data, it may be possible that the starting offset of the capture data could not be determined. Use the -d option to view the binary data. For example, enter capripper -d netmon.cap.

A sample section of the output shows the following information:

000000A0 98 05 00 00 8D 7F 02 00 00 00 00 00 CE 01 00 00 ................
000000B0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 29 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........).......
000000C0 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF ................
000000D0 FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 C8 4A 02 00 00 00 00 00 .........J......
000000E0 3C 00 00 00 3C 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 02 <...<...........
000000F0 A5 07 2A 18 08 06 00 01 08 00 ..*.......

Step 6 To determine the starting offset, subtract 8 bytes from the first of two repeating DWORD values that you see in the .cap file. In the preceding example, the 3C value repeats on line E0. Note that the numbers in the file are in hex, and that there are 16 bytes displayed on each line. Eight bytes back from the first repeating DWORD value 0x3C is at 0x000000E0. Therefore, the starting offset of the first packet is
0xE0 - 8 = 0xD8 or 216.

Step 7 Indicate the starting offset obtained in Step 6 with the -o option. For example, enter capripper -o 216 netmon.cap.

The output will show the delay and packet sequencing information