Nortel Web Center Portal User manual

Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center
Portal
Planning and Engineering Guide
Product release 4.0/SU05 Standard 2.0 July 2004
297-2183-115

Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Planning and Engineering Guide
Publication number: 297-2183-115
Product release: 4.0
Document release: Standard 2.0
Date: July 2004
Copyright © 2004 Nortel Networks, All Rights Reserved
Information is subject to change without notice. Nortel Networks reserves the right to make changes
in design or components as progress in engineering and manufacturing may warrant.
The process of transmitting data and call messaging between the Meridian 1 and Symposium Web
Center Portal is proprietary to Nortel Networks. Any other use of the data and the transmission
process is a violation of the user license unless specifically authorized in writing by Nortel Networks
prior to such use. Violations of the license by alternative usage of any portion of this process or the
related hardware constitutes grounds for an immediate termination of the license and Nortel
Networks reserves the right to seek all allowable remedies for such breach.
*Nortel Networks, the Nortel Networks logo, the Globemark, Meridian, Meridian 1, Succession, and
Symposium are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
ADOBE, ACROBAT, and ACROBAT READER are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
APACHE is a trademark of Apache Micro Peripherals, Inc.
MICROSOFT and WINDOWS are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
PCANYWHERE is a trademark of Symantec Corporation.
SYBASE is a trademark of Sybase, Inc.

Planning and Engineering Guide v
Publication history
July 2004 The Standard 2.0 version of the Nortel Networks Symposium
Web Center Portal Planning and Engineering Guide, Release
4.0, is released.
November 2003 The Standard 1.0 version of the Nortel Networks Symposium
Web Center Portal Planning and Engineering Guide, Release
4.0, is released.

vi Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Publication history Standard 2.0

Planning and Engineering Guide vii
Contents
1Getting started 9
About this guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Skills you need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
About Symposium Web Center Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Planning your Symposium Web Center Portal system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
What’s new in this release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2Planning and engineering 23
Windows networking requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
System network configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
E-mail server requirements for Symposium Web Center Portal . . . . . . . . . . 30
Engineering the switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
TAPI requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Contact center planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
External Web server integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Planning the Dynamic Transaction Handler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
TAPI license requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
DTH traffic model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Other parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Symposium Web Center Portal database and disk capacity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Symposium Web Center Portal Performance Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
ATelephony calculations 75
Using Erlang B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Glossary 77
Index 87

viii Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Contents Standard 2.0

Planning and Engineering Guide 9
Chapter 1
Getting started
In this chapter
About this guide 10
Skills you need 12
About Symposium Web Center Portal 13
Planning your Symposium Web Center Portal system 20
What’s new in this release 21

10 Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Getting started Standard 2.0
About this guide
Introduction
This guide includes the engineering guidelines that will help you to successfully
prepare for the installation of Symposium Web Center Portal.
Distribution of this guide
This document is available only in electronic Portable Document Format (.pdf)
file format on the documentation CD-ROM that is supplied with the Symposium
Web Center Portal Release 4.0/SU05 software.
You can view this guide online using Acrobat Reader, or you can print the guide
in whole or in part for individual use.
Related documentation
To install Symposium Web Center Portal, refer to the Nortel Networks
Symposium Web Center Portal Installation and Administration Guide.
To learn how to use the Agent Interface, refer to the following guides, which are
available on the documentation CD-ROM:
!Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal Installation and
Administration Guide
!Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal User Guide for Agents
!Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal User Guide for Supervisors
Online Help
Symposium Web Center Portal Release 4.0/SU05 software provides the
following online Help:
!Symposium Web Center Portal Release 4.0/SU05 online Help for
administrators
!Symposium Web Center Portal Release 4.0/SU05 online Help for agents

Planning and Engineering Guide 11
July 2004 Getting started
!Symposium Web Center Portal Release 4.0/SU05 online Help for
customers
Assumptions
This guide does not provide installation or configuration instructions for
Symposium Web Center Portal or any of the required third-party applications.
For instructions, refer to the documentation that comes with the applications.
Who should read this guide
This guide is intended for the following types of readers:
!system designers who are responsible for planning and provisioning a
Symposium Web Center Portal system
!engineers who are responsible for configuring the switch for Symposium
Web Center Portal
!administrators who are responsible for configuring TAPI for use with
Symposium Web Center Portal
Technical support
Nortel Networks provides support during the installation and configuration of
Symposium Web Center Portal, and answers questions about the operating
system requirements and pcAnywhere.

12 Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Getting started Standard 2.0
Skills you need
You must have knowledge of and experience with the following concepts and
applications to successfully install and configure Symposium Web Center
Portal:
!telephony concepts
!database concepts
!Internet and e-mail concepts and protocols
!Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Windows networking concepts
!your company’s network configuration
!Symposium Call Center Server or Symposium Express Call Center
concepts
!Nortel Networks TAPI configuration tools
!switch administration overlays and procedures

Planning and Engineering Guide 13
July 2004 Getting started
About Symposium Web Center Portal
Introduction
Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal is a client/server contact center
application that expands contact center capabilities to handle multimedia
contacts, including e-mails and web forms. Unlike a conventional e-mail system,
which directs e-mail contacts to a single e-mail account, Symposium Web
Center Portal directs them to a skillset, or a group of qualified agents. The
contact is then handled by the first available agent in the skillset. If more than
one agent is available, the contact is routed to the agent with the highest priority
for the skillset.
Symposium Web Center Portal provides enhanced routing, tracking, and
reporting of Internet transactions, which consist of the initial contact plus your
agents’ responses. It allows you to measure and control the volume of traffic
from the Internet. Supervisors and administrators can view real-time displays of
contact center activities and run historical reports.
The Agent Interface presents agents with a browser-based graphical user
interface. Symposium Web Center Portal agents can respond to contacts through
a variety of media, including callback responses, e-mail, Internet text chat, and
form sharing.
The Portal Desktop software provides an automated response feature to
eliminate repetitive actions, such as addressing an e-mail or typing a common
response in text chat. As a result, it can reduce agents’ handling time, fatigue,
and mistakes.
System components
Symposium Web Center Portal Release 4.0 consists of the elements shown in the
diagram on the following page. These elements are described in the following
sections.

14 Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Getting started Standard 2.0
Meridian 1/
Succession 1000
Switch
PSTN
Portal
Desktop Telephone
Customer
Portal
Desktop
Symposium
Call
Center
Server
TAPI
Server
ELAN
CLAN
Existing Call
Center Solution
Symposium Web Center Portal Portal Server
Email Manager
Transaction
Monitor
Portal
Administrator
DTH
Rules
Engine
IMH
OMH
Database
OA&M
HDX Client
Agent Interface
E-Mail Server
POP3
SMTP
DTH
Lines
External Web Server
Internet-based Customers
Web
E-mail Transaction
E-mail
Customer
Java Business
Objects
Web
Communications
Customer
Interface
Web
Customer

Planning and Engineering Guide 15
July 2004 Getting started
Portal Server
The Symposium Web Center Portal server contains the following
subcomponents:
!Database—The component that stores all contact center data (including
e-mails, web requests, and all of the associated responses) in a structured
format.
!Agent Interface—A browser-based application that allows agents to receive
multimedia customer inquiries and e-mail messages from the Web. Agents
can respond to contacts by telephone or e-mail from the Agent Workbook.
Agents can use the Agent Workbook to view, sort, and select transactions;
to log fax, mail, and courier responses; and to maintain customer
information.
!Transaction Monitor—The component that tracks the transactions. A
transaction consists of the contact (the initial e-mail or web form) plus any
responses.
!Dynamic Transaction Handler (DTH)—The component that controls the
Phantom (virtual) TNs in the telephony switch through TAPI. The DTH
presents multimedia contacts to Symposium Call Center Server to queue,
route, and report on in the same way as Symposium Call Center Server
handles voice contacts.
!Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OA&M)—The interface that
allows Symposium Web Center Portal to access information in the
Symposium Call Center Server database, including configured agents,
supervisors, skillsets, and agent to skillset mapping.
!HDX client—The interface to the Symposium Call Center Server
component that allows multimedia contacts to be routed based on skillset,
preferred agent ID, and so on.
!Portal Administrator—The component that provides administrative and
management capabilities. It can be installed on the Symposium Web Center
Portal server or on both the Portal Server and a separate PC for remote
access.
!Email Manager—The component that connects to the e-mail server at
regular intervals to access all of the configured mailboxes. E-mails from the
customer are read from the e-mail server, processed, and then stored in the
database. It generates outgoing e-mails from the e-mail responses stored in

16 Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Getting started Standard 2.0
the database, and sends them to the e-mail server. The Email Manager
contains the following subcomponents:
!Rules Engine—The component that executes rules relevant to the e-mail
(based on To address, and so on). The rules determine the skillset to
which the contact is queued, as well as assigning priority.
!Inbound Message Handler (IMH)—The component that retrieves
inbound e-mails from the e-mail server and stores them in the
Symposium Web Center Portal database. The IMH connects to the e-
mail server using the POP3 protocol; therefore, it supports any POP3-
capable server, including Short Message Service (SMS) and fax servers.
Note: Release 4.0 SU05 supports connection to multiple servers on a
per-mailbox basis. (That is, for each mailbox, you can define the e-mail
server from which e-mails are retrieved.)
!Outbound Message Handler (OMH)—The component that logs on to
the e-mail server, using the SMTP protocol, and sends any outbound
automated responses.
Portal Desktop
This component provides the logon and telephony integration with the Agent
Interface.
External Web server
This component contains the following subcomponents:
!Java business objects—A Java API that writes contacts into the Symposium
Web Center Portal database, retrieves them from the database, and queries
their status. The Java API is detailed in a JavaDocs set distributed with the
Java archive (JAR) file containing the API.
!Web Communications—An optional component that allows agents and
customers to communicate using Internet text chat, push web pages to each
other, and share forms.
!Customer Interface—A component set up on the External Web server. The
Customer Interface consists of customized web pages that interact with the
Symposium Web Center Portal database. Sample Customer Interface pages
are provided with Symposium Web Center Portal.

Planning and Engineering Guide 17
July 2004 Getting started
Processing multimedia contacts
Symposium Web Center Portal receives multimedia contacts through two
external interface points: the e-mail server and the External Web server.
Symposium Web Center Portal can present calls to Symposium Call Center
Server in two different modes: push mode (recommended) and pull mode.
E-mail server transactions
E-mail server transactions are retrieved from a POP3 capable e-mail server using
the Inbound Message Handler (IMH). The IMH runs at regular intervals. You
can configure the settings for the IMH (such as the time between intervals and
the number of e-mails retrieved from each mailbox during each run) through the
Portal Administrator.
The IMH logs on to the mailboxes on the e-mail server as listed in the Email
Manager. It parses e-mails in the mailboxes and stores them in the Symposium
Web Center Portal database. Any attachments associated with the e-mails are
stored in the Inbound attachment folder, as specified in the Portal Administrator.
Once an e-mail is successfully stored in the Symposium Web Center Portal
database, it is deleted from the e-mail server.
The IMH passes a received e-mail to the Symposium Web Center Portal rules
engine, which executes any rules relevant to the e-mail (based on the To address,
and so on) and invokes the Outbound Message Handler (OMH) to send any
necessary auto-responses.
Once the IMH process is complete, the OMH logs on to the e-mail server and
sends any automated outbound e-mails (auto-responses) through the SMTP
protocol.
External Web server transactions
Symposium Web Center Portal also receives contacts from the External Web
server through the Symposium Web Center Portal Java business objects. The
Java business objects provide a Java API, which allows contacts to be written
into the Symposium Web Center Portal database, retrieved from the database,
and then have their status queried.
Contacts received through the Java business objects are not passed through the
Rules Engine. The External Web server determines the skillset and priority
assigned to the contact.

18 Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Getting started Standard 2.0
A set of sample pages is distributed with Symposium Web Center Portal to
provide Java Server Pages (JSP) script examples of how a Web server can access
the Java business objects. You must have a web developer to create your own
web pages, with their own look, feel, and business logic.
Presentation to Symposium Call Center Server: push mode
Once the contacts are placed in the Symposium Web Center Portal database, the
DTH and the Transaction Monitor manage their presentation to Symposium Call
Center Server for routing to agents. The system performs the following tasks:
!At regular intervals, the DTH sorts new contacts in the database by
Transaction ID (the row number of the contact in the Transaction table of
the database) and Priority (assigned by the rules engine for e-mails and by
the web server business logic for web contacts).
!The contacts are pushed into the Symposium Call Center Server system
through calls originated from the Phantom TNs assigned to the DTH. They
are routed to a CDN, and then to scripting. At this point scripting may
invoke an HDX exchange to retrieve further routing information (such as
skillset, preferred agent ID, and so on) from the Symposium Web Center
Portal database. Based on this information, the contacts are routed to the
appropriate agents.
Note: HDX is not supported with Symposium Express Call Center.
!The Transaction Monitor tracks contacts that are routed to Symposium Call
Center Server. If their related Phantom calls are disconnected by
Symposium Call Center Server, the Transaction Monitor ensures that these
contacts are presented to Symposium Call Center Server again.
Push mode is the most efficient way of processing contacts.
Presentation to Symposium Call Center Server: pull mode
In pull mode, agents select transactions from the Agent Workbook; transactions
are not routed to them by Symposium Call Center Server. Pull mode can be used
in two ways:
!For pending transactions only. Agents work mostly in push mode, but can
pull contacts that are in a pending state—for example, when a customer
calls to follow up on the status of an e-mail. (This is the recommended
method for working with pull mode.)

Planning and Engineering Guide 19
July 2004 Getting started
!For all transactions. The DTH is disabled, and agents use the Agent
Workbook to pull contacts from the list presented to them in the Workbook.
This list only contains the contacts assigned to skillsets to which the agents
belong.
For information about configuring Symposium Web Center Portal for push and
pull mode, refer to the Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Installation and Administration Guide. For more information about using the
Agent Workbook in push and pull mode, refer to the Nortel Networks
Symposium Web Center Portal User Guide for Agents.
Integration with Symposium Call Center Server
The Symposium Web Center Portal system is integrated directly with
Symposium Call Center Server through the OA&M interface and (optionally)
through the Host Data Exchange (HDX). The OA&M interface allows
Symposium Web Center Portal to access the information in Symposium Call
Center Server about configured agents, supervisors, skillsets, and the mapping
of these users to skillsets. The HDX interface allows you to route calls to
different skillsets based on data such as skillset, preferred agent ID, and so on,
obtained from the Symposium Web Center Portal database.
Notes:
!HDX is not supported with Symposium Express Call Center.
!You can use Symposium Web Center Portal with either Symposium Call
Center Server 04.02.06 Revision 3 with SU09 (NS040206SU09S [or
later]) or Symposium Express Call Center 04.02.06 (or later).
Integration with TAPI
Symposium Web Center Portal is integrated with the TAPI server through the
Dynamic Transaction Handler (DTH). The DTH controls the Phantom (virtual)
TNs in the telephony switch through TAPI. The DTH presents multimedia
contacts to Symposium Call Center Server to queue, route, and report in the
same way as Symposium Call Center Server handles voice contacts. TAPI call
data identifies the Symposium Web Center Portal contact for the associated call.
The Portal Desktop then uses this data to route the contact to the appropriate
agent.
Note: You must use TAPI Service Provider 3.0.

20 Nortel Networks Symposium Web Center Portal
Getting started Standard 2.0
Planning your Symposium Web Center Portal
system
When you are planning your system, you must consider the following details:
!The platform requirements. For more information, refer to the Nortel
Networks Symposium Portfolio Server and Operating System Requirements
Guide (P-2003-0381-Global). This document is available on the Partner
Information Center (PIC) web site, in the location
Products by Brand (Documentation) / Symposium Web Center Portal
!The system network configuration. For more information, refer to “System
network configuration” on page 26.
!The e-mail server configuration and mailbox requirements. For more
information, refer to “E-mail server requirements for Symposium Web
Center Portal” on page 30.
!The Meridian 1/Succession 1000 configuration requirements. For more
information, refer to “Engineering the switch” on page 32.
Note: Unless otherwise specified, references to the Succession 1000 switch
also apply to the Succession 1000M switch.
!The skillset requirements for the system and routing requirements within
Symposium Web Center Portal and in Symposium Call Center Server
scripting. For more information, refer to “Contact center planning” on page
54.
!Integration of the customer’s Web server with the Symposium Web Center
Portal Java business objects. For more information, refer to “External Web
server integration” on page 58.
!The TAPI configuration of DTH lines (Phantom lines) and the Agent
Desktops. For more information, refer to “TAPI license requirements” on
page 61.
!The server requirements depend on agent numbers and anticipated
transaction volume. Storage space must take into account the space
requirements for attachments to e-mails. For more information, refer to
“Symposium Web Center Portal database and disk capacity” on page 69.