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1. a ee ee G3 _________ and powerful scripting language CP Script as part of the product offer ing we think it would be worthwhile for TRT to consider adding VBA to its offering Such an addition would take advantage of VBA s popularity Other CommPoint s help screens left a lot to be desired Although online help was available for most of the windows the help screens were usually too brief There were also a few screens such as the Follow Me screen which did not offer any online help We look forward to a more complete help facility for CommPoint Occasionally the CommPoint server would report low resources Calling CommPoint support revealed that the Report Agent was the culprit and that shutting it down resolved the problem We were told that TRT is correcting this problem Finally the following items were unavailable in the product s current version but we were told by TRT that work is underway to eventually inte grate them into the product complete unified messaging including groupware integration such as Microsoft Exchange integration fax capability intelligent call queuing and basic ACD functionality and Web integration CONCLUSION CommPoint is a true client server based voice mail auto attendant applica tion utilizing the power of Windows NT 4 0 By design it allows for a scaleable voice messaging solution from the small company to the large enterprise The
2. In any event when we pushed the slider bar all the way to the left the accuracy decreased but the speed at which we could say a word and see it displayed on screen was improved The Wintop utility showed that CPU time allocated with this setting changed from 20 percent to 55 percent during test runs CTI July 1997 59 Yoirebe Hends Free Cidssan omputeton Level Phrases Cache Sire Background Nome Lowel quiet Pause between Words split phrases Figure 13 DragonDictate The centralized and user friendly options screen We found that keeping the slider bar a bit to the left of the center was best We bumped up the phrase cache which improved performance and helped coun teract recognition errors due to the lag poo and executives who use specialized terms in their day to day work can select a DragonPro module to enhance DragonDictate Each module contains 60 000 careful ly selected terms phrases abbrevia tions and proper names in addition to the base vocabulary These modules contain spelling pronunciation and language usage information to increase DragonDictate s accuracy and speed DragonLaw developed with West Publishing reflects case reports statutes contracts and other legal documents and opinions Latin terms are included The additional built in voice commands speed access to the popular WESTLAW and LEXIS NEXIS online research database 60 CTI July 1997
3. RATINGS 1 5 Installation 4 40 Documentation 4 95 Be There Features 4 80 GUI 4 75 Data Race Inc Security 4 95 12400 Network Boulevard San Antonio TX 78249 ees homes In fact a single standard Ph 210 263 2000 Fx 210 263 2075 analog phone line is all Be There E Mail mktgsales datarace com needs to compress and multiplex voice Web Site www datarace com fax and data The product s analog capability not only saves money it provides unprece elecommuting is now possible for dented flexibility Specifically it lets just about anyone thanks to Data employees access the corporate net Race s Be There Personal work not just from home but from any T Multiplexer This new product allows where If an employee can find a phone you to avoid the expense and hassle of on the road in a hotel wherever traditional telecommuting systems he or she can be at work which usually involve installing and Be There not only connects to your maintaining ISDN lines into employ corporate LAN it also connects to your Table 1 Be There Personal Multiplexer Server Four Versions BT 400 BT 800 BT 1600 BT 2420 8 000 analog 15 200 analog 28 800 analog 39 600 analog T1 Chassis Capacity 4 card slots for 8 slots for Personal 16 slots for Personal 24 slots for Personal Personal Multiplexer Multiplexer cards 1 Multiplexer cards 1 Multiplexer cards 1 card 1 slot for net
4. slot for network slot for network slot for network work interface card interface card interface cards interface cards Power Consumption 60 Watts 190 Watts 200 Watts Not available Weight 24 b 8 96 kg 43 5 lb 16 24 kg 46 lb 17 17 kg Not available Dimensions L 16 75 in 42 55 cm L 26 0 in 66 04 cm L 26 0 in 66 04 cm Not available W 16 75 in 42 55 cm W 19 in 48 26 cm W 19 in 48 26 cm H 6 5 in 16 01 cm H 7 in 17 8 cm H 7 in 17 8 cm 44 CTI July 1997 Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com Ge There Phone Application Mesidian 3316 Mil Figure 1 Be There Main graphical user interface where you can access such features as dialing call control and speed dialing You can also check the status of the phone line Tefan on Local User List Card List PX Types Mise Corsig 143 149 155 Earn Voice Mail logon corporate PBX via an interface similar to your office phone Figure 1 The LAN connection lets telecommuters and road warriors have access to their corporate e mail accounts In addition users at any remote location can use powerful PBX features exactly as if they were in the office without the additional expense of multiple dedicated phone lines When customers or co workers call your office number your phone rings instantly When you get e mail it shows up in your mailbox And all of this is done over a single analog phone line Card Fro
5. y join delay Figure 13 shows the perfor mance settings Even with the phrase cache and performance slider bar we feel that a faster machine we used a Pentium 90 would improve the perfor mance of DragonDictate Nonetheless you can still use the product with a slow er CPU DragonMed covers the emergency room family practice radiology and a wide range of specialties drawing on an extensive collection of patient records medical reports journal arti cles and other documents It incor porates the names of thousands of drugs diseases medical procedures body parts psychological terms and abbreviations DragonEXTRA is designed for writers and journalists It contains a broad range of contemporary language from news articles and books It includes many place names company names government agencies popular expressions and slang terms that are unavailable in published dictionaries DragonBusiness is optimized for analysts and executives in business RATINGS 1 5 Installation 4 75 Documentation 5 0 GUI 4 95 Features 4 95 Correcting Recognition Errors You can correct recognition errors as soon as they happen with the Choice List Figure 14 which normally appears as you dictate The Choice List displays words that DragonDictate thinks you said You need only say Choose 1 or Choose 2 to select the correct word If DragonDictate correct ly recognized what yo
6. E Mail We set up our MediaMail account to retrieve POP3 Internet mail and one of our e mail accounts to retrieve Internet e mail When we sent e mail to this we A Firar SD cee s Prove bhed Bustos an Ma 21 FT Figure 19 MediaMail A voice Pore ee mail message being played and WANI N ETS ee displayed inline on the browser Pie rape Ela fiom eating Heading bil Page Edt View go Booker Option ea Document Dore Figure 18 MediaMail The uni versal inbox The main GUI for retrieving all message types object After we did this we didn t see the error message again We had this problem on two differ arth ent machines each of which was using ee nae MSIE 3 01 with RealAudio 3 0 already installed Although this bug is not Telinet s fault we d like to see them provide a FAQ or troubleshoot ing Web site to help solve this ActiveX problem in Microsoft Internet Explorer Comiacts pha Falim Remeis amp 4 F H Fram r0 259 092 Sabject Meckabad Voir Wiccsage Date Fn 2 Me 1997 17S ee 0500 View Hrm Aflowe this message ta falder 0 28 8 Voice Mail We dialed our personal 800 number and left a test voice mail message As soon as we left the message we clicked on the Refresh button on our browser and the voice mail message was already there not even two seconds later Of Rediahaitl Popoe Reseagne Rea budio MO ee
7. Regardless you may still save your company money depending on whether it is cheaper to dial San Francisco from Los Angeles than it is from New York Rates will vary by region And some intrastate rates are higher than interstate rates INSTALLATION We had a fairly easy installation and encountered only one problem We had difficulty getting the voice portion of the Creative Labs driver to install on our Windows 95 machine The instruc tions didn t mention that we needed to install the voice driver off of the CD ROM to enable voice functionality on RATINGS 1 5 Installation 4 90 Documentation 3 90 Features 4 25 GUI 3 95 CTI July 1997 53 this modem sound card We could have avoided this driver problem had Queste included some troubleshooting tips for installing the PhoneBlaster or at least some general information about installing voice enabled modems Of course we realize our problem wasn t the fault of the Queste product but we suppose prob lems of the sort will be common during VoiceNet installations Thus Queste might consider providing information to help users overcome such problems But no matter We got the driver to work and the rest of the installation easy enough to qualify for a 4 90 rating DOCUMENTATION We received documentation for ver sion 1 0 This documentation which was in beta form contained a good table of contents but no index The documentation was s
8. Call al Startup Hotkey Cul an 0 Figure 24 Internet PhoneJack Properties screen for selecting application options lation program Unfortunately the Windows NT driver for Internet PhoneJack was not available at the time of our review but we were told by Quicknet that it should be available soon The Internet PhoneJack card has ports for a telephone set a headset and a microphone speaker We attached a regu lar telephone set to the card and immedi ately heard a dial tone It was just as if we had plugged straight into the POTS line DOCUMENTATION Since we reviewed the product dur ing the early beta test program there was no documentation for the Internet PhoneJack However at the late stages of our review we were given a sneak preview of an early version of the user s manual in HTML format We found it to be thorough and complete It will be available in print format with the released product FEATURES e Plug amp Play installation e Complete access to all the modules and set up screens via the Internet PhoneJack application task bar e Support for multiple Internet tele phone applications e Support for telephone set headset and microphone speaker set Internet Phone User PAddrese 1320 0110 gt Figed IP adien Pe ere Figure 25 Internet PhoneJack User screen for modifying address book entries e Speed dial and address book e Echo cancellation e Tuning and set up
9. Quicknet Technologies Inc 520 Townsend Street Suite D eee San Francisco CA 94103 Ph 415 864 5225 Fx 415 864 8388 E Mail info quicknet com Web Site www quicknet com a widely accepted standard is being fought on two fronts the transport side and the user side Although the trans port portion is still inadequate thanks to the Internet s speed and reliability prob lems the user side is enjoying great advances with many new products hit ting the market On the user side one of the latest offerings is Internet PhoneJack a product that provides a POTS like interface to Internet telephony INSTALLATION We installed Internet PhoneJack which comprises an ISA PC card and associated software on a Pentium 120 PC with 16 MB RAM running Windows 95 After we installed the card in an ISA slot we turned on the PC and were pleasantly surprised by the Windows 95 Plug amp Play subsystem which correctly identified the card and asked us to pro vide the driver After we pointed Windows 95 to PhoneJack s CD ROM the driver was successfully installed Next we installed the Internet PhoneJack s application software which was on the CD ROM The PhoneJack application was installed and a new pro gram folder was generated by the instal T battle to make Internet telephony Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com wa nternet PhoneJACK tm Properties Options My information Test bet Bei F Liten tor
10. Tile From 70 O A Fe 2 ar 1997 17 course you don t need to click on nbe iayf Semi dh Refresh to update your inbox and check Copyngat Copyrigh Telnet Technolages LLC 1997 i for new messages Your inbox will automatically refresh every five min utes based on programming in the HTML code We manually refreshed to see if their was a delay between leaving a message and having it appear in our inbox Figure 18 After you click on a message it is 64 CTI July1997 Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com a Pi Mai N E th al iad Domani Dione address it popped into the MediaMail inbox Behold a true unified mes saging solution We could receive voice mail fax and e mail to one inbox MediaMail s support of up to three POP3 accounts enables MediaMail to retrieve mail from multiple accounts This feature is especially useful if you have multiple ISPs and e mail accounts For instance one of our engi neers has MSN Netcom and Mindspring e mail addresses Using MediaMail he can retrieve messages from all three e mail accounts into one inbox To change user settings you can visit MediaMail s centralized set up screen Figure 20 Here you can change your password edit your sig nature file configure pager notifica Figure 21 MediaMail Some of the advanced configuration options including setting up POP3 servers and fax forwarding a Nin Dhan eT CO Ging page La Fle Edt Wee Go Fe
11. Wizards OPERATIONAL TESTING We tested the Internet PhoneJack using VocalTec s Internet Phone which is normally used over a sound card On our LAN we set up a PC with a full duplex sound card to communicate with the PC carrying the Internet PhoneJack The Product s Interface We invoked the Internet PhoneJack application from the Start Programs menu which brought up the task bar Figure 23 the application s nerve cen ter From here you can customize the application make or receive calls adjust the echo cancellation etc The task bar also includes a Wizard button which we used for setting up the application to work with VocalTec s Internet Phone Internet PhoneJack can work with three different Internet telephony programs VocalTec s Internet Phone Microsoft s NetMeeting and Other which is used for applications such as Net2Phone We then clicked on the task bar s Phone button which brought up a menu from which we selected Properties The Properties screen Figure 24 included an Options tab which contained information about the Internet telephony application and the record and playback devices The devices can be set to Internet PhoneJack device or available sound card The Properties screen also includes a tab called My Information which allows the user to enter his her person al information request new updates online and register the software One last tab called Test is used to test
12. a popular operating system such as Windows DOS UNIX or OS 2 One of the latest voice mail offerings is available from Telephone Response Technologies Inc which has released CommPoint Operating on the recently released Windows NT 4 0 CommPoint is designed to exploit the inherent client server model of Windows CommPoint offers a flexible and pow erful method to set up and administer voice mail throughout the company or the enterprise INSTALLATION You can order CommPoint as a turnkey server or as software If you select the turnkey option you will receive a server PC speech cards and the software all installed and config ured ready for immediate setup and deployment If you select the software option you will have to set up a PC with Windows NT 4 0 and install the speech card s in addition to installing yf the CommPoint software Also you may need to add the PC to your company s network With CommPoint you can opt for a basic LAN configuration single server as well as an enhanced LAN configuration multiple servers In either case you ll need to be well acquainted with Windows NT and basic networking principles The CommPoint system we received from TRT was pre configured with all the hardware and software components installed In our system a single PC was the port server the system which carries the speech cards and the soft ware to run them as well as the admin istrative workstation which co
13. i Zerri Dibia Liis Hd ie ae Hoots iira Shakib 0 of company lo be opened on rase distribution lists a PLES through a list ID TRT The Notification window is used to setup the Message Waiting Indicator MWD The House keeping tab pre sented us with a window to con trol the start and stop times of housekeeping functions House keeping functions include deleting Figure 26 lm Elie lel l companies in CP Mail Most voice mail systems use one of three techniques to hook up to any given PBX In band integration SMDI and proprietary integration Thankfully with SMDI and external translation boxes from Calista and Voice Technologies Group much of the larger switch market can be cov ered A significant effort remains for handling in band switches In band integration refers to the ability of a CT system to determine information about the call by listen ing for in band DTMF digits at the very beginning of each call For example a voice mail system hooked to a hypothetical PBX using in band integration might see the DTMF string 2 123 and know that the call it has just answered is an internal call 2 from extension 123 and know it can immediately prompt the caller for their password instead of having to ask them to enter their mailbox number before logging in In band switches tend to be of the hybrid key system and smaller switch variety SMDI Station Message Desk Interface ref
14. it or thew Murnber to add Highlighi and press Del key fo Celnte Click onthe baton t the tefl of a number i dial it ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT Having a jumper less Plug amp Play ISA board would be nice On second thought considering the trouble we had with the Plug amp Play PCMCIA card make that just a jumper less card Switching between the different pro gram interfaces phone call log data exchange and address book interface required that you click on the Tools menu and then click on the desired interface Two clicks We d rather have single click icons on the toolbar to switch between the phone call log data exchange and address book interfaces Similarly within the Call Log inter face we would like to have icons for switching between viewing incoming outgoing or all calls This would be easier than having to click on the View menu and then clicking on incoming outgoing or all calls We noticed when speed dialing and then entering DTMF digits that the focus of the cursor sometimes default ed to the Names field When this hap pens any digits pressed do not get sent over the phone line since the system thinks you are trying to add a new name to the phone book We had to move the mouse cursor to the Numbers field to be able to transmit DTMF digits This was a bit of a nuisance A couple times we dialed our own IVR and it asked for a password When we typed the password it was typ
15. messages from any telephone fax machine PC or Web capable device The product integrates with standard Web servers and is compatible with major mail standards INSTALLATION We tackled only the client side instal lation which was easy For the server side we let Telinet do the work That is we had Telinet set up an account on their server That s the beauty of the Internet it doesn t matter where your server is located All we had to do was configure our browser MediaMail uses the RealAudio plug in to play back voice mail recordings as well as a fax plug in for viewing faxes Our computers already had the latest and greatest RealAudio plug in so we didn t need to worry about installing that piece of software Or so we thought We ran into some snags when testing voice mail playback using Microsoft s Internet Explorer We ll discuss this in the Operational Testing 62 CTI July 1997 section Overall installation was good and we gave it a 4 80 rating DOCUMENTATION The product is simple enough that documentation is almost unnecessary We know however that there are always users who would cringe at the thought of using a new product with lit tle or no documentation to guide them So we took a look at MediaMail s online documentation It was adequate However if you purchase the MediaMail server you will have access to the online help HTML pages which you can modify and add to as
16. the record and playback devices and con figure them for maximum efficiency The Product s Performance We placed an Internet Phone call from the other PC with a sound card The telephone set on our test machine began to ring indicating an incoming call The voice quality was very good and it felt as though we were using reg ular telephone service Next we reversed the process and made an outbound call from the Internet PhoneJack We chose the Dial button from the task bar which presented us with the Speed Dial screen At this point we decided to add the destination PC to the address book We planned to call the PC later and wanted to make calling as easy as possible We added the new entries through the Internet Phone User screen Figure 25 Since the PC on CTI July 1997 67 S3 i System Requirements e 66 MHz 486 PC or Pentium e 16 MB RAM e Windows 95 e Internet telephone service E our LAN had a fixed IP address we defined the new entry with its associated IP address assigned an extension and finally added it to the address book Dialing our destination PC was as easy as picking up the phone and choosing our recently added entry or dialing the extension 123 The address book can also be used to find users who are registered on the Internet telephone service provider s system For example for VocalTec s Internet Phone the person s Internet phone address can be used This fea tur
17. to run the Port Monitor Port Admin and Mail Admin programs from the remote station thereby gain ing access and control on the CommPoint port server We applaud TRT for implementing a true client server technology for the CommPoint product We believe that this architecture should be one of the top deciding factors when shopping for a voice mail auto attendant system Notification CommPoint can notify users that new voice mail has arrived in two ways One way is via CP Notify which provides for a desktop MWI Message Waiting Indicator on a user s Windows 95 or Windows NT client The other la Aepost Agent EE jC je Oe a Pia EF s is way is via the X 10 MWI system which requires an X 10 serial controller and one X 10 module per MWI user The X 10 control signals are propagat ed over the AC power lines On a PBX the best way of notifying the user of a new message is by flash ing the MWI light on the telephone set This is achieved by sending the appro priate signal to the PBX to flash the voice mail light on the desired exten sion CommPoint can transmit this sig nal to the PBX through a modem inter faced with a PBX port This is setup using the in band integration program Figure 31 We would have liked to see this capa bility achieved through the speech ports as well However we were told by TRT that MWI was not implemented this way since the ports were too valuable to be occupied by this task w
18. CP Mail module allows for precise voice mail and auto attendant implementation while the CP Script module allows the more sophisticated administrator to design a powerful and flexible system tailor made for his her company CommPoint s remote administration and monitoring capabilities are superb We also liked the product s reporting and query capabilities With some moderate improvement we feel that CommPoint can become a heavyweight contender in the voice mail auto atten dant market W Figure 33 CommpPoint Port Activity report generated by Report Wizard Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com
19. Date Anse 150 CTI July 1997 Detail Report tries to ring the extension If the exten sion cannot be reached busy no answer etc the caller is passed to CP Mail for additional call handling steps The unmonitored transfer on the other hand transfers the call to the desired extension and drops the line causing a PBX re enter into the auto attendant rather than the voice mail if the extension transfer fails Obviously the monitored transfer has a clear advantage over the unmonitored trans fer However it ties up the port until the call has been handed over to the exten sion or the mailbox If the voice mail system could be inte grated with the PBX an unsuccessful unmonitored extension transfer is fol lowed up by the PBX re routing the call to the correct voice mail bypassing the auto attendant In this scenario the port is released when the call is passed to the PBX allowing the port to service other calls again see the sidebar We wish there was an easy way to integrate CommPoint to our Comdial DXP so we could take advantage of unmonitored extension transfers We can only hope that one day PBX voice mail integration will be automatically set up when the PBX is connected to the voice mail system Customization It s always a big plus if Windows applications can be customized via the highly popular VBA Visual Basic for Applications programming language While CommPoint features a flexible
20. Pa ere herp WF Fa end hangup C0044 Fi ered hare DOSS Fa el hae TD iewbde by mais GRIN Linshi in rule j 7s Pe h ee Fie Figure 10 VoiceNet GUI display for an Internet telephony call f k m mmm m breakups in voice communication Routing Options You can use VoiceNet s routing algorithms to send your call to the best available system hase ueste s Internet Telephony Server Internet Telephony Server congested the telephony server could rely on the public network to complete the call Voice quality will not suffer W Automatically routing calls over the Internet Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com depending upon user defined criteria for call destination For more informa tion see the sidebar entitled DOSA DISA Options In addition net work monitoring alerts you to points of failure on the telephone network and the Internet and may also provide alternate routing to the PSTN when the Internet is congested Ease Of Use VoiceNet s IVR appli cation serves as the interface between the PSTN PBX and the Internet The product also lets you use speed dialing for frequently dialed numbers Call Restrictions Access to the System Network can be restricted to unauthorized incoming or outgoing callers specific extensions or to users without a valid Personal Identification Number System administrators can also restrict calls to certain area codes and limit the hours of operation for each sy
21. Quicknet s Internet PhoneJack both allow you to use a convention al telephone for Internet telephony Both provide good voice quality through noise reduction The PhoneLink is an external device which interfaces to the sound card as well as the POTS line It requires a modem connection to the Internet in order to switch between the analog service and the Internet service Since the PhoneLink is attached to the sound card all sounds are directed to the attached telephone set which means you can 66 CTI July 1997 MediaMail is an open product that uses the latest Internet standards and plug ins Since this product complies with industry standards we expect it to improve as the Internet evolves MediaMail s pricing is determined on a tiered licensing model based on volume purchases Starting at a minimum of 1 000 users the base price per seat is 69 00 honeLink PhoneJack Comparison not use the microphone speaker set The Internet PhoneJack is a PC card with accompanying software that works independently from existing modems and sound cards While it simulates the POTS tones it cannot interface with a POTS line Internet PhoneJack tightly inte grates with applications such as VocalTec s Internet Phone and Microsoft s NetMeeting and facili tates call handling and device set tings such as echo cancellation Internet PhoneJack supports tele phone sets headsets and micro phone speaker connections W
22. TN The Call Itself The VoiceNet GUI shows the call duration the number called as well as the person you are talking to if you have programmed in a name Figure 10 We were quite impressed with the sound quality which was excellent The compression algorithm used is GSM and attains a 12 kbits s through put The only problem with the sound quality was that there was an echo of our own voice in the handset receiver This is due to the fact that the Creative Labs PhoneBlaster doesn t have echo cancellation capabilities Hardware Unlike competing Internet telephony products VoiceNet uses off the shelf TAPI voice modems and can be added to existing Windows workstations No expensive proprietary telephony cards or dedicated servers are needed mean ing that users can Internet enable their System Requirements eProcessor Pentium 133 MHz Memory 16 Meg eOperating System Windows 95 eInterface TAPI full duplex WAVE Of course you also need an Internet connection W phone systems for a few hundred dol lars per site Since our PhoneBlaster didn t have echo cancellation we wondered if we could use the new MediaPhonics PhoneRider 33 6 board which claims to have echo cancellation and is reviewed in this issue We had no luck however We asked Queste about the MediaPhonics board and they respond ed as follows You will not be able to test with the TS DESIGN 2IC Circle No 159 on Reader Service Car
23. We noticed a bug when we entered a dash in a phone number We removed the dash and then hit Enter since the OK button was the default selected but ton However the dash remained Apparently we accomplished a Cancel and not an OK even though the OK button had the focus This was a bit of a nuisance Anytime we changed a field and hit Enter we lost our changes We were forced to click on the OK button with the mouse Another minor nuisance was that the Tab key didn t function properly It skipped to a field other than the one we expected which is to say it didn t go in top down order So we had to resort to the mouse to switch between fields It s possible VoiceNet was programmed in Visual Basic If so the tab index needs to be corrected an easy fix As previously mentioned the VoiceNet system uses GSM compres sion which has trouble with DTMF dig its We d certainly like to see DTMF compatibility in the next release Queste informed us that they are aware of this issue and are working on a fix to allow DTMF digits We ll keep you posted CONCLUSION We were impressed with the prod uct s ability to provide actual business S applications using Internet telephony The sound quality was excellent However there were a few delays and drop offs when the Internet was con gested Of course such problems are found in all Internet telephony prod ucts Increasing the packet size setting
24. ad news Still we love our DXP which impressed us from the first with its digital and CTI capabilities It may be that Comdial RACF disabled the DXP as a security measure In the past people were able to take advantage of RACF capabilities also called call following to remotely dial into the switch and charge thou sands of dollars worth of phone calls to the company In response many PBX manufacturers either turned off the RACF functionality REM ed out the source code for the RACF functionali ty or left the code in there but left the RACF potential undocumented eee Workaround RNA ring no answer and transfer the call to your voice mail If we are online connected to extension 260 then we can obviously answer the call which connects 260 and 261 In our test setup we used direct extensions which were dialed after our auto attendant answered Using predefined extensions was necessary so we could know which extension to forward our personal extension to However in most cases a direct dial 800 number with a hunt group would be more appropriate The hunt group along with RACF would take care of busy ports by forwarding to the next available port on the Data Race server Although the hunt group method is more intuitive and easier to use our method of assigning predefined extensions has its uses For exam ple you might have a switch inca pable of enabling and disabling call forwarding using the RACF
25. ally dialed into when connecting to the Data Race server Then when an incoming call came into extension 149 the call was forwarded to extension 261 The Data Race server picked up the line and joined the call on 261 with extension 260 the port that we were remotely logged onto over the PSTN Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com a Call Leg a weg FR AT ag RG e aaa d 407 a RR aa 3 wie 4957 d aaT eR 089 g 42997 a At this point we had a setup that worked albeit in a limited way Not content with a one port solution we took our workaround a little further to take advantage of the four port system Data Race had sent us In a 4 port system setup you have several options We decided to hook up four extensions to the Phone inputs in each card and four exten sions to the Line inputs Each card on the server contains one Line port and one corresponding Phone port For more details see the sidebar entitled RACF Workaround Testing RACF With RACF when you log onto the server the server sends DTMF digits to the switch telling it which extension your own personal extension to for ward and what the forwarded exten sion is port on the server you are logged onto For instance on a Nortel 61C switch the DTMF digits to per form RACF are 61 2 1 3 1 The 1 2 and 3 are parameters which include the extension to be for warded the extension to be forwarded
26. an be dialed from the local site and associate it with the site Unknown According to Queste there will be a software enhance ment to better handle this feature in a future software release With DISA Direct Inward Station Access numbers you can dial any extension on the PBX at the destination site This provides access to anyone at the destination site without having to use the opera tor or auto attendant Hf 56 CTI July 1997 Centrex At first all we got was an unable to route error message We enabled the PBX functionality in the PBX settings screen which adds a 9 prefix Since our Centrex requires a 9 prefix we decided to enable the PBX functionali ty in the PBX settings screen which adds a 9 prefix It still didn t work We then decided to disable the PBX functionality since we weren t really using a PBX and instead added a 9 prefix to the number in the forward to extension number box That worked First a call came into our VoiceNet sys tem from Queste The call was then routed by the VoiceNet system to anoth er phone number Our PhoneBlaster dialed a phone number in our office We answered the phone and could now talk to the person at Queste We were actually having an Internet telephony call using an ordinary telephone which until that call was entirely innocent of the Internet The routing and communi cation was that transparent ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
27. arded number preceded by an extension number Administration We found the Be There server easy to use For example maintenance and secu rity administration were simple User accounts with passwords were easy to add or remove The Be There server and PBX inter face is a standard analog telephone line with class marked features just like the office line even though it may be a dig ital line If the PBX administrator does not want to allow dial 9 access for long distance or dial 8 for local access sim ply ensure that this particular feature is not class marked on the PBX server interface line If the PBX administrator provides dial 8 for local access the telecommuter can still make long dis tance calls using a telephone credit card Remember that the Be There server resides behind the PBX with its Call Detail Recording CDR and Station Message Detail Recording SMDR fea tures All actions taken on the PBX serv er interface line can be logged and mon itored by the PBX The Be There Server also maintains it s own call record data base Billing and call log reconciliation can be done just as it is currently being done providing a detailed view usage of all the Be There lines and who used any particular line at any time 52 CTI July 1997 Address Book SSS r z m BT o oes Phone numbers a Voice 1 G0 545 0480 fon cew Humber Highlight a number to change
28. calls to the techni cian s extension in Texas were auto matically forwarded to our office in Connecticut In fact the technician handled a couple of important phone calls while in our office This product is truly remarkable Call Log And Address Book We liked being able to enable or dis able a verify prompt when deleting records The call log could be used for call accounting purposes or just used for personal records Figure 7 The CTI July 199751 address book was good Figure 8 however we preferred using our own PIM and address book Data Race does integrate with other PIMs for dialing which is a nice feature Call Forwarding If your home phone line supports call forwarding you can be on the one home line connected to the office Data Race server and you will still receive person al phone calls to your home phone num ber If you do not take the calls they will go to your corporate voice mail All you have to do is call forward the phone number to your office direct num ber This is assuming you have DID in your office because you cannot tell your home phone to forward to an extension Let s say for the sake of illustration you re in our state Here to call forward you enter 72 followed by the phone number you wish to forward to In this scenario you could enter 72 fol lowed by 18005555555 However you cannot program the central office to use pauses in the forw
29. claration Flow Control Telephony Control Play Record Control and Test While CP Script offers a powerful programming language the CP Query modules extends the CP Script com mand set by letting users access any ODBC compliant database via imbed ded SQL queries Supported databases include all popular DBMS systems Sybase INFORMIX Oracle Microsoft SQL Microsoft Access Paradox etc Database interaction is aided by the Database Gateway which must be installed configured and run for data base access The Gateway screen Figure 30 displays the status of CommPoint s ODBC connections in real time Remote Administration We set up a separate Windows NT 4 0 workstation on the same network as Modem pararent Modern peotocod PE F aaron Pl gree cod ee a chiral Mem COM Dasr bn hch me moana sachar Tigrifetian ipere fam BPS of a fonts 1 tt Puriy Mo Dap baini ch EE Fil Figure 31 CommPoint In band integration screen showing modem parameters ze DPA uen Oatebare Gate Figure 30 CommPoint CP Query Database Gateway screen show ing real time data the CommPoint server From this sec ond PC we invoked CPCLIENT EXE on the CommPoint server which installed shortcuts to the administration utilities residing on the CommPoint server After the installation was com plete we configured the security between the two systems so that we could access the CommPoint server We were able
30. ctate its task of recognizing what the engi neer was saying But the test did give us a chance to see how DragonDictate is able to handle errors and adapt to a speaker s voice When an error occurs and you correct the error you improve DragonDictate s ability to recognize what you are say ing On the other hand if you do not correct the errors DragonDictate s speech recognition actually gets worse DragonDictate keeps the information it learns about your pronunciation in user files which should be saved The files are automatically backed up Since the product can maintain multiple user files you can have several user files for different users Speed Accuracy Tradeoffs DragonDictate claims dictation rates of 50 60 70 and possibly higher words per minute In our testing we started off with an average of 28 words per minute With more tests we were able to achieve 47 words per minute We re sure it can go higher with prac tice and further usage We did notice that when dictating the words would take a half a second or so to be processed and displayed into an application such as Word Even with a pause between words we found that DragonDictate would start to lag behind We thought maybe our proces sor wasn t fast enough We ran a benchmark process watcher System Requirements e 16 bit sound card e High quality microphone included e 32 to 42 MB of hard disk space depending on which version is pu
31. d CTI July 1997 55 MediaPhonics card without some setup changes Our software current ly looks for a PhoneBlaster since it is the only hardware we have verified You cannot try another card without creating a VoiceNet ini file which tells the software to look for a differ ent driver However we have already tried the MediaPhonics card and have not yet gotten it to work We have submitted a list of questions to them to resolve the problems and we should hear back soon The difficulty that we had was in opening both the wave in and wave out simultaneously which is necessary for full duplex operation Queste also told us that they are try ing to get the VoiceNet software to work with both Quicknet s Internet PhoneJack also reviewed in this issue and the MediaPhonics board DOSA DISA Options DOSA Direct Outward Station Access number allows you to dial phone numbers that are external to the far end PBX The route table defines how the VoiceNet system routes calls Local DOSA calls are simply sent to the site that matched the area code of the number that is dialed Long distance DOSA calls are rout ed to the sites that are defined in your site list The area code of the long distance DOSA is compared to the area codes in the site list to determine which site to which the call should be routed To control what area codes are allowed on incoming long distance DOSA calls you just enter the area code that c
32. downloading of the RATINGS 1 5 Documentation 3 50 Installation 4 80 Features 4 75 GUI 4 75 Security 4 25 components was finished we were pre sented with a huge RealAudio player which took up the entire browser screen The only control that worked was the ith MediaMail you can access messages fion any telephone fax machine PC or Web capable device The product integrates with standard Web servers and is compatible with major mail standards Put Your CTI Articles In Your Customers Hands ORDER REPRINTS Add credibility to your advertising efforts Support your campaign by using reprints in e Lead Follow Up New Business Correspondence e Trade Show Hand Outs Call Today 800 245 6002 x 152 CTI THE VOICE OF INTEGRITY ON THE INDUSTRY S FRONTIER Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com E L R ES i rte as me volume slider bar All the other con trols including the Play Stop and Pause buttons were grayed out and did n t work We tried installing the ActiveX component again but we still had the same problem We ve learned when all else fails with a certain pro gram it s best to just uninstall it and start from scratch We uninstalled the RealAudio player and tried again We clicked on the voice mail message and received another warning regarding the ActiveX viewer Again we clicked on Yes to install the components This time we were pre sented wi
33. e callers These accounts are managed the same way as the regular mailboxes We clicked back on the Mailboxes tab and clicked on the Create button to add a new mailbox A dialog box appeared to confirm the addition of mailbox 164 with a combo box field for the mailbox profile The entries of the combo box pea bri ae PPLE S Cre Pie e Hahm Conary i TE c alee be pir of ate ae MPAFTERHOURS g A00CEMAIL a ALT OAT TEND G LOGE ha OUTSIDE CALL at PRIALEGED ij STANDARD Oren Creme sse a a ee L 72 CTI July1997 c ub i ah wi m 3 il he K a dm i mi ett a i i mm G d Outdisls CalAniwemg FolowMe Notiication Mailbox Profie Maibox Settings Distibution Lits Folder Messages Limie Options Quidislsesttiction Statist Maeernums Aochdoe teers Distiteshon kets he Ratan upto 29mg foe 30 da Figure 29 CommPoint Limits screen showing maximum limits for mailbox 164 were from the _PROFILES_ accounts that we had visited earlier We added the new mailbox to the list of existing mail boxes Figure 28 shows a snapshot of the mailboxes in the TRT company One drawback to the create proce dure was that we had to enter the new mailbox account in the field above the list of mailboxes before clicking on the Create button Otherwise nothing would happen This procedure applies in several other CommPoint screens Compa riamn PT Toney Pile biak Folkers We wou
34. e a full range of POTS tones ring tone dial tone DTMF etc e work independently from existing sound cards e accept telephone set headset or microphone speaker connections We look forward to Windows NT sup port for Internet PhoneJack Currently the product has a list price of 199 95 for its Windows 95 version E COMMPOINT CommPoint Telephone Response Technologies Inc 1624 Santa Clara Drive Roseville CA 95661 Ph 916 784 7777 Fx 916 784 7781 E Mail trtsales trt com Web Site www trt com oice mail has come a long way Yi it replaced standalone answering machines At first voice mail systems were offered exclusively by the switch and PBX companies These systems were usually marketed as add on products and they integrated well with existing phone systems The benefits of voice mail were obvi ous from the beginning Administrators could manage a company s messaging needs from one central location and allocate voice mail accounts to new employees on the fly Messages were password protected and calls were taken even 1f the line was busy Then came the recent innovations in computer technology and the voice mail market exploded New products appeared from a variety of companies outdoing each other in voice mail capac ity capabilities and features The voice mail system of today is usually a PC with speech cards Typically the soft ware for the voice mail application runs on
35. e is extremely helpful in locating a person since no matter where the per son is as long as they are connected to their Internet telephone service their name will be registered and accessible to other callers Although we had not planned to test two Internet PhoneJacks we decided to do so to check the voice quality between the two devices As it turned out the voice quality in this set up was very good Indeed we practically for got we were using Internet telephony One final implementation of Internet PhoneJack that we would like to mention is its application in a Web calling scenario The Internet PhoneJack can be connected to a com pany s PBX since it simulates an ana log line on which extensions can be set up to receive calls when a user browsing the Web calls in via the Internet This set up provides immedi ate support for the caller RATINGS 1 5 Documentation 4 0 Installation 4 9 Features 4 7 GUI 4 9 68 CTI July 1997 CONCLUSION Internet PhoneJack provides remark able voice quality through echo can cellation and enhancement techniques integrates well with popular Internet telephone applications and localizes voice processing Couple these features with Internet PhoneJack s smooth installation and you ve got a superior product that brings us one step closer to consumer quality Internet telephony The product has other strengths For example Internet PhoneJack can e produc
36. earned a 4 90 rating FEATURES Overall we gave the feature set a very good 4 80 rating which could be even better with line port detection for use on non RACF PBXs We ll dis cuss this later Client Features Be There can replace your standard modem without sacrificing any features In the non DSVD mode the Personal Multiplexer becomes a standard data fax modem with telephone answering capa bility For data communication it is a V 34bis modem at 33 6 Kbps with sup Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com port for CCITT Group 3 and EJA 578 Class 1 fax communication Two different client models are avail able the desktop and the notebook Using either client model the user can e Place and receive local and long distance telephone calls using the com pany PBX or Centrex Plexar resources as though they were actually in the office eAccess the corporate LAN as though the remote Desktop or Notebook were directly connected to the corporate LAN e Forward the home phone to an office telephone and thereafter receive personal calls while telecommuting e Access a full range of corporate office telephony features do not dis turb call conference call hold call transfer call waiting hands free use mute redial speed dial by name and number e Choose among several notification methods for incoming and outgoing calls For example Be There can pop up the phone application window and or play a WAV f
37. ed in the Names field instead of the Numbers field and it Fie Edt Took Help camps orn Dirisicn Tie Address Email girde corn P iml Ez _ 2 r Number ofras 4 OO Lorg CT specials Figure 8 Be There Address book with several tabular views of the contacts was not sent down the phone line The IVR prompt timed out we got a hang up and we had to redial To avoid this inconvenience we d like some sort of option to make the GUI default to the Numbers field during dialing This way digits would be properly transmitted We d like to see some caller ID func tionality in the next version which Data Race told us they are working on as well as some other CTI functionality Also call screening would be nice If the system had this feature we would when receiving a call be able to click on an icon which would pick up the line and play a WAV file to ask the caller Who are you After playing the WAV file and recording the person s name the system could put the caller on hold and play back the caller s name to you via your multimedia PC CONCLUSION Be There is an excellent product which just about every corporation could use For example many corpora tions could use it to implement a telecommuting option for their employ ees thereby competing with corpora tions that already offer telecommuting as a corporate benefit Telecommuting can also
38. efinitely After checking with the Port Monitor we noticed that the port would go on an endless cycle of auto attendant and general mailbox without ever being released The only option at this point was to unplug it from the PBX Perplexed we called CommPoint support which told us the problem was a poor interface between CommPoint and our Comdial DXP PBX Please see sidebar on page 70 Connecting CT Systems To PBXs A Tutorial The PBX could not correctly communicate to the port that the line had been dropped and thus the port could not release the line We were told by TRT that the PBXpert utility currently in Beta by Dialogic would alleviate this problem by learn ing the PBX signals and using them to correctly interface with the PBX Another problem related to poor com munication with the switch involved extension transfers CommPoint allows for two types of extension transfers monitored which is the way we set it up and unmonitored The monitored trans fer instructs a port to hold the line as it oe er Piet cies ly Ci et gad Foal ruie E 6 6 el Gl CommPoint Port Activit Port Server CP STSTEMI Pert bee Bic Baie Laie i gt SEP LEE Bell es Ae i e lE Eriin esini LEL ee bbm Baiia LELIE Emm Hia Hi FED Em prin Si Li re EE Oe es Se LL SP 1E Rell om Seed LEE sE 2 Bele See La oe ri Beeld sd fia dada e a Bee T Herati E FFF i i Po i F ou TE
39. ent The device is easy to hook up and requires no soft ware installation You can put it to use in no time and it does a fine job of switching between POTS and the sound card while delivering good sound quality Tie ero on db ee ey BEEE a E l EEEH RRS pi eT Has opin minimal set up and training DragonDictate works by analyzing acoustic your speech in both an model and a language model The acoustic model is based on speech sam ples collected from thousands of peo ple Sophisticated mathematical algo rithms are used to compare your speech DragonDictate Dragon Systems Inc aim 320 Nevada Street c Newton MA 02160 i Ph 617 965 5200 Fax 617 527 0372 E Mail info dragonsys com Web Site www dragonsys com system for Windows Windows 95 and Windows NT converts the spoken word to written text The pro gram is designed for both speed and accuracy To speed dictation the prod uct relies on Dragon s QuickTalk tech nology which shortens the pause required between words To enhance accuracy the program adapts to the way you talk while you dictate In addition DragonDictate is speaker independent which means you can start using it with 58 CTI July1997 D ragonDictate a speech recognition to the appropriate model The result is the best acoustic match and a short list of alternatives The language model is based on the analysis of how words are used in doc uments so Drag
40. equence may vary in its functionality For instance CTRL N Figure 16 DragonDictate Interface for training adding words to specific applications or to the program s main vocab ulary for use in all applications O DragonDictate s Multiple Versions DragonDictate comes in a vari ety of editions to address different user needs All versions include an active vocabulary in RAM for fast access and a 120 000 word on disk backup dictionary Power Edition 60 000 words active is meant for professionals whose specialties have unique and extensive vocabularies Power Edition includes text to speech technology that can read your text back to you Classic Edition 30 000 words active is meant for professionals and executives who require a large vocabulary and work with a variety of subjects Personal Edition 10 000 words active for English only is meant for users who create many documents on a particular topic DragonDictate Singles are entry level dictation packages Each works with one leading industry application plus Netscape Navigator WordPad and many Windows accessories Editions are available for Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel Corel WordPerfect Lotus 1 2 3 and Lotus Notes with cc Mail E in Word is equivalent to Begin New Document The Vocabulary Manager is shown in Figure 16 CONCLUSION At first speech recognition was little more than a novelty Early systems had small vocabulari
41. er you are not at your desk So the call is transferred back to the voice mail system so the caller can leave a message Proper PBX integration allows the CT system to know that the caller is being bounced back to the auto atten dant from a failed call transfer to extension 555 which means the caller does not have to re enter your exten sion All the caller hears is four rings signaling that you are not at their desk then a click and then a Please leave your message at the tone prompt But what if the CT system sitting behind the switch is not well integrat ed with the switch Performance can suffer For example call transfers may be processed slowly or not at all Also your voice mail system may not know which line is calling or what kind of call it has just answered causing the caller to re enter informa tion an extension for example that Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com System Level We selected our Local system and were presented with the System Information window Figure 26 which lists companies in the system Of course this is a virtual list Company names could very well be departments or just groups of mail boxes in some logical grouping Companies can be added and removed from this window The Settings tab is used for setting global parameters for CP Mail such as maximum number of companies and maximum number of total mail boxes in the system The Distribution Lists tab catalogs a
42. ers to an out of band method of sending this same infor mation over an RS 232 serial port instead of using in band DTMF tones Moderate to very large switch es tend to use SMDI including Centrex service offered by telephone company central offices As with in band integration SMDI is bi direc tional to enable message waiting to be turned on and off for any phone system extension As a side note CommpPoint List Voice Technologies Group and Calista sell external boxes that trans late serial SMDI protocol to emulate digital feature sets for larger switches Definity Nortel etc an attractive integration alternative to more expen sive SMDI integration options for these switches Proprietary integration refers to the links provided by PBX vendors to their own switches Such links are at least as functional as SMDI Open Application Interface OAT links are offered from all major PBX vendors as a way to command and control specific switch opera tions from a computer based sys tem In some cases the performance and degree of control you can get using these links is superior to other methods To save valuable time in implementing proprietary solutions Dialogic makes a product called CT Connect that provides a common API as a means of controlling and integrating to a wide variety of switches and ACD systems that use CSTA or proprietary integration links Telephone Response Technologies Inc founded by Chri
43. es and recognized only simple words They were to be blunt inaccurate By now however speech recognition has much improved Whereas early systems relied on discrete recognition current products such as DragonDictate take advantage of con tinuous speech recognition algorithms DragonDictate offers several advan tages over other voice recognition packages we ve seen For example DragonDictate has one consistent inter face across different applications some programs use different modules for each application immediately learns about the speaker to improve accuracy CTI July 199761 S while dictating Some products update speech information after dictation 1s complete and the speech files are closed or else adapt on correction only integrates text to speech into its application some products simply lack this feature Anyone who uses a computer can find practical business applications for DragonDictate especially those who prepare several documents each day DragonDictate is a superb speech recognition product and we highly recommend it Telinet Inc x 3000 Northwoods Parkway Suite 175 Norcross GA 30071 Ph 770 242 0492 Fx 770 242 0159 E Mail info telinet com Web Site www mediamail com ediaMail an Internet based uni Ni messaging solution pro vides a single central inbox for messages of all types including voice fax and e mail Furthermore with MediaMail you can access
44. f the four port extensions In general for all employees the call should be for warded to one central phone number or extension 260 in our case If 260 is busy you can setup your Class Of Service COS to automatically for ward the call to the next port 262 If 262 is still busy you continue to forward to the last two ports on the four port system which were exten sions 264 and 266 in our setup Notice how we chose even port numbers The odd port numbers we setup as 261 263 265 and 267 which are 1 with respect to the even numbered ports 260 262 264 and 266 Basically the even exten sions are the Line inputs and the odd extensions are the Phone inputs This setup simplified client setups debugging and dialup connections If your COS doesn t support mul tiple call forwarding you can also just create individual dial up network 50 CTI July 1997 will still go to your corporate voice mailbox With Be There you can take or place calls while accessing your remote corporate network You can talk to one person send an e mail or fax to anoth er person and surf the Internet And everything is accomplished simultane ously and seamlessly The voice channel requires 8 5 Kbps and the fax is user selectable at 9 6 Kbps or 14 4 Kbps However the 8 5 Kbps is required only when you are on the telephone Phone bandwidth is dynamically reallocated in real time after your call is completed The same is
45. feature set Indeed our scenario is applica ble only in those instances where RACF is unavailable on the switch If we had RACE on our Comdial DXP switch we wouldn t have bothered having someone manually forward our extension to a free port on the Data Race server The RACF features would have taken care of this for us automatically Hi Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com DelFPanel on Local User List Card List PEX Types Miso Config ATAT SESS DeisulT ype Hertel EIC ALAR AARP oer RAC Unhonmesnd M ta S01 _AaCr Pin AACKT onan AAD Unload ROLM SF ETA e RAC F omad In our opinion RACF restrictions are a nuisance We think the cus tomers should be free to decide whether the switch should be RACF enabled Furthermore we believe that the advances in security encryption and call accounting software and hardware have made RACF restric tions a non issue Anyway that s what we told Comdial We hope the switches they release in the future will be RACF enabled And we re working with them to see about enabling RACF on our own switch However for the purpose of our work with Be There we had to bypass our DXP s restriction on RACF What we did was manually forward a station 149 to extension 261 which we con nected to one of the Data Race server modem ports Phone input A second extension 260 was hooked up to the Line input on the same modem card Extension 260 was the port we actu
46. he INF file removing the System Soft software temporarily and re inserting the PCM CIA card A similar solution was recommended by a Data Race techni cian but only after he did a little detec tive work He went into the C Windows INF directory and did a DIR OD to sort the directory by date He saw a file with the current date and removed it At this point we re inserted the Data Race PCMCIA card Windows 95 Plug amp Play detected the card and properly asked for the driver diskette 48 CTI July 1997 2 n E Pleage epecity a destination filename forthe axporied dala Act 2 0 enport first record jLodas Organizer 1 12 Lotus Organizer 1 17 Field kabala in first recond Figure 5 Be There Data exchange export feature along with a listing of some of the supported PIMs The rest of the installation went smoothly Overall we hit only one snag in this installa tion but it did waste some time Overall installing the card took about 45 minutes Not exactly Plug amp Play We can t fault Data Race however Surely the fault lies in the System Soft wizard software which tried to help but which instead proved a hindrance See Tom Keating s CC column in this issue for more about Plug amp Play Desktop Client Installation The ISA board is not Plug amp Play compliant Not necessarily a bad thing To install the ISA board we chose an IRQ added a COM port accessed the drive
47. hen an inex pensive modem could perform the job We half heartedly agree but still would like to have that option available Reporting Data from the running system is gathered by the Report Agent which is usually launched by the Port Server process when the system is started Figure 32 shows a snapshot of the Report Agent as it collects data To create reports from the data gath ered by the Report Agent the Report Wizard application must be used Several types of reports are available from Report Wizard We wanted to get a report on the ports activities so we launched the Report Wizard applica tion chose Port Configuration Report and defined a time period In response Continued on page 150 00 44 DOP Dera iene databace C2 DOP AIRES CD alabass ulate complete 2 APH SIART Diiira caleba uae T2 4PM Operas ia database 52 2PM piking pot pervert TANPE Lpeeing pal perver Local So dae Upin ma paniir T Jork pirg ia panir Loca at h piang oak 52 Goel Hoek eee CSS SSP Cheers ioe dalabasn C55 SSP HHEH Diaa alan Gornpilets Figure 32 CommPoint Report Agent screen while gathering system data CTI July 199781 Continued from page 81 the Report Wizard produced a detailed report Figure 33 ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT Switch Integration During our tests we noticed that when we hung up on the auto attendant before giving it a chance to transfer the call the port that was handling the call would remain busy ind
48. icking on the last choice e Train the word then add it to the vocabulary useful for adding prop er names Figure 15 T cabal ary hai aqui ocebuley mep ird Ta Heip t aS Ech mm J a ia E Gia E ee Ae a Le ie aan How eh hep aa he ca gee A IETT e iam Diiu ieee C Miri C firi rad Ph sth r ae Wh renicue FR rect i hice Pee n ih Puede Wh F arama h F rt nre A L y ears Fasi inl Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com BY oa Gee neared eae Tou To ira pjes ial A aia i co m i a 2 Bilal a Fer poocew TesLa crite Tta Soe Lane Pea Te Cotes am now dictating text to this prownim Notice the voice mena located on bop of the window Also the pack list forchoosing ihe comect word whether its his of i inthe BP Pie n Ea TOA Figure 14 DragonDictate The product in action Note the choice list on the top right which lists is and his Also notice how the voice menu is easily accessible and displayed on top of the Word application Adding And Training Words We added a custom macro which performed the equivalent of holding the CTRL key and the letter N We added this to Microsoft Exchange so we could just say Control N to start a new e mail message Of course we could have recorded this macro using the words Begin New Message but we wanted to be able to copy this macro to other applications where the CTRL N s
49. ile through the computer speakers on an incoming call Figure 4 e Load records from popular contact management software such as Act and Lotus Organizer Figure 5 Server Features e Extend the PBX dial plan to wher ever the remote user is located thus preserving and enhancing the large cor porate investment represented by the corporate voice network e Keep track of user connections to the server via the product s monitoring program e Give telecommuters and road war riors access to corporate voice mail sys tems since server provides voice with PBX features e Work inside the corporation s fire wall for all corporate communication networks just as if the remote workers were physically in the office e Route voice calls and faxes over the corporate PBX or Centrex service and WATS lines for maximum savings and security e Eliminate billing issues and extend all call management features to the remote users e Enable client to LAN connections to corporate enterprise networks via support for a wide range of LAN proto Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com cols including multi protocol bridging and routing e Institute remote node functionality and support for remote control e Manage each server or groups of servers from the LAN network Security eSecurity via a per telecommuter hardware ID unique DES encrypted Also there is radius support Circle No 142 on Reader Service Card eEach c
50. in the software should reduce the drop off problem although it will increase the latency Queste s Internet telephony server allows users to replace expensive interoffice leased lines Users can also institute toll free international calling between offices Internet Service Providers ISPs can use the product to offer inexpensive telephony service and thus set themselves up as an alter native to the traditional phone carriers VoiceNet retails for 395 for a sin gle line version Enhanced versions which provide such features as direct inward dialing and direct outward dial ing to the public telephone network are also available A multi line version supporting two to four simultaneous calls is also available Telepoint USA 14711 NE 29th Place Suite 103 Bellevue WA 98007 Ph 206 867 5700 E Mail tpinfo telepointusa com Web Site www telepointusa com E make you feel like you re back in the 1920s but it usually does That is if you ve used Internet telephony you ve probable found yourself using a micro phone and a pair of speakers attached to the sound board in your PC an arrange ment so reminiscent of an old fash i telephony doesn t have to Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com ioned phone the kind with separate microphone and speaker that you may feel tempted to curse the newfan gled contraption Of course some Internet telephony setups let you use a headset which is usua
51. includes an installation diagram is sufficiently detailed for moderately experienced users If all the system elements are in place the installation procedure is quite simple No software installation is required The user s guide provides hardly enough information for the novice user however We would have liked to see some background information on Internet calling available services or Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com how to get set up on Internet telephony Also a list of Internet telephone service providers and software products for the first time or inexperienced user would be valuable FEATURES The Internet PhoneLink replaces the usual microphone and speakers with a traditional telephone set In addition it provides automatic switching between Internet telephone and automatic tele phone service The product also has volume controls for incoming and out going signals OPERATIONAL TESTING The first thing we did was to pick up the handset of the analog phone to check for the POTS connection To be sure we had a dial tone The Internet PhoneLink does not need to be pow ered to provide the analog connection but it needs it to achieve the switching function Next we connected to our ISP through the modem We noticed the telephone set was no longer on the ana log service and it was being fed from the sound card We confirmed this by playing a sound that is a WAV file on the PC and hearing the s
52. is in most cases a flat monthly fee Thus Internet calls are not priced according to distance and duration as are traditional long dis tance phone calls The concept is quite simple First you dial the VoiceNet System from any phone Then an interactive voice response IVR system prompts you to enter the number you wish to dial Your call travels over the Internet to a second VoiceNet System and from there to your call destination If you have the phones at either end connected to their respective VoiceNet systems via a PBX your only cost is your Internet connection Of course the system on the other end will incur any costs associated with connecting to a phone number which is routed through its PBX system For instance suppose you have two corpo rate offices one in New York the other in Los Angeles and that each has a Figure 9 VoiceNet Routing long distance calls over the Internet VoiceNet system If you connect the two systems over the Internet to com plete an office to office call the charge is zero excepting the cost of the Internet connection Now if you dial a number which is routed through the Los Angeles gate way to say San Francisco the remote VoiceNet system in Los Angeles would incur the cost of dialing San Francisco through the PSTN We re assuming the remote site lets you dial outside lines which it needn t do depending on which of VoiceNet s security fea tures are activated
53. iss Hen oD d am Hack Son emili fore Search Femi Poa Ae hin erected Seber coer Bee Shere soo tag cee 7 7 a H inminmi D vgl fa urm hang amp Hah Poe reani imamet Erp Mfz El Di Edi Y Go Pyecries Hisp p oO 0 d amra amp amp g Bark Sop liebe Home emch feo Pmi Femi Ml Erie Ati pip irase be bre cue Bee Che ae Fip oe Cestaces Galion Fea fea ba Current User Settings Cage Wo rete lee Derren eerie Bee and kirp pop irga Pager Setup Ceonignee ee A bo ach oa h Foe pager orare of saree Pile chal Folder Manager I Cik Chasg bo creeds r okk derie old bkis oy ppr eE kie Signature Fike Ede poor agare Ge a Ele tut E aptorady added be het tid oad of pee at gt i ii E i S ET A Feri Li mal Eu l Figure 20 MediaMail Centralized configuration screen Asir femm Fig brayi Hl Fes rawi ion far Bee brei on ema AO DAK area coke Sato br ierd ener Eniermahareel fee comes Cari oe Fig Forward Pokies migon 0 POPS server ranit E 8 POPS pre gers BL FLIPS TETEE Bl POPS peered 2 POPS pra enone fl 82 POPS seer mbitt J POP Gere E Howe ale ree cored ri a cent ar 2 POP pero E iie apaart Ge be Ei E Ui pina ee eee Po Um Bld ceim popr Bake l Exakle loge eon Lindsia Semen Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com m for modifying user settings tion of MediaMail messages etc If you go into current
54. ld have preferred that the Create button bring up a dialog box asking for the new entry or at least a message explaining why CommPoint did not take any action Mailbox Level By double clicking on the 164 mailbox we entered the final level of CP Mail administration the mailbox level There were as usual sev eral tabs available to customize and administer this mailbox Figure 29 Continued on page amp 1 Dd rade to be opered of Coated Figure 27 CommpPoint List Of PROFILES mailboxes used as templates Peed gear bp reams Gren Dee pe O w c j o j o BITE T giki a mT Figure 28 CommPoint List of mailboxes available in the virtual TRT company rdis Dp naea Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com Continued from page 72 Many of these options can be accessed and modified by the owner through the telephone set TUI interface or the soon to be released WinVM application A TUI Telephone User Interface allows the user to modify many aspects of his her mailbox using the telephone set CP Script And CP Query CP Script offers sophisticated admin istrators a flexible Basic like scripting environment for call control and IVR implementation CP Script applications can be extended with externally written programs or procedures The CP Script module which is reached via the Script step of the CP Mail s Call Answering module comprises several command groups including Query Variables De
55. lient Personal Multiplexer includes a hardware based 48 bit DES encrypted ID which is used by the server for authentication e The RAS connection is password protected Additional passwords required by MIS are used to allow the data connection e The Be There server is compliant with Radius security arrangements and supports Security Dynamics SecureID CTI July 1997 49 RAF OPERATIONAL TESTING How does it work After you have been authenticated on the Be There network and pass any network access passwords setup by MIS your office telephone is automatically forwarded to the Be There Personal Multiplexer server All incoming calls to your office phone ring on your Personal Multiplexer client wherever you are When you are placing a call the dial tone you hear is your PBX or Centrex dial tone You can place a call just like you were in the office whether entering a three or four digit number to reach a co worker or a 9 to access an outside line Some users may enter a 9 for local number access and an 8 to access long distance through a PBX If you cannot answer an incoming call or choose to ignore 1t the incoming call gic our switch like many switches doesn t support RACF a form of call following we came up with a workaround It s not the cleanest setup but it worked for us If one of our employees is going to be on the road he knows to manu ally forward his phone to one o
56. ll system wide had been entered during an earlier part of that same call SOLUTIONS PBX Interfacing Options How do you characterize call progress tones that deviate from Bell standards One way is to use a utility provided by your voice card vendor One such utility PBXpert from Dialogic allows you to set up a PC with one of their voice cards hook up the card to two PBX extension lines enter a few parameters into the pro gram screens and tell it to run It uses both lines and places calls from one extension to the other creating condi tions like busy and ring no answer all the while recording the tone fre quencies and cadence patterns When done it produces a TSF tone set file that the Dialogic speech card driver then uses to transparently provide very good PBX interfacing for your CT system A very cool feature In the case of TRT s high density CommPoint for NT voice mail prod uct as of this writing Dialogic has just entered into Beta with this utility under Windows NT the DOS version works well and has been in produc tion for quite a while By the time you read this article the production version may already be available PBX Integration Options How do you effect PBX integration for the many switches that exist Since many PBX vendors consider integra tion details proprietary the simple answer is one switch at a time Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com Taulen Ir nmal pral i a
57. lly connected to the sound board Now with a headset conversations are private and the sound is clean But you may feel uncomfortable being tethered to your computer You may start to wonder as we have why you can t use the good old handset to talk on the Internet You may even start to wonder why you can t use the same handset for both Internet and regular POTS calls switching back and forth at will Well you can And one product that brings the traditional handset to Internet telephony is Telepoint USA s Internet PhoneLink which provides a connection to a POTS phone jack to let you make or receive regular calls INSTALLATION Before we installed the Internet PhoneLink we made sure that all the necessary elements were in place We used a Pentium 120 PC with 24 Mbytes RAM and Sound Blaster 16 sound card We also installed Internet telephony software namely Internet Telephone by VocalTec Before we connected the Internet PhoneLink device we tested the func tionality of our setup by establishing an Internet call between two PCs Our setup worked fine We then replaced the microphone and speakers on one machine with the Internet PhoneLink device The installation went smoothly We easily made the connections to the sound card POTS line modem and telephone set DOCUMENTATION Internet PhoneLink comes with a four page user s guide covering the installation and operation of the device This brief guide which
58. mall enough that an index may be unnecessary Installation instructions very brief and there were no screenshots in the manu al All told we gave the documentation a 3 90 rating ueste makes a larger version of VoiceNet This larger version called Internet Telephony Server ITS is a 24 line system that routes traditional voice traffic from the PSTN network over the Internet and company Intranets By tradi tional we mean that ITS lets cus tomers use ordinary telephones The ITS is a turnkey system that operates on the Windows NT oper ating platform With ITS you can place a call over the Internet as easily as you would place a normal phone call You simply pick up your phone dial a telephone number and talk The number is automatically routed over the Internet to its destination Eventually ITS will be able to transparently route traffic over Intranets the Internet or the pub lic network as dictated by the site administrator If the Internet is 54 CTI July 1997 Vorehict Pio Ee Qpin Word Hap pleu eoms zla This aie i rare Eti Mapane it incatedin Lren abel a aed hae tha phra rumba aa Ea Pe ia gees ip si Ther ute mm comata j m Pe irian ad Fe Pes EEA 16 S51 1B eS eh i FEATURES The Basics VoiceNet enables real time two way full duplex conversa tions uses GSM compression to give 12 kbps s throughput and can change packet size to decrease pops or
59. n CommPoint s most important modules CP Mail CP Script and CP Query We also examined the product s remote administration notifi cation and reporting capabilities CP Mail System CP Mail is CommPoint s voice BY CHRIS BAJOREK TELEPHONE RESPONSE TECHNOLOGIES INC Ce CT systems such as voice mail systems auto attendants ACDs and IVRs are usually connected to phone lines behind the PBX or phone sys tem In other words the lines going into CT systems of this class are extension lines Moreover these lines are just like the lines that ter minate into standard desktop phones When it is connected to a PBX in this way a CT system can freely transfer the calls that it processes to any telephone extension ser viced by the switch Further CT mail auto attendant system It provides one call follow me multiple person al greetings and attendant support auto day night mode multiple compa ny department support distribution lists flexible mailbox profiles novice expert modes and customized mailbox call answering steps The CP Mail system consists of the server portion and the administration module The server portion comprises two programs MailServ exe and Vmail exe which are usually included in the application startup list of the port manager The server modules provide access to the port manager as well as PBX CONNECTIVITY PROBLEMS We can distinguish between two levels of PBX c
60. nge Eudora Outlook and Pronto eSupports the following MIME UUENCODE UUDECODE POP3 RealAudio 2 0 3 0 SMTP HTML 2 0 3 0 SCBus JavaScript and IMAP4 Q2 1997 MediaMail server software consists of three distinct components eInternet Message Center which functions as the Web based interface to all incoming message types from one or more mail servers eMedia VF which enables inbound delivery of voice and fax messages It also provides for faxback auto faxfor ward and pager notification eMediaCache Software which pro vides consistency and synchronization between multiple POP3 servers It also provides integration to your existing voice mail system OPERATIONAL TESTING ActiveX Problem We tested MediaMail using two of the more popular browsers to check interoperability and compatibility We Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com didn t encounter any problems with Netscape s Navigator however we weren t so lucky when testing Microsoft s Internet Explorer The problem involved the RealAudio plug in When we tried to play a voice mail message stored in RealAudio format a dialog box was displayed on the screen warning us that the ActiveX viewer was not installed Figure 17 We were under the impression that this particular machine had the latest RealAudio ActiveX installed v3 0 but we decided to click on Yes and have the browser install the ActiveX compo nents When the
61. ntains such modules as the mail administrator and the port administrator The PC was a Pentium 120 with 32 MB of RAM and 500 MB hard drive running Windows NT 4 0 Workstation It included a D 41ESC Dialogic speech card which is a 4 line SCSA speech card with LSI line interface and a network interface card Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com RATINGS 1 5 Installation NA Documentation 4 5 GUI 4 9 Features 4 75 We turned the PC on and set it up to join our Windows NT network over TCP IP Then we plugged in two extensions from our Comdial DXP PBX into the D 4I1ESC Dialogic speech card A quick reboot and the system was on the network and con nected to our PBX DOCUMENTATION Our CommPoint system arrived with three manuals the Installation Guide the CP Mail And System Admiunistrator s Guide and the CP Script guide All of these manuals were concise well orga nized and complete They included many how to instructions and were amply illustrated with screenshots WwW at CTI magazine invite our readers to contact us with com ments questions or sug We noticed that a few page numbers were referenced incorrectly and that a few lines were missing from a couple of sections We attribute these small oversights to the newness of the prod uct and the manuals We could not find the PBX And MWI Integration Guide which was ref erenced in several sections of the other manuals Also absent
62. om one to another The Internet PhoneLink extends the usage of the POTS telephone set to the Internet however the product requires an analog modem connection to the Internet to successfully switch from the POTS to the sound card When the modem goes off hook the telephone set is switched from the analog POTS feed to the sound card Using another means of Internet access such as a cor porate network renders the device unusable since there will no modem connections and the telephone set will always be in analog mode Many busi nesses use a network connection to the Internet while others employ schemes such as modem sharing Home based businesses however make good candi dates for this device since most of them use analog modems to access the Internet Finally we realize Internet PhoneLink may require power to effectively switch between the POTS and the sound card however we wish that this device could achieve the switch without the power requirement As many PC users know there are already plenty of devices on their desks that need to plugged in crowding the outlets It would a blessing CTI July 199757 if one came along that didn t need to be plugged in CONCLUSION If you are a moderate to heavy user of Internet telephony and if you use a modem to connect to the Internet con nection you will find Internet PhoneLink which allows you to take calls on a regular analog phone a use ful piece of equipm
63. onDictate can distin guish between homonyms such as to two and too After it applies both the acoustic model and the language model DragonDictate displays the spo ken word on the computer screen INSTALLATION We didn t have the CD ROM version so we ended up installing the diskette version We had to install over eight disks plus a text to speech program and an upgrade disk The installation was uneventful but it did take a while 30 minutes mostly because DragonDictate has such a large dictionary Since adding DragonDictate s word horde enhances the product s usability we didn t mind swapping all those disks We gave the installation a 4 75 rating DOCUMENTATION The documentation included a manu al online help and online tutorials Figure 11 DragonDictate The tutorial complete with visual aids as well as the voice menu interface for accessing the pro gram s menus and options The manual was well organized and all of its components table of contents individual chapters index and trou bleshooting appendix were well done The material on setting up and fine tuning the microphone was partic ularly useful The tutorials were fun and informa tive They even provided companion ship via an animated dragon Figure 11 and a disembodied female voice Are we spending too much time with our computers Also multimedia ani mated screen cams show you how to use importan
64. onnectivity problems Accordingly we should use two dif ferent terms to describe these prob lems In this article we use PBX interfacing and PBX integration Since many people use the term PBX integration loosely using it to refer to PBX connectivity problems gener ally we should confine ourselves to the more rigorous definition to avoid confusion PBX Interfacing refers to the need of CT systems to adapt to the specific call progress tones and line takedown signals that any given switch uses For example when you pick up your local PBX extension the dial tone MECTS systems of this class often give callers an option to connect to a live agent Unfortunately connecting the CT system to the PBX it sits behind is often difficult The main problem is a lack of a single unifying stan dard for how to communicate with the switch almost every PBX vendor has its own proprietary method So every CT equipment vendor must perform the arduous task of learning how to interact with each switch This turns out to be one of the most significant bar riers of entry into the voice mail auto attendant market for manufacturers July 1997 you hear may not be the Bell standard dual tone pair 440 660 Hz In many switches it is a single tone in others it is a different pair of tones Other call progress tones that may deviate from Bell standards include ring back busy and re order signals as well as the
65. ound on the handset speaker We then launched VocalTec s Internet Phone and placed a call from our PC to another After adjusting the speaker and microphone gains we made contact The voice quality was good as good as the Internet would permit and we had no trouble with our conversation After we were done with our test we disconnected from the Internet and the telephone set was back in the analog mode ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT As we mentioned before the Internet PhoneLink replaces the microphone and speakers with a telephone handset While this feature may be desirable for Internet phone calls it may be unsuit able if for example you want to play a RATINGS 1 5 Installation 4 25 Documentation 3 5 Features 4 System Requirements e 486 PC or equivalent Mac Pentium recommended e Half duplex sound card full duplex recommended e 14 400 bps modem 28 800 bps recommended e Internet telephony software e Internet service subscription e Standard telephone sound In most cases you would still want to use the microphone and the speakers with the sound card rather than a telephone set Also the product s ability to make Internet phone calls pri vate one of the product s selling points may not be a strong deciding factor in a home office situation We wish that we could retain both types of devices telephone set and micro phone speaker set and have an easy method to switch fr
66. pesty COM Potisk COM I is BeThere modem Pe Tope DeaukT ype When telecommuters and road war riors run Be There on their remote computers laptop or desktop they are connected to the corporate voice and data network which is actually operat ing within the company s firewalls Be There lets employees take advantage of all corporate network capabilities with out compromising network security INSTALLATION We will discuss the server installa tion as well as the desktop client and the laptop client installations For the Cont edit units radad User 1 Hardware ID Figure 2 Be There Administration program on the server which lets you add users and set permissions extensions PBX types etc desktop we needed to install an ISA board for the laptop a PCMCIA card Server Installation Our four port server arrived with Windows NT 4 0 server software already installed However we did have to con figure a few items Figure 2 including user accounts TCP IP settings as well as trust relationships that gave the Data Race server access to our LAN Aided by the user friendly Windows NT GUI we defined PBX number and type and viewed run time information on cards connected to the server Figure 3 Overall setup time for the server was about 10 minutes Laptop Client Installation Installation got a little hairy when it came time to install one of Data Race s PCMCIA ca
67. r disk to load a spe cial driver for this COM port and manually added the Be There Multiplexer modem in the modem con trol panel applet We connected this modem to the COM port we added At this point we had to reboot We then installed the Data Race software appli cation We encountered no glitches The ISA board installation including desktop software got a 4 50 rating We gave the server installation a 5 0 rating We gave the laptop client installation a 3 90 rating which would have been lower only we took into account Data Race s comments that the problems we encountered were atypical Data Race did tell us however that they ve had some strange installations with other Toshiba laptops In any case we gave a little more weight to the client installations since these are more frequent and arrived at an overall installation rating of 4 40 This rating could be higher if future installation instructions include warn ings about disabling any third party PCMCIA card detection or socket soft ware as well as suggestions for workarounds By the way Data Race provides installation services DOCUMENTATION Documentation consisted of a Quick Start sheet a server administrator s manual and a desktop notebook user s manual The documentation was well organized and included step by step installation instructions Both of the main manuals were well illustrated with sceenshots Overall the documen tation
68. r to a pre cise spot on the screen using Dragon Systems patented voice controller for your mouse MouseGrid eLoad Windows applications by uttering simple voice commands such as Bring up Word e Move the cursor by uttering simple voice commands such as Page Up Page Down Ctrl Home Home and End e Train DragonDictate to recognize a word not in its dictionary If DragonDictate cannot recognize your particular speech pattern you can train DragonDictate to easily recognize the word eSpell out words by using the military alphabet Alpha Bravo Charlie etc eStore different voice characteristics in multiple user files eCorrect words you ve just spoken to improve the program s recognition accuracy DragonDictate stores up to the last 32 words you ve spoken OPERATIONAL TESTING Number Keypad Commands Pressing the plus key on the number keypad toggles DragonDictate on and off a great feature especially if a co worker approaches your desk and you need to quickly turn off dictation mode Pressing the minus key on the number keypad brings up the word history Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com is purchased which is a quick and handy feature for making corrections Adapting To The User s Voice We put DragonDictate through its paces by having one of our engineers speak into the microphone Now this engineer has a distinctive way of speak ing so we didn t envy DragonDi
69. rchased e 16 to 20 MB of memory depending on which version e 486 66 Mhz or higher W utility called WINTOP EXE This pro gram 1s a Microsoft Kernel Toy which can be downloaded from www microsoft com windows download WIN_TOP EXE When we ran this utility we saw that DragonDictate was using 35 to 40 percent of the CPU time Since we were dictating a letter we wanted DragonDictate to be a little more self ish and use more CPU cycles so both the accuracy and performance would improve As luck would have it or perhaps thanks to great design by Dragon Systems there is a slider bar to adjust the Computational Level The farther you slide the bar to the right the more CPU cycles are used When we pushed the slider bar all the way to the right the accuracy greatly improved but the lag time between speaking a word and seeing it displayed on the screen increased Wintop showed us that the CPU usage by DragonDictate jumped to 81 percent and then stabilized around 80 percent Apparently the greater number of CPU cycles allocated by the slider bar is used by DragonDictate for more detailed analysis of the words you speak and not to increase the speed at which the words are displayed on screen Although this is fine we would like to see another slider bar which increas es CPU usage for on screen display rather than more detailed analysis We must admit however we have no idea how impractical this suggestion may be
70. rds Windows 95 automati cally detected a modem and installed a generic driver without asking us if we R Dontdo RACF for otha card Fowaed From R Enable Modem Integrity Chack Edi check interval on page Mise Config Figure 3 Be There Card property screen where you can define the PBX number PBX type and allows you to view runtime info on cards connected to the server 46 CTI July 1997 Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com Fie Edi Prome Tools Help Prone Apolicalon Pop up Answer Diahog on cing Mf Popup Phone Application on Dial Pop up Phone Application on Ring ft Pop up Phone Application on Answer E Pop up Phone Application when hagdeet is picked up Ringing Options he Ring Computer Speaker Flay IBETHEREDATAIRING WAV ft Show Bubble Help tre uw i il Rh eTisere ee Pirri be Thar Peroni Muhiaisusr Figure 4 Be There Phone application options which include popup and ringing options and bubble help wished to use a vendor driver diskette Unfortunately Windows 95 added the wrong device to the System folder Apparently the System Soft socket software on our Toshiba laptop was causing the problem The System Soft software detected the new PCMCIA card generated its own INF file and added a generic modem We encountered a similar problem when adding a Motorola combo modem network card to a Toshiba lap top We got around this problem by removing the card deleting t
71. rnoon which were charged to the company They were business calls or so he says But seriously you can certainly see great applications for this product All of us at CTI Labs were extremely impressed with this product and we would highly recommend it to anyone interested in a telecommuting solution VoiceNet Syste Queste Inc 12831 Lindley Drive Raleigh NC 27614 Ph 919 518 8416 E Mail questesales queste inc com Web Site www queste inc com runs on Windows 95 allows you to bridge PBX systems and key systems to the Internet Designed to work with TAPI voice modems such as Vf ss on a TAPI application that Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com the Creative Labs PhoneBlaster VoiceNet allows you to use existing business telephone systems to make and receive full duplex phone calls over TCP IP networks The VoiceNet system is basically a gateway Gateway products allow busi nesses to use the Internet as a long dis tance replacement for the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network PSTN The VoiceNet System con nects to a business s conventional tele phone system but routes long distance calls over the Internet instead of the PSTN bypassing the long distance car riers Figure 9 Thus the rationale for the product is that it combines the convenience of phone calling with the tremendous cost savings of voice communication over the Internet As we know the cost of using the Internet
72. s Bajorek and Norm Rees developed its first soft ware tools product INTELESYS in 1986 In 1992 the company released ProVIDE its second generation tools product In November of 1996 TRT announced CommPoint for Windows NT CommPoint is scheduled to begin production shipments during the sec ond quarter of 1997 W CTI July 1997 71 unnecessary files removing mes sages marked for deletion and other cleanup tasks that are usually carried out during off peak hours The Statistics tab displays some basic usage statistics for the entire system The Reset button is used to clear all displayed figures and reset to zero Company Level Back on the Companies tab we looked at the entry called _PROFILES_ This entry corre sponds to a group of mailboxes that are template accounts used in creating new mailboxes A list of PROFILES _ mailboxes are shown in Figure 27 The AUTO_ATTEND and STAN DARD mailboxes in Figure 27 are cre ated the same way as other mailboxes but they are used as templates for real voice mail accounts We wanted to cre ate a new mailbox 164 in the TRT group so we double clicked on the TRT entry and got to the Company Information screen This screen allows company level administration of CP Mail The Mailboxes tab lists all available mailbox accounts Mailboxes can be added removed and modified from this screen The Information mail boxes tab contains mailbox accounts that store and play messages to th
73. serve as a productivity and morale booster With Be There you have complete Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com real time access to e mail the Internet and your company s entire data and voice communications networks Also anything you can do using the office phone system you can do with the Personal Multiplexer And wherever you happen to be you can use call transfer conference calls do not disturb and other features More impor tant when someone calls your office phone the call is automatically and trans parently routed to your home or remote location Security and call accounting fea tures were more than adequate Several PBX manufacturers are working on creating similar solutions to Data Race s Be There Multiplexer But why wait The product is here now It works great And it is reasonably priced considering the return on investment possibilities Incidentally one of our technology edi tors forgot to take home the floppy disk that contained this review which he had planned to finish over the weekend All he had to do was log onto the Data Race serv er access his computer and retrieve the Word file He completed about four hours of work which would have been left undone until Monday if he had been unable to access our corporate LAN Of course a standalone RAS server could serve the same purpose but did we mention that while he was logged on he also made some phone calls on a Saturday afte
74. stem server System Monitoring And Call Tracking Administrators can monitor the system and track call status in real time using an intuitive graphical user s interface which provides a range of information including the date time and duration of a call the call s source and destination and the call originator s name Log files allow administrators to accurately track usage for billing OPERATIONAL TESTING In our tests we didn t integrate with our Comdial switch since at the time all of our analog ports were either being used or upgraded Instead we tested the product by using standard analog lines The functionality is the same except we didn t dial through a switch We loaded the VoiceNet software onto a Windows 95 machine that con tained a Creative Labs PhoneBlaster 33 6k card a voice enabled full duplex modem with sound capability Then we were ready to dial into this machine Our call went over the Internet to a Queste representative and we were able to use a regular phone as opposed to a computer microphone Making The Call First you dial into the VoiceNet machine After the machine picks up a greeting says Please enter the phone number you wish to reach or a speed dial followed by the star key After you enter the phone number the computer compares the phone number against its Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com routing table and decides whether to dial over the Internet or the PS
75. t DragonDictate features The female voice demonstrated how DragonDictate responded to voice commands such as Bring up Word Begin new document Dictate mode Dear John New Paragraph With each voice command you can see Microsoft Word respond by performing the appro priate function The female voice also intentionally makes mistakes to show you how easily you can correct your errors The tutorials also demonstrate DragonDictate s adaptability Figure 12 The more you use the program the more it learns DragonDictate s tutori als are among the best we ve seen and helped earn DragonDictate a 5 0 rating for documentation FEATURES With DragonDictate you can e Dictate edit move and format text Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com 77 Tutorial Lerrun amp Dictate Tert The mone you uet nee tite ae more d Meee Ste Toor Ar MAR haid al thee miyman d keane bom yia Habo and ham ATs 18 OE ae ees a bee Toe hou gee oer uier hiai ae offen ee Oe 0 See ery ie re eding Figure 12 DragonDictate Tutorial explaining the product s adaptability feature and numbers within your application eDirect what s happening on your screen by uttering voice commands for example you can activate com mands pull down menus or push dialog buttons eCreate voice macros that turn a word or phrase into a series of com mands and boilerplate text that make the system easier to use eMove your mouse pointe
76. th the digital signature screen for ActiveX programs After accepting the digital signature certificate we were able to play a voice mail message When we tried to play a second voice mail message however we still got the same ActiveX viewer not installed Do you wish to install the compo nents This was getting old fast We decided to click on No do not install components and uncheck the Always check before displaying this type of CTI July 1997 63 S3 i Aiglecape tom krany s Mail folder imin displayed inline in the browser In Ele Edi Mew Ge Aoma pion Daey ido Esl Figure 19 you can see the RealAudio ee hes amp plug in being displayed inline on the Netscape browser A voice mail mes sage is being played back l Locatoa Where Mew Whats Goo Deehnatons Mel Search People Sofware initia When we sent a fax to our 800 num i ai ber the 800 number automatically Hew Gortiacts sup A A Folders detected the incoming fax and routed it Heip to a receiving fax board on the MediaMail server The fax was then routed to the MediaMail inbox Just as Wewiage Mave Ta F ll with voice mail the fax quickly I Rackula Taru Magan gs appeared in the inbox F From TAT TEEI on biar 21 1957 mt T Pade tl Fag eben E Freee 70 2 on ee al 1 From TK 290 0484 on wD ase Apeh Freee iine coon Hn imes me in beoce Fax
77. to and the personal ID password When you log off the Data Race serv er the server automatically un for wards your extension with the DTMF digits 62 2 1 1 See Figure 6 we Oate Tera 1 OE Pld dain ccs 1 02 Pi 108 Fii 1 05 Pe 111 PM 3853407 Jaami ith ieee Figure 7 Be There Call 1 12PM 113 Pa T lz FH aP nfn Ai EPH B12 rd Pii ij ed Aur Curtis bots 20 arpe Wa 203 apek Ekri 00 airi foi r i Hame log with time and date stamps duration etc Cpe ira ia Ca T 3 aaI0 DIST Figure 6 Be There A listing of some of the supported PBX types and the corresponding RACF functionality Note how the Nortel 61C and other PBXs require a PIN to activate RACF and note the PIN With RACP s abil ity to turn on call forwarding when you are logged on and turn it off when you are logged off the caller is assured of reaching either you or your voice mail box Data Race provided a live demon stration of this RACF functionality and its ability to automatically forward and un forward a personal extension As previously mentioned Data Race came to our office and we saw first hand how they were able to take calls while on the road In their setup they dialed just one number to connect to their Data Race server in Texas The technician s personal extension was then automatically forwarded using DTMF digits to the next available port on the Data Race server From this point any incoming
78. tone or tones generated by the switch to indicate caller dis connect Here s the problem with these non standard tones all CT equipment has to be trained to recog nize these different tones In other words CT systems must be pro grammed to handle the tones for each different switch and there are hun dreds of switches PBX Integration refers to the need S management of the voice mail accounts and caller interactions The CP Mail module is administered via the Mail Admin module which we used to add a mailbox to our system The Mail Admin program started by asking which server we wanted to be connected to This request shows the product s client server architecture at work CP Mail can be administered remotely or centrally We found that the CP Mail adminis tration program describes a hierarchy System level administration is followed by company level administration and finally by mailbox level administration a onnecting CT Systems to PBXs A Tutorial of CT systems to recognize the types of calls it is receiving as well as the ability to command message waiting lights on your extension phone to go on or off For example say a caller has entered touch tones requesting a transfer to your extension 555 The auto attendant system performs an unmonitored transfer to your exten sion that is it transfers your call and immediately hangs up so that line is free to handle another incoming call Howev
79. true with fax bandwidth Getting RACF We couldn t find anything in the Comdial documentation on how we connections on the client side to con nect to the four different Line ports Then you just try each phone num ber until you find one that isn t busy But here we encounter a disadvan tage You won t know which exten sion to forward your phone to when you leave the office since it could be 260 262 264 or 266 In this sce nario you would need to call each port and determine which port is free on the Data Race server Once you determine that you would then need to call the office and have someone forward your phone to the Data Race extension you are hooked into plus add to that extension For example if you were dialed into extension 260 the person in the office would forward your phone to 261 If you are dialed into 262 your phone should be forwarded to 263 and so forth As you can see using contiguous numbers extension ports makes it easy to determine which extension to forward your extension to If somebody calls your extension and you are not connected to the Data Race server the call will still be forwarded to the Data Race server After a few rings the auto attendant voice mail system will detect an S could use our switch to accomplish Remote Access To Call Forwarding RACP So we called Comdial s tech nical support and were told that the DXP switch doesn t have RACF built in B
80. u said you just go ahead and continue speaking the next word If it doesn t recognize the word correctly you do one of the fol lowing e Choose the correct word if it appears on the list e Type or spell the correct word if it isn t on the list e Use Spell mode spell the word let ter by letter using your voice e Edit a word on the list e Reject the word by saying Choose 10 the choice or double ragonPro Enhancements For Specialized Needs insurance and finance who use a broad range of specialized terminolo gy including the names of compa nies on the NYSE AMEX and NASDAQ It also includes interna tional currencies investment institu tions and bond ratings DragonTech is designed to streamline the production of techni cal documents written by computer specialists It incorporates a broad array of computer terminology including brand names networking terms industry standards publica tions common phrases such as drag and drop and abbreviations DragonXTools gives you visual controls uses VBX which allow you to quickly add speech capabili ties to your custom applications W Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com Aomori 0 mca L This is an iiterestiog product This ind pa VO sening Figure 15 DragonDictate Training interface to train new works or retrain old ones The bar on the left indicates how loudly you are speaking into the microphone cl
81. user settings Figure 21 you can set up the POP3 server information as well as other custom configurations You can send e mail from within your browser while taking advantage of MediaMail s address book Figure 22 ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT Better instructions on how to handle MSIE integration issues would be a nice improvement Also we couldn t find our personal 800 number any where in our Internet inbox when we browsed our MediaMail account If you lose track of the phone number that means placing a call to MediaMail s technical support We d like to be able to access the configura tion screen and see all our account information including our personal l 800 number CTI July 1997 65 j Fis Gl We Ge Finis How ce oOo 6 amp a Cr kmi Tep Fabas Heep Sh Pras he E Crins a new melia ail memg ENEE B Sel ts bee F kia a i fr Se iniii Peta e hap Para ta etn Figure 22 MediaMail E mail mes sage interface The address book appears in the top right corner e Teni rechornad P Include Sienature F Add io Sem Polder CONCLUSION This is a great product for medium sized to large companies looking for a unified messaging solution However this product is probably a better fit as a value added service which could be provided by ISPs or telcos System integrators ISVs or VARs can utilize MediaMail to create custom and vertical market solutions elePoint USA s PhoneLink and
82. were manuals for recorder application and the system s reporting capabilities According to TRT these guides should be available by the time this review is published FEATURES e Native 32 bit Windows NT 4 0 sup port e Client server architecture e Scales from 4 ports to very large systems thousands of lines e Up to 96 ports per PC based port server e Support for analog T 1 and ISDN PRI lines e Remote maintenance and monitoring capability gestions If you have any Feedback we encourage you to send e mail editorial tmcnet com or snail mail CTI 1 Technology Plaza Norwalk CT 06854 Subscribe FREE online at www ctimag com System Requirements The port server has the following minimum requirements e 80486DX 120 PC Pentium 100 or faster highly recommended e 24 MB of RAM 32 MB highly recommended e 12 ms hard drive with 40 MB free space for CommPoint soft ware Additional free space is necessary for message record ing e Windows NT 4 0 Workstation or Server e Dialogic SCSA speech card s The administrative user server has the following minimum requirements e Windows 95 or Windows NT e 16 MB of RAM E NOBLE SYS B W CTI July 1997 69 e On line diagnostics and reporting e Handle and route in bound calls based on incoming line ANI or DNIS information e Internal Dialogic SCbus switching fabric OPERATIONAL TESTING We concentrated o
83. you deem necessary Overall the documentation scored a 3 50 rating FEATURES In general MediaMail simplifies message access and management More specifically MediaMail e Displays information via your Web browser on message type sender date received time and message content e Provides a single central inbox for your voice mail e mail and faxes e Allows remote access to all mes sage types anywhere there is an Internet connection e Permits text to retrieval via speech of e mail text and fax header information Figure 17 MediaMail The ActiveX error we received in Microsoft Internet Explorer when we tried to browse a page with an embedded RealAudio file Actyve gt s Viewer Not Insialled following ype Embedded abject type Extension HA MIME type miomaticalk T The page you are aboutto view contains an embedded obgect of the sudio x pr realaudio plugin Your Ccompuler does not heave an Activa viwer for this wpe of obpect Do you want to download and install an Actes wewer E Abenys check before displaying thes type of object e Automatically forwards e mail and faxes to any fax machine e Alerts users of important incoming messages via alphanumeric numeric and SMS pager notification e Provides folders for organizing messages e Sends e mail messages to any fax machine and takes fax numbers from any touch tone phone e Uses existing POP3 e mail clients such as Excha

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