New Features
The following table lists the new features available for each Contact Center Enterprise solution in Release 12.6(1).
Feature |
Unified CCE |
Packaged CCE |
---|---|---|
VPN-less Access to Finesse Desktop (For Agents and Supervisors) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Simplified Upgrade |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
AppDynamics Native Integration with CCE |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
||
Yes |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
WFO Support |
Yes |
Yes |
Authentication for Reverse-Proxy Connections (ES02 Update)
Finesse introduces authentication at the edge for the reverse-proxy. Authentication is supported for both SSO and Non-SSO deployments. Authentication is enforced for all requests and protocols that are accepted at the proxy before they are forwarded to the respective component servers (Finesse, IdS, CUIC, and IdP). The component servers also enforce authentication locally. All authentications made at the proxy use the Finesse login credentials, irrespective of the component server to which the requests are made. For more information on authentication, see the Authentication topic under the VPN-Less Access to Finesse Desktop section in the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide. For complete list of enhancements to the VPN-Less configuration, refer to the Nginx TechNote article.
Configurable Reverse-Proxy Host Verification (ES03 Update)
You can enable and disable SSL certificate verification for connections that are established from reverse-proxy hosts to Cisco Web Proxy Service by using the utils system reverse-proxy client-auth CLI command. For more information about reverse-proxy host authentication see the Configure Reverse-Proxy Host Authentication section in Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide.
VPN-less Access to Finesse Desktop (For Agents and Supervisors)
This feature provides the flexibility for agents and supervisors to access the Finesse desktop from anywhere through the Internet without requiring VPN connectivity to the enterprise data center. To enable this feature, a reverse-proxy pair must be deployed in the DMZ. For more information on this feature, see the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide, Release 12.6(1) and Security Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise, Release 12.6(1).
Media access remains unchanged in reverse-proxy deployments. To connect to the media, agents and supervisors can use Cisco Jabber over MRA or the Mobile Agent capability of Contact Center Enterprise with a PSTN or mobile endpoint.
To use VPN-less access to Finesse desktop, you must upgrade Finesse, IdS, and CUIC to Release 12.6(1) ES02 or above. If you are using Unified CCE 12.6(1), you must upgrade Live Data to 12.6(1) ES02 or above. You can access the 12.6(1) ES03 Release and Readme from the following locations:
Note |
|
Agent Answers
Unified CCE leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to provide services that assist agents. These Contact Center AI services are available for the agents through the Agent Answers gadget and the Call Transcript gadget on the Cisco Finesse desktop.
The Agent Answers gadget displays relevant suggestions and recommendations in real time for the agent to consider. The suggestions and recommendations are based on the ongoing conversation between the caller and the agent. Agent Answers enhances the customer experience because the timely suggestions improve the ability of the agent to respond.
The Call Transcript gadget dynamically converts the ongoing voice conversation to text and presents the text to an agent for real-time viewing and reference.
For details on how to configure the Agent Answers and Call Transcription features, see the Agent Answers and the Call Transcription chapters in the following documents:
-
Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide, Release 12.6(1) at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-feature-guides-list.html
-
Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise Features Guide, Release 12.6(1) at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/packaged-contact-center-enterprise/products-maintenance-guides-list.html
For information on the design considerations of the Agent Answers and Call Transcription features, see the Contact Center AI Services Considerations section in following documents:
-
Solution Design Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise, Release 12.6(1) at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-implementation-design-guides-list.html
-
Solution Design Guide for Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise, Release 12.6 at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/packaged-contact-center-enterprise/products-technical-reference-list.html
Note |
To enable Agent Answers or Call Transcript features, ensure your Cisco Unified CVP is on 12.6(1) ES 06, Cisco Finesse is on 12.6(1) ES 01, and Cloud Connect is on 12.6. |
Edge Chromium Browser Support
This release supports Edge Chromium (Microsoft Edge) . For more information, see the Supported Browsers section in the Contact Center Enterprise Solution Compatibility Matrix at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-device-support-tables-list.html.
Simplified Upgrade
The Orchestration feature provides partners and administrators an option to automatically download software updates and simplify the installation and rollback processes. Integration of Graceful Shutdown feature within the Orchestration framework ensures that the software updates are updated with minimal downtime. The Orchestration framework is built within the Cloud Connect server that connects to the Cisco-hosted cloud software repository. This framework provides the ability to check and download new software updates as and when they are available and notify the administrators via email about the new updates along with the release notes. Orchestration currently supports installation and rollback of Cisco Engineering Specials (ES), Service Updates (SU), Minor Releases (MR), and Microsoft Patches.
Cloud Connect server version 12.6(1) supports Orchestration in the following scenarios:
-
CCE 12.5(x) ES, 12.6(x) ES and Windows Updates can be orchestrated from 12.6(x) Cloud Connect server
-
CCE 12.5(1) to 12.5(2) or 12.6(1) software upgrade can be orchestrated from 12.6(x) Cloud Connect server
Note
ICM 12.5(2) to 12.6(1) upgrade is not supported either manually or via orchestration.
Apply the mandatory patch on Cloud Connect to Orchestrate 12.5(2) ES and software upgrade.
The following are the known limitations:
-
Orchestration is not supported for Tech Refresh and fresh install.
-
Orchestration is not supported for Cisco Customer Collaboration Platform (CCP), Cisco Enterprise Chat and Email (ECE), Cisco Unified Contact Center Domain Manager (CCDM), Cisco Unified Contact Center Management Portal (CCMP), and non-Contact Center Cisco products such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), IM&P etc.
-
The administrators should read the release notes specifically for ES releases that are notified via email to understand the dependency on each component. The Orchestration framework does not track this aspect automatically. For example, if an ES of Finesse has a dependency on an ES of Live Data and has to be installed in a specific order, then the administrator should consider this before initiating the patch installation from the Cloud Connect server.
-
Only Microsoft Exchange Server is supported for email notification; Office 365 and Gmail are not supported as of now.
Note |
Orchestration is not supported for 12000, 24000, and 36000 agent deployment models. |
Graceful Shutdown
Graceful shutdown allows you to perform firmware upgrades, apply security patches, and apply Engineering Specials (ES) without the need for a maintenance window. With this feature, active calls and sessions are transitioned over to secondary or redundant components before an upgrade process is initiated on the target system. Agent states, call states, and call context are maintained. Operations such as reskilling and changing an agent's team membership are not affected.
For more information, see the following documents:
-
Administration Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-maintenance-guides-list.html
-
Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise Administration and Configuration Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/packaged-contact-center-enterprise/products-maintenance-guides-list.html
AppDynamics Native Integration with CCE
For Cisco Contact Center Enterprise solution, it is important to have continuous and seamless monitoring of the deployed solution and automated alerting when anomalies are detected. AppDynamics provides a solution for application and platform performance monitoring that helps to achieve the following:
-
Platform, application, and End User Monitoring (EUM) through dashboards and metrics.
-
Automated alerting mechanism in case of anomaly detection.
For ordering and setting up AppDynamics SAAS controller, please contact appd_ucce_sales@cisco.com
Note |
For AppDynamics, CCE supports SaaS and On-Prem controller (version 21.4.10-24683) over secure connection only. |
Support for 36000 Agents
You can modify your existing 24000 agent reference design to scale up to 36000 agents. This is accomplished by adding more peripheral VMs and peripheral gateways to the deployment and modifying specific configuration limits. You must also modify the OVA files for Live Data and Cisco Identity Service (IdS).
For more information about configuring your solution for 36000 agents, see the following documents:
-
Solution Design Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-implementation-design-guides-list.html
-
Solution Design Guide for Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/unified-communications/hosted-collaboration-solution-contact-center/products-implementation-design-guides-list.html.
For more details, see the Scale up to 36000 Agents topic in the Solution Design Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-implementation-design-guides-list.html
Custom Truststore to Store Component Certificates
Starting Unified CCE 12.6(x), a new custom truststore is created under the Unified ICM Installation directory <ICM install directory>\ssl\cacerts to store all the component certificates. With this new custom truststore, you don't need to export and import the certificates each time Java is updated in the system.
After upgrading from Unified CCE 12.5(x) to Unified CCE 12.6(x), you should export the certificates from the Java truststore to the custom truststore under the Unified ICM Installation directory <ICM install directory>\ssl\cacerts.
Export the certificate from the Java truststore:
-
Run the command at the command prompt: cd %JAVA_HOME%\bin.
Important
Use CCE_JAVA_HOME if upgrading from Unified CCE 12.5(1a) or Unified CCE 12.5(1) with ES55 (mandatory OpenJDK ES).
-
Export the certificates of all the components imported into the truststore.
The command to export the certificates is keytool -export -keystore <JRE path>\lib\security\cacerts -alias <alias of the component> -file <filepath>.cer -
Enter the truststore password when prompted.
Import the certificate to the custom truststore:
-
Run the command at the command prompt: cd %CCE_JAVA_HOME%\bin.
-
Import the certificates for all the components that you exported from the Java truststore.
The command to import certificates is keytool -import -keystore <ICM install directory>\ssl\cacerts -file <filepath>.cer -alias <alias>. -
Enter the truststore password when prompted.
-
Enter 'yes' when prompted to trust the certificate.
vMotion
Cisco Contact Center Enterprise solution components now support vMotion of live virtual machines (VMs) on Cisco Hyperflex servers. VMware vMotion enables the live migration of running VMs from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity. vMotion is a key enabling technology for creating dynamic, automated, and self-optimizing data centers.
Dual Platform Support
Contact Center Enterprise (CCE) components supports the following platforms:
-
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 and Microsoft SQL Server 2017
-
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 and Microsoft SQL Server 2019
Note |
The cross combination of platforms is not supported. For example, Windows Server 2016 with SQL Server 2019 or Windows Server 2019 with SQL Server 2017 is not supported. |
For more information, see the Install Microsoft Windows Server section in the Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise Installation and Upgrade Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/packaged-contact-center-enterprise/products-installation-guides-list.html
ECDSA Certificates
This release supports Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) certificate, which can be enabled in Unified CCE, Cisco Unified CVP, Cisco Finesse, Cloud Connect, CUIC, Cisco VVB, Cisco IdS, and ECE.
For details on how to enable ECDSA, see Enabling ECDSA for Unified CCE Solution in Security Guide for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html
To enable ECDSA certificate, the following solution components in the specified versions, and the respective Engineering Specials (ES) are required. You have to install the below ESes in the order listed:
Webex Workforce Optimization (WFO) Support with Contact Center Enterprise (CCE) Solutions
The Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE/Packaged CCE/Webex CCE) solutions supports the Webex Workforce Optimization offering. See https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/contact-center/webex-workforce-optimization/series.html.