Computer Telephony Integration

Last Updated : May 19, 2017 |

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) bridges the gap between the telephone system and business applications. With IP Office, this is achieved with the IP Office CTI Link, a CTI middleware product and software developers kit (SDK).

On IP Office, CTI is delivered through adherence to open standards. This gives businesses access to a wide range of third-party solutions, addressing vertical markets, and designed to meet their requirements. For developers, migrating their offering from other platforms to IP Office is quick and easy, and the advanced CTI features that IP Office offers makes it easy to demonstrate full integration, and more business benefits.

IP Office provides two levels of CTI interoperability:
CTI Link Lite
Free of charge and provides all the functionality required to support the vast majority of applications, including screen-popping, and many third-party products.
CTI Link Pro
Provides enhanced functionality, including the ability to control multiple telephones and gives access to advanced call center operation.

Because IP networking is integrated into the IP Office system, all CTI is done through the LAN. This introduces additional points of failure, as well as relying on non-standard interfaces and handsets. On IP Office, all devices can be used with CTI.

Supported CTI interfaces

IP Office supports the following interfaces:
TAPILink Lite
Provides first-party CTI support for Microsoft TAPI 2.1 and TAPI 3.0, so each PC can control or monitor one telephone. The software components are supplied with the IP Office system on the User CD, and do not required a license key for use. The specification requires that a certain amount of core functionality is implemented, and additionally defines a series of optional functionality that switch vendors may also implemented.
TAPILink Pro
Provides third-party CTI support for TAPI 2.1 and 3.0. These components are identical to their first-party equivalent; the presence of the CTI Link Pro RFA license key (which can be purchased in the usual way for products) enables this additional functionality. TAPILink Pro provides all of the features and functionality of TAPILink Lite, but additionally provides third party CTI operation. This means that a single server can control and monitor any number of telephone devices. In addition, TAPILink Pro provides the ability to monitor and control groups. This allows an application to be notified when a call enters a queue, and can also redirect it to another location.
TAPI-WAV driver
Provides software-based support for voice processing. The TAPI-WAV driver is for use with TAPI 2.1 only; for TAPI 3.0, IP Office supports the Media Service Provider (MSP) interface, defined by Microsoft in TAPI 3.0. This functionality will only work in conjunction with CTI Link Pro and also requires TAPI-WAV licenses. Each license enables 4 ports of voice processing.
DevLink Pro
Provides a real-time event stream in addition to the SMDR interface provided in IP Office SMDR. The real-time event stream takes the form of a call record, which is issued whenever the state of any endpoint of a call changes (typically there are two end points on a call, but for some circumstances, such as conference calls, intruded calls there may be more).
IP Office SMDR
Provides an interface to obtain SMDR events. A comma-separated record is issued for each call, when the call is completed. This interface is designed for call accounting and call billing applications. The IP Office SMDR can be output direct from the IP Office control unit to a designated IP address and port.
IP Office Software Development Kit
This toolkit is delivered on a single CD, containing the developer documentation for TAPILink Lite, TAPILink Pro, DevLink Lite and DevLink pro, as well as pre-compiled programs for exploring TAPI 2.1 and 3.0. In addition, example source code is included, making it easy for developers to become familiar with IP Office CTI interfaces. The Developer Connection Program (DevConnect) is the Avaya developer partner program, and is designed for third-party companies who are creating a product for sale, and who wish to receive technical support. Membership of the program is at the sole discretion of Avaya. DevConnect members pay an annual fee, for which they receive technical support directly from Avaya. In addition, Avaya will perform interoperability testing between IP Office and the member's product, and may also create opportunities for joint marketing, including exhibitions, use of Avaya's logo, and other benefits. More information on the DevConnect program can be found at http://www.devconnectprogram.com.
Centralized CTI WebService API
Provides a more open platform to allow third-parties to add value and build out solutions. Supports distributed (SE/SCN) environment and, therefore, is not limited to nodal like TAPI. It does have a dependency on Avaya one-X® Portal access for the users. When creating a new user in IP Office, it does not require a restart.
SSI over Web Services
Provides system monitoring information of SSI over a read-only REST web service available over https only. Realtime call data and call control are not available via this interface, but they will be made available via the DevConnect program.

This feature already has several areas instrumented but the data is for SSA and delivered over the Proprietary SSI interface, and there is a small set of data available on SNMP.

It does not require a license.

Open APIs/SDKs

With Release 10.1, IP Office supports a new Management API/SDK to address the needs of “Easy Button” setups. Enhancements to cover more areas, specifically what the legacy "XO" Configuration Web Services covers so that the legacy API can be made End Of Life. Management API provides a REST-based API Interface to the third-party application developers for consuming IP Office configuration objects.

  • Provides all capabilities of currently supported IP Office configuration services (XO services).

  • Request and response are in XML and JSON format.

  • Provides Read/Write access to privileged service users only.

  • No separate license is required for accessing the APIs.

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