Computer telephony integration
|
|
Computer telephony integration (CTI), is technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or co-ordinated.
| Contents |
Common functions
The following functions can be implemented using CTI.
- Calling Line Information Display (Caller's Number, Number Called, IVR Options)
- Screen Population on answer, with or without using calling line data.
- On Screen Dialing. (Fast dial, preview and predictive dial.)
- On Screen Phone Control. (Ringing, Answer, Hang-up, Hold, Conference etc.)
Forms of CTI
Generally, there are two forms of CTI.
- First-party call control
- First-party call control is the easiest to implement. This requires a connection between the computer and the telephone. Effectively the computer has a telephone built into it. Only the computer associated with the phone can control it. The computer can control all the functions of the phone, normally at the computer user's direction.
- Third-party call control
- Third-party call control is more difficult to implement and often requires a dedicated telephony server to interface between the telephone network and the computer network. Information about a phone call can be displayed on the corresponding computer workstation's screen while instructions to control the phone can be sent from the computer to the telephone network. Any computer in the network has the potential to control any phone in the telephone system. The phone does not need to be built into the computer, and may only need to have a microphone and headset in the circuit, without even a keypad, to connect to the telephone network.
CTI history
The origins of CTI can be found in simple Screen Population (or "Screen Pop") technology. This allowed data collected from the telephone systems to be used as input data to query databases with customer information and populate that data instanteneously in the customer service representative screen. The net effect was the agent already had the required screen on their terminal before speaking with the customer.
This technology started gaining widespread adoption in markets like North America and UK/Northern European countries.
There were several standards which had a major impact in the ´normalization´of in the industry, previously fully closed and proprietary to each PBX/ACD vendor. On the software level, the most adopted interface by vendors is the CSTA standard, which is approved by the standards-body ITU. The other two famous CTI standards in the industry are TSAPI and TAPI: TSAPI, originally promoted by the AT&T (later Lucent) and Novel, by far the most adopted in large scale contact centers; Microsoft pushed their own initiative also, and thus TAPI was born, with support mostly from Windows applications.
Among the key players in this area, Lucent played a big role and IBM acquired ROLM Inc, a US pioneer in ACDs, in an attempt to normalize all major PBX vendor interfaces with its CallPath middleware. This attempt failed when it sold this company to Siemens AG and gradually divested in the area. Another player more successful in that mission was Digital Equipment Corporation which developed CTI software, including a vendor abtraction middleware. It was sold to Dialogic, which in turn was purchased by Intel.
On the hardware level, there was a paradigm shift since 1993, with emerging standards from IETF, which led to several new players like Dialogic, Brooktrout, NMS offering telephony interfacing boards for various networks and elements.
Several early CTI vendors and developers have changed hands over the years. An example is Nabnasset, which was a consulting firm in Massachusetts thatdeveloped a CORBA based CTI solution for a client and then decided to make it into a general product. It was eventually bought by the Quintus CRM company, which went bankrupt and was purchased by Avaya Telecommunications.
Smaller organisations have also survived from the early days and have leveraged their heritage to thrive. Notably, Rostrvm Solutions, based in the UK, was an early pioneer of CTI technology and holds patents to prove it. Having started life in 1986 as part of IDS (later to become the RoyalBlue group) the company continues to innovate. Rostrvm Solutions was acquired by private investors in 2002.
A relative newcomer, Altitude Software (started out as EasyPhone in 1993) is a Portuguese company with CTI software and automated dialling products.
CTI companies
- Altitude Software (http://www.altitude.com/)
- Avaya Telecommunications (http://www.avaya.com/)
- Cisco (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/custcosw/ps1001/)
- Concerto Software (http://www.concerto.com)
- Genesys Telecommunications (http://www.genesyslab.com/)
- Intel (http://www.intel.com/network/csp/products/ctconnect/)
- Rostrvm Solutions (http://www.rostrvm.com/)
- salesforce.com (http://www.salesforce.com/products/customer-service-support.jsp)
- SimpliCTI (http://www.simplicti.com/)
- Teltronics (http://www.teltronics.com)
de:Computer Telephony Integration ja:内線電話#Computer_Telephone_Integration