Cisco UCCE

LumenVox' speech recognition and synthesis software is compatible with Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) using the MRCP interface.

After installing the UCCE system, and confirming that it is functional, you need to configure the MRCP interface that allows the UCCE system to communicate with the LumenVox Media Server, which handles all ASR and TTS requests.

Assumptions

These instructions assume that the LumenVox server, hosting the LumenVox Media Server and ASR and/or TTS services are located on a different server than the UCCE. We strongly recommend installing LumenVox on a separate server to UCCE

The following steps also assume that you have installed your LumenVox configuration independently of UCCE.

Note:

The The following configuration document is believed to be correct when working with Cisco UCCE 8.5 through UCCE 11.5, however minor differences between versions of the UCCE configuration screens may be seen.

The following network topology diagram is intended to provide a simple overview of the UCCE system, with an indication of where the LumenVox server(s) are associated. UCCE can be configured in a number of different ways, so this diagram is not meant to be inclusive, or meant to indicate the only way in which the system can be configured. Please refer to the UCCE documentation for more details.

VXML Gateway *

Note that the "VXML Gateway" element shown in the above diagram could refer to either a Cisco Virtualized Voice Browser (VVB) instance, or a Cisco "IOS VXML Gateway", both of which are functionally equivalent from our perspective. This article describes the configuration when using the Virtualized Voice Browser (software-only) implementation. Users are advised to consult the Cisco documentation for more details on this, such as (but not limited to) :

Note that we always recommend consulting the Cisco documentation for the most up to date information when designing your system. This article is only meant to serve as an example of how to confgure the system to connect to LumenVox ASR and TTS resources and does not consider many other design factors.

Configuring LumenVox as the ASR Server to use

From the Cisco Virtual Voice Browser Administration portal, choose the Subsystems > Speech Servers > ASR Servers menu option:

The enter the IP address and port number of the LumenVox ASR server you wish to connect to:

Here, you should enter the IP address of your own LumenVox ASR server, which will likely be different to the one shown. You can also optionally select MRCPv1 (RTSP) as the communication protocol to use, if preferred.

The default port number for MRCPv2 (SIP) is 5060 and the default port number of MRCPv1 (RTSP) is 554

Configuring LumenVox as the TTS Server to use

From the Cisco Virtual Voice Browser Administration portal, choose the Subsystems > Speech Servers > TTS Servers menu option, then assign the IP address of the LumenVox TTS Server you wish to use:

Note again that you should enter the IP address of your own LumenVox ASR server, which will likely be different to the one shown. You can also optionally select MRCPv1 (RTSP) as the communication protocol to use, if preferred.

The default port number for MRCPv2 (SIP) is 5060 and the default port number of MRCPv1 (RTSP) is 554

Select the MRCP Protocol

From the Cisco Virtual Voice Browser Administration menu, select the System > System Parameters option to access the System Parameters Configuration page:

From the above highlighted dropdown, you should select the appropriate MRCP protocol you with to use for the connection between UCCE and LumenVox. This selection will likely be based on the settings you used when assigning the ASR and TTS Servers above.

Note:

Depending on which country the system is being installed in, you should also select the appropriate Codec, as either G711U (ulaw) or G711A (alaw). See the Wikipedia article on G.711 for more details of this, but in general, ulaw is most often used in North America and Japan, whereas alaw is most commonly used in Europe.

Restarting the Virtual Voice Browser Engine

From the Cisco VVB Unified Serviceability menu, select the Tools > Control Center - Network Services menu option:

Select the Engine Service Name (highlighted above) and click the Restart button to restart the Engine services.

Verify ASR and TTS Servers are Reachable

After the VVB Engine services have been restarted, you can confirm that connectivity has been established between VVB and the LumenVox ASR and TTS Server(s) by going to the Cisco VVC Administration console again, then selecting Subsystems > Speech Servers > ASR Servers and checking the Status is shown as REACHABLE in all cases, as shown here:

and also for the TTS Server, using Subsystems > Speech Servers > TTS Servers to once again confirm that the status is REACHABLE.

Important:

In the above examples, we have shown that the same machine (IP address) is used for both the LumenVox ASR and TTS Servers. This may often be the case, however it is possible in certain system configurations, you may have a number of different LumenVox servers configured to provide ASR and TTS services, so be aware that there may be several servers that may need to be configured. Defining different LumenVox servers, or multiple servers should be done following the above general steps.

Using Domain Names instead of IP Addresses for ASR and TTS

Generally, when working with domain names for machine instead of their corresponding IP addresses, these are resolved using a DNS server. Ideally, you should ensure that any domain names you wish to use are correctly registered in the local Domain Controller or DNS server, so that forward and reverse lookup of these names can be performed by UCCE.

If you intend to specify domain names instead of using IP addresses for your ASR and TTS Servers where those names are not registered in the local DNS, or on the same Cisco Domain Controller for some reason, you may need to perform some additional steps, which are described here.

Note:

You only need to perform these steps if the machine names you are using are not already registered in the local DNS Server or Domain Controller. Ask your network administrator for assistance with this if you are unsure.

In this example, we will use the names asr-en-us and tts-en-us as the domain names for our ASR and TTS servers respectively.

Entries for any domain names need to be added to the VVB hosts file via the CLI administration login.

Run the following command from the CLI to add an entry for asr-en-us for the sample IP address of 172.18.2.130 (use your own IP address here for the ASR Server).

utils vvb add host-to-ip asr-en-us 172.18.2.130

and again run this for tts-en-us for the sample IP address (using the address if your TTS Server):

utils vvb add host-to-ip tts-en-us 172.18.2.130

Then, from the Cisco VVB Administration menu bar, choose Subsystems < Speech Servers > ASR Servers and use the "asr-en-us" name, along with the appropriate protocol type and port number settings you wish to use:

And similarly for the TTS Server, choose Subsystems < Speech Servers > TTS Servers and use the "tts-en-us" name, along with the appropriate protocol type and port number settings you wish to use:

After making changes to the ASR or TTS Servers, you may need to restart the VVB Engine and reconfirm connectivity, as described above.

Testing The Integration

Once the system has been configured, make a call into the UCCE system to test the ASR and TTS functionality to confirm that connectivity between the two systems is working correctly.

Additional Information

Please refer to the Administration Guide for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise for other configuration information relating to setting up your server.

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