Glossary

active mode: A routing mode in which Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony controls the routing and distribution of incoming calls to call center agents using business data and rules that are configured in Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony. Specific ACD/PBX configurations are required to grant Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony full control of an inbound call when it reaches a ACD/PBX route point monitored by Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony.

adapter: A telephony driver of the Oracle Telephony Adapter Server developed specifically to integrate Oracle Interaction Center with a specific switch and CTI middleware platform. Oracle develops adapters for certified switch and middleware combinations. Third-parties can use the Oracle Telephony Adapter SDK to develop adapters for switch and middleware combinations that are not certified by Oracle. Typically, each adapter is developed to integrate only with the telephony system of a specific manufacturer.

ACD: Automatic Call Distribution, systems designed to automatically answer, queue and route incoming calls to interaction center agents. An ACD differs from a PBX in that while a PBX allows users to share a limited number of telephone lines, an ACD has at least one telephone line for each agent.

ANI: Automatic Number Identification, a service, similar to caller ID, that long distance carriers provides to identify the calling party's billing number.

API: Application Programming Interface, the calling conventions by which a software application accesses the operating system and other services.

blind transfer: A call transferred from one person to another without the first person telling the other the identity of the caller.

canonical phone number: A standardized phone number of the format:+<country code> (<area code>) <local exchange>-<subscriber number>For example, +1 (123) 456-7890.Given a canonical phone number and an interaction center's local telephone network characteristics, such as local country and area codes, Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony can automatically determine how to call a number.

CTI: Computer Telephony Integration, a system in which a computer is connected to a telephone switch, either PBX or ACD, so that the computer sends instructions to the switch about how to direct telephone calls.

DN: Directory Number, typically the phone number associated with a telephone line.

DNIS: Dialed Number Identification Service, a feature of 800 and 900 lines that identifies the called number to a telephony system, which routes the call to the correct extension.

DTMF: Dual Tone Multi-Frequency, also known as touch-tone dialing.

dynamic route: A route that is based on a PL/SQL query.

enhanced passive mode: A routing mode in which standard ACD/PBX routing and distribution of calls to call center agents occurs with Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony monitoring ACD/PBX route points to allow classification of calls for targeted screen pops, inbound call queue counts, and tracking of calls that are abandoned at the route point. Specific ACD/PBX configurations are required to ensure that inbound calls pass through a ACD/PBX route point that is monitored by Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony.

IDE: Interactive Development Environment, a system for supporting the process of writing software. An IDE may include a syntax-directed editor, graphical tools for program entry, integrated support for compiling and running the program, and relating compilation errors back to the source. Examples of IDEs are Visual C++ and Visual Basic.

Interaction Center Server Manager: The only server process that is required to be explicitly started on each target machine, ICSM is responsible for starting, stopping, and monitoring all the other Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony server processes. The ICSM server processes are controlled by the Interaction Center Server HTML Administration.

Inbound Telephony Server

The Oracle Interaction Center server that handles inbound telephony interactions. ITS supports the following features:

(Active mode only) ITS enables enterprise data-based routing by listening for route queries offered by the CTI middleware and responding to them to instruct the switch where to route the call.
ITS monitors calls arriving at route point(s).
ITS detects calls that are abandoned at route point(s).
ITS receives IVR data packets from the IVR.

interaction center server: Any interaction center server, such as Oracle Interaction Queuing and Distribution, Oracle Universal Work Queue, Oracle Routing server, and Oracle Inbound Telephony Server. Same as the mid-tier server process and server process.

IVR: Interactive Voice Response, an automated system that, in response to incoming telephone calls, plays a recorded message that gives callers the option of pressing telephone buttons to route the call to one or more extensions.

Javadoc: A facility provided within the Java Development Kit that produces HTML documentation from a program. Javadoc reads the source code and parses specially formatted and positioned comments into documentation.

JDBC: Java Database Connectivity, part of the Java Development Kit that defines an application programming interface for Java for standard SQL access from Java programs to databases.

Java Development Kit (JDK): A Sun Microsystems product that provides the required environment for Java programming.

Java Native Interface (JNI): A native programming interface for Java that allows Java code that is running inside a Java Virtual Machine to operate with applications and libraries written in other programming languages such as C and C++.

Java Virtual Machine (JVM): A specification for software which interprets Java programs that have been compiled into byte-codes and usually stored in a ".class" file. JVMs support object-oriented programming directly by including instructions for object method invocation. JVMs are written in C and can be ported to run on most platforms.

media controller: Software that bridges other systems or software with the underlying media hardware, such as a PBX.

media queue: The interaction center component for queuing and distributing inbound media items. It stores inbound items such as telephone calls or e-mails in a queue and integrates with the routing module so that the items can be sent to a set of agents. The media queue provides an API to other modules, such as Oracle Universal Work Queue, for querying and manipulating items in the queue.

media item: A representation of a telephone call, e-mail, Web callback, or other type of media.

middleware: A CTI layer that is responsible for creating a common abstraction layer that is used both to receive and send information to PBX systems. It is the middleware that allows one to see telephony events such as calls arriving at route points and associated call data. Middleware converts telephony events to computer understandable events and the inverse.

mid-tier server process: Any interaction center server, such as Oracle Interaction Queuing and Distribution, Oracle Universal Work Queue, Oracle Routing Server, Oracle Inbound Telephony Telephony Server, and Oracle Telephony Media Controller. Same as server process and interaction center server.

monitoring: The ability to view server status.

multi-site: Interaction centers that work together across multiple physical locations.

multi-site routing: The ability to route a call to agents who are located across multiple sites.

multi-site queuing and distribution: A single system storing and maintaining agent queues across multiple sites.

multi-PBX: Support for multiple switches and middleware configurations by the same server.

Observer API: The API that the adapter uses to notify Oracle Interaction Center about incoming calls and to deliver call and caller data that are used for softphone displays, screen pops, and call routing. Oracle Interaction Center implements the Observer API.

Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony: The Oracle E-Business application that is required to telephony enable business applications in the Oracle E-Business Suite. The server architecture of Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony is scalable to run interaction centers with a single physical site or multiple sites. The Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony bundle consists of the following products: Oracle Universal Work Queue, Oracle Telephony Manager, Oracle Telephony Adapter Server, and Oracle Interaction Blending.

Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony: The Oracle E-Business application that provides the outbound telephony capability corresponding to Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony.

Oracle Interaction Center: A group of server processes that serves as the telephony-enabling foundation of Oracle E-Business Applications Suite.

Oracle Telephony Adapter Server: The CTI adapter server that substitutes for Oracle Call Center Connectors. Oracle Telephony Adapter Server encompasses one telephony adapter per switch.'

Oracle Telephony Manager: The Oracle Interaction Center application that performs queuing, routing, and distribution of media items.

package: Groups of procedures, functions, variables, and SQL statements grouped together into a single unit.

passive mode: A routing mode in which standard ACD/PBX routing and distribution of calls to call center agents occurs. Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony becomes aware of the call through CTI when the call rings at the agent's teleset. Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony does not monitor or control any ACD/PBX route points in this mode.

PBX: Private Branch eXchange, a telephone system within a company or other organization that switches calls between the company's users and allows them to share a number of outside telephone lines. In passive mode calls are routed by the PBX routes calls.

Provider API: The API that supports telephony and interaction center feature requests such as make call, transfer call, route call, and change agent mode. The Provider API Provider is implemented by the adapter.

route point: The first point from which calls are queued and routed. An automatic call distributor (ACD). Route points are also called "pilots" by Alcatel.

scalability: A measure of how well a software or hardware product is able to adapt to future business needs.

screen pop: A user interface presentation of customer data and product and service information that appears on an interaction center agent's monitor simultaneously with the customer's incoming telephone call.

server process: Any interaction center server, such as Oracle Interaction Queuing and Distribution, Oracle Universal Work Queue, Routing server, Oracle Inbound Telephony Server, and Oracle Telephony Media Controller. Same as mid-tier server process and interaction center server.

server status: Information on whether the server process is running or not, how long the server has been running, and so on.

site: A single geographic location where an interaction center is located. A site typically has a PBX and CTI middleware installed.

skill-based routing: A dynamic call routing that delivers inbound calls to an agent who is appropriately skilled to meet the needs of the caller.

softphone: A functional GUI representation of a telephone that is displayed on interaction agents' monitors.

Software Development Kit: (SDK) Software that is provided by software vendors to allow their products to be used with the products of other software vendors.

static route: A route that is based on cached data.

super group: The topmost, parent server group in a hierarchy of server groups.

switch simulator: A process that uses Intel CT Connect middleware to simulate a Nortel switch and the connection and message behavior of the Oracle Call Center Connectors server. The switch simulator makes it possible to set up an interaction center without connecting to a real switch.

target machine: The machine where mid-tier server processes are run. Same as node.

telephony enabled: The ability of an application to communicate with a telephone system for inbound and outbound calls, or inbound or outbound calls, through the CTI middleware that handles the messaging between a telephone switch and the user's application.

telephony model: A scenario that describes the expected behavior of a call for any given telephony function. For example, in one telephony model, a transferred call has the same call ID as the original call. In another telephony model, a transferred call has the same call ID as the consultation call. In a third telephony model, a transferred call has a completely new call ID that differs from the original call and the consultation call.

telephony system: Any hardware and software components that provide telephony and CTI messaging, such as PBX, ACD, IVR, predictive dialer and CTI middleware.

VDU: Voice detection unit.