Announcing OpenCTI Genesys Adapter for Salesforce by ConvergeOne

[Genesys CTI Forum Administration Team]

[list][color=green][size=12pt]Announcing Genesys OpenCTI adapter for Salesforce by ConvergeOne. [/size][/color]

After numerous tries with various adapters for Salesforce, we have settled on ConvergeOne, which we are currently deploying at many of our clients. It is light, easy to use, and most importantly, has the support we have come to expect. 

Why do we use it (and like it)?
[list]
[li]it is certified for Genesys 7.x and 8.x[/li]

[li]nothing to install on agent desktop[/li]
[li]support IE8 and above, Chrome and Firefox[/li]
[li]stable[/li]
[li]multi-platform: switching from Genesys to Avaya? No problem! Connects to Genesys, Avaya AES, or even Cisco[/li]
[li]nimble development team capable of customizing their product to our needs[/li]
[/list]

C1 is being used on many of our call centers, and we would be happy to share our discount with others, just ask us!

Here are some of the screenshots

[b]SFDC Agent Login Screen[/b]

There is nothing spectacular about the login screen. It supports both of the modes: normal app mode and console modes. We prefer to use console mode due to smaller footprint.

[img width=640 height=437]http://i.imgur.com/go5ECDS.png[/img]

[b]Softphone Screenshot[/b]

Softphone itself is also pretty basic, with everything rendered by JavaScript. There are no modules to be installed on the agent PCs, and softphone part of the phone is served by C1 server's Apache/Tomcat. We found that we can easily turn on/off sections of the softphone (comments, calllog, etc) via web-based administration menu. 

[table]
[tr]
[td][img]http://i.imgur.com/yADHjgI.png[/img][/td]
[td][img width=525 height=480]http://i.imgur.com/DtcnZ3v.png[/img][/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

[b]Use of C1 Adapter in Genesys T-Server HA Environment[/b]
C1 takes advantage of both Genesys HA and SFDC primary/backup URL option in call center definition. Unfortunately, the version we are using right now does not offer for seamless transition between T-Servers: should T-Server switchover or C1 failover logs the agent out, requiring agents to re-login into softphone. Once agent logs in, softphone state is synchronized with PBX.

[img width=640 height=407]http://i.imgur.com/upC45D4.png[/img]

[b]Passing Genesys Parameters to SFDC[/b]
C! has a pretty nifty config screen which allows for administrator to define what parameters are passed to SFDC.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/CkpJE08.png[/img]

Interface is very intuitive; however, we wish that the following features were added to it:
[list]
[li]dynamic configuration (current version requires C1 restart for config to take place (similar to Genesys circa G6)[/li]
[li]ability to pass ALL Genesys attributes enclosed in the message, not just the basic ones such as KVP, ConnID, ANi and so on.[/li][/list]
[li]be able to configure C1 in CME as opposed to dedicated web page
[/li][/list]

You can find more about it with C1 Admin and User Guides found here:
[url=https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B49QiVqyTG-bcDdmaEFUUWFCWTg&usp=sharing]https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B49QiVqyTG-bcDdmaEFUUWFCWTg&usp=sharing[/url]

Overall, we like the product, it works, we use it, and are happy to provide you with our discount (30,000 plus seats )

We have also prepared a small demo version of SFDC with Genesys OpenCTI adapter, so contact us if you want to login

[color=green]Your very hardworking and helpful Genesys CTI Administration Team![/color]

[victor]

We are rolling out 100 seats later today. Will write additional impressions after the rollout.

[sshrikant]

Looking forward to your reviews of C1.

[victor]

Here are some of my impressions of C1 adapter for Genesys so far.

Today, I will talk about the platform.

[glow=red,2,300]Genesys Workspace
[/glow]
Technical Specifications
• Interaction Workspace version 8.1.3 or greater
• Salesforce.com Service Cloud Console Integration Toolkit Supported Desktop OS
• Microsoft Windows and selected browsers supported by Salesforce.com Prerequisites
• .NET Framework 3.5
• VDI technology such Citrix XenAppTM compatibility

[glow=red,2,300]C1 Technical Specifications
[/glow]

Windows 2008 Server and up / Linux (will run on Windows 7 PC if need to)
Apache Tomcat 7.0 or above
Genesys TServer 7.x or higher.
Internet Explorer 9 and up /Firefox 4 and up /Chrome 26.x and up /Safari 5.0 and up

From Platform point of view, I prefer C1 because it is capable of running on both Windows and Linux, does not depend on .NET framework nor requires VDI support (though it does work with VDI).

While I have been a strong proponent of .NET, my opinion of it changed about two years ago. We have used a different OpenCTI adapter from AMC before, which was using .NET framework and Silverlight and after dealing with all the bugs that that product had, I have developed an allergy to products built on .NET framework. Myriad of unpublished registry options necessary to finetune .NET, sometimes mind-boggling settings for IIS, and almost uncipherable  (and I am purposefully misspelling it to make it sound like 'insufferable') logging has made me question my reliance on MS until then.

Compared to IIS/.NET framework, I found Tomcat/Apache platform very scalable, easy to maintain, compatible with most of the log analysis tools, excellent logging options supporting log4j standard. Apache has an excellent support forum, where my questions are resolved faster than any ticket we would issue to MS. I also found it much simpler to monitor Tomcat process as well. I found it very simple to connect it to Splunk and Nagios (yes, I know...). I even got my Slack.com account to receive realtime error events from C1 process! While I am sure it would be possible to accomplish the same with IIS, the lack of NET Framework transparency and ability to fully see what is happening there makes the same exercise much more time consuming.

I also like Tomcat Web Manager that allows me to start and stop services without restarting Tomcat. To me it is an incredible feature, which is also present in IIS as well.

[b]C1 Installation is much simpler than Genesys: one setup file[/b]

C1 installation is one SETUP file, which checks for Java, Tomcat, Apache before installing C1. If you do not have it, it will install it for you, so no need to worry about compatibility issues there. It saved me countless hours trying to determine what library I should and should not install.

Unlike Genesys, they do not mind if you post manuals on the web, so I am posing their installation manual for Genesys C1 adapter [url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B49QiVqyTG-bMzFNSzVtRC1DcEk/view?usp=sharing]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B49QiVqyTG-bMzFNSzVtRC1DcEk/view?usp=sharing[/url].

[victor]

We have now installed ConvergeOne adaptors on four different sites: some are Avaya based, and other is Genesys-based. So far, we found it pretty good and much bettter than most of the other alternatives we have tried over the years, including our own softphone.

Here is a bsic video of the softphone - nothing too revolutionary, but it works, and that is all that matters.

[url=https://youtu.be/4vBur-sA-PE]https://youtu.be/4vBur-sA-PE[/url]

One of the problems we did find with the product is the fact that it is running inside the browser, and that means it is fully dependent on brwoser thread. If client sets limit of one thread per tab, which is very rare, but nevertheless is what we are facing with one of our clients, very long global searches in SFDC cause softphone to temporarily freeze as it is trying to catch up. We have seen this behavior only with a single-thread limitation on, and only on IE9 so far.