TELEPHONY AND DIALER INTEGRATION  

The manner in which a dialer integrates with your telephony infrastructure is a critical area that requires careful design and technical planning. I-Tel is a software application made up of Quantrax's CTI interface and an advanced digital Softswitch that communicates seamlessly with the Intelec database. The result is an advanced dialing platform that is seamlessly integrated with your collection system.

Following is a representation of the integration of the different components of the dialer with Intelec. Since the structure within each company is different, our technical team will work with you to design an appropriate and cost-effective configuration for your dialer telephony platform. In the diagram below, your database server is the iSeries (or AS/400) and Intelec is the primary application. Note that the dialing engine resides within the telephony platform. The iSeries provides the collections software (Intelec) and database, and has a powerful software bridge to the dialer. Since the iSeries is not used for the dialer functionality there is no significant utilization of processor resources that could potentially impact interactive response times for an agent.

• Your telephony infrastructure will usually have some type of telephone switch (PBX) that will be connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Agent phones will be connected to the PBX.
  
  
• The agent's position would be a personal computer and a phone. The personal computer could be replaced by dumb terminals (e.g. 5250 terminals that connect to the iSeries)
  
  
• The I-Tel dialing software communicates with the agent's phone through a "Softswitch" connection to the PBX. The softswitch is made up of hardware and software that will communicate with the phone switch as needed, allocating phone switch resources (phones) between the dialer and other telephony requirements within the organization.
  
  
• Digital circuits (PRI's) from one of more providers would be connected directly to the Softswitch. The Softswitch would be connected to the PBX though an ISDN link (an Adjunct). Although we support multiple ISDN protocols (AT&T, NI1, NI2 and DMS100), we will recommend using the same protocol for all of your circuits. Presently, NI2 is the preferred protocol.
  
  
• The iSeries (AS/400) will communicate with the Softswitch and the dialer through the telephony software and a powerful TCP/IP Sockets interface that will access and update the collection information stored on the system.
  
  
• The telephony hardware and software will be able to recognize and handle both digital and analog circuits and the related equipment that could exist in different sections of the PSTN (We use Aculab for station, trunk and DSP resource cards).
  

   

Voice over IP (VOIP) is exciting technology which is applicable in areas such as linking to the external network or managing local workstations if no PBX exists. Support for IP telephony is available as a part of our dialer platform.