The ways in which we communicate today are very different from the analog wired telephony world of 1968, when the nation’s first PSAP began serving the public. The advent of mobile text messages, mobile video, automatic crash notification systems, geographic positioning systems and other communications channels provide an exciting opportunity to provide faster and better emergency services. Leveraging these new technologies is just one of many reasons for the federal government-sponsored Next Generation (NG) 9-1-1 initiative. 

911 voice logging recorder systems in NG9-1-1 are evolving to become standardized functional elements connected to other systems on a common network to log a variety of significant events. The problem is, the vast majority of the legacy PSAP recorders in use today were designed for a voice-only world and a circuit-switched network. They were purchased primarily on the basis of reliability and cost, not the flexibility of features and technology that would be flexible enough to adapt to these changes.  Some of these units have the ability to capture and store screen actions initiated by the call-taker but virtually none have the ability to capture, index, archive, or retrieve text messages, video, telematics and other data calls.  There are many other glaring deficiencies in legacy PSAP digital logging recorders.  Here’s a brief summary of five of the most frequently reported limitations:

1. Unable to capture multi-channel events
2. Not architected to readily conform to coming changes
3. Lack the security and authentication requirements of NG9-1-1
4. Are not well integrated with leading VoIP, radio and CAD vendors
5. Lack dispatch and call taker quality assurance evaluation tools

1.  Capturing Multimedia Communications

Legacy Recorders: Majority are not designed to capture, store, and retrieve data messages.  This is because PSAP call servers cannot capture and route data messages.  However, IP-based multi-channel call servers have been available for many years and are in wide use in business enterprises and commercial contact centers.  Many manufacturers do not even produce analog and TDM call distributors today and those that do are in the process of phasing them out.  PSAPs will have to replace or upgrade (if possible) their legacy call servers with current-generation IP-PBX’s or ACD’s to meet the specifications of NG9-1-1.  At that time, they will also need to replace the PSAP recorder.

Next Generation Recorders: Handle analog and digital TDM as well as VoIP voice, data, and text messages in a unified, consolidated fashion –this will facilitate your transition cost-effectively and enable unified capture of and access to all incident information, regardless of the channel that was used to report and resolve it.  

2.  Adaptability to Readily Conform to Changes – Open Architecture

Legacy Recorders: Closed systems designed with either fully or at least partially proprietary hardware and software - not economically scalable and often cannot be modified for IP.  Consequently, PSAPs cannot use industry standard servers with common operating systems and file formats of captured communications.  Legacy 911 logging recorder systems do not have open interfaces –that are recommended by NENA and US DOT under NG9-1-1 initiatives - and so cannot seamlessly integrate with the other PSAP systems that are (or will be) built to open standards.  Examples include the new database formats specified for NG9-1-1 infrastructure, to include CAD systems, mapping software, and more.  With closed systems, each integration point is a custom job adding to costs of acquisition and ownership and creating unnecessary complexity to the task of replacing legacy sub-systems. 

Next Generation Recorders: Designed from the ground up with fully open, service oriented architecture that is inherently adaptable and flexible, open to integrations with other standards-based systems. The standards-based architecture of latest-generation recorders directly translates into lower investment and lower costs of operations – users can leverage COTS hardware and other 3rd party interfaces and data to subordinate the rules and procedures for data access to processes and policies. These recorders will capture inputs from any device; including, voice, data, and video.  Each incident will be indexed with ANI/ALI information, incident number, and other identifiers like call taker name or ID and associated information such as CAD logs and maps.  Incident scenarios will include all communications sequenced just as they happened, all plotted on a map to improve visual analysis

3.  Security and Authentication Measures

Call recordings are often used as court evidence.  It is very important that the recordings be secured from access by unauthorized personnel and if there is an intrusion that there be a mechanism for identifying and tracing the security breach.

Legacy Recorders: Many do not offer encryption of recordings and data, nor they come up with built-in audit trails to monitor and alert on access violations.

Next Generation Recorders: Delivered with encryption, file watermarking, password-protected exports, audit logs and more. 

4.  Tight Integration with Leading VoIP, Radio, CAD, and other Emergency Communications Systems

Legacy Recorders: Virtually none or only limited, expensive capability to convert to recording VoIP, CAD data, or P25 Radio voice and data. In some cases, the recorder is compatible with only one VoIP switch or radio system vendor.  However, different vendors handle communications in different ways and with different communication protocols. While the ultimate objective of NG9-1-1 is to unify communication protocols, this transition will be very gradual.  

Reliable and error-free integration between communications systems and the recording platform is rather important   The recorder must be able to read the ANI, ALI, CLID, trunk ID, call taker ID, incident number, and other data captured by the call server, radio system, or CAD.

Next Generation Recorders: The top recording vendors will have proven integrations with the major PBX, CAD, and radio vendors. They would be development partners with multiple such manufacturers – to have full and complete access to the latest specifications and be able to certify that the recorder functions properly with various versions and releases of the vendor’s switch.

One of the many benefits of NG 9-1-1 is that by adopting Internet Protocol as the common voice and data communications language, subsystems and applications will be able to communicate with each other both internally and externally.  The need for costly integrations will slowly diminish as savvy vendors will design their products to accommodate not only today’s complex environment but the all-IP environment of tomorrow. To learn more about NG9-1-1 recording requirements, check out this recent Podcast featuring Guy Clinch from Avaya and Patrick Botz from VPI.

5.  Integrated Dispatcher Quality Assurance Evaluation and Coaching Tools

The ability to maintain or improve quality of emergency response and objectively monitor progress is critical especially at the time of implementation of new NG9-11 infrastructure. 

Legacy Recorders: Typically unavailable with integrated quality assurance feature sets, not designed to assist with the selection of calls for supervisor evaluation, nor to provide management with helpful tools for designing and completing the evaluation forms.

Next Generation Recorders: Automatically present evaluators with targeted evaluation forms and synchronized interaction audio and screen video (if captured) – selected manually or automatically based on rules for identification of critical calls - to enable efficient assessment of single calls or entire incidents.

Thanks for reading! We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have.

Recording NG9-1-1 communications involves much more than capturing voice and some basic data. NG logging recorders now require tighter integration of technologies and processes than yesterday's recorders were designed for. Considering that recording emergency communications is a must these days as it will be in the future, let’s look into 'what's under the hood' in this important, but often overlooked area.

VPI recently participated in Avaya’s TechTalk podcast where the two long-term partners and industry leaders in innovative technologies for processing and managing emergency communications shared their insights on NG9-1-1 recording requirements and considerations in an informal, engaging conversation. You're invited to listen to these 6 minutes of recorded audio or read the Podcast transcript:

Avaya:

Public Safety Emergency Communication centers are known for the use of many different proprietary technologies, specifically developed for use in emergency response process. How is this changing due to Next Generation 9-1-1 standards and how is it impacting the communications recording function?

VPI:

Next Generation 9-1-1 is one of the most significant changes we’ve seen in the public safety industry in years. The functional specification for the NENA i3 solution 08-003 calls for standardization of all multimedia communications, technologies and processes. PSAPs - or Public Safety Answering Points – must be updated to be able to receive and log all forms of communication used today – whether it’s voice, text or other media. And they must be able to accept new forms of evidence from the field, including mobile photos, videos and SMS messages that will be delivered via the SIP protocol standard over the Emergency Services IP Network – or ESiNet for short.

To accommodate these specs, technology vendors, including recording providers like VPI, are required to standardize their architectures, interfaces and communication protocols, so that PSAPs can easily share and exchange information with other agencies when needed.

Avaya:

That’s very interesting. Where does VPI’s recording system fit within the NG9-1-1 communications infrastructure?

VPI:

Recording systems play very important role in Next-Gen 9-1-1. Regardless of call media type being transferred – whether it’s phone call, text, video or IM – the media is converted to SIP signaling within the originating network. Then, it travels through ESInet and is routed to the appropriate i3 PSAP. There, the Emergency Call Routing Function queries what’s called an Emergency Services Routing Proxy like Avaya’s Aura ESRP to determine which PSAP to route the call to. Once the call media has arrived to the most appropriate PSAP, our call recorder captures SIP Invite packets from the ESRP and begins recording media and logging events. When a call is completed, a SIP BYE event terminates the recording of the call. And at that time, any associated call data attributes, such as location information, are recorded and logged into our database and then authorized users are able to access recordings via a centralized, Web-based interface.

Avaya:

What are the mandatory elements of a NG9-1-1 recording system?

VPI:

That’s an excellent question - one that we get asked quite a lot these days. 

1. Our recording technologies have been developed on the principles of open service-oriented architecture from the ground up since 1994, encompassing non-proprietary hardware and software elements as well as application services and processes between them. This is the first mandatory requirement per NENA’s i3 specification.
2. The system must be capable of recording analog, TDM, VoIP, radio, wireless calls and SIP-based media including SMS text, email and instant messages, streaming video, and images into standard file formats – and all within the same system.
3. The recorder must be also capable of collecting data attributes from the ESInet such as caller number, date stamp and location information bundled in the SIP signaling.  Other data that is also very useful includes CAD data such as incident ID, type, and severity; and case processing data such chief complaint, scene and victim information and caller safety.
4. If the call is transferred to another PSAP location, the recording system must continue to record and track the call.
5. And for security purposes, the recorder must authenticate all voice and data communications.

Avaya:

Do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to leave with our global community of Avaya customers and partners?

VPI:

Yes, NENA is planning on releasing their final version of the 08-003 i3 specification later this year. With this in mind, our VPI CAPTURE recording solution has been designed to enable you to take full advantage of the i3 network vision. To learn more, you can visit us online at www.VPI-corp.com/PSAP, or feel free to call us anytime at 800-200-5430. And on behalf of all of us at VPI, thanks so for your time today.

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VPI has been one of Avaya’s longest standing Avaya DevConnect partners a member of the Avaya Developer Connection program since 2002. VPI is also an active participant in the National Emergency Number Association’s NG9-1-1 Planning Committee and testing at NENA’s Industry Collaboration Events.  

It’s the sound all motorists dread. The click, click, silence that we all know is the sound of a completely dead battery. Stuck on the side of the road, late to work and sitting in your driveway, or stranded in a parking lot somewhere. Just waiting for some kind soul to come by with jumper cables and give you a boost.

When Interstate Batteries, the nation's #1 replacement battery company, was looking for a solution that would boost its call quality monitoring and analytics, improve agent performance, and ensure PCI call recording compliance, they looked to VPI's best-of-breed VPI EMPOWER telephone voice recording, call center analytics, E-learning and Cisco reporting software solution.

“Interstate Batteries chose to implement VPI’s call recording, quality evaluation, E-learning and analytics to ensure our PCI DSS compliance and to enable in-depth tracking and improvement of our sales and ordering processes and outcomes,” said Patsy Reid, Interstate Batteries’ project manager. “Our partnership with VPI opens the doors to new levels of customer care and competitive differentiation for Interstate Batteries.” VPI EMPOWER VoIP recording software, call center analytics and workforce optimization software solution will automate the classification of all calls handled by the company’s contact center according to type and outcome, mute and mask out sensitive portions of customer interactions according to PCI DSS standards, and will then prioritize high-value interactions related to sales for quality evaluation and targeted, personalized call center elearning to rapidly close skill and knowledge gaps where needed.

VPI EMPOWER is designed to enable business organizations to proactively cultivate exceptional customer experience and improve agent attitudes and behaviors. The Cisco call recording software and Cisco reporting solution enables organizations to achieve performance goals and identify and share valuable business intelligence throughout the enterprise. VPI's proven system design approach, based on lean six sigma continuous improvement principles, provides powerful workforce optimization software solutions that deliver value quickly and cost-effectively – designed for fast deployment, customization and training.

Read the full news release.

Join VPI and Straumann for an exciting webinar showcasing the powerful reporting solutions for Cisco UCC Contact Centers. You'll learn how Cisco and VPI helped Straumann develop and award-winning real-time contact center performance reporting solution.

Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM ET, 10:00 AM PT
Register here.

Now you can get even more value from your Cisco UCC Express (UCCX) or UCC Enterprise (UCCE) investment. VPI, a Cisco Solution Developer, VIP and SIP Partner, has integrated its award-winning VPI Performance contact center reporting and performance management software application with Cisco. This functionality complements and enhances the UCCX and UCCE platforms greatly by consolidating data and presenting actionable, real-time information in the form of Web dashboards, interactive reports, scorecards and desktop tickers to empower contact center managers, supervisors and agents to make better, quicker decisions.

Learn how Cisco and VPI customer Straumann, a global leader in dental implant solutions and restorative dentistry, enhanced the capabilities of its Cisco Unified Contact Center system and operations with VPI’s award-winning real-time Cisco reporting software solution.

Register to attend the complimentary Webinar, hosted by subject matter experts from Straumann and VPI, to learn how you can:

• Create and report on metrics based on Cisco UCCX, UCCE and other contact center data (CRM, ERP, QA, WFM) to meet business objectives.
• Report across multiple teams and queues, locations and Cisco UCCX/UCCE systems to get a holistic view of contact center operations.
• Perform true historical reporting with unlimited data collection – get insights into trending over time and a historically accurate representation of your agents’ group assignments.
• Create flexible grouping structures to report on groups and teams in any manner that makes most sense to your business.
• Drill through layers of data for root cause analysis and trigger targeted alerts, notifications and Coaching assignments based on performance thresholds to promptly correct performance gaps.

Scheduling Conflict? Register for the Webinar and we'll send you the recorded version.

Presenters:

Carlo Wise - IT Specialist, Straumann

Carlo Wise serves as a senior IT Specialist at Straumann, a global leader in dental implant solutions and restorative dentistry, leveraging his strong background in all facets of telephony and network systems integration. He is an experienced IT and Contact Center professional with over 16 years of experience in supporting and implementing Contact Center technologies in small to large Contact Center environments. Mr. Wise holds a variety of industry certifications, including Cisco, CompTIA and Redhat.

Delee Shields - Channel Sales Director, VPI
 
Delee has been instrumental in working closely with Cisco in developing VPI's Cisco Developer Network (CDN) Solution Developer, Value Incentive (VIP) and Solutions Incentive (SIP) partnership programs. She is responsible for working hand-in-hand with Cisco customers and channel partners through the entire sales process. She has extensive knowledge of Cisco Unified Communications product platforms and is highly experienced in Cisco reporting software, Cisco call recording software, workforce optimization, VoIP, LAN, WAN, MAN and wireless solution design. Prior to joining VPI as a sales engineer in 2007, she worked in sales and sales engineering capacities promoting Cisco solutions as well as earning her Cisco CCNA and CCNP certifications.

 

Call logging software comes in all shapes and sizes. Selecting the best call recording equipment for your organization’s specific needs can be tricky. Do you need to record for compliance and liability purposes? Or, are you more focused on your quality management goals? What kind of telephone voice recording does your organization currently utilize – traditional voice logging, digital call recording, VoIP call recording, or a combination? Is your organization growing or downsizing? Do you record multiple locations, and if so, is it easy to administer the communications recording system in order to access and analyze any and all recordings, by site, by group, and even down to individual calls? How many technologies do you currently have in place? Would the new call monitoring system have to integrate with any of them? There are indeed many questions to answer and issues to address in the quest for a new quality assurance call monitoring system. VPI has been listening to these questions from its customers for over 15 years, and has designed flexible solutions that can adapt to, and work within, virtually any environment – meeting the needs and expectations of organizations of all types and sizes.

For organizations seeking compliance and liability voice logging, such as public safety agencies, security companies, government bodies, and financial institutions, VPI developed VPI CAPTURE PRO. As the industry’s most secure and feature-rich audio and data phone recording software, VPI CAPTURE PRO enables organizations to seamlessly capture, assess, assemble, and share their recorded communications from a combination of telephone, radio, email and Web chat systems – traditional digital call recording and IP call recording software. In addition to handling compliance and risk management, VPI CAPTURE PRO enables federal, state, local, and private organizations to improve the quality of their mission-critical voice and data interactions and deliver first-rate customer service by acknowledging and utilizing call center quality assurance.

If you’re looking for a call logging software solution that will help you achieve your call center quality assurance goals, VPI CAPTURE PRO is by far your best bet. Whether or not you use a formalized quality evaluation process, VPI CAPTURE PRO allows you to engage in quality assurance call monitoring which will improve the customer service quality delivered by your local or locate and playback high value call recordings directly from a variety of standard reports, and leverage best practice remote employees, focusing on the most pressing business issues. You can monitor live calls across multiple locations, conveniently calls for training – call recordings are highly portable in standard formats and small file sizes.

With the VPI CAPTURE PRO voice call recording solution you can rest assured that whatever your needs may be, and whatever kind of technology and telephone voice recording you may have – both now and in the future – all of your immediate needs will be met, and you will be fully equipped to rise to every challenge that lies ahead. VPI’s open standards call recording equipment and technology welcomes change and meets the associated challenges with many options for fast and cost-effective reconfigurations in order to satisfy changes in legislation, increased capacity, new geographic distribution of your employee teams, or changes between centralized and distributed operation.
 

VoIP call recording software has finally come of age, offering the same advanced level of functionality and reliability as traditional recording systems. Organizations across the globe have recognized the tremendous benefits of VoIP communications and IP call recording software. New IP Communications platforms allow organizations to flatten, consolidate and extend their communications architecture. VoIP communications are also enabling a trend toward smaller, distributed contact centers.

The Significant Benefits of VoIP Communications
Reduced operational costs are often one of the major drivers for investing in VoIP communications and VoIP call recording software. In a recent survey conducted by IDC – a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets – 63.4 percent of business respondents reported the need to cut costs as the primary reason for upgrading to a VoIP service. Overall, IDC estimates that a VoIP system can reduce telephony-related expenses by 30 percent. In a traditional TDM environment, moving and adding telephone lines can be expensive. For example, the average employee moves desks once per year and the cost to move a traditional phone is $75.14 per change, and changes can take days to complete. Whereas, in a VoIP telephony world, moves, adds and changes can often be performed via a single Web-based software interface.

Enhanced disaster recovery is also a significant benefit to VoIP communications and new VoIP recording software systems. Prior to the advent of VoIP communications and IP recording software, the ability to re-route communications during a natural disaster had been achieved via the services of multinational corporations with the budget to build alternative circuits to reroute their traffic. However, the flexibility built into IP-based voice communications has given small businesses access to the same disaster response capabilities as large corporations.

Today’s more advanced IP recording software systems also have tremendous benefits versus traditional recording systems. If planned and implemented properly, centralized voice call recording can remove the need to implement recording capabilities at remote sites and provides for more efficient use of IP call recording resources.

VoIP Call Recording Software - What You Need to Know
There are several things to consider when implementing a new VoIP call recording software system. Voice call recording systems should use open standards and protocols and be able to adapt to evolving needs in order to interoperate with future technologies without replacement. Proprietary, hardware-based call recording systems are becoming a thing of the past.

Organizations are embracing the many benefits and capabilities offered by new VoIP communications platforms. However, all too often, the ability of their VoIP call recording software system to fully leverage those capabilities is somewhat lacking. Some voice call recording software systems can only record audio in very specific environments and have great difficulty capturing all of the important call information or metadata necessary to easily search for and find important calls. Some IP call recording software systems simply hit a wall and cannot record IP telephone, radio and multimedia communications in certain environments. It’s crucial to implement an advanced VoIP recording software system that can adapt and evolve as needs and technologies change, as well as extensive functionality to fully maximize the capabilities of the latest VoIP platforms.

To learn more about the latest developments and advancements in VoIP call recording software, visit http://www.vpi-corp.com/Call-Recorder.asp