Silent Monitoring and Recording Using Unified

Communications Manager
Call centers are expected to guarantee the quality of customer service their agents provide to callers. To
that end, the ability to monitor and archive agent-customer conversations is critical to call center
business. The Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) silent monitoring feature allows a
supervisor to eavesdrop on a conversation between an agent and a customer without either party knowing
that they are being monitored. The call recording feature allows a supervisor or system administrator to
archive conversations between two parties for review, analysis, or legal compliance.

Overview
To begin a discussion of how silent monitoring and recording is handled by Unified Communications
Manager Release 6.0(1), some terms need to be defined:

AgentMonitored party

SupervisorMonitoring party (although supervisors can also be monitored by other supervisors)

CustomerExternal or internal caller

RecorderRecording party

Built-in-bridge (BIB) a Cisco Unified IP Phone's internal DSP resources, not the Ethernet port
(unique to a Cisco Unified Communications Manager solution)

Certain Cisco partners have provided customers with the ability to monitor and record using separate
applications. Within Cisco, products such as Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise can perform call
monitoring. These products deal with the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams at the computer
telephony integration (CTI) application layer. The observer receives RTP through a personal computer.
Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) is often required to monitor and record calls.
The drawbacks of this approach include:

SPAN is difficult to configure.

Site-specific equipment is often required.

Monitoring applications have limited scalability.

Supervisors must listen to monitored and recorded calls through their computer.

No provision for call admission control (CAC) or region-based codec negotiation

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Cisco Unified Communications Manager Silent Monitoring Feature

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Silent Monitoring

Feature
Using Cisco Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1), the silent monitoring capability:

Allows supervisors to monitor agents through a Cisco Unified IP phone.

Allows monitored calls to be managed like normal calls (for example, these calls can be transferred,
held, or added to a conference).

Does not require SPAN.

Is network topology-friendly.

Plays through a phone, not a personal computer.

Supports CAC, bandwidth reservation, and codec negotiation.

Provides notification tones when legal compliance is required.

The Unified Communications Manager silent monitoring and recording feature is invoked through CTI
using Java Telephony Application Programming Interface (JTAPI) or TAPI instead of the previous
method of using SPAN ports. Silent monitoring has no perceptible effect on the agents or customer's
visual display. Also, there is no perceptible audio artifact that might alert the agent or customer that their
call is being observed.
When a monitoring session begins, the supervisor device goes off-hook and makes a special call to the
agent device. This special call is answered automatically and silently. DSP resources in the agents phone
(for example, BIB) mix the customer and agent streams together to form a single, combined RTP stream
that is delivered to the supervisor device under Unified Communications Manager control. CAC,
bandwidth reservation, and codec negotiation rules are automatically applied to the monitored call. The
supervisor monitors the customer-to-agent call through a standard Cisco Unified IP phone.
Call monitoring in Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) is supported by all 3rd-generation
phones (Cisco Unified IP Phone 7911G, 7931G, ,7941G, 7941G-GE, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, and
7971G-GE models).
For legal compliance, an explicit notification in the form of a periodic tone can be made audible to the
agent, customer, or both to indicate a monitoring session is in progress. The tone can also be disabled.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Recording Feature

Using Cisco Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) there are two recording modes available:

Automatic recording All calls are recorded on line appearance; recording is invoked by Unified
Communications Manager.

Selective recordingThe supervisor and/or recording server can elect to record temporarily based
on business rules and events.

When a recording session is invoked automatically or selectively, Unified Communications Manager

delivers the unadulterated speech (two RTP streams) to the recording server through a Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) trunk established between the Unified Communications Manager server and recording
server. This allows call centers to take advantage of speech analysis technologies that scan for speech
patterns and behaviors which might indicate a problem during the call.
Silent recording has no perceptible effect on the agents or customer's visual display, and there is no
perceptible audio glitch that might alert the agent or the customer that their call is being recorded.

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Silent Monitoring/Recording Architecture

Call recording in Unified Communications Manager Release 6.0(1) is supported by all 3rd-generation
phones (Cisco Unified IP Phone 7911G, 7931G, ,7941G, 7941G-GE, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, and
7971G-GE models).

Silent Monitoring/Recording Architecture

Cisco has adopted an IP phone-based approach for silent monitoring instead of the typical SPAN
approach. The agent's phone mixes the media streams of the agent-to-customer call and sends that stream
to the supervisor.
Cisco has also adopted an IP phone-based approach for call recording. The agent's phone relays the two
media streams of the agent-to-customer call to the recorder.
Both features rely on the phone's internal DSP resources (BIB). Figure 1 shows the signaling interaction
and voice streams for both monitored and recorded calls using this feature.
Figure 1

Silent Monitoring and Recording Voice Streams and Signaling

How Does Silent Monitoring Work?

If a supervisor chooses to monitor a call, the following steps occur:
1.

A customer calls into a call center.

2.

The call is routed to an agent who answers the call.

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Silent Monitoring/Recording Architecture

3.

The supervisor's desktop application shows that the agent has an active call.

4.

The supervisor selects the call and clicks a button to start a monitoring session (such as clicking the
Start Voice Monitor button on Cisco Supervisor Desktop Release 7.2(1) or later).

5.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager instructs the supervisor's IP phone to make a special
monitoring call to the agent phone.

6.

The agent phone's BIB answers the monitoring call automatically and begins to send a single, mixed
RTP stream (agent and customer) to the supervisors phone.

During the monitored call, neither the agent nor the customer can hear the supervisor. An optional
monitoring tone can be configured to play to the agent, the customer, or both.

How Does Recording Work?

If an administrator configures a line for automatic recording, the following steps occur:
1.

A customer calls into a call center.

2.

The call is routed to an agent who answers the call.

3.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager automatically sends two call setup messages to the agent
phones BIB. The first call provides the agent RTP stream and the second call provides the customer
RTP stream.

4.

Unified Communications Manager sends SIP INVITE messages to the recorder, inviting it to record
both calls through a SIP trunk.

5.

The Recorder accepts both calls and receives RTP streams from the agent phones BIB.

While the call is being recorded, an optional recording tone can be configured to play to the agent, the
customer, or both. This recording tone overrides any monitoring tone when a call is being both monitored
and recorded simultaneously.
When a supervisor or the recorder starts a recording session (Selective Recording), the following steps
occur:
1.

A customer calls into a call center.

2.

The call is routed to an agent who answers the call.

3.

One of the following occurs:

The supervisor manually starts a recording session (for example, by selecting the call and

clicking the Start Record button on Cisco Supervisor Desktop Release 7.2(1) or later).
The Recording server start a recording session based on business rules.
4.

Unified Communications Manager receives the recording request through CTI (JTAPI or TAPI).

5.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager automatically sends two call setup messages to the agent
phone BIB. The first call provides the agent RTP stream and the second call provides the customer
RTP stream.

6.

Unified Communications Manager sends SIP INVITE messages to the recorder, inviting it to record
both calls through a SIP trunk.

7.

The recorder accepts both calls and receives RTP streams from the agent phones BIB.

While the call is being recorded, an optional recording tone can be configured to play to the agent, the
customer, or both. This recording tone overrides any monitoring tone when a call is being both monitored
and recorded simultaneously.

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Silent Monitoring/Recording Architecture

When recording a call, data is provided in the SIP header passed from Unified Communications Manager
to the recording system, including CallID (RefCI), Directory Number (DN), Device Name (MAC
address), Line Display Name, and Near-end/Far-end. Other call specific data is retrieved through the CTI
using the CallID field as a reference.
If the recording vendor's system uses a SIP Proxy to provide this service, then a Route List can be
configured with two or more SIP trunks to provide multiple SIP Proxy and recording server redundancy.
The IP phone sends the recorder streams using a codec determined by the original codec used for the
agent-to-customer call. Region settings are not applied. Some third-party recording vendors transcode
for storage.

Call Detail Records

During a monitored or recorded call, call detail records (CDRs) are generated as follows:

Each silent monitoring call generate one CDR and each call counts as a single call towards the Busy
Hour Call Attempt (BHCA) cluster capacity.

Each call recording session generates two CDRs and count as two calls towards the BHCA cluster
capacity.

Recording CDRs use the onBehalfOf field, indicating the calls were redirected by the recording feature.
The Global Call Identification (GCI) fields in the recording CDR will be the same as the call that was
recorded. The original conversation ID in the recording CDR will match the agent's call that was
recorded.

Cisco Unified Communications System for IP Telephony Release 6.0(1)