Cisco Webex is an app-centric, cloud-based service that provides a complete collaboration suite for teams to create, meet, message, call, care, white board, and share, regardless of whether they’re together or apart—in one continuous workstream before, during, and after meetings. It is built to help teams work seamlessly. It is simple, secure, complete, and open, and provides a space for people to work better. The core capabilities of Cisco Webex are Meetings, Messaging, and Calling. The Cisco Webex platform, app-centric design, hybrid services, and architecture of Cisco Webex create a unique and differentiated service. For more information on the solution, refer to Cisco Webex.
Cisco Webex Meetings provides a Messaging API that VFC is able to use to retrieve content from Webex Rooms.
The Webex Import Source uses the Webex Messaging API to list and download available recordings, query and add participants prior to ingest.
Separate recordings are created for each recorded Webex user. Each recording contains details of all meeting participants.
For a general description of Verba Import sources, please refer to Import sources.
Recording is supported for the following modalities only:
- MP4 Video
Prerequisites
Two components, a Cisco Webex integration application and a VFC Import Source are required. To create an integration, a Webex account backed by Cisco Webex Common Identity (CI) is required. If no Webex account is available, sign up. If you're using Webex Meetings, your site will must be on Common Identity.
Firewall access must be arranged as two way internet communication is required between the Import Source and Webex. The Import Source port number is fully configurable and can be over HTTP or secured via TLS over HTTP.
Creating an ACR import source
Follow the steps in ACR before creating a a new Import source:
Step 1 - Open the ACR CRS Admin Page, navigate to System > Licence from the top menu. Ensure Search and Replay API is Enabled.
Step 2 - Open the ACR CRS Admin Page, navigate to System > Edit Layouts from the top menu. Click Copy and create a new segment based layout for the migration. Ensure Call Start Range Start Time is the only field in the left vertical column. Then click the checkbox and pencil in each of the horizontal column headings, selecting Start Time, Duration, UDFs, INUMs, Agents, Services, Skills and Other Parties from the field chooser popup.
Step 3 - Open the ACR CRS Admin Page, navigate to System > Manage Users from the top menu. Click Add User and under roles select May use external APIs and ensure the newly created layout above is ticked in the Search/Replay layout(s) available panel. In the Access rights over recordings/sessions/devices owned by pane, ensure the new API user has rights to search for recordings to be migrated in the new layout.
Follow the steps in Verba to create a new Import source:
Step 1 - Open the Verba Web interface then select Data > Import Sources from the top menu
Step 2 - Click on the Add New Import Source link on the top right
Step 3 - Complete the configuration according to the requirements in the following table
Configuration Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Name your Import Source. This name will identify the source across the system. |
| Type | Select ACR |
| ACR Hostname or IP Address | Mandatory Name of ACR CRS (Central Replay Server) |
| ACR Port | Mandatory Port Number of ACR CRS (Central Replay Server) |
| TLS Certificate File or Thumbprint | Optional certificate file / certificate thumbprint used for the ACR connection. |
| TLS Key File | Optional file system location where the certificate key is stored. |
| TLS Key Password | Specify the password for the file that contains the certificate keys. |
| TLS Trust List | Certificate chain (or Chain of Trust) is made up of a list of certificates that start from a server's certificate and terminate with the root certificate. If your server's certificate is to be trusted, its signature has to be traceable back to its root CA. |
| ACR API User | Mandatory ACR user that must be created with API permission before this Import Source is used. |
| ACR API Password | Mandatory ACR user password that is set the first time the Import Source is used. N.B. The ACR API user must not have a password set when it is created, instead the import source ACR API Password will be set and used automatically. |
| ACR Layout Name | Mandatory ACR search layout name created before this Import Souce is used. |
| ACR Timezone | Mandatory. Set to the timezone of the ACR CRS, in case it is in a different timezone from the ingesting VFC server. |
| Recording Import Batch Size (minutes) | Mandatory. Every time the Import Source is run by the Data Management Policy, it attempts to retrieve ACR recordings within this time range, progressing the batch via the recording start and end timestamp. While a larger batch size retrieves more records, it must not exceed the duration of the timeslot available for processing. |
| Recording Start Timestamp | Mandatory. Start timestamp of the first ACR recording to be migrated. |
| Recording End Timestamp | Mandatory. Timestamp of the last ACR recording to be migrated. |
Step 4 - Click Save to save the settings
Import Policy Configuration
Follow the steps below to configure the Data Import action:
Step 1 - In the Verba web interface, navigate to Data > Data Management Policies
Step 2 - Click on the Add New Data Management Policy button at the top-right corner of the page
Step 3 - For the action, select Data Import
Step 4 - Under Available Import Sources, select the Import Source that you created, then click on the Add button just below the text field
Step 5 - Configure the policy details, based on the information that is shown in the configuration items summary table below
Step 6 - Set up how frequently the Import should be run in the Scheduling section
Step 7 - Click on Save
Configuration Parameter Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable Recording Rules | Specifies if all data should be processed in the imported data set or just the records of the recorded users as configured in Verba |
| Execute Only on Selected Servers | If enabled, a specific server can be chosen that will run this policy |
Types of alerts raised by the ACR Import Source
Alert Message | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Could not parse configuration of source | Problem with Import Source configuration setting. |
Unexpected problem with underlying VFC database/filesystem | Could not connect to database or write file to local disc, check firewall and disc permissions. |
Failure to process Call Metadata | Unexpected or unavailable ACR call metadata values. |
| Failure to communicate with ACR | Firewall or network configuration problem. |
| No more ACR recordings available | Batch start time exceeds the last ACR recording timestamp. |
| Detected no recorded parties in a recording | No recording owner found in customer custom metadata. |
| Failed to retrieve media from ACR | Media unavailable or download interrupted. |
| Unable to find expected ACR call metadata | Either standard or ACR extended call metadata could not be extracted. |
| Could not obtain time zone offsets | Timezone offsets could not be extracted from the VFC database. |
Migration Status Reporting
No report files are generated, however at the end of each batch, a notification alert is raised containing details of recordings migrated from ACR into VFC.
ACR metadata
The system captures the following metadata specific to ACR recordings. These fields are available through the standard and the ACR specific custom metadata template.
Metadata Field | Description | Template | Available |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start Date | Start date of the conversation | Standard | Yes |
| Start Time | Start time on the conversation | Standard | Yes |
| End Date | End date of the conversation | Standard | Yes |
| End Time | End time of the conversation | Standard | Yes |
| Duration | Length of the conversation | Standard | Yes |
| User | Name of the recorded user | Standard | Yes |
| From | Subscriber / Third Party Phone number | Standard | Yes |
| From Info | User / contact name | Standard | Yes |
| To | Subscriber / Third Party phone number | Standard | Yes |
| To Info | User / contact name | Standard | Yes |
| Direction | Direction of the call from the system perspective, requires configuring internal number/domain patterns | Standard | Yes |
| Direction (User) | Direction of the call from the recorded user perspective | Standard | Yes |
| From (Verba) | Verba user name associated with the From Number | Standard | Yes |
| To (Verba) | Verba user name associated with the To number | Standard | Yes |
| Location | Hostname of the recording server | Standard | Yes |
| End Cause | Normal, Hold, Transfer, Conference, Device Change, From Terminated, To Terminated | Standard | No |
| Audio Codec | Audio codec of the recorded streams | Standard | No |
| Video codec | Video codec of the recorded streams | Standard | No |
| Platform Call ID | Unique conversation identifier received from the recorded platform | Standard | Yes |
| Silence Ratio | Ratio of silence in the conversation | Standard | No |
| Talkover Ratio | Talkover ratio of the conversation | Standard | No |
| Longest Silence | Length of the longest silence present in the conversation | Standard | No |
| User ID / Agent ID | User ID | Standard | Yes |
| From Device | Device ID of the calling party | Standard | No |
| To Device | Device ID of the called party | Standard | No |
| Dialed Number | Original dialed number | Standard | No |
| From IP | IP address associated with the calling party | Standard | No |
| To IP | IP address associated with the called party | Standard | No |
| From Proxy IP | IP address of the proxy server associated with the caller party | Standard | No |
| To Proxy IP | IP address of the proxy server associated with the called party | Standard | No |
| Source Platform | ACR | Standard | Yes |
| Conversation Type | Voice | Standard | Yes |
| Forward Reason | Forward reason for the conversation (e.g. forwarded, transferred, team call, delegated, etc.) | Standard | No |
| Recording failed | Indicates if the recording has failed and the metadata was imported during CDR reconciliation | Standard | No |
| Media Length | Length of the media file related to the conversation in hhh:mm:ss format | Standard | No |
| Media Error | Shows the media processing errors during recording | Standard | No |
| Voice Quality | Overall voice quality check score for the conversation | Standard | No |
| Record Type | Standard | Standard | Yes |
| 2N Source | In case of duplicate (2N) recording, records are marked as primary or secondary | Standard | No |
| UDFs | All standard ACR User Defined Fields | ACR | Yes |
| Agents | Customer custom metadata | ACR | Yes |
| Services | Customer custom metadata | ACR | Yes |
| Skills | Customer custom metadata | ACR | Yes |
| Other Parties | Customer custom metadata | ACR | Yes |
| Fingerprint | Customer custom metadata | ACR | Yes |