Changing Avaya 8720 PBX to ESS -- any effect on screen pops?

[MarcRobinson]

I've been over this with Genesys and our third-party vendor, but I'm wondering whether anyone here has first-hand experience with this:

We use Avaya PBXes, and our T1s are TDM (NOT IP). We have two call centers. Inbound calls come to one call center, where two GVPs handle the calls. When a caller wants to speak to an agent, the GVPs hand the call back to the PBX, which routes it to the other call center. Call info gets passed from the T-Servers at the GVP's call center to the call center with the agents. The T-Server then provides the call information to the PC of the agent who received the call, and the PC pops the caller info on the agents screen. This is a custom solution, NOT the standard Genesys way of doing screen pops.

The two PBXes are independent of each other. After next weekend, the PBX at the agent call center will become ESS, with the PBX at the GVP call center as its primary.

I'm not worried about call transfer, because it should be okay. I think screen pops will PROBABLY continue to work, but I can't be sure.

Has anyone else done anything like this? What was your experience? Even if you haven't, and you're familiar with Avaya ESS and Genesys CTI, I will appreciate any comments and observations.

[mike kamlet]

Haven't done this, but if the switches are now combined -- only 1 T-Server then it should be very straight forward.

If you are keep separate T-Servers (as they were before the ACDs were combined), then again I don't see any issues -- although would wonder why you'd need 2 T-Servers -- would seem to make more sense to consildate...

....just my 2 cents...

[MarcRobinson]

Thanks. More or less what I was thinking.

By the way, we're keeping the T-Servers because both sites will be able to handle incoming calls from GVP to agents, if we ever have a disaster. That way, if either site goes down, we fall back to the other for all call handling (both IVR and human). There will be GVPs at both sites as well as T-Servers. We're a regulated utility and are legally required to meet certain service levels. That's why we'll have two of everything.

[mike kamlet]

[color=blue]By the way, we're keeping the T-Servers because both sites will be able to handle incoming calls from GVP to agents, if we ever have a disaster. That way, if either site goes down, we fall back to the other for all call handling (both IVR and human).[/color]

That's the whole point of the ESS.  Now if you only have 1 T-Server, you'd put the primary in site A and the backup in site B (I'm assuming you have an AES server in each location).  Therefore if either site A or B goes down, the other can be fully operational.

By only having 1 T-Server, you'll simplify your configuration (no need to do ISCC routing within the same switch).  It will reduce the overall load on your system too...

[MarcRobinson]

A single T-Server works until you get a network cut. We require full redundancy.