Cross-cluster supervisor monitoring

In an environment with DNs spread across multiple Cisco clusters, supervisors and agents often reside on different clusters, controlled by different Cisco T-Servers. However, the switch does not directly support cross-cluster supervision, so T-Server uses a temporary transfer process to enable supervisor monitoring across a cluster.

CTI ports, configured as Extensions with switch-specific type 2, serve as the temporary local supervisor DNs. The T-Server client uses a CTI port to requests supervision of an agent. Once the call arrives at the agent and the monitor call is established at the CTI port, the client then immediately requests a transfer to the real supervisor, specifying the location in case the supervision is controlled by a different Cisco T-Server.

The client determines:

• which CTI port to use for each monitor request, and
• where the monitor call is single-step transferred, once established on the CTI port.

Any calls to a CTI port should be transferred immediately to avoid dropped calls.

Limitations

• Only single-step transfer is supported.
• Cross-cluster supervision is limited to silent monitoring.
• A CTI port can be used for only one call at a time.
• Only MonitorNextCall is supported, so the client must request observation for every new call.

How it works

There are three steps to transfer supervision:

1. Request and establish supervision from the CTI port, as usual:
   • Make a RequestMonitorNextCall request, specifying a CTI port as the supervisor (ThisDN).
   • The call arrives at the agent and T-Server adds the CTI port to the call, indicated by EventEstablished and EventPartyAdded.
2. Make a RequestSingleStepTransfer request to the real supervisor, specifying AttributeLocation and the extension key-value pair GCTI-REMOTE-OBSERVE=true. The extension ensures that DNRole is correct, informs the destination T-Server that the destination is a remote observer, and directs that AttributeThisDNRole is set to RoleObserver (1) accordingly.
3. Answer the call at the real supervisor. This results in an EventEstablished event on the supervisor with DNRole 10. An EventPartyAdded event is also distributed if the supervisor is local.