• iSD 4.0
• iSD 2.4

Products - iSD 4.0

Based on the market proven and widely accepted iSD software framework for developing standards based self-service applications, the iSD 4.0 provides a new dimension to delivering on ‘human like’ self services applications. The new module integrates with specialized speech technology platforms using media rich control protocol (MRCP) standard providing multilingual automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text to speech (TTS) capabilities. This ensures next generation advanced voice services are provided easily to the end users through the iSD 4.0 framework. In reality this means that new and upgraded services are provided quicker - ensuring quick ‘time to market’ for enterprises looking to deliver products and services to their customers.

iSD 4.0 software framework allows programmers to create and integrate complicated voice applications rapidly. It eliminates complexities traditionally associated with implementing sophisticated multi platform voice applications.

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Output numeric and date information in any language with a single line of code. Simply choose a Calendar and an output format to suit the application. Similarly, amounts in any currency can be output by supplying the currency, e.g. USD and the amount.

Grammatical constructs pertaining to number output are fully supported. It is simple to code a script to output "no apples", "an apple", "two apples" and so on. VoiceXML is an evolving open standard. It does however have an inherent degree of complexity. And compliance to this specification varies between products. To minimize the burden on application developers, vendors have developed proprietary editing tools. As a consequence, and despite some adherence to an open standard, there remains a vendor lock-in because team-members gain familiarity with the workings of one product and the resulting artifacts are not entirely portable.

Applications can be configured to support a range of languages. Callers can select a language of choice which can then be maintained for future sessions. Application scripts are developed in a language-neutral manner. Language variations resulting from different numeric values are managed by iSD.

For service quality improvement, audit or other purposes, information including the caller Id, session start, session start time, session end time, resumptions and caller actions may be logged. Additionally, application specific events may be logged by registering an appropriate listener.

iSD may be configured in a cluster of two or more nodes to provide a high availability solution. Individual nodes are capable of supporting over 100 concurrent user sessions. The core loads applications from a designated directory across the entire farm. Application upgrades are therefore only a matter of copying the relevant library to a directory.

Any number of applications may be run concurrently on the iSD.

Application scripts are developed as a series of modules. Each module contains a series of nodes that can be tailored at execution time to suit the caller’s profile.

iSD design and development practice encourages consistency and allows easy application development inline with international standards such as HFES 200.5: Human Factors Engineering of Software User Interfaces - Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Telephony.

Products - iSD 2.4

iSD 2.4 takes IVR application development to the next level. Its scripting environment satisfies the most elaborate of application and integration requirements. With built-in support for creating dynamic call flows and elaborate output of numerical, date, and financial data, it can satisfy the most rigorous requirements - in any language! No longer do you require platform-specific IVR specialists to develop a call flow – it can be done by anyone with access to an XML editor and Java for application integration. 
An IVR application can now provide all the features your customers want, 24 x 7, sooner than imagined for less than what more basic applications used to cost.  And if one platform does not suit your requirements then the application can be ported directly onto another supported platform.

VoiceXML Option
Faced with a choice when upgrading an IVR system, customers are often tempted by the lure of VoiceXML as an open standard. Expectations are based upon its potential, which exceeds traditional IVR capabilities in areas such as caller identification, allowing callers to say anything and so on. Only once the significant additional costs are ascertained do organizations realize that such technologies would be great but the budget does not stretch that far. 

VoiceXML is an evolving open standard. It does however have an inherent degree of complexity. And compliance to this specification varies between products. To minimize the burden on application developers, vendors have developed proprietary editing tools. As a consequence, and despite some adherence to an open standard, there remains a vendor lock-in because team-members gain familiarity with the workings of one product and the resulting artifacts are not entirely portable.

Better Service
Traditional IVR can offer customers the same rich set of services which they have been accustomed to receiving via the web or from an agent.  iSD 2.4 provides a flexible range of features for doing just this. It has extensive presentation features for outputting numerical and date information, including grammatical support. For example, selected aspects of a date can be output in a variety of calendar systems in the caller selected language.  Time to obtain information or access services is also dramatically reduced by supporting context sensitive menus. The iSD 2.4 scripting environment provides an elegant means of ensuring that only valid options are presented to callers. This eliminates the possibility of selection errors and dead-ends, e.g. offering to pay a bill when there are insufficient funds. 
Smart menus result in many benefits including entry error reduction, improved caller satisfaction, reduced speak-time per call, less abandoned calls and less “zeroed-out” calls.

Reduced Cost
Services can be developed quickly and easily using iSD 2.4.  Extensive API documentation and sample scripts provide a wealth of information for application developers to get started with. A complete sample application (including source code) is provided. This can be deployed as soon as the target environment is configured, helping new teams to understand the effect of the code. Development can be undertaken from day one without any special equipment or software. Applications may be developed using any available application development environment. No special skills are required. A java developer, familiar with J2SE and Javadoc is sufficient to get started. Complete applications can be developed by a single person.  Test frameworks, supplied with iSD 2.4, provide a complete functional, performance and regression testing framework for a system. Using the popular JUnit framework, tests can be developed to automate testing of all aspects of a system.  Using the latest standards, iSD 2.4 can interface directly into Enterprise Java Beans.

Quality Improvement
Take the guess work out of the design decisions by using iSD 2.4’s extensibility model to tailor logging to your specific environment’s requirements. Simple-to-develop logging services provide call centre managers with access to real information about usage patterns from a number of different perspectives, including time or customer type. For example, by analyzing the usage of the system for different customer segments, patterns of usage can be identified. Alternate flows can then be tailored for particular customer segments.

Standards Compliant
Consistency within the application and with industry standards is a key factor in application design.  iSD 2.4 supports this whilst at the same time encouraging good software engineering practices. In fact design for reuse is a key aspect of application development within iSD 2.4. This not only reduces overall effort, but it reinforces consistency throughout the application. For example, menu templates can be used to define standard prompts and menu options. A particular menu template can then be incorporated into a menu, reducing the development time further and ensuring consistency. Settings can be defined globally, and tailored locally if needed.
In this way, if a change needs to be made, then it can be done in one place.

Proven Performance and Reliability
iSD 2.4 comfortably scales to over a hundred concurrent calls on a single low-end server. The minimum configuration for a service is a Pentium IV with 512MR RAM and JDK 1.4 installed. Any operating system which supports a standard Java runtime environment can be used. Its lightweight multilayered system design maximizes the utilization of Cisco resources on one side and existing back-office applications on the other.  Concurrent calls within the same server operate independently of each other, ensuring that one call failure will not impact other callers.  For increased availability, multiple servers can be deployed in a clustered configuration. In the event that one server is shutdown or its service is suspended, calls will then be handled by other servers in the cluster.

Easy to Develop and Maintain
A step-by-step process is defined covering all aspects of the IVR application development, to guide project teams through an iterative development cycle. Software within this process is easy to develop and maintain. The component based architecture of  iSD 2.4 encourages the independent development of script modules and application integration code. Application packaging and deployment is fully supported.  In production, scripts can be easily maintained from a web console. There is no need to restart the service when a script is to be upgraded. Just press the reload button and it is done. Existing calls continue until completion using the old script. New calls continue to be accepted however they now will run the upgraded script.

Integrate with Existing Applications
Take advantage of the open layered architecture of iSD 2.4 to integrate with legacy systems using a range of J2EE technologies. iSD 2.4 deploys as an EJB3 service directly into an EJB container. The application integration components deployed along with the service can take full advantage of the container to access whatever services are provided.
  

 
Key Features
100% Pure Java Application
Develop the entire IVR application in Java using a conventional application development environment such as Eclipse®. Benefit from being able to integrate with existing applications via any Java library.

Extensive Language, Digit, Number, Date, Currency and Grammatical Constructs
Output numeric and date information in any language with a single line of code. Simply choose a Calendar and an output format to suit the application. Similarly, amounts in any currency can be output by supplying the currency, e.g. USD and the amount.
Grammatical constructs pertaining to number output are fully supported. It is simple to code a script to output “no apples”, “an apple”, “two apples” and so on.

Fully Internationalised
Applications can be configured to support a range of languages. Callers can select a language of choice which can then be maintained for future sessions. Application scripts are developed in a language-neutral manner. Language variations resulting from different numeric values are managed by iSD 2.4.

Configurable Logging
For service quality improvement, audit or other purposes, information including the caller Id, session start, session start time, session end time, resumptions and caller actions may be logged. Additionally, application specific events may be logged by registering an appropriate listener.

Robust, Scalable and Maintainable
iSD 2.4 may be configured in a cluster of two or more nodes to provide a high availability solution. Individual nodes are capable of supporting over 100 concurrent user sessions. The core loads applications from a designated directory across the entire farm. Application upgrades are therefore only a matter of copying the relevant library to a directory.

Multiple Applications
Any number of applications may be run concurrently on the AG 2006. 

Simple Yet Powerful Scripting
Application scripts are developed as a series of modules. Each module contains a series of nodes that can be tailored at execution time to suit the caller’s profile.

Standards Compliant
iSD 2.4 design and development practice encourages consistency and allows easy application development inline with international standards such as HFES 200.5: Human Factors Engineering of Software User Interfaces – Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Telephony.