CT Center Documentation

 

Getting Started With The CT Center Interface

 

Installation preliminaries:

·       CCI personnel need TCL access on TCS host

·       Pre-installation questionnaire

Steps performed by agency’s system administrator:

·       Put source code file onto TCS host

·       IAT logon on TCS host

·       Set up folders

Software installation in “main” TCS logon by CCI personnel:

·       Create PL-CCI program file

·       Install programs

·       Create common data files

·       Load default result code definition

Software installation in each TCS logon by CCI personnel:

·       Set up pointer to PL-CCI program file

·       Catalog all programs

·       Set up pointers to the common data files

·       Create local data files

·       Configuration of extra phone number fields

·       Configuration of extra campaign data fields

·       Add programs to TCS dayend processing

Configuration by agency dialer administrator:

·       Define result code updates

·       Define campaigns

·       Define agent mapping

·       Define processing parameters

 

 

 

CCI personnel need TCL access on TCS host:

 

The first step is for CCI personnel to log onto your TCS system and get a general idea of your environment.  We need to determine if your operating system and multi-value database platform are ones which we support.  We also need to look at your data folder structure to see how we are going to fit in. 

 

CCI is sensitive to you and your clients’ requirements for data security and limitations to system access.  At the same time, we have found that the tighter the restrictions, the more limited we are in being able to respond quickly and appropriately to support issues.  We are pleased to work individually with each agency to find the right balance between necessary access and maintaining a secure environment.

 

CCI has worked with agencies with a wide variety of access techniques, including:

-          Direct Telnet or SSH access to your TCS host, sometimes secured by your firewall only letting known IP addresses enter your network.

-          Virtual Private Network (VPN) access through a variety of protocols, including Microsoft, Cisco, Sonic Wall, Nortel, web browser front-ends, and many other individual protocols.  Once connected with an agency’s network, we have used the following variations to access the TCS host:

o   Terminal emulator programs with either Telnet or SSH protocol.

o   Remote desktop, accessing a PC in your network and using your local terminal emulation to log onto TCS.

o   Some VPN protocols provide built-in terminal emulators.

-          If neither VPN nor direct access are possible, our fall-back plan is to use Webex.com meeting software in partnership with one of the agency’s personnel to take control of that person’s screen and do what we need to do.

 

From CCI’s point of view, the more open the access, the better we can support you.  Ideally, we strive to establish the following terminal emulation in our own environment which supports:

-          File transfer using the KERMIT protocol with TCS’s FILE-TRANSFER verb.

-          Copy and paste between our local PC and your TCS host.

-          Access available 24/7 so that we can respond in a timely manner as you need our help.

 

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Pre-installation questionnaire:

 

CCI has a generic pre-installation questionnaire.  During our initial visit to your TCS host, we will do some initial analysis and modify that document to make it relevant to your individual environment.  

 

Once the questionnaire is customized for you, we will send it to you as an attachment to an email.  We ask that you focus on open issues highlighted in red type and that you answer those as best you can.  We are available by phone to talk through the open issues with you.

 

Also attached to the email is our encrypted software release in a file with the extension .pkg.  Sometimes, if our access to your TCS host is severely limited so we are not able to copy and paste, we will include some other files.  We’ve already surveyed your system’s folders, so we suggest a location for you to move those files to. 

 

 

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Put source code file onto TCS host:

 

Your system administrator needs to move our .pkg file (and perhaps some other files if we include them in the email) to a folder which is visible from within the TCS environment.  The folder and the file(s) need to have wide-open permissions so that we can access them to install our software.

 

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IAT logon on TCS host:

 

Your system administrator needs to create a separate logon (or database account) for the usage of the IAT communications program.  This should not be a TCS logon, rather it should be a generic UniVerse or jBASE account.  IAT’s dialer server will automatically telnet to your TCS host, log onto this account, and run a program which will use a common file area to transfer data back and forth with the TCS interface.

 

The logon protocol and credentials should be stable and static.  Since the IAT server is running a script to log on, if there are periodic required password changes, the script won’t function until someone from IAT adjusts it to send the new password.  It’s not worth that trouble.  The password should be static.  Since this is not a TCS account, after entering the user-id and password, the session should drop to TCL, allowing the script to run the IAT program.

 

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Set up folders :

 

The IAT interface requires an operating system path dedicated for its use.  Additionally, 5 folders need to be created and given full permissions by your system administrator.  What is the dedicated path name?  CCI suggests that the literal “IAT” be part of the path.  .

 

If the dedicated path is /xxxxxx/IAT/ we will also need the following folders established:

/xxxxxx/IAT/CTD/

/xxxxxx/IAT/DTC/

/xxxxxx/IAT/DTCArchive/

/xxxxxx/IAT/CTImpact/

/xxxxxx/IAT/Report/

 

The folder specifications above are standard for a unix environment.  If your TCS host runs on Windows, it will look like:

F:\xxxxxx\IAT\CTD\

and so on.

 

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Create PL-CCI program file:

 

We will choose a “main” TCS logon account in which to install the interface software.  Within that account, if it is not already created because we previously installed another one of our products, we will create a new program file called PL-CCI to hold our program source code.  All of our proprietary programs will reside in PL-CCI in an encrypted format. 

 

Additionally, if there is any customization of our interface, we will create another file called PHASEOUT.  It is our standard procedure to back up, to this file, previous encrypted versions of our programs prior to modification.  We try to always allow ourselves to reverse a program modification using this archival methodology.  The item-id of the PHASEOUT file will be the program name followed by “_CCYYMMDD” to show the date that the program is being backed up.

 

Once the PL-CCI program is created we will install some of our own programs for extracting the application programs from the .pkg file and for decrypting/encrypting our programs. 

 

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Install programs:

 

Using our own programs, installed into PL-CCI, we will extract the source code for our interface application programs from the .pkg file, decrypt that source code, compile and catalog it, and then re-encrypt it for storage on your TCS host.

 

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Create common data files:

 

The following data files will be created on your TCS host, in the main logon account only.  All other logon accounts which use the IAT interface will point to these shared files:

IAT-CONTROL

IAT-DTC-AUDIT

IAT-IO-RESPONSE

 

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Load default result code definition:

 

In the IAT-CONTROL file, the default result code table (as specified by IAT) will be installed.  This is in a generic format with no database update actions specified.  The intention is that the update specifications will be entered by your dialer administrator prior to going live.

 

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Set up pointer to PL-CCI program file:

 

In each of the non-main logons, a pointer to the PL-CCI file will be created.

 

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Catalog all programs:

 

Depending upon the host’s database platform (jBASE, UniVerse, etc.), each non-main logon will be configured to be able to  run the interface programs which are resident in only one place, the main logon.  Sometimes we have to catalog the programs in each logon, other times (i.e. in jBASE) we don’t need to do that.

 

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Set up pointers to the common data files:

 

In each non-main logon, we will create pointers to the common data files which were set up in the main logon.

 

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Create local data files:

 

For each TCS logon account (both main and non-main accounts) the following files will be created for processing local to that logon account:

IAT-CAMPAIGN

IAT-CAMPAIGN-DEF

IAT-DEBTOR

IAT-IO-REQUEST

IAT-IO-UPDATE

IAT-IO-RESULT-HISTORY

IAT-WORK-BUILD

IAT-WORK-DTC

 

Additionally, in the non-TCS logon that we created for usage by the IAT host, we will create pointers to the common IAT-IO-RESPONSE file and to each of the separate logon accounts’ IAT-IO-REQUEST and IAT-IO-UPDATE files.  This allows each local logon to interactively exchange data with the IAT host.

 

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Configuration of extra phone number fields:

 

In the questionnaire, you may have specified extra phone number attributes from your user-defined TCS FISCAL file, independently by TCS logon account.  We will configure any of those that you specified.

 

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Configuration of extra campaign data fields:

 

We will also configure any extra campaign data fields that you may have specified in the questionnaire.

 

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Add programs to TCS dayend processing:

 

To automate the daily building of campaigns and the daily purging of stale data, we add the following programs to the TCS dayend, at the tail end of the processing.

IAT.BUILD.CAMPAIGNS.AUTO – It is important that this program be executed at the end of your TCS dayend processing to assure that WIPs are already built by the time that campaigns are built.

IAT.PURGE

 

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Define result code updates:

 

Use the result code definition screens to specify the database updates which need to take place as each result code is processed.  If you will be using extra result codes not included in the generic set, these will need to be added.

 

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Define campaigns:

 

Use the campaign definition screens to specify your full complement of dialer campaigns.

 

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Define agent mapping:

 

If you are using the optional updating of the CF Activity report, you will need to use the agents definition screen to map the agents names known to IAT to the user names recognized by TCS.

 

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Define processing parameters:

 

Use the processing parameters definition screen to specify certain operating parameters as well as exclusion criteria.

 

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Copyright 2012, Cubs Consulting, Inc.