how to implement computer telephony integration
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How to Implement Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) with the SAP CRM Interaction Center
Posted by John Burton on Nov 11, 2009
One of the most commonly asked questions by SAP CRM Interaction Center customers is how to
integrate computer telephony integration (CTI) software with the Interaction Center. Integrating
your telephony system with your SAP CRM systems increases agent efficiency, usability, and
accuracy while reducing average handling time. Instead of manually searching for a customer,
CTI allows automatic customer lookup and identification (also known as "screen pop").
Computer telephony integration also provides other benefits such as the ability to use call-
attached data (CAD) collected from an IVR system inside the Interaction Center. For example,
CAD can be used to automatically retrieve and display a customer's sales order, service ticket,
or other business transaction.
Note: CTI typically refers only to "telephony" integration. Therefore SAP uses the term
communication management software (CMS) to refer more broadly to software that provides
multi-channel communication including telephony, email, Web chat, etc. CTI is thus a subset of
CMS.
The SAP CRM Interaction Center provides a toolset of agent-facing productivity tools to handle
the business-facing or transactional aspects of a customer interaction. However it is important to
note the Interaction Center does not include any underlying CTI capabilities such as BPX/ACD,
IVR or telephone systems. Rather, these capabilities are provided by external contact-center
infrastructure products - such as SAP BCM, Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, Siemens, and so on. However,
SAP CRM does provide a certified interface with which to connect these external products to
the Interaction Center for full integration. For more details, see my blog "What is Computer
Telephony Integration (and Why Do I Need It?)" What is Computer Telephony Integration (and
Why Do I Need It?).
Integrating external communication management software (CMS) with the SAP CRM Interaction
Center requires two separate set of steps (and two different sets of resources). First, the external
communication management software must be installed and configured by an expert who is
familiar with the CMS product being used; this resource will usually not be an SAP expert. Next,
the SAP CRM system must be configured. This set of steps involves IMG configuration, SAP menu
activities, and a couple of SAP Notes. The person handling the SAP set up should be an SAP
expert and need not be proficient with the particular CMS product being used.
Setting up the external CTI software
The set up and configuration of the external communication management software should be
handled by an expert who is familiar with the product in question; this person will mostly likely not
be an SAP resource. Most CMS vendors also have a professional services organization that can
help install and deploy their software. In addition, there are many third-party systems integrators
who have expertise installing particular CMS products.
For an example of the type of steps required to implement a CMS systems, you may want to
take a look at the following article, "Configuring SAP BCM and SAP CRM Interaction Center" that
focuses on the SAP Business Communications Management (BCM) communication
management software product - which provides CTI and related multi-channel capabilities.
Refer to section 2 of the article, "Set Up BCM" which focuses on the steps necessary to configure
SAP BCM. You can find the article here:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/c0333e72-1183-2b10-e38e-
831623459bb3;jsessionid=(J2EE3414700)ID0479755350DB10699010003940855301End.
Setting up SAP CRM
Once you have installed and configured the external CMS software, the next step is to set up
the integration with the SAP CRM system. There are several steps involved:
1. Use transaction SM59 to define an RFC destination in the folder "HTTP Connections to External
Server" that points to your CTI server.
2. In the IMG activity "Define Communication Management Software Profiles" enter an ID and
description of your communication management software profile.
3. Assign the CMS function profile that you created in Step 2 to your desired CRM business role
(formerly IC WebClient profile) in the IMG activity "Define Business Role".
4. Use transaction CRMM_BCB_ADM to create a new CMS system ID and to assign the RFC
destination that you created in Step 1.
5. Use transaction CRMM_IC_MCM_CCADM to select the CMS software system ID that you
created in Step 4. Choose the desired communication channel (e.g., telephony) and open the
"Queues" folder and enter the ID of your CMS queue ID.
6. Use transaction CRMM_IC_MCM_CCLNK to assign the CMS profile that you created in Step 2
to the CMS connection that you created in Step 4.
Important SAP Notes
The following are a couple of very important SAP Notes that may need to be applied in order to
enable CTI integration:
1337658 Ready/Not Ready radio button gray out and cannot be changed
1295006 Mandatory SICF services for IC WebClient