Solution Prerequisites

Hardware Sizing

The following lists the machine specifications with no other EF components installed on the VM.

For HA, the same specifications would be doubled for two machines.

To get machine specifications for a larger agent volume and/or with other ExpertFlow products in a co-resident deployment, please get a quote from ExpertFlow or contact your ExpertFlow Account Manager.

Software Requirements

OS Compatibility

The following OS software is required on the server:

Database Requirements

Docker Engine Requirements

Browser Compatibility

Cisco Unified CCE Compatibility

 Tested with the CCE 11.6

Wallboard Reporting/ Display Device

The provisioning of reporting devices is partner/customer's responsibility. For reporting device, one of the following hardware solutions must be provided to display wallboard views in the production environment.

• An existing PC with a pre-installed OS, Monitor or LCD for wallboard display OR
• A Smart LCD with an embedded browser to open the wallboard view OR
• A raspberry pi device with OS installed with an LCD to display.
  For raspberry pi device's details, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b/

Port Utilization

The following ports should remain open on the Firewall. The local security policy and any antivirus should also allow open communication on the following ports.

System Access Requirements

Deployment Privileges

Administrative privileges (root) on the machine are required to follow the deployment steps. The Internet should be available on the machine where the application is being installed and connections on port 9242 should be allowed in the network firewall to carry out the installation steps.

Provision Database and a user on SQL Server Cluster

The following database and the privileged SQL user is required to connect to the application database. The application will create its tables and other schema objects itself after connection. 

• Create a wallboard application database with the name EFWallboard.
• Create an SQL Server User EFUser with a database role db_owner on the EFWallboard database.

Integration with UCCX

To read CSQs and agents list from CCX, we need admin user credentials to access UCCX Configuration APIs to fetch the list of CSQs, agents, and teams.

To access the Cisco CCX database remotely via the wallboard application, CCX reporting user (uccxhruser) password is required.

Integration with UCCE 

Since we need access on the Cisco AW database remotely, create an SQL server user, EFUser, with db_datareader role on the Cisco AW database.

Time Synchronization Requirements

If the system dates and times are not synchronized, the system can produce unpredictable results. Therefore, the EF applications and Cisco Contact Center should have their time zone and date/time properly configured, according to the geographic region and must be synchronized.

To configure the time zone, please see the instructions from the hardware or software manufacturer of the NTP server. The application servers should be synchronized. This synchronization should be maintained continuously and validated on a regular basis. For security reasons, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) V 4.1+ is recommended.

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Installation Steps

The Internet should be available on the machine where the application is being installed and connections on port 9242 should be allowed in the network firewall to carry out the installation steps.  All the commands start with a # indicating that root user privileges are required to execute these commands. Trailing # is not a part of the command.

Configure Log Rotation

Add the following lines in /etc/docker/daemon.json file (create the file if not there already) and restart the docker daemon using systemctl restart docker. Perform this step on all the machines in the cluster in case of HA deployment.

Installing Application

1. Download the deployment script deploy-wallboard.sh and place it in the /root directory. This script will:
   1. delete the wallboard directory in the present working directory if it exists.
   2. clone the wallboard repository from GitLab in the present working directory.

2. To execute the script, give it the execute permissions and execute it. 

   # chmod +x deploy-wallboard.sh # ./deploy-wallboard.sh

3. Create two databases in your DB server corresponding to the wallboard and umm. This step is only required if you're using your own DB server/cluster. If you're using the built-in MSSQL database server, you don't need to do anything. 

4. Update environment variables  in the following files inside /root/wallboard/docker/environment_variables folder.

   1. common-variables.env

      Name	Description
      Do not change the default values for non-HA deployment OR if you want to use the built-in database. For HA, use SQL server cluster settings instead of the defaults. If you want to use your own MSSQL instance anyway, update the following variables accordingly.
      DB_URL	Wallboard database connection url For example: jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://<MACHINE-IP or FQDN>:PORT/db_name jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://<MACHINE-IP or FQDN>:PORT/db_name;instanceName=SomeInstance
      DB_USER	database user
      DB_PASSWORD	database password
      DB_DRIVER	JDBC driver e.g., net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver
      DB_DIALECT	Database dialect e.g., org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServer2008Dialect
      CISCO_TYPE	The cisco type of solution .It is either "uccx" or "ucce"
      SSO_ENABLED	Single sign on facility, its value is either "true" or "false"

   2. umm-variables.env

      Refer to this document for configuration details

   3. synchronizer-variables.env

      Name	Description
      CC_TYPE	Decides whether Cisco contact center is UCCX or UCCE Holds string "UCCX" for UCCX and "UCCE" for UCCE. Default is UCCX
      REDUNDANT_DEPLOYMENT	Decides if synchronizer deployment is redundant. Set it to "true". Holds strings "true" or "false". Default is false
      INSTANCE_NAME	Used for differentiation of instances when deployed redundant, could be any string. It should be different on both machines.
      SYNC_AGENTS	To enable Agent sync set it to "true", default is true
      SYNC_AGENTS_STATS	Enables/disables agents stats sync, default is true
      SYNC_AGENTS_EMAIL_STATS	Enables/disables agent email stats, default is false
      SYNC_QUEUES_STATS	Enables/disables queue stats, default is true
      SYNC_QUEUES	Enables/disables queues/skillgroups in case of UCCE, default is true
      DB_RETRY_ATTEMPTS	Defines how many times  will try to acquire a new Connection from the database before giving up. By default is it set to 1.
      DB_TIMEOUT_CONNECTION	Sets the database connection timeout period after which an idle connection is removed from the pool. default is 1800 ie.(30 min)
      Following variables are used when CC_TYPE = "UCCX"
      UCCX_PUB_IP	Primary UCCX IP
      UCCX_PUB_USERNAME	Primary UCCX admin username
      UCCX_PUB_PASSWORD	Primary UCCX admin password
      UCCX_SUB_USERNAME	Secondary UCCX admin username
      UCCX_SUB_PASSWORD	Secondary UCCX admin password
      UCCX_DB_USERNAME	hruser user name
      UCCX_PUB_DB_PASSWORD	Primary UCCX database reporting user (hruser) password
      UCCX_SUB_DB_PASSWORD	Secondary UCCX database reporting user (hruser) password
      UCCX_REAL_TIME_PORT	UCCX real-time APIs port, default is 9080
      SLA_FORMULA	#1 = (Calls Answered/ Calls presented)*100 (updated after every 5 sec) #2 = (Calls Answered met SL/ Calls presented)*100 (updated after every 5 mins)
      SLA_Decimal	#true  = (The SLA value will be displayed for up to 2 decimal points). #false = (The SLA value will be rounded off.)
      CCX_API_TIMEOUT	Defines the timeout for CCX APIs in milliseconds, default is 3000 milliseconds. A value of 5000 milliseconds is recommended.
      Following variables are used when CC_TYPE = "UCCE"
      CCE_DB_URL	UCCE awdb database URL jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://192.168.1.87:1433/ucce_awdb
      CCE_DB_USER	CCE database user
      CCE_DB_PASSWORD	CCE database password
      TZ	The timezone of UCCE e.g. Asia/Karachi
      CCX_AGENT_STATE_REST_OPERATION	post= For running real-time API via POST method get= For running real-time API via GET method if this variable is not available in the environment file, it will be running via GET method

5. The following configuration must be done at UCCX. This will allow the UCCX System to write real-time data to tables that Synchronizer uses to fetch for gadgets. This step is not needed for UCCE deployments.
   1. Go to Tools > “Real-Time Snapshot Config” on UCCX Administration UI.
   2. Enable all three checkboxes
   3. Select “5” from the dropdown against “Data Writing Interval”
   4. Provide the IP addresses of the machine where Synchronizer will run (comma separated IPs in case of HA, otherwise only one IP) separated by commas in the field against “Server Name” under the "Wallboard System".
   5. Click on the update button. 
6. Get domain/CA signed SSL certificates for wallboard FQDN/CN and place the files in /root/wallboard/docker/certificates folder. The file names should be server.crt and server.key.
7. Update the translation files inside /root/wallboard/docker/translations folder for multilingual UI. The file names in the translation folder should remain unchanged.

8. Having environment configurations done, copy the wallboard directory on the second machine in/root the directory using the following command. (Only for HA deployment)

   # scp -r /root/wallboard root@<machine-ip>:/root/

9. Having copied the wallboard directory to the second machine, got to /root/wallboard/docker/environment-variables and update the INSTANCE_NAME variable in synchronizer-variables.env. Set it to any value other than the value that is set in the first machine. It will differentiate the two VMs as only one synchronizer service will be active. If one goes down, the other starts synchronizing data from UCCE/UCCX. (Only for HA deployment)

10. Execute the following commands inside /root/wallboard directory on both machines (if in HA, otherwise on the only machine in the cluster).

    # chmod 755 install.sh # ./install.sh

11. Run the following command to ensure that all the components are up and running. The screenshot below shows a sample response for a standalone non-HA deployment. 

    # docker ps

    
    
    

Virtual IP configuration (Only for HA deployment)

Repeat the following steps for all the machines in the HA cluster.

1. Download keepalived.sh.sh script and place it in /root directory.

2. Give execute permission and execute the script: 

   # chmod +x keepalived.sh # ./keepalived.sh

3. Configure keep.env file inside /root/keep-alived folder

   Name	Description
   KEEPALIVED_UNICAST_PEERS	IPs of the machines in the cluster. On each machine, this variable should have a list of IPs of all the other machines in the cluster. The format of the list is as below:  "#PYTHON2BASH:['192.168.1.76','192.168.1.80']"
   KEEPALIVED_VIRTUAL_IPS	Virtual IP of the cluster. It should be available in the LAN. For example: 192.168.1.245
   KEEPALIVED_PRIORITY	The priority of the node. Instances with lower numbers will have a higher priority. It can take any value from 1-255.
   KEEPALIVED_INTERFACE	Name of the network interface with which your machine is connected to the network. On CentOS, ifconfig or ip addr sh will show all the network interfaces and assigned addresses.
   CLEARANCE_TIMEOUT	Corresponds to the initial startup time of the application in seconds which is being monitored by keepalived. A nominal value of 60-120 is good enough
   KEEPALIVED_ROUTER_ID	Do not change this value.
   SCRIPT_VAR	This script is continuously polled after 2 seconds. Keepalived relinquishes control if this shell script returns a non-zero response. For wallboard, it should be: pidof dockerd && wget -O index.html https://localhost/umm/base/index.html

4. Give the execute permission and execute the script: 

   # chmod +x keep-command.sh # ./keep-command.sh

Adding License

1. Browse to https://FQDN/umm in your browser (FQDN will be the domain name assigned to the IP/VIP). 
2. Click on the red warning icon on right, paste the license in the field and click save. 
   
3. Go to https://FQDN to access the wallboard front-end. (FQDN will be the domain name assigned to the VIP).
4. Go to Data Service on the left side menu to define data services. There will be three data services named Agent Service, Queue Service  & Call Type with the following URLs.

       https://FQDN/agent-service  and https://FQDN/queue-service.

            

Uninstalling

To uninstall the application completely, execute the following commands.

Troubleshooting

• To update any changes in the environment variables and/or compose file, simply execute the install script again:

  /root/wallboard/install.sh

• To restart the whole stack completely, execute the following commands: 

  # docker-compose -f /root/wallboard/docker/docker-compose.yml down # /root/wallboard/install.sh

Synchronizer Patch 13.7.4: Synchronizer Improvements

This patch applies performance improvements and handling connection timeouts gracefully.

Apply the following steps to set database timeout and retry attempts configuration configurations.

1. Stop the current release services by executing the following command inside the current-release-deployment-dir/wallboard/ directory. 
   

   # docker-compose down

2. Open synchronizer-variables.env in path /root/wallboard/docker/environment_variables folder and add the following variables.
   

   Name	Description
   CCX_SSL	#Boolean (true or false) #if  set to true it will append https:// to all ccx apis #if  set to false it will append http:// to all ccx apis #Default is set to false

3. Open docker-compose.yml file in current-release-deployment-dir/wallboard/docker directory and update the following tags:

   #Synchronizer gitlab.expertflow.com:9242/wallboards-dashboards/synchronizer:13.7.4 # agent-service gitlab.expertflow.com:9242/wallboards-dashboards/wallboard-microservices/agent-backend:13.4.1   # queue-service gitlab.expertflow.com:9242/wallboards-dashboards/wallboard-microservices/queue-backend:13.4.3

4. Execute the following commands inside the current-release-deployment-dir/wallboard/ directory.
   

   ./install.sh

5. Run the following command to ensure that all the components are up and running.

   docker ps