What are the UCCX Agent Requirements?

Are you ready to upgrade or deploy new versions of UCCX? Are you sure your environment meets the proper requirements? Are you having issues with a UCCX Agent, and Cisco isn't helping? It sounds like you might be in a pickle. 

Before going further, you need to make sure your UCCX Agents are correctly configured. But, what are the UCCX Agent requirements, and how can I find them? That's what we are going to discuss today. 

You never want to be in a position where your telephony systems aren't functioning correctly. More often than not, a UCCX Agent is misconfigured. UCCX can be a monstrous application to slog through to ensure it's appropriately configured. To make life more difficult, Cisco may deny support requests if your Agents are not configured correctly. So, in this article, we will discuss some of the high-level configurations and where you can find Cisco UCCX Agent requirements. Let's get into it!

An Overview of UCCX Agent Requirements

In this video, CBT Nuggets trainer Lalo Nunez covers some of the requirements for Cisco UCCX Agents and where to find UCCX documentation for troubleshooting.

What are the UCCX Agent Requirements?

It's good to review UCCX Agent requirements before deploying UCCX or upgrading it to a new version. Cisco has a lot of excellent documentation that covers requirements and caveats. You can find that documentation on Cisco's knowledge base website. CBT Nuggets also has guides for configuring Cisco Finesse, too. 

Reviewing every single caveat and requirement for UCCX agents is beyond the scope of this article.  There are a lot of them.  Some of these requirements may not apply to you depending on your environment. The best method for verifying if you have a UCCX Agent configuration issue is to review the Cisco documentation. 

With that said, let's discuss a few of the more common requirements. The rest of the article assumes you plan to use UCCX 12.5 Update 2. 

If you are deploying or upgrading UCCX to V12.5 U2, and UCCX connects with other applications, ensure that other applications support TLS V1.2.  The latest version of UCCX no longer supports TLS V1.1 or below. You may need to reach out to the vendors of any 3rd party applications you are using to verify that those applications support TLS V1.2.

Many organizations have internal legacy apps built on top of Internet Explorer 11. Many of those businesses have also been slow to upgrade those applications.  The problem is that Internet Explorer 11 is no longer in support by Microsoft. It's being rapidly phased out. This can be an issue with the new version of UCCX Finesse. 

UCCX Finesse no longer supports Internet Explorer 11.  Finesse also doesn't support the original versions of Edge either. You will need to use a Chromium-based browser, Safari, or Firefox, to use Finesse. If your organization is stuck using IE11, you may need to find workarounds or plan on deprecating IE11 in your environment. 

If you are upgrading or deploying the latest version of UCCX, make sure the correct .cop files are installed. UCCX 12.5 U2 has newer versions that are incompatible with previous deployments. 

If you need more than 100 agents, ensure that you are using the 400 agent OVA profile. The 300 agent profile is no longer supported. If you are upgrading UCCX and have a larger organization, take note of this.  It may affect you. 

If upgrading UCCX, make sure your CTI ports and CTI Route Points are correct. CCX systems do not support modifications, additions, or deletions within CUCM. Likewise, editing these may require that you need to restart your server.

Depending on prior configurations, you may also need to create new soft key templates for agents. The following soft keys are no longer supported on Cisco Unified IP phones:

• Barge

• cBarge

• DND

• Pickup

• Divert

• Conference Now

• Park

What Happens if a UCCX Agent Doesn't Meet Requirements?

Meeting UCCX Agent requirements are good, but what happens if you don't meet them?  The obvious answer is that agents may not be able to take and handle calls properly. The telephony environment may not work as expected or may have unforeseen hiccups. 

More importantly, though, Cisco may not offer you support. There will be a time when you need to request help from Cisco with your UCCX environment. Cisco will request your configuration before they can help you.  If your UCCX environment is misconfigured, they may refuse to help you until those configurations are fixed. 

That places a huge roadblock between you and your users. Your organization depends on its telephony services, and the last thing you want is to bring support to a crawl because of a misconfiguration issue. 

How to Learn More About Cisco UCCX

Deploying and upgrading Cisco UCCX is better to do the first time correctly. You never want to find yourself in Cisco’s troubleshooting and support loop. If you are new to Cisco UCCX, you might want to consider an online UCCX training class. 

CBT Nuggets has a variety of online Cisco UCCX training classes designed to take beginners through the entire deployment process. These classes also discuss UCCX Agent requirements, too. 

If you don't need to understand the entire deployment process but still need to support agents, there are tutorials for configuring Cisco Finesse. As an IT support agent, you may need to understand how Cisco Finesse operates. This is an essential skill for any front-line IT tech.