Communication Manager: How to set Music-on-Hold using Announcements

Author: Massimo Croci

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Details

Avaya Aura all releases

Communication Manager (CM) all releases

This guide 'll help you to set Music-on-Hold for Avaya Aura systems using Announcements through Communication Manager.

For different ways to set Music-on-Hold, see F105002.

For uploading audio files to the system, it’s possible to use VAL manager software instead of FTP, for details see F104071.

At the end, there are several appendices if you want to go deeper with Avaya Aura knowledge.

In order to help readers, I used:

• user@server#‘ as CLI prompt of MGC;

• Command: ‘ as CLI prompt of CM;

• Strings to be typed are light green colored, all customizable generic names in italic light green;

• comments between {{ }}, note in NOTE: and important thing to remember in REMEMBER
Table of Contents:

>>>01) Prepare the audio file to be uploaded in the correct manner

>>>02) Look for all VAL and Virtual VALs registered on the system and their IP Addresses

>>>03) Look for VAL and Virtual VALs present in all Audio groups and the Companding Mode

>>>04) Upload .wav file / files to the Avaya ToolSA via FTP and after to MGC

>>>05) Create new Login ID / Password for each Virtual VAL and VAL

>>>06) On MGC, upload files on Virtual VAL and all VALs

>>>07) Sometimes at this point you receive error messages, some possible solutions

>>>08) Create a new Announcement on CM and bind it to your .wav file

>>>09) Create a vector, VDN and Test Number in order to verify if the Announcement is audible

>>>10) Save translation and log off

>>>11) APPENDIX A: Companding Modes settings in the Aura system and encoding for Music-on-Hold

>>>12) APPENDIX B: Topology of Avaya Aura systems

>>>13) APPENDIX C: Connect to Media Server used as MGC and after to CM

>>>14) APPENDIX D: Look for all MG cabinets and VMM-MG cabinets present in the system

>>>15) APPENDIX E: Display all Circuit Packs present in the system

>>>16) APPENDIX F: VAL and Virtual VALs (vVALs)

>>>17) APPENDIX G: Add a VAL to the system

>>>18) APPENDIX I: Register a Virtual VAL on VMM-MG cabinet and enable it

>>>19) APPENDIX J: Backup and Restore of Announcements for VAL and Virtual VALs

Suppose that an end-user sent New_Announcement_2.wav audio file via mail and asked you to upload it to his Avaya Aura™

system in order to be used as Music-on -Hold.

>>>01) Prepare the audio file to be uploaded in the correct manner

REMEMBER: If the file is in a different format, please, convert it into .wav using an appropriate name.

Audio file names cannot contain blank spaces, nor any of the following characters:

• Period (.)

• Comma (,)

• Colon (:)

• Asterisk (*)

• Question mark (?)

• Less than (<)

• Greater than (>)

• Forward slash (/)

• Backward slash (\)

The filename itself is case sensitive, but the file extension .wav must be lowercase.

Messages that are recorded in this format occupy 8 KB per second of file space for each second of recorded speech.

For example, a 10 seconds message creates an 80 KB .wav file.

Avaya Aura systems work properly with .wav files CCITT G.711 µ-Law / CCITT G.711 A-Law encoded.

If you don’t know how to encode, see step >>>11) APPENDIX A

>>>02) Look for all VAL and Virtual VALs registered on the system and their IP Addresses

For VALs, see F105949.

For Virtual VALs, see F105921.

For info and technical details regarding VALs and Virtual VALs (vVALs), see F104299.

For all details regarding a specific VAL, type

Command: display ip-interface location_of_the_VAL {{ ex. display ip-interface 01A08 }}

and click ENTER

Since now, we'll consider to work in the below typical scenario:

• One G650 CP-MG cabinet as main MG cabinet

• One VAL 01A08 inside G650 CP-MG cabinet, IP Address: XY.XY.XY.XY

• One VAL 01B08 inside G650 CP-MG cabinet, IP Address: YX.YX.YX.YX

• Virtual VAL 001V9 inside one Remote G700 VMM-MG cabinet, IP Address: XX.XX.XX.WW
>>>03) Look for VALs and Virtual VALs present in all Audio groups and the Companding Mode

>>03a) Look for all Audio groups present in the system and all VALs and Virtual VAL inside

See F105958.

>>03b) Look for the Companding Mode Set in the system

Avaya Aura works with audio files treated using particular Companding Modes, for details see >>>11) APPENDIX A.

>>03c) Look for all Music-on-Hold groups present in the system (for CM R3 and R4 only)

Some CM releases use MOH (Music-on-Hold) groups instead of Audio groups.

Click on F1, type

Command: list moh-analog-group

and click ENTER. You’ll see a list of all MOH groups present in the system.
If youtype

Command: display moh-analog-group number_of_the _grup_you_want_to_check {{ ex. display moh-analog-group 1 }}

and press ENTER, you ‘ll see all boards present in that MOH group.

For adding a VAL to a MOH group the command to type is

Command: change moh-analog-group number_of_the _grup_you_want_to_add_VAL {{ ex. change moh-analog-group 1 }}

and press ENTER

>>>04) Upload .wav file/files to the Avaya ToolSA via FTP and after to MGC

For FTP client, I suggest WinSCP or Filezilla (both free, the second is multiplatform).

>>04a) Copy you file / files to the Avaya ToolSA server

Run your FTP or SCP client using

as ' File protocol ' :SFTP

as ' Port number ' : 22

as ' Host name ' : IP_Address_or_name_of_Avaya_ToolSA_server

as ' User name ' & ' Password ' : your_Avaya_global_handle

Following an example using WinSCP

Via FTP, you are on /agss/users/your_Avaya_global_username on ToolSA server, create a new directory ANN and move into it

your .wav file / all .wav files from local directory on your PC using drag & drop
>>04b) On MGC, move to directory /tmp and create a new subdirectory /tmp/ANN

{{ for a shorter way, see sub-step >>04e) }}

Type

user@server# cd /tmp

press ENTER. Now type

user@server# mkdir ANN

and press ENTER

or, directly on current directory, type

user@server# mkdir /tmp/ANN

and press ENTER.

>>04c) Upload files from Avaya ToolSA server to directory /tmp/ANN on MGC

Type

user@server# ~scp s /agss/users/your_Avaya_global_username/ANN/New_Announcement_2.wav /tmp/ANN

and press ENTER

REMEMBER: type always extension " .wav " after file name, otherwise the file can’t be recognized as an audio file

{{ In case you want to transfer all files from from Avaya ToolSA server to directory /tmp/ANN on MGC Server, type

user@server# ~scp s /agss/users/your_Avaya_global_username/ANN/* /tmp/ANN

and press ENTER;

in case you want to transfer New_Announcement.wav file from MGC Server to Avaya TooolSA server, type

user@server# ~scp r /tmp/ANN/New_Announcement_2.wav /agss/users/your_Avaya_global_username/ANN

and press ENTER;

in case you want to transfer all files from MGC Server to Avaya TooolSA server, type
user@server# ~scp r /tmp/ANN/* /agss/users/your_Avaya_global_username/ANN

and click on ENTER. Remember always to check if the file was correctly moved }}

>>04d) On MGC, copy the file New_Announcement.wav from /tmp/ANN to /var/home/ftp/pub

Type

user@server# cp /tmp/ANN/New_Announcement_2.wav /var/home/ftp/pub

and press ENTER

{{For coping all files inside /tmp/ANN to /var/home/ftp/pub, type

user@server# cp /tmp/ANN/* /var/home/ftp/pub

and click ENTER

>>04e) Move files from Avaya ToolSA server to /var/home/ftp/pub (shortest way)

Instead of performing sub-steps >>04b) -> >>04c) -> >>04d), It’s possible to move audio files directly to /var/home/ftp/pub.

Type

user@server# ~scp s /agss/users/your_Avaya_global_username/ANN/New_Announcement_2.wav /var/home/ftp/pub

and press ENTER

You can do if you want, but I don’t recommend it because sometimes, for policy, the end-user’s MGCs have particular configurations

and don’t allow it. Instead, the chain >>04b) -> >>04c) -> >>04d) should always work fine.

>>04f) On MGC, check if the new .wav file is present

Move to /var/home/ftp/pub typing

user@server# cd /var/home/ftp/pub

and press ENTER. Type

user@server# ls

or
user@server# ls -al

or

user@server# ls -ahl

and press ENTER.

>04g) Transcode G.711 A-Law / G.711 µ-Law encoding to the audio file

If you didn't perform G.711 A-Law / G.711 µ-Law encoding, suggested at step >>>01), because customer has Sox software

installed on his system, you have to do it now. For more details regarding encoding, see F104454.
>>>05) Create new Login ID / Password for each Virtual VAL and VAL

If you already have Login ID and Password for Virtual VALs and VALs, jump to next step.

Here I used coyote as Login and coyote123 as Password (you can use whatever you prefer, just remember that for Login you

can’t use more than 6 characters and for Passwords no more than 9 characters ).

>>05a) Create your Login ID / Password for each Virtual VAL (if needed)

Enter CM and type

Command: enable filexfer

press ENTER
insert typing a as below

as Login : coyote

as Password : coyote123 {{ hidden }}

as Reenter Password : coyote123 {{ hidden }}

as Secure? : n

as Board Address : 001v9

click on F3 to save.

>>05b) Create your Login ID / Password for each VAL (if needed)

If you already have Login ID and Password for all VALs, jump to step >>>06).
Below we continue to work with 1A08 and 1B08.

Here I used pippo as Login and pippo123 as Password (you can use whatever you prefer, just remember that for Login you can’t

use more than 6 characters and for Passwords no more than 9 characters).

Type

Command: enable filexfer

press ENTER and insert typing a as below

as Login : pippo

as Password : pippo123 {{ hidden }}

as Reenter Password : pippo123 {{ hidden }}

as Secure? : n

as Board Address : 1A08

click on F3 to save
Type again

Command: enable filexfer

press ENTER and insert typing as below

as Login : pippo

as Password : pippo123 {{ hidden }}

as Reenter Password : pippo123 {{ hidden }}

as Secure? : n

as Board Address : 1B08

click on F3 to save.
Log off from CM typing

Command: logoff

and press ENTER.

>>>06) On MGC, upload files on Virtual VAL and all VALs

For login via FTP, use Login ID and Password created at step >>>05) and after type bin for binary transfer.

FTP session puts directly to the /annc directory of the Virtual VAL and VALs.

Move to /var/home/ftp/pub typing

user@server# cd /var/home/ftp/pub

and press ENTER

Upload files on Virtual VAL via FTP typing (and after ENTER) as below

{{when requested, type exactly credentials you chose at sub-step >>05a) or credentials you already had}}
user@server# ftp XX.XX.XX.WW

Connected to XX.XX.XX.WW (XX.XX.XX.WW).

220 FTP server ready

Name (XX.XX.XX.WW:inads): coyote

331 Password required

Password: coyote123

230 User logged in

ftp> bin

200 Type set to I, binary mode

ftp> put New_Announcement_encoded_2.wav

ftp> exit

Upload files on VAL 01A08 via FTP typing (and after ENTER) as below

{{when requested, type exactly credentials you chose at sub-step >>05b) or credentials you already had}}
user@server# ftp XY.XY.XY.XY

Connected to XY.XY.XY.XY (XY.XY.XY.XY).

220 FTP server ready

Name (XY.XY.XY.XY:inads): pippo

331 Password required

Password: pippo123

230 User logged in

ftp> bin

200 Type set to I, binary mode

ftp> put New_Announcement_encoded_2.wav

ftp> exit

Upload files on VAL 01B08 via FTP typing as below {{when requested, type exactly credentials you chose at sub-step

>>05b) or credentials you already had}}

user@server# ftp YX.YX.YX.YX

Connected to YX.YX.YX.YX (YX.YX.YX.YX).

220 FTP server ready

Name (YX.YX.YX.YX:inads): pippo

331 Password required

Password: pippo123

230 User logged in

ftp> bin

200 Type set to I, binary mode

ftp> put New_Announcement_encoded_2.wav

ftp> exit
>>>07) Sometimes at this point you receive error messages, some possible solutions

If you don't have any error message, go directly to next step.

Otherwise see A112584.

>>>08) Create a new Announcement on CM and bind it to your .wav file

>>08a) Check for last Announcement present in the system

Enter on CM, type

Command: list announcement

and press ENTER. Check for number of last Announcement already uploaded, for example

In this case the last one is New_Announcement_encoded with extension 71672.

You should create a new Announcement with a no used extension

{{ on next steps I'll use 71673 for Name_Of_File_encoded.wav, you can use any free extension you prefer }}
>>08b) Create a new Announcement

Click on F1, type

Command: add announcement number_of_the_extension {{ ex. add announcement 71673 }}

and press ENTER.

You can see that as Extension is already present the number of extension.

insert typing

as Annc name : New_Announcement_encoded_2 {{ here you tie new Annoncement to an existing .wav file }}

as Group/Board : G1 {{ here you specify the audio board or group used as source }}

as Annc Type : integ-mus {{ to use the .wav file as Music-on-Hold }}

and press F3 to save.

Using Integ-mus , the system ‘ll play the .wav file continuously without any pause.

For more details regarding Annc Type, see KB article F103413.

If .wav file was correctly uploaded on Virtual VAL and all VALs previously, now it’s tied to your new Announcement.

>>08c) Check if Avaya system can see the new Announcement present on all Virtual VALs and VALs

Type

Command: list integrated-annc-boards

press ENTER.

For example, on first pages you can see all Announcements for VAL 01A08
and going ahead to next pages (press F7), all Announcements for VAL 01B08
and ahead again for Virtual VAL 001V9
Whether on last position there's your .wav file present with Length and Size different from 0, everything it's ok.

>>08d) Set the new Announcement or the whole Audio group as a music source

>08d1) Set music-sources (for CM R3 and R4 only )

Click F1 and type

Command: change music-sources

and press ENTER, on the first free row insert

as Type : music

as Source : ext number_of_the_Announcements {{ ex. ext 71673 }}

as Description : what_you_prefer {{ ex. Announcement }}

and press ENTER, type

Command: display music-sources

and press ENTER.

Instead of a single Announcement, you can use an entire Audio group.

Click F1 and type

Command: change music-sources

and press ENTER, on the first free row insert

as Type : music

as Source : group number_of_the_Audio_group {{ ex. group 1 }}

as Description : what_you_prefer {{ ex. Audio group }}

and press ENTER, type

Command: display music-sources

and press ENTER.

>08d2) Set COR

Click F1 and type

Command: change cor class_of_restriction _you_want_to_use {{ ex. change cor 1 }}

and press ENTER, on Page 1 set

as Hear System Music on Hold : y

press F1 and type

Command: display cor class_of_restriction _you_want_to_use {{ ex. display cor 1 }}

and press ENTER, you ‘ll see something like below

>08d3) Set system parameters

Click F1 and type

Command: change system -parameters customer options

and press ENTER, on Page 1 set

as Music/Tone on Hold : music

as Type : ext

as Name : number_of_the_extension {{ ex. 71673 }}

as Music (or Silence) on Transferred Trunks Calls? : all

and press F3 to save. After type

Command: display system -parameters features

and press ENTER

>08d4) Set multiple Tenants for nore music sources

In case of multiple tenants (Since tenant partition is enable is possible more than One music source) only, press F1 and type

Command: change tenant number _of _the_tenant_you _want _to_ use {{ ex. change tenant 1 }}

and press ENTER, on Page 1 set

as Music Source : number_of_the_Source _setted_ above {{ ex. 2 for the Audio group 1 or 3 for extention 71673 }}

Press F3 in order to save and type

Command: display tenant number _of _the_tenant_you _want _to_ use {{ ex. display tenant 1 }}
and press ENTER, you should see something like below

Now the new Announcement is ready to be used for Music-on-Hold

>>>09) Create a vector, VDN and Test Number in order to verify if the Announcement is audible

NOTE: Someone says ‘ Black Number ‘ instead of ‘ Test Number ‘.

For any details, see A112020.

If you are interested to create a phone numbers whitelist for incoming calls , see F105884.

If you are interested to create a phone numbers blacklist for incoming calls , see F105289.
>>>10) Save translation and log off

Type

Command: save trans all

press ENTER, after type

Command: logoff

press ENTER, press ENTER again (be sure “ y ” is already selected), type

user@server> exit

and press ENTER.

>>>11) APPENDIX A: Companding Modes settings in the Aura system and encoding for Music-on-Hold

Avaya Aura works with 3 different Companding Modes ( called ‘ codecs ‘):

• CCITT G.729 compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is mostly used in VoIP applications where

bandwidth must be conserved because of its low bandwidth requirements (ex. call conferences ) . There are 4 different

kinds of G.729 - G.729 Main Body (original), G.729A (Lower Complexity), G.729C (Floating Point), G.729G+ (Floating

Point with DTX and multiple bit rates). Bit rate is 8 kbps ( C+ can use 6.4 or 12.4 kbps as well);

• CCITT G.711 A-Law for Annoncements used in Music-on-Hold, following specs

Bit Rate: 64kbps

Audio Sample Size: 8 bit
Channels: 1 (Mono)
Audio Sample Rate: 8 kHz
Audio Encoding: CCITT G.711 A-Law
Audio Format: .wav

• CCITT G.711 MU-Law (often called ‘µ-Law ’) for Annoncements used in Music-on-Hold, following specs

Bit Rate: 64kbps

Audio Sample Size: 8 bit
Channels: 1 (Mono)
Audio Sample Rate: 8 kHz
Audio Encoding: CCITT G.711 µ-Law
Audio Format: .wav

REMEMBER : CCITT G.711 µ-Law is used in USA and Japan only, all other counties use CCITT G.711 A-Law.
>>11a) Set Companding Mode Sets in the system

See F105238.

>>11b) Encode (Transcode) .wav audio files for Music-On-Hold

See F105925.
>>>12) APPENDIX B: Topology of Avaya Aura systems

See F204301.
>>>13) APPENDIX C: Connect to Media Server used as MGC and after to CM

For details regarding MGC, see F204301.

For connection to CM, see F104616.

>>>14) APPENDIX D: Look for all MG cabinets and VMM-MG cabinets present in the system

See F105920.
>>>15) APPENDIX E: Display all Circuit Packs present in the system

See F105946 .
>>>16) APPENDIX F: VALs and Virtual VALs (vVALs)

In a standard Avaya Aura system there are two different kind of devices for hosting audiofiles (maximum 10 devices per system):

VALs and Virtual VALs (vVALs).

For details regarding Avaya Aura systems, see F204301.

For Backup and Restore of Announcements stored on VAL and Virtual VALs, see F105907.

For info and technical details regarding VAL and Virtual VALs (vVALs), see FAQ104299.

If you are interested to know how many VAL and Virtual VALs are supported by end-user's Avaya Aura system,

see F104488.

If you are interested to know how many Announcements are supported by end-user’s Avaya Aura system, see F104487.
>>>17) APPENDIX G: Add a VAL to the system

See F104898.
>>>18) APPENDIX I: Register a Virtual VAL on VMM-MG cabinet and enable it

See F104604.
>>>19) APPENDIX J: Backup and Restore of Announcements for VAL and Virtual VALs

See F105907.