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These topics address problems you might encounter, and provide ways to resolve them; also included are other tasks associated with problem resolution.
These topics provide resolutions to problems users might encounter:
If users cannot log in to the Personal Assistant user interface, verify that they are using the correct log-in name. The log-in name should match the unique user attribute you defined in the Corporate Directory settings. For example, if your company is using the employee e-mail address as the unique user attribute, verify that users are entering their e-mail address and not another attribute, such as their phone number.
If users cannot use speech commands and are forced to use touch-tone dialing to interact with Personal Assistant:
If users report that they are being directed to the operator too often when using Personal Assistant, check the speech recognition settings on the Personal Assistant server. See the "Configuring Speech Recognition" section.
If users report they are given too many options when using dial-by-name, you should reduce the Max Disambiguate parameter of the speech recognition settings on the Personal Assistant server.
Using the miscellaneous settings in the Personal Assistant Administration interface, you can designate the call pickup time. This determines how long Personal Assistant waits for a call to be picked up before it moves on to the next defined dial rule.
However, users can also configure the call pickup time (by selecting Preferences>Settings from the user interface), and this setting takes precedence. For example, if the server setting is 20 seconds, but a user has set their setting to 10 seconds, Personal Assistant uses 10 seconds as the call pickup time.
If users state that they are being transferred too quickly to voice mail, check the call pickup setting in both the administrator and user interfaces.
You can configure dial rules through the Personal Assistant administration and user interfaces. However, rules configured in the administration interface take priority over those configured through the user interface. Therefore, if a user has configured a dial rule that conflicts or produces different results than one you configured as the administrator, their rules are ignored.
Under normal circumstances, users should not experience dropped calls while using Personal Assistant. However, if you have recently changed settings on the Personal Assistant server and saved the settings, the server might have restarted. If you do not have any failover servers, Personal Assistant might have been unavailable during this restart.
If a user is actively interacting with Personal Assistant when the server becomes unavailable, the call will drop. However, if Personal Assistant has already completed its role in the call, such as a successful transfer, the call will not be dropped.
To prevent calls from being dropped while Personal Assistant is being used, limit the changes and restarts to the Personal Assistant server to off-peak or other times of lower demand. Also, if you do not have a failover server, consider adding one in order to more reliably support your users.
If users call Personal Assistant and consistently get this message, there are two main problems to check for:
If it takes a long time for Personal Assistant to answer calls to the Personal Assistant number, it is likely that you are using IP addresses for speech server or license managers in your configuration, and your DNS server is not set up to resolve an IP address to an IP address.
To resolve the problem, either reconfigure your DNS server to add IP address to the same IP address mapping, or change the Personal Assistant configuration to identify the speech servers and license managers using DNS host names.
When people calling the Personal Assistant number hear a busy tone, you might have these problems:
If the message waiting light on the telephones no longer lights when a new message is received, the problem might be in the calling search space configuration.
Do not include the PA partition in the calling search space that you use for voice-mail ports. The calling search space of the voice-mail ports should include the PAManagedEmployee partition, but not the PA partition, or the message waiting indicator will not work. When setting the mwisearchspace for the Messaging interface in Cisco CallManager, make sure it contains PAManagedEmployee but not PA.
If users are transferred to the main voice-mail number when they say try to access voice-mail in Personal Assistant, rather than being taken directly to their voice mailbox, check the messaging configuration (System>Messaging). Ensure that the voice-mail servers are identified by unqualified DNS name, for example, unity1 rather than unity1.domain.com. Do not use IP addresses.
If that is not the problem, reinstall the Personal Assistant servers and specify a Unity domain and administrative user when asked for Windows domain information.
If users in general can access voice mail, but some users cannot, there is probably a problem with the Unity user setup information, or a consistency problem with Cisco CallManager.
Make sure the user's voice mailbox number matches with the user's extension in Cisco CallManager, and that the user ID is the same in Unity and Cisco CallManager.
If that is not the problem, check the Personal Assistant messaging configuration (System>Messaging), and ensure the user's voice-mail server is configured in Personal Assistant.
Finally, if you are using more than one voice-mail server, users can select the voice-mail number when configuring Personal Assistant user settings. Check the user's configuration to ensure they have selected the correct voice-mail number.
If users cannot log into the voice-mail system from Personal Assistant, it is likely that the voice-mail profile was not correctly created. Search the registry on the Personal Assistant server for "Unity System Profile." This profile is created the first time someone accesses voice-mail through the Personal Assistant server.
If it is not there, and you are running the Personal Assistant server, create it using PA/bin/PAUnityTmp.prf.
If a user has set up calendar-based call routing rules, and the rules are not working, you might have an incorrect messaging configuration, or the user's meeting information might not yet be synchronized (making it unavailable for Personal Assistant).
Check the messaging configuration (System>Messaging) to ensure the correct server name and mailbox name are configured. See the "Messaging Configuration" section for information on the correct mailbox name.
If that is not the problem, create a schedule in Outlook for the user and make sure the information is getting published to the Exchange server.
If users are also not able to access voice-mail, see the "All Users Cannot Browse Voice Mail" section.
When a user calls Personal Assistant and tries to dial a party by name, Personal Assistant plays back the recorded name of the party before dialing the party, if a recorded name is available. Otherwise, Personal Assistant uses text-to-speech to generate a spoken version of the name. This text-to-speech version is often not a close pronunciation match to the real name.
To populate the system with recorded names (that is, with names recorded by the parties themselves, so the name is not only pronounced correctly but is spoken in the voice of the party), you have two options:
Users can erase and rerecord their name at any time using the user interface. You can also erase a user's spoken name by selecting System>User Settings, and clicking Reset in Reset Spoken Name.
These topics provide resolutions to problems you might encounter when managing Personal Assistant:
If you recently added a new speech recognition server or additional license manager hosts, you must refresh the servers before they can support users. See "Configuring Speech Recognition" section.
The Personal Assistant Control Center provides you with information about the status of the Personal Assistant servers. To access the Control Center, select System>Control Center from the Personal Assistant administration web interface.
Table 6-1 indicates the possible server status. Use this information to determine the current server status and to resolve any problems.
| Icon | Explanation | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Server is stopped. | You or Personal Assistant have stopped the server. Personal Assistant stops the servers during a normal refresh. |
| Server is experiencing connectivity or permission errors. | Verify that the Personal Assistant servers are connected and up and running properly. If you have added Personal Assistant to a Windows 2000 domain, ensure that the server has administrator privileges in the domain. This is configured during installation. |
| Server is started. | Server is functioning normally. |
If the Personal Assistant server is running at 100% consistently, where nlm and recserver are consuming all of the CPU cycles, you have a network connection problem. Possible causes include the cable getting unplugged or a DHCP release/renew event.
To resolve the problem, restart all license managers and speech servers from the control center (System>Control Center).
If the problem recurs frequently, and you are using DHCP, consider using static IP addresses for the Personal Assistant and speech servers.
If Personal Assistant is not intercepting calls (which means it cannot apply call routing rules), make sure you have created the required interceptor ports and configured the Personal Assistant servers correctly for those ports.
If Personal Assistant never intercepts calls, potential problems might be:
If the problem is intermittent, check to see if call screening is enabled for the user. If it is, it is likely that a media port was not available for the call. Add more media ports or additional Personal Assistant servers.
You can view the current status of a Personal Assistant server by selecting Servers>Server Status. The "Server Status" section explains how to read the status and includes suggestions on resolving problems that might be displayed.
Personal Assistant uses the Windows Performance Monitor to collect and display performance statistics. You can use these statistics to help identify suspected problems with the system, or to generally view system use.
These statistics are accumulated since the last time the server was restarted.
Step 1 Start Performance Monitor, for example, by selecting Start>Programs>Administrative Tools>Performance.
Read the online help for information on using Performance Monitor.
Step 2 Click the Add button.
Performance Monitor opens the Add Counter window.
Step 3 Select the Personal Assistant server you want to monitor, either by selecting Use local computer counters or by selecting Select counters from computer and entering the UNC of the server.
Step 4 Select the CiscoPA performance counter.
Step 5 Performance Monitor loads the Personal Assistant counters in the Select Counters window.
Step 6 Either select All counters to view statistics for all counters, or use select Select counters from list and use Ctrl+click to highlight the counters you want. You can use Shift+click to select a range of counters.
Step 7 Click Add, then Close.
Performance Monitor returns to the main window, where it shows a graphical and numeric representation of the counters.
| Counter | Description |
|---|---|
Calls Answered | The total number of calls that Personal Assistant answered. |
Call Failure | The total number of calls to Personal Assistant that did not succeed in completing a task. If the caller hangs up without completing a task, the call is considered a failure (for example, if the caller could not get Personal Assistant to recognize the name of a party to be called). |
Calls to PA | The total number of calls made to Personal Assistant. |
Calls Transferred to DTMF | The total number of calls that were transferred from speech recognition to DTMF response. |
Call Success | The total number of calls to Personal Assistant that succeeded in completing a task (such as getting Personal Assistant to dial a party by saying the party's name). |
Dial-By-Name | The total number of times users tried to dial a party by name. |
Dial-By-Name: Disambiguations | The total number of times Personal Assistant found more than one match to the spoken name, and asked the caller to pick from a list of possible parties. |
Dial-By-Name: Implicit Confirmations | The total number of times speech recognition confidence was high enough that Personal Assistant did not ask the caller to confirm the name of the party to be dialed. |
Dial-By-Name: Operator | The total number of times callers to Personal Assistant explicitly asked to be transferred to the operator while trying to use dial-by-name. |
Dial-By-Name: PA Rules Applied | The total number of times call routing rules were applied when a caller was using dial-by-name. |
Dial-By-Name: Reconfirmations | The total number of times Personal Assistant asked users to confirm that the party Personal Assistant identified was the intended party. |
Dial-By-Name: Speech Help Invoked | The total number of times callers explicitly ask Personal Assistant for help when trying to dial a party by name. |
Dial-By-Name: Speech System Error | The total number of errors in the speech system while callers were trying to dial a party by name. |
False Acceptance | The total number of times a call was accepted incorrectly. |
Incoming Calls | The total number of calls to Personal Assistant, including calls that Personal Assistant did not answer. |
PA Login Failure | The total number of times users tried to log into Personal Assistant but failed, for example, because they gave the wrong PIN. |
Speech Channel Create Failure | The total number of times Personal Assistant failed to create a speech channel. |
Speech Recognition: Total Error | The total number of times the speech recognition software failed to understand a spoken command. |
Total Active Sessions | The number of sessions currently active, whether the session is a speech session or a non-speech session. |
Total Speech Sessions | The number of currently active speech sessions. |
Transfer Failed | The total number of times Personal Assistant tried but failed to transfer a call to another number. |
Voice Mail | The total number of times callers asked to access voice mail. |
Voice Mail: Disambiguation | The total number of times Personal Assistant found more than one match to the spoken name, and asked the caller to pick from a list of possible parties, while using voice mail. |
Voice Mail: Implicit Confirmation | The total number of times speech recognition confidence was high enough that Personal Assistant did not ask the caller to confirm the name of the party to be dialed while using voice mail. |
Voice Mail: Login Failure | The total number of unsuccessful attempts to log into the voice-mail system while using Personal Assistant. |
Voice Mail: Reconfirmation | The total number of times Personal Assistant asked users to confirm that the party Personal Assistant identified was the intended party while using voice mail. |
Personal Assistant maintains call history logs that you can use to help identify toll fraud. These logs are not to be used for call billing.
If you configure Personal Assistant to use the CiscoWorks2000 Syslog facility, call history information is written to syslog. See the "Collecting System Logs with Syslog" section for information on using syslog.
If you do not use syslog, Personal Assistant writes call history records to a series of files call PACallHistoryxx.log in the /logs folder on the Personal Assistant server, where xx is a number from 00 to 99. These files are limited to 2MB each, and when all logs are full, Personal Assistant begins reusing the logs.
The first line in the log documents how to read the call history records.
You can start and stop the Personal Assistant servers, speech recognition servers, and license managers through the Personal Assistant administrative web interface. This can help you add or remove servers from the Personal Assistant and speech server clusters in an orderly manner. It can also help you bring down a server that is not functioning properly.
Step 1 Select System>Control Center.
Personal Assistant opens the control center. The control center is divided into three sections:
The status of one type of server does not affect the status of any other type of server on the same system. For example, you can stop a license manager without stopping the Personal Assistant server on the same system, and vice versa.
Step 2 Find the Personal Assistant server, speech-recognition server, or license manager you want to start or stop, and click the Start or Stop button that is on the same line as the server.
You can start or stop all of the Personal Assistant servers, speech-recognition servers, or license managers as a group by clicking the Start All or Stop All button associated with the group.
When you contact Cisco Technical Support for help with a problem you are having with Personal Assistant, Cisco might request that you collect trace and debug information.
Because collecting trace and debug information will affect Personal Assistant's performance, you should only turn on tracing and debugging at Cisco's request. The generated information is for Cisco's use in resolving product problems.
To collect trace and debug information, perform the following steps.
Step 1 From the Personal Assistant web interface, select Servers>Server Configuration.
Personal Assistant opens the Server Configuration page.
Step 2 From the left column, select the server from which you need to collect debug or trace information.
Personal Assistant displays the settings for the server.
Step 3 Scroll down to the Personal Assistant Debug Package List and Personal Assistant Trace Package List sections. Select the packages that Cisco Technical Support has requested. The lists in each section are identical; make sure that you select the package in the list Cisco requested. Packages selected in the Debug list generate trace information plus extra debug data. If Cisco request you select all packages, click Select All from the appropriate list.
These settings apply to both the server and user interfaces unless noted otherwise.
The available packages include:
Step 4 Click Save Settings to save and activate your changes.
Personal Assistant begins generating the requested trace and debug information.
The information is placed in a log file in the /log subdirectory of the Personal Assistant installation directory. Or, if you configured Personal Assistant to use the CiscoWorks 2000 Syslog facility when you installed Personal Assistant, the data is sent to syslog. Send this information to the Cisco Technical Support group with which you are working. See the "Collecting System Logs with Syslog" section for information on using syslog.
Step 5 When you have finished generating debug and trace information, turn off debug and trace by clicking Clear All for each section in which you have made a selection. Then, click Save to complete the change.
You can manage the status of the Personal Assistant server remotely using CiscoWorks2000 or another SNMP-based network management system. CiscoWorks2000 is the standard Cisco network management system, but it is not bundled with Personal Assistant. For more information about CiscoWorks2000, Campus Manager, and Topology Services, refer to the documentation, available at the following URL:
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/rtrmgmt/cw2000/index.htm
These topics provide information to assist you in integrating Personal Assistant with network management systems:
Personal Assistant uses the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) to periodically send out CDP messages, on the active interface, to a designated multicast address. These messages contain information such as device identification, interface name, system capabilities, SNMP agent address, and time-to-live. Any Cisco device with CDP support can locate a Personal Assistant server by listening to these periodic messages.
Using information provided through CDP, the CiscoWorks2000 Server can detect the Personal Assistant Server, and the Campus Manager application, Topology Services, can build topology maps displaying the Personal Assistant server.
Personal Assistant supports the SYSAPPL-MIB that allows you to use CiscoWorks2000 or a third-party SNMP browser to remotely access information about the following Personal Assistant components:
The SYSAPPL-MIB uses the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Personal Assistant supports the following SYSAPPL-MIB tables:
You can configure Personal Assistant to use the Cisco Syslog Collector. Cisco Syslog Collector and Cisco Syslog Analyzer are offered with CiscoWorks2000 as part of the Resource Management Essentials package. You can also adapt Syslog output from Personal Assistant for use with other network management systems.
The Cisco Syslog Collector keeps common system logs of messages reported to the Personal Assistant.
The Cisco Syslog Analyzer controls and displays all events efficiently so they can easily be read, interpreted, and used for system maintenance and problem solving.
Step 1 Select System>Miscellaneous Settings.
Step 2 Personal Assistant opens the Miscellaneous Settings page.
Step 3 Enter the fully-qualified DNS name of the CiscoWorks2000 server in CiscoWorks2000 Host Name, for example, server.domain.com.
Step 4 Select true in Write to Syslog.
Step 5 Click Save to save your changes.
Personal Assistant immediately begins writing messages to syslog.
Posted: Wed Oct 2 21:25:30 PDT 2002
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