Technical information

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or co-ordinated.

This allows data collected from the telephone systems to be used as input data to query databases, like the Microsoft CRM, with customer information and populate that data instantaneously to the user.

One of the most famous CTI standards in the industry is TAPI. The Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) is an API developed by Microsoft, with support mostly from Windows applications.

Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI)

The TAPI standard supports both connections from individual computers and LAN connections serving any number of computers.

TAPI 3.0 was released in 1999 together with Windows 2000. This version enables IP telephony by providing simple and generic methods for making connections between two or more computers and now also offers the ability to access any media streams involved in the connection.

Working 

The CTI for MS-CRM Integration application is build on CTI, either through TAPI or through the Swyx Telephone Exchange server application. We do so benefit of all the advantages of the CTI technology.

A call either arrives on a Telephone Exchange and is then forwarded to the user's computer or arrives directly on the user's computer, depending on how is configured your hardware. The CTI for MS-CRM Integration application which is install on the user's computer is notified by Swyx or TAPI. Then our application could retrieve the caller's telephone number to look up for associated information within the Microsoft CRM. Those information could then be popped up to end users.

With the telephone number, we do searches within the CRM for a matching lead, contact or account. If the incoming caller is unknown from the MS-CRM, a pre-filled dialog box could be displayed to create a new lead, contact or account. So the next time that person calls, the number will be correctly identified by our application.

Actions could be configured to be triggered on some events. By example, when a call arrives, a pre-filled phone activity could be displayed to let the user write some info on that call and then just save it. That activity will be automatically linked to the caller. Other example of action is that the MS-CRM contact page could be displayed on the user's desktop before she/he answers the call.

The same features are available for outgoing calls as well. For a complete list of all the features, see our Features page.

This technical schema of both Swyx and TAPI version of the CTI for MS-CRM Integration Application shows you the different implementation for recieving call notifications.