Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Hi William,

While we do not have any documented restrictions on the size of .wav files used for prompts or hold music, I would not recommend utilizing an 8 GB file.  Attempting this would likely cause issues on the system.  That file size seems extremely large given the quality settings and codec - is it perhaps 8 MB?    

Keeping in mind that the .wav file will need to be loaded into memory, from a system performance perspective smaller is better.  The general best practice to keep hold music files under 5 minutes long.  If you plan to use a larger file, I would perform some testing in a pre-production environment and validate the load being generated by the larger .wav files.  Longer files can be divided up into multiple files and played as steps if necessary.

------------------------------
Tom Shallon
Genesys - Employees
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 13:37
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Thank you for the response.
Good catch.  8 Meg, not 8 Gig.

It is a compilation of shorter wave files, with voice overlays at specific points in specific songs, totaling about 17 1/2 minutes. Then repeat.
We have tested it in our TEST Environment, and it works, but then again, there is very limited load.

I have a concern that in a PROD environment, the load may start to effect the quality of the audio, and I want to make sure I'm on top of the monitoring to capture/show the impact that the file may be causing on the network.

Thanks again,
-Bill



------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 14:10
From: Tom Shallon
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hi William,

While we do not have any documented restrictions on the size of .wav files used for prompts or hold music, I would not recommend utilizing an 8 GB file.  Attempting this would likely cause issues on the system.  That file size seems extremely large given the quality settings and codec - is it perhaps 8 MB?

Keeping in mind that the .wav file will need to be loaded into memory, from a system performance perspective smaller is better.  The general best practice to keep hold music files under 5 minutes long.  If you plan to use a larger file, I would perform some testing in a pre-production environment and validate the load being generated by the larger .wav files.  Longer files can be divided up into multiple files and played as steps if necessary.

------------------------------
Tom Shallon
Genesys - Employees

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 13:37
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Have you thought about using that as an audio source rather than calling the wav from the beginning for each caller?

------------------------------
Craig Reiners
CITRIX SYSTEMS
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 13:37
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Hi Craig,
Yes, I tried to suggest that to the call center reps, along with a streaming option.
Since I don't really have any hard evidence to persuade them otherwise, we're going forward with the change this week on a limited number of Workgroups, and I will be monitoring the system the best I can.
I'll update this post on any findings.

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2019 11:16
From: Craig Reiners
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Have you thought about using that as an audio source rather than calling the wav from the beginning for each caller?

------------------------------
Craig Reiners
CITRIX SYSTEMS

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 13:37
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

William,

Over the years I have seen customers use real long wav files like you mentioned and it did not cause issues, just be absolutely sure you have a 8 bit 8 kHz, mono U-law wav file. However, keep in mind that the telephony infrastructure has changed a TON over the years so what worked back then may not work now. I'm pretty sure you will be OK though.

I've also created custom hold music handlers which would play an audio source for x seconds, then play whatever message the business wanted, go back to the audio source for x more seconds, play the next prompt, and so forth. Not really sure if this gains you anything but it does allow the business to switch out the promo messages as needed. Only down side to this is that the audio isn't blended like I assume your long 20 minute hold file will be.

Thanks,

------------------------------
Mark Tatera
ConvergeOne

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer. Any suggestions or programming changes I suggest come with no warranty and should be tried at your own risk. If my comment helped you or solved your problem please consider marking my comment as best answer.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2019 14:02
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hi Craig,
Yes, I tried to suggest that to the call center reps, along with a streaming option.
Since I don't really have any hard evidence to persuade them otherwise, we're going forward with the change this week on a limited number of Workgroups, and I will be monitoring the system the best I can.
I'll update this post on any findings.

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2019 11:16
From: Craig Reiners
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Have you thought about using that as an audio source rather than calling the wav from the beginning for each caller?

------------------------------
Craig Reiners
CITRIX SYSTEMS

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 13:37
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Hello everyone,
Just wanted to update my findings.
We added the large WAV file to our wait music over the course of a few days in 5 different chunks of queues.
This turned out to be a non-event thankfully, and I kept close watch on the Media servers and ICServers throughout each day.

Thanks to everyone for their input and advice.

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-29-2019 10:07
From: Mark Tatera
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

William,

Over the years I have seen customers use real long wav files like you mentioned and it did not cause issues, just be absolutely sure you have a 8 bit 8 kHz, mono U-law wav file. However, keep in mind that the telephony infrastructure has changed a TON over the years so what worked back then may not work now. I'm pretty sure you will be OK though.

I've also created custom hold music handlers which would play an audio source for x seconds, then play whatever message the business wanted, go back to the audio source for x more seconds, play the next prompt, and so forth. Not really sure if this gains you anything but it does allow the business to switch out the promo messages as needed. Only down side to this is that the audio isn't blended like I assume your long 20 minute hold file will be.

Thanks,

------------------------------
Mark Tatera
ConvergeOne

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer. Any suggestions or programming changes I suggest come with no warranty and should be tried at your own risk. If my comment helped you or solved your problem please consider marking my comment as best answer.

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2019 14:02
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hi Craig,
Yes, I tried to suggest that to the call center reps, along with a streaming option.
Since I don't really have any hard evidence to persuade them otherwise, we're going forward with the change this week on a limited number of Workgroups, and I will be monitoring the system the best I can.
I'll update this post on any findings.

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2019 11:16
From: Craig Reiners
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Have you thought about using that as an audio source rather than calling the wav from the beginning for each caller?

------------------------------
Craig Reiners
CITRIX SYSTEMS

Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 13:37
From: William Wyszomirski
Subject: Wave .WAV file size limitation ?

Hello everyone,
We're on a PureConnect 2018 R3 release, and getting between 500-800 active calls during the day at peak.
Is there a size or length limitation to the .wav files ?
It has the recommended settings, mu-law, 8 bit, mono, etc....

We are about to change our wait music to an 8 GB, 20 minute long audio file, that's going to get picked up and played to every caller that gets put into a wait status.

Why ?  Call center wants a particular set of music, in a particular order, with voice overlays at certain checkpoints.

Does anyone know if this is going to be a problem ?

What do you think I would want to make sure I monitor, either through a manual check, or through automated monitoring like Solarwinds ?

If there is going to be a network bottleneck, would it be on my media servers ? or my IC Server ? or both ?

Thank you in advance,
-Bill
#QualityManagement
#SystemAdministration
#Telephony

------------------------------
William Wyszomirski
Excellus Health Plan Inc
------------------------------