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Cisco Personal Assistant 1.4 Installation and Administration Guide
OL-4590-03
Chapter 1 Planning for Personal Assistant
Understanding Personal Assistant
Personal Assistant and User Interactions
The following sections can assist you in understanding how Personal Assistant interacts with users:
Interaction Terminology, page 1-7
Incoming Call Handling, page 1-7
Access to Personal Assistant, page 1-8

Interaction Terminology

The following terms can be useful in understanding how Personal Assistant works:
A grammar includes a list of words and possible sequences in which a user can state them.
An utterance is a user response or command that Personal Assistant recognizes as valid.
A dialog is a prompt from Personal Assistant, followed by a response from the user.
A session represents any interaction with Personal Assistant or call interception by
Personal Assistant. For example, a session occurs when a user uses the dial-by-name feature
(interaction), or when Personal Assistant routes a call based on a user rule (interception).

Incoming Call Handling

The following sequence illustrates the processes involved when incoming calls arrive at extensions
configured to use Personal Assistant:
1. An incoming call arrives at a Personal Assistant-enabled number.
2. Because a Personal Assistant interceptor port (CTI route point) is configured for this extension,
Cisco CallManager routes the call to Personal Assistant.
3. Personal Assistant retrieves user information from the LDAP directory.
4. If the user has configured rules, the rules initiate depending on the type of destination included in
the rules:
Calendar information—Personal Assistant accesses information from the Exchange Server.
An e-mail or page—Personal Assistant sends e-mail by using the messaging system.
Phone number—Personal Assistant transfers the call through Cisco CallManager.
Personal calendar Personal Assistant accesses the Exchange calendar of a user when evaluating a
call routing rule that includes calendar-based options.
SMTP paging
server
Personal Assistant sends e-mail pages to a Personal Assistant user when a call
routing rule indicates that the user should be paged.
Web br ows er
application
You access web-based interfaces to manage and use Personal Assistant.
Table 1-1 Software Requirements for Using Personal Assistant (continued)
System Usage