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The Dialer Database

The CIC database is built during the installation process. This is different from the way that Interaction Dialer operates. A key phase of CIC installation is running Setup Assistant, which automatically creates and configures the CIC database. As such, little more than identifying the database server and providing credentials to authenticate that connection are required.

The Dialer database is provided by the customer. The customer must also provide connections to the database in the form of UDL files. Furthermore, each contact list entry is associated with a database connection that allows Interaction Dialer to manipulate data without working directly with the DBMS or massaging a file format.

Internally, Interaction Dialer uses an application-level programming interface named ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) to handle database operations. ADO provides standard methods that Dialer uses to work with database objects such as tables, queries, and records. Consequently, Interaction Dialer is not hard-coded to support Oracle or SQL Server databases. Instead, it passes generic requests to ADO, and relies upon ADO to handle the task of interfacing with database systems efficiently and reliably.

Behind the scenes, layers of software called OLE DB service providers connect ADO to DBMS systems. OLE DB service providers are available for the leading DBMS systems: SQL Server and Oracle.

Although Microsoft provides a generic service provider for ODBC, it is not supported for use with Interaction Dialer.

OLE DB Service Providers perform the low-level task of database interfacing.
OLE DB connections are defined by creating UDL Universal Data Link (.UDL) files.
UDL files are uploaded to the Central Campaign server, so that they can be used by multiple ODS servers.