How to connect to Azure SQL

When a customer-owned CDR database is part of the deployment, after an audio call or text message between a customer and a UCC A Unified Contact Center, or UCC, is a queue of interactions (voice, email, IM, etc.) that are handled by Agents. Each UCC has its own settings, IVR menus and Agents. Agents can belong to one or several UCCs and can have multiple skills (competencies). A UCC can be visualized as a contact center “micro service”. Customers can utilize one UCC (e.g. a global helpdesk), a few UCC’s (e.g. for each department or regional office) or hundreds of UCC’s (e.g. for each bed at a hospital). They are interconnected and can all be managed from one central location. has completely terminated, all interactions controlled by that UCC (timestamps, agents, transfers, supervisors, recording locations, QM scores, etc.) are stored as a new record in the SQL CDR database.

For existing customers that continue using a customer-owned CDR database, a manager can use Power BI to extract dialogue data, such as historic interactions between customers and agents or a UCC.

• UniversalTimeline

For deployments that use a customer-owned CDR database, agents using WebAgent can see historic dialogues with a customer if they call from same number or send email from the same address in the Universal Timeline shown in WebAgent while they are connected to the customer. The Universal Timeline service only reads from the database and relays information to the agent through a UCC.

• Call Classification (and ScreenRecordings)

For deployments that use a customer-owned CDR database, agents using WebAgent can add a classification during, or after, a dialogue with a customer by tagging the conversation with a predefined value from a dropdown list. This marks the topic or type of conversation. The CallProperty Service will write or append this classification to an existing record in the CDR database, even after the dialogue with the customer has ended.
Similarly when using Snapper to enable screen recording, and if the screen recordings are copied to a SharePoint library, the CallProperty Service will write or append the screen recording filename and location to an existing record in the CDR database.

Agents using WebAgent for text based dialogues with customers (like e-mails, WebChats, WhatsApps, or various others) will get these messages through a transactional database specifically for Dialogue Manager.

One of various Dialogue Providers (coming from an external Dialogue Partner) connected to Dialogue Manager will relay each message to an agent and each message back to a customer, stored in the Dialogue Manager database. All message routing to and from agents is consecutively managed by a Dialogue Cloud UCC to the agent WebAgent interface.

1. Connect SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to the azure database server with the admin account (see azure).

   

2. Add login for the user and create to user for the master database, by submitting the following query to the master database: (change username).

   Note

   When creating a login or a password make sure it does NOT contain the following characters:
   # $ [] () , ; ? * ! @ = . % &

   Copy

   SQL

   CREATE LOGIN sa_username
   WITH PASSWORD = 'Password'
   GO
   CREATE USER sa_username FROM LOGIN sa_username;

3. Create a user for the database and give permissions, by submitting the following query to the CDR database

   Copy

   SQL

   CREATE USER sa_username FROM LOGIN sa_username;
   EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_owner', 'sa_username';

More information on:

https://azure.microsoft.com/nl-nl/blog/adding-users-to-your-sql-azure-database/

1. Set Active Directory Admin from within the Azure Portal

   

2. Connect to server via SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) with account set on step 1

   

   Use the ‘Active Directory – Universal with MFA support’ authentication method.

   Choose for Connect (and optionally follow the MFA steps to complete the login)

3. Run the following queries

   1. Run this query against the Master (instance):

      Copy

      SQL

      CREATE USER "<ME-ID user address>" FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER;
      ALTER ROLE dbmanager ADD MEMBER [ME-ID user address];

      For example:

      Copy

      SQL

      CREATE USER "user.name@anywhere.now" FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER;
      ALTER ROLE dbmanager ADD MEMBER [user.name@anywhere.now];

   2. Run this query against the UCC database:

      Copy

      SQL

      CREATE USER "<ME-ID user address>" FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER;
      EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_owner', "<ME-ID user address>";

      For example:

      Copy

      SQL

      CREATE USER "user.name@anywhere.now" FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER;)
      EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_owner', “user.name@anywhere.now";)

Step 1: Create an Azure SQL Database

1. Go to Azure Portal.

2. Click Create a resource > search for SQL Database > click Create.

3. Fill in:

• Subscription and Resource Group

• Database name (e.g., `MyCdrDb`)

• Server: Create a new one or select an existing one

• Provide admin login and password

4. Choose a pricing tier (e.g., Basic, Standard S0)

5. Click Review + create > Create

Step 2: Register a Service Principal in Microsoft Entra ID

1. In the Azure Portal, go to Microsoft Entra ID.

2. Click App registrations > + New registration

3. Fill in:

• -Name: `AnywhereNowSvCdr`

• Supported account types: Single tenant (default)

4. Click Register

Step 3: Create a Client Secret

1. In the App Registration for `AnywhereNowSvCdr`, go to Certificates & secrets

2. Click + New client secret

3. Add a description and expiration

4. Click Add and copy the secret value immediately

If customers/partners want to enrich reporting with additional “metadata”, the recommended approach is to create a second data source for the metadata, and to use Power BI to consolidate the sources for reporting.

Best practice: treat the Azure SQL CDR/Dialogue Manager databases as read-only reporting sources.

Only Anywhere applications are allowed clients to write data to the Anywhere databases.

Any partner/customer solution that writes directly to CDR/Text databases is not supported.

The following actions are not supported:

• Writing directly to any Anywhere-managed tables (CDR/Dialogue Manager) from external applications

• Creating or altering tables that form part of the platform schema

• Adding/modifying columns on existing platform tables

• Creating custom mappings that change the platform’s data model expectations

Reason: schema drift or external writes can break upgrades, impact platform components that expect known structures, and introduce unknown downstream effects.

Partners/customers may create and operate their own external data stores (e.g., an Azure SQL database or alternative storage) for their custom metadata needs. The partner/customer remains fully responsible for:

• maintenance, indexing, retention, performance tuning

• documentation and ongoing compatibility of their reporting solution

Platform data structures (tables, schema, and accepted values) may evolve over time as part of product development and releases. Any solution that depends on direct database manipulation should be treated as high-risk.

To manually verify the CDR Connection string for UCC Core in SharePoint:

1. Navigate to the UCC Config page

2. Open the Settings list

3. Edit the setting "CDRConnectionString"

4. Enter the connection string with username and password for Azure SQL

   Format when using an SQL Account:

   Copy

   Connection string

   Server=tcp:<server>.database.windows.net,1433;Initial Catalog=<cdr-database-name>;User ID=<sa_username>;Password=password

   Format when using a Microsoft Entra Account:

   Copy

   Connection string

   Server=tcp:<server>.database.windows.net;Initial Catalog=<cdr-database-name>;Persist Security Info=False;User ID=<AD_username>;Password=<password>;Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=False;Authentication="Active Directory Password";

For connecting a UCC to the DialogueManager database follow the steps on the Installing DialogueManager page. Install Dialogue Manager