Contact Center Installation, Configuration and Operation Manual
Contents 1. Introduction... 3 2. Key Terms and Definitions... 4 3. How the Contact Center Works... 5 4. Installing the Contact Center... 6 4.1. Updating the Contact Center... 8 4.2. Installing the Chat Center... 8 5. Contact Center Interface... 10 5.1. Settings... 11 5.1.1. General Settings... 11 5.1.2. Queues... 12 5.1.3. Queue Settings... 13 5.1.4. Users... 15 5.1.5. Agent Settings... 16 5.1.6. IVR Menu... 18 5.1.7. PSTN... 21 5.2. Monitor... 22 5.2.1. Outbound Campaign... 23 5.3. CG-Card... 28 5.4. Statistics... 31 5.5. Chat Center... 34 5.5.1. Chat Center Web Interface... 34 5.5.2. Using the Chat Center... 36 5.6. Managing Your Calls... 36 5.6.1. Agent's Call Management Panel... 36 5.6.2. Managing Calls via DTMF... 38 6. CRM Integration... 39
1. Introduction Contact Center is an end-to-end PBX and Web application based on the CommuniGate Pro platform that implements both extended IP telephony and Contact Center functionalities. The Contact Center application adds to and extends on the basic telephony options of the CommuniGate Pro server and implements functionalities such as the following: Creation of agents based on the users of the CommuniGate Pro server and the agents in the Contact Center queues, allowing for an unlimited number of incoming customer calls to be in a queue waiting to be assigned to a free operator. Smart distribution of incoming customer calls to agents based on agent status, distribution strategy, and additional call details as retrieved by the CRM. Creation of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menus and outbound campaigns. Recording of conversations and collection of statistics on all received calls. Supervisors can perform real-time monitoring, control and management of current calls, agent status, queues and the other operating parameters of the Contact Center. Options allowing to set up an audio conference, connect the Supervisor to listen in to current conversations, Whisper and Conference modes. Setup of Chat Centers where customers can communicate with a group of agents directly on the corporate website. Maintenance and integration of in-house CRM system with popular third-party CRM systems. Based on the CommuniGate Pro platform, the Contact Center application meets all the requirements of a state-of-the-art Contact Center by providing companies with effective internal and external customer communications systems.
2. Key Terms and Definitions Agent: the role of a CommuniGate Pro server user in the Contact Center. Data on the agent's status and calls is processed by the Contact Center. The agent/user has access to the Contact Center interface where the user can manage his/her calls, view statistics and recordings of conversations, change his/her status, etc. Supervisor: the role of a CommuniGate Pro server user in the Contact Center. The Supervisor is an agent with additional privileges to manage assigned queues. In addition to the agent's functions in the Contact Center interface, the Supervisor can also monitor agent calls in queues, join agents' current calls, and access statistics and recordings of agents' calls. Administrator: the role of a CommuniGate Pro server user in the Contact Center. The Contact Center Administrator has access to all Contact Center settings, can create and manage any of the elements of the Contact Center (CommuniGate Pro server domain accounts, agents, supervisors, queues, IVR, outbound campaigns), and has access to statistics and recordings of all calls in the domain. Queue: Contact Center element consisting of one or several agents, receiving and assigning incoming calls to free agents. When all agents are busy, the call is queued rather than hung up, before being automatically transferred to an agent that has become available. So, the queue is used to receive and hold several incoming calls at a time. The queued call processing scenario is configured in the queue settings. The IVR, or Interactive Voice Response menu allows for an incoming call to be processed following the pre-configured scenario and depending on current time and date, selected menu items and other parameters.
3. How the Contact Center Works The Contact Center application is installed and operates at the level of a separate CommuniGate Pro domain. This means that some domains on one CommuniGate Pro server or cluster can use the Contact Center functionality and other domains can use standard CommuniGate Pro telephony without being affected in any way by the scripts of PBX applications set up on other domains, so the CommuniGate Pro platform can be flexibly configured and used to meet the requirements of different customers. The server side of the Contact Center application comprises the Named Task of the Contact Center Monitor and a set of scripts of the PBX applications processing all calls in the domain by means of B2BUA, a technology that acts as a bridge between calls or connects all (two-person or conference) call participants to an audio mixer, which supports recording the conversation and mixing media within the conference. All outgoing and incoming calls that involve CommuniGate Pro domain accounts are redirected to this PBX application by two signal rules. When receiving a call, the application analyzes the header fields of the INVITE request, identifies the parameters of both the caller and the callee, calls CRM, if necessary, and/or causes the IVR menu to play, if required. Any call involving a Contact Center agent or queue is registered as a task on the Contact Center Monitor and is then routed and managed from there, while applying the Contact Center's entire call routing logic. Any call which does not involve agents or queues is processed with a simple B2BUA, with the monitor not involved. However, the conversation audio can still be recorded on the mixer. The monitor therefore only has information about calls that involve Contact Center elements (agents, queues) so that regular domain accounts can call each other or external numbers without control or monitoring by Contact Center supervisors or administrators, basically as in standard CommuniGate Pro telephony. The Named Task of the Contact Center Monitor is set up to run continuously while the Contact Center is in operation, saving information about agent statuses, all Contact Center calls, and notifying registered Contact Center interfaces about all events. When the server is restarted or a Monitor Task is forced to stop, it will be automatically started and initialized at the first future call or registration of the Contact Center interface, so the administrator does not need to check that the monitor is operating all the time. The Contact Center interface is a web interface that creates a XIMSS session with the server and is registered on the Monitor Task by using special command events enabling the interface to receive real-time information from the Contact Center Monitor. Administrators, supervisors, and agents all use the same Contact Center interface. The only difference is in terms of access rights to different functions, as determined by the user's role in the Contact Center: Contact Center administrators, who can be agents at the same time, have access to all interface functions; supervisors, who are also agents, are able to manage their assigned queues as well as the agents within them, while ordinary agents have access to managing their own calls and can monitor the status of queues that they are part of. Domain accounts that are not Contact Center agents, supervisors, or administrators have no access to the Contact Center interface.
4. Installing the Contact Center The Contact Center application is installed on a running CommuniGate Pro server. To install it: 1. Upload the package PBXApps/PBXApps.tar to the server-wide (or cluster-wide for clusters) PBX environment using the WebAdmin Interface. 2. Upload the package WebSkins/WebSkins.tar to the server-wide (or cluster-wide for clusters) Unnamed skin using the WebAdmin Interface. 3. Create a server-wide (or cluster-wide for clusters) ContactCenter skin, open it and upload the package WebSkins/ContactCenter/ContactCenter.tar using the WebAdmin Interface. 4. The Contact Center application should be configured individually for each CommuniGate Pro domain where calls are to be handled by the application. Create the domain your.domain.name on the CommuniGate Pro server. In this domain, create a Domain Administrator Account with the following access rights: "Can Modify This Domain and its Accounts Settings" "Can Create Accounts" "Can Create Aliases" "Can Create Named Tasks" "Can Access All Files" "Can Modify PBX Apps" "Basic Settings" "PSTN Settings" "RSIP Modifications" This account will be the Contact Center administrator. For a Contact Center operating in the CommuniGate Pro main domain any server administrator with access rights "Can Modify This Domain and its Accounts Settings" or "Can Do Everything" can be the Contact Center administrator. 5. Create a pbx account in this domain with the following access rights: "Can Modify This Domain and its Accounts Settings" "Can Create Aliases" "Can Create Named Tasks" "Can Create Sessions" "Can Access All Files" "Can Impersonate" "Basic Settings" "Preferences" and specify "File Storage Limit" and "Files Limit" settings large enough to save the call logs and recordings, and "Concurrent Calls", "Incoming Calls Limit", "Outgoing Calls Limit" settings large enough to simultaneously process all domain calls by using the PBX tasks of the Contact Center started on behalf of the pbx account. 6. The following signal rules need to be configured for calls to be handled by the Contact Center application:
Server-wide (or Cluster-wide for clusters) signal rule Stage Priority Name - Highest ccout_your.domain.name Data Operation Parameter Operation is INVITE Submit Address is not LOCAL [0.0.0.0]* Authenticated is *@your.domain.name Action Redirect To Discard Rules Parameter ccincoming#pbx@your.domain.name The Domain-wide signal rule for your.domain.name domain Stage Priority Name - Highest ccin_your.domain.name Data Operation Parameter Operation is INVITE Target Address is not *;ccdomain=your.domain.name* Action Redirect To Discard Rules Parameter ccincoming#pbx 7. To use a CG-Card, a customer card storage and processing system based on a built-in SQLite database, as part of the Contact Center interface: Copy the ccdb.pl file from the folder ExternalBanner to the CommuniGate Pro base directory. Open the file in a text editor and specify the actual CommuniGate Pro base directory path and the postmaster's account password. Make sure that the file is executable. Install Perl and its modules: Encode, Digest::MD5, JSON, DBI, DBD::SQLite and CLI (http://www.communigate.com/cgperl/). Configure the External Banner Generator wizard in the CommuniGate Pro administrator interface: Program Path ccdb.pl, Time-out 5 sec, Auto-Restart 5 sec. 8. Agents and supervisors can access the functions of the Contact Center interface directly from the standard interface of Pronto! as a separate button found on the modules panel. To enable the supervisor in the Pronto! interface to automatically pick up a call to be connected to a current
conversation between the agent and a customer (when one of three buttons is clicked in the Contact Center interface) and join the conversation right away, enable Auto accept incoming call via header info on the Dialer page of the Pronto! interface settings. To add the Contact Center button to the modules panel in Pronto!, create a server-wide (or cluster-wide) named skin (for example, hpronto-contactcenter or standard hpronto-), using the server's administrator interface, open it and upload into it the file WebSkins/hPronto-ContactCenter/hPronto- ContactCenter.tar. Use the following URL to log into the interface: https://your.server.name[:9100]/?skin=hpronto-contactcenter 4.1. Updating the Contact Center Updating the Contact Center requires the Contact Center Monitor Task to be restarted, which can cause some current calls data and the connections with the running Contact Center interfaces to be lost. So it is recommended to update the Contact Center application while no active domain calls are present. To update the application: 1. Perform Steps 1-3 of the Contact Center installation. 2. Log into the Contact Center interface as Contact Center administrator and click Stop Contact Center button to terminate the Contact Center monitor task. 3. Log into the Contact Center interface again or make a call through the Contact Center to start the updated Contact Center monitor task, and thus complete the Contact Center update. 4.2. Installing the Chat Center To install the Chat Center: 1. Upload the package ChatCenter/PBXApps/PBXApps.tar to the server-wide (or cluster-wide for clusters) PBX environment using the WebAdmin Interface. 2. Upload the package ChatCenter/WebSkins/WebSkins.tar to the server-wide (or cluster-wide for clusters) Unnamed interface using the WebAdmin Interface. 3. Download the chatclient.js file from the server-wide (or cluster-wide for clusters) Unnamed interface, open it in a text editor, configure the relevant values for the CommuniGate Pro server address and the guest user login/password, and upload the modified file back. 4. Enable Account Detail in the LOCAL mail module. 5. Create the user guest with the password guest, prohibit Password Modification in account settings and disable all services except XMPP, Signal, Mobile, XIMSS, TLS and WebSite. In File Storage settings, configure large enough limits (the account's file storage can be used by customers to send files to agents in the chat), for example, set File Storage Limit to 10 Mb and Files Limit to 100. In Account Preferences, disable the features Require Fixed Network Address and Use Cookies.
6. Open the pbx account (which will be the Chat Center owner), create a Named Task <chat_name> under the Real-Time tab, set Application Name to chat center and Real Name to <chat_name>. 7. Create the cc_chats group and add the aforementioned task to it. At this step, the settings of the newly created chat should appear in the Contact Center administrator interface under the chat center tab. The administrator can add the required agents to the chat and assign chat administrators. The file ChatCenter/chattemplate.html can be used as an illustration of the chat's integration to a website. For it to run correctly, open it in a text editor and set the correct paths for the enabled *.css and *.js files and define the chat name in the required field. You can put the file ChatCenter/chattemplate.html on your web server (or to the Unnamed interface of the CommuniGate Pro server) and test how the chat works by going to a URL that looks like http://your.server.name/chattemplate.html.
5. Contact Center Interface Contact Center configuration and management, queue and agent monitor, call management, client card operations, processing of statistics and call recordings and other actions can be performed in the Contact Center Web Interface. This interface interacts with the server using the XIMSS protocol over HTTP. Please check if XIMSS service is enabled in the Domain settings for your.domain.name and the Contact Center administrator account settings. Enter the following URL in the browser to open the login page of the Contact Center Interface: http://your.server.name:8100/cc.html On the login page, enter the full name (username@domain.name) of the Contact Center administrator and the password and click Enter. By default, the interface uses the language specified in the settings of the user who has logged in. The interface language can be set expressly on the login page. The Contact Center monitor task is automatically created and default settings are initialized during the first login to the Contact Center Interface as Contact Center administrator. After that, the Contact Center application will run automatically, for example, after the CommuniGate Pro server reloads, when the first call is received or the first login to the Contact Center Interface is made. The Contact Center administrator Interface comprises the following tabs: Settings, Monitor, CG-Card, Statistics, and Chat Center.
5.1. Settings On the Settings page, the administrator can configure the Contact Center, create and configure domain accounts, agents, supervisors, queues, IVR menu, and PSTN settings. Stop Contact Center button is used to stop the Contact Center monitor task, following which the Contact Center stops processing data on calls and agent statuses, and the current open interfaces of Contact Center agents, supervisors and administrators are disconnected. This button is used to reload the Contact Center, for example, after updates. You can change the interface language in the top right corner of the page and log out of the Contact Center Interface by clicking the X icon. 5.1.1. General Settings The General Settings of the Contact Center for the current domain are on the left of the Queue page; some default settings used for all queues (groups of agents) and all agents of the current domain can be configured too. Click Update to apply changes to the general settings. Initial Agent Status: the default value for an agent's setting. Agent Priority: the default value for an agent's setting.
Group Priority: the default value for a queue's setting. Agent Skill: the default value for an agent's setting. Ring Strategy: the default value for a queue's setting. Agent Alerting Timeout: the default value for an agent's and queue's setting. Waiting Music List: the default value for an agent's and queue's setting. Welcome Music List: the default value for an agent's and queue's setting. Agent After Call Work Timeout: the default value for an agent's setting. Group After Call Work Timeout: the default value for a queue's setting. Log Level: degree of detail of Contact Center log entries in server logs, where 5 is highest detail, and 0 is lowest detail. iframe Link Name: name of the link to iframe shown to agents on the CG-Card page of the interface. iframe URL: URL of the web page opened by clicking on the iframe link on the CG-Card page of the Contact Center Interface. Agents can use this link to open additional pages directly from the Contact Center Interface, for example, a third-party CRM agent's web interface, so the agent can work with a customer's card in a thirdparty CRM during the call. The iframe link appears only to users listed as agents (ordinary agents, supervisors). Encryption (http or https), if any, in the iframe URL should be identical to that in the Contact Center Interface URL. Notifications: enables browser pop-up notifications on incoming calls. Advanced Routing: enables smart call routing where a customer's incoming call is transferred directly to the agent that the customer spoke to the previous time. If the agent does not answer or is unavailable, the call is transferred to the same queue that it was transferred to the previous time. Delete Recordings After: the number of days for which recordings of Contact Center users' conversations are kept. CRM Type: the name of one of the popular third-party CRM systems that the Contact Center will be integrated with. CRM Server Address: the CRM web interface URL used for integration with the Contact Center. SMS Templates: this link opens a form for creating SMS templates and a list with created SMS templates that agents can use for sending SMS to one or several numbers. 5.1.2. Queues There is a list of Contact Center created queues on the right of the Queues page with a reference to an extension and number of agents for each queue. Click the queue name to open a page with its settings on the left. Click the X in the top right corner of the page to close the queue settings page and return to general
settings. To create a new queue, enter its name and click Create Queue. The newly created queue will appear in the list. An existing queue can be removed via its settings page. When a queue is created in the Contact Center, an identically named account booked for this queue is created in the domain on the server. This is used to transfer incoming calls to queues in the same manner as to ordinary domain accounts (by name, extension, using a forwarder, a router, RSIP settings or configured Account Telephone Numbers, etc). 5.1.3. Queue Settings Click the queue name to open the Queue Settings page. Remove button is used to delete a queue from the Contact Center, including the identically named server account booked for this queue. Only an empty queue that currently includes no active calls can be deleted. Click Update for changes in queue settings to take effect. The list of agents in the current queue appears at the bottom of the page. To add agents to the queue, click Add Agent and select one or several agents in the list of agents that appears on the right. To delete an agent from a queue, go to the agent's Settings page. It can be opened by clicking the name of the agent added to the queue. Extension: a short number which can be used, in addition to the queue name, for calling or transferring to the queue. This number is set as an alias of the account booked for the queue on the server. Several commaseparated extensions can be specified. Real Name: the real name of the queue displayed. Agent Alerting Timeout: time (in seconds) to wait for an answer by the agent to which the incoming call in this queue has been transferred. If the agent does not answer in this period of time, the call is regarded as unanswered and sent back to this queue for subsequent distribution to another available agent.
Request Queue Position: if this option is enabled, the customer waiting for an answer is periodically informed about his/her sequence number in the queue. This information is played to the customer after each file from the Waiting Music List finishes playing. Group Priority: the default value for the priority of calls put on hold in this queue. An agent who is assigned to several different queues will first receive calls from the queue for which this value is greater. Ring Strategy: the strategy of distribution of incoming calls from this queue to an available agent. Only currently free agents, i.e. agents who have at least one free line (by default, one line is used by agents for calls from the queue), are taken into account for call distribution based on the ring strategy. There are the following ring strategies: Random: the call is transferred to a free agent selected at random. In Series: the call is transferred to the first listed free agent positioned after the agent that answered the previous call. To All Free: the call is transferred to all free agents at a time. In Order: the call is transferred to the first free agent in the list. Fewest Calls: the call is transferred to the agent who has processed the fewest calls since starting work. Least Busy: the call is transferred to the agent who has the lowest ratio of conversation time to total time at work since the agent started work. Least Recent: the call is transferred to the agent who has not answered calls the longest. By Skill: the call is transferred to the first free agent who has the highest skill set in the agent's settings for this queue. On Empty: this queue rule condition is met when there are no agents in the queue or all agents have an unavailable status. On Busy: this queue rule condition is met when the call cannot be currently transferred to any agent (all agents are busy). On Timeout: this queue rule condition is met when the total time that the customer remains in this queue reaches the value in question (in seconds). Action: the action taken with the call if at least one of the above queue rules conditions is met. Number: a number or an address that the call will be transferred to when the Call action is performed. Waiting Music List: one or several comma-separated names of wave files from the PBX environment which will be repeated to the customer waiting in the queue. If no file is specified in this field, holdmusic.wav will be played to the customer.
Welcome Music List: one or several comma-separated names of wave files from the PBX environment which will be played to the customer waiting in the queue only once before files are played in a loop from the Waiting Music List setting. If no file is specified in this field, no welcome music will be played to the customer. Group After Call Work Timeout: time in seconds for which the agent will be automatically given a Pause status, after finishing a conversation with a customer, before being automatically returned to the preceding status. This setting is used to automatically free the agent for a specified period of time from the flow of calls coming from this queue so that, for example, the agent can fill in the relevant forms and save the profile of the customer that has just called to the CRM card or carry out any other work associated with this customer. To resume receiving calls from this queue, the agent can set the status manually without waiting for it to change automatically. Script: used to select the name of the script file from the previously created list and set it for the queue; this script includes the text of the recommended scenario of the agent-customer conversation or any other useful text information. Text from the specified file will be automatically shown to the agent as he/she answers the customer's call. 5.1.4. Users On the Users page, the Contact Center administrator can view the list of accounts available in the domain, create and edit domain accounts, and add and remove accounts to/from the list of agents. The list of all CommuniGate Pro domain accounts appears on the left. Read-only accounts appear at the bottom of the list in gray. These are the accounts booked for queues, and a technical pbx account under which the Contact Center application's PBX tasks are running. A headset with a microphone appears next to accounts that are Contact Center agents. It will be green for agents with the Free status and gray for all other agents. Voice Calls Recording (Domain Defaults) is used to set the default value for this account setting. Set it to Yes so that all conversations of all domain accounts are recorded.
Clicking an account's name opens a page for editing the account in the middle, where account settings can be changed and the account can be removed from the list of agents by setting the In Contact Center option to None. Next to the account which corresponds to an agent there is the Settings link. Click it to open the Account Settings page. Click Update for changes in account settings to take effect. The account itself can be removed in the CommuniGate Pro administrator interface. Please note: before removing an account from the CommuniGate Pro domain, you first need to remove it from the list of agents by updating the In Contact Center setting. A form for creating a new CommuniGate Pro domain account appears on the right with the following account settings: Account ID: the account name on the CommuniGate Pro server. Real Name: the user's real name that is shown during a call in the From header, for example, the user's full name. Password: the user's password on the CommuniGate Pro server. Extension: a short number which can be used, in addition to an account ID, for calling or transferring to the account. This number is set as an account alias on the CommuniGate Pro server. Several comma-separated extensions can be specified. In Contact Center: allows to add (with the Agent value) or not to add (with the None value) the newly created user in the Contact Center's list of agents. Voice Call Recording: enables or disables the recording of conversations involving this account. Configure your account settings as necessary and click Create. The account will be created and shown in the list to the left of the page. 5.1.5. Agent Settings On the Agent Settings page, the Contact Center administrator can set Contact Center specific settings for this agent. Every agent can be in one or several queues at a time or in none at all. In addition, calls to an agent which were initially addressed directly to the agent rather than transferred out of a queue can also be put on hold by the Contact Center to create the agent's personal queue. So, some settings of the agent are related to his/her personal queue and have the same effect as the settings of group queues. As a result, the agent will receive calls in a particular order from all group queues that he/she is included in, as well as from his/her personal queue. When a call is transferred to an agent from his/her personal queue, by default, the agent is given an unlimited number of lines, i.e. if the agent currently speaking receives a call from his/her personal queue, it is transferred to the agent at once in parallel with the current conversation. Click Update for changes in agent settings to take effect. Agent Alerting Timeout: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). Agent Priority: the priority of calls on hold in the agent's queue, similar to the Group Priority queue setting (see the Queue Settings section).
Initial Agent Status: the status assigned in the Contact Center to the agent as the agent is being created or the Contact Center monitor task is being initialized following a restart (by using Stop Contact Center or restarting the server). Request Queue Position: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). On Empty: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). On Busy: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). On Timeout: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). Action: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). Number: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). Waiting Music List: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). Welcome Music List: setting for the agent's personal queue (see the Queue Settings section). Agent After Call Work Timeout: setting for the agent's personal queue (the Queue Settings section). Script: setting for the agent's personal queue (the Queue Settings section).
Below is a list of queues that the agent is part of, and the agent's queue-specific settings: Agent Priority: the priority of calls put on hold in this queue, to be assigned to this agent specifically. When the agent finishes a conversation, the Contact Center views all the agent's queues (group and personal) by order of descending values of this setting, to check for any calls put on hold, and then transfers the first call found to the agent. So, calls put on hold in queues with a higher priority are transferred to the free agent on a first-priority basis. If this setting for the agent in question is not explicitly set for this queue, the Group Priority of the queue in question is used or, if it is not explicitly set either, the Group Priority setting on the General Settings page is used. Agent Skill: the agent's experience with characteristic aspects of this queue. This setting is used by the By Skill ring strategy and helps to rank queue agents by experience and to transfer calls to more experienced agents as a matter of priority. Remove From Queue: click this link to remove the agent from this queue. Supervisor of Queues: the list of names of queues where this agent serves as a supervisor. To make the agent a supervisor for one or several queues, click Add Queue and select the required queues in the list that opens up on the right. 5.1.6. IVR Menu On the IVR Menu page, the Contact Center administrator can create Contact Center call routing scenarios, which use information (DTMF signals) entered by the customer on their phone keyboard, in tone dialing mode, in response to audio prompts. Called the IVR menu, these scenarios are used to welcome the customer before he/she starts speaking to the agent, play any information to the customer, classify and transfer the call to the required number after information about the purpose of the call is received from the customer. So, when configured correctly, IVR menus significantly optimize and automate the processing of incoming customer calls received by the Contact Center to reduce agent workload. There is a list of existing IVR menus in the right section of the page with a reference to telephone numbers they are linked to. Click an IVR menu name to open a page with its settings to the left. Click Update for changes in the IVR menu to take effect. To create a new IVR menu, enter its name and click Create IVR Menu. IVR menus can be hierarchical, i.e. they can be indefinitely nested. This means that call actions in any IVR menu can involve a transfer to any other listed IVR menu. For example, by creating a separate IVR menu for Sales, the administrator can link a separate external number to it and configure any button to transfer to this IVR menu from another IVR menu assigned to the company's main number. The following Standard actions can be performed on a call during an interaction with a customer who presses buttons on a telephone and also while browsing the options in an IVR menu scenario: Hang Up: the application terminates the call.
Play IVR: the IVR menu which name is indicated in the action setting is loaded and played to the customer. This name needs to be in the list of existing IVR menus. Hierarchical menus are created via this action. Play File: the application plays one or several specified audio files to the customer and terminates the call. Transfer To: the call exits the IVR menu and is transferred to the specified number or address. This can be the number of an agent, queue or any other external address or number. In different settings of the IVR menu, the Add File link is used to specify the names of audio files used for presenting the menu at a particular stage. Clicking this link opens a list with the names of wav files located in this domain's PBX environment on the right. Below the list is a menu where you can select the required language to open the list of wav files from the PBX environment of the selected language. In this list, you can select one or several audio files by clicking their names to add them to settings. To remove an audio file from the setting, click the X to the right of the file name. To upload a new wav file to the PBX environment, select the required language of the environment and click Upload File. Phone Numbers: this setting includes one or several comma-separated phone numbers or addresses that this IVR menu is linked to. All addresses are specified without the domain part. For the Contact Center to play this IVR menu when any of these numbers is called, the numbers and addresses specified in this field should be routed on the server to any account of this domain, for example, to the pbx account, in any standard manner.
In this case, signal rules will transfer the call to the Contact Center application and, if the local part of the request address coincides with any number and address specified in this field, the application will answer the call and play to the customer this IVR menu and, if necessary, all the nested IVR menus. As a result, a final action will be generated for the call. Every number or address can be linked only to one IVR menu. Time Period: contains settings of time periods during which this IVR menu is active. Use Add Time Frame to create several time periods with a specific start and end time, as well as days of the week. Click the X on the right to remove a particular time period. A 24/7 time period is configured by default for every new IVR menu that is created. In the Off Time Action menu, you can set a standard action to be performed if the current time is outside any specified time period of activity. Holidays: this setting contains one or several comma-separated dates and the standard action to be performed if the current time falls on any of such dates. Use Add Holiday to assign one or several such lists of dates to different actions. Click the X on the right to remove the list. This setting is used to specify an individual call routing scenario, for example, for holidays. Language Menu: contains a list of languages that the customer can select for the voice prompts on the IVR menu. Assign one or several audio files to each language which will be offered in the menu. Please note that the Contact Center plays selected audio files from the PBX environment of the language specified in each setting. That is, the invitation to switch to English will be played in English, and the invitation to select Russian will be played in Russian, so the relevant audio files need to be uploaded first to the appropriate PBX environments. Play at Start Once: the list of audio files played to the customer immediately after the language is selected. Here you can specify files containing a welcome text and general information about the company. Dial In Extension: here the administrator can enable direct dialing of the agent's or queue's extension and set a list of audio files inviting the customer to dial the extension. The customer can dial a maximum of 5 digits of the number, with 5 seconds allowed for each digit. If the customer dials nothing or fewer than 3 digits, there is no direct call, and the application continues playing the IVR menu. If the customer dials 3 to 5 digits, the call is transferred to the dialed extension. Play at Start Every Time: the list of audio files played to the customer directly before the main menu is played. Because the main menu can be played several times (when the customer selects unavailable items or simply does not do anything for a long time), these files will also be played every time. They can contain an introduction to the main menu, for example, "Please select from the following options." Main Menu: you can set a standard action for every DTMF character, digit or characters * and # to be performed when the customer presses the corresponding button, and a list of audio files with information about a given menu item, for example, "To call Maintenance, press two." The invalid item action is performed if the customer selects an item not configured in the menu. If the Play File action is selected for the invalid item, the configured list of files will be played to the customer and the main menu will be played again. The customer is given a total of three attempts to select an existing menu item before the application exits the main menu and the IVR menu continues to play. If no item is configured in the main menu, the entire main
menu, along with the files played from lists such as Play at Start Every Time, Play at End Every Time is skipped, and the IVR menu continues to play. Play at End Every Time: the list of audio files played to the customer after every unsuccessful attempt to select a main menu item. Play at End Once: the list of audio files played to the customer directly before the final action is performed. This is where final information can be given to the customer. Select Action: this setting includes the final standard action performed when there is no main menu or the IVR menu has not been exited as part of a standard action. To remove an IVR menu from the list, click Remove at the bottom of the page. 5.1.7. PSTN On the PSTN page, the Contact Center administrator can configure PSTN settings used by default for domain accounts, agents, and queues. The list of CommuniGate Pro domain accounts appears on the right. Click an account name to open the page with its personal PSTN settings and RSIP settings. PSTN and RSIP
settings are used for interaction with the PSTN gateway or the SIP provider's server (PSTN for outgoing calls, RSIP for incoming calls based on SIP registration on the SIP provider's server). For new settings to take effect, click Update. See the descriptions of PSTN and RSIP fields in CommuniGate Pro server's documentation at http://www.communigate.com/communigatepro/russian/pstn.html. 5.2. Monitor On the Monitor page, the Contact Center supervisor or administrator receives real-time information on the status of Contact Center elements, such as the list of queues and agents that are part of them, current statuses of agents, the list of current calls which are connected to agents or queued, statistical information about queues, etc. On the page, there are collapsed queue panels that the Supervisor has access to (Contact Center administrators have access to all queues). The queue panel displays the name and extension of the queue, counters of the total number of agents in the queue, the number of connected agents, the number of agents that have an Available status, i.e. are ready to receive calls, the number of unavailable agents, the number of
queued calls, the number of calls missed since the Contact Center application started, and the button for creating and configuring outbound campaigns. Click the collapsed queue panel to expand it and see the cards of the agents who are in the queue. There is a filter in the top left corner of the page for showing agents' cards based on their statuses. The agent's card shows his/her current status and calls assigned to the agent with a timer of the current conversation. The Supervisor can change the status of an agent at any time. By using three buttons in the bottom of an agent's card, the supervisor can join an existing conversation to Listen (the supervisor hears all participants in the conversation without them hearing him/her), Whisper (the supervisor hears all conversation participants with only the agent hearing him/her), Conference (all conversation participants and the connected supervisor can hear each other). Clicking any of these three buttons starts a call to the supervisor, and the supervisor can join the call in the selected mode by answering it. To be able to join a current call, the supervisor needs to have a registered device (Pronto, SIP telephone or softphone) to receive a call initiated by the Contact Center. The Pronto! HTML5 interface supports an auto-response to a call initiated by the Contact Center in the context of joining a current conversation. If the supervisor does not have registered devices or the call to the supervisor failed because of any other error, the button for joining a call will go back to the initial inactive mode. On joining a current conversation, the supervisor can change the participation mode at any time by clicking the relevant button or leave the conversation by hanging up or clicking the button again. The current queue with the list of queued calls appears under the agents' cards. Click In Queue to enable or disable the display of the timer showing how long the call has been queued for. The supervisor can transfer any queued call to any other number. To do this, click the customer's number and, in the screen that appears, select from the list, or manually enter the number of the account, agent, queue, or an external number to which the call is to be transferred, and click Call. As a result, the call will be removed from the current queue and transferred to the specified number. 5.2.1. Outbound Campaign The Contact Center supports creating and configuring Outbound Campaigns used by agents to automatically call a specified list of customers, give information notifications to customers, or carry out promotions. The Outbound Campaign mode includes: Automatic simultaneous selection of several customer numbers from the specified list and their connection to agents in the specified queue. Spreading the workload of all the agents involved in the campaign to minimize agents' downtime. Monitoring the campaign's current calls and collection of detailed statistics of campaign calls. A mechanism of automated planning of repeated customer calls in the event the customer was busy, did not answer the phone for a specified period of time or was unavailable. Real-time management of the campaign, which can be paused and resumed, modification of the campaign's current settings and time periods.
Every outbound campaign is assigned to a specific queue, and all the agents in it will participate in the campaign. If an agent is part of several queues at the same time, campaign calls will be assigned to him/her by the priority of the queue that this campaign is assigned to, i.e. the agent involved in the campaign can also receive incoming calls from other queues and ordinary incoming calls to the campaign's queue if there are currently no calls in the campaign. Every attempt to dial a customer's number and connect them to an agent ends with a specific status, which can either be final (the processing of the current customer ends) or temporary (a repeat call to this customer is scheduled according to the campaign settings). Campaign calls can have the following statuses: Answered: the final status when the customer was successfully connected to the agent and the conversation took place. On Busy: a temporary or final status when a Code 486 (busy) error is returned on calling the customer. No Answer: a temporary or final status when a Code 487 error is returned on a call to the customer, i.e. the call timed out as the customer did not pick up the phone in the specified period. On Fail: a temporary or final status when any other connection error is returned on calling the customer. With the campaign running, the Contact Center application receives requests for entering the next customer's number and, in the meantime, analyzes the list of repeat calls to the customer scheduled for a certain time and starts dialing the customer's number if it is time for the repeat call. If there are no calls scheduled for the current time as of the request time, the application goes to the main list of customers and selects the details of the customer listed next in order to dial his/her number. To create an outbound campaign for any queue, click Off button in the right side of the queue panel. This opens a page with the settings of a new campaign. Click Off button again to return to the monitoring of agents and queue calls. Name: this setting contains the campaign's unique name. All details and statistics for this campaign will be stored in a sub-folder with the name of the campaign in the folder /private/contactcenter/outbound of the pbx account's file storage.
Active Lines: the maximum number of lines used for the campaign. This setting limits the number of simultaneous current calls in the campaign to regulate the campaign's load on the Contact Center. Max Attempts: the maximum total number of attempts to call the customer again. When the specified value is reached, repeat calls to the customer will no longer be scheduled, the processing of this customer stops, and the current status of the call will be final. Method: the algorithm for the auto-dialing of customers' numbers in the campaign: Agent -> Customer (Progressive): when there is a free agent or an agent becomes free, the application books this agent and requests the number of the next customer for the agent. The call is first directed to the agent and, when the agent picks it up, a call is made to the customer and the customer and agent are connected. The Agent Alerting Timeout for this queue of the campaign will be used as the timeout for calling the agent and customer. This algorithm is recommended for campaigns involving important customers or important information where it is necessary to connect the answering customer immediately to the agent. This campaign may work slower but the percentage of conversations successfully established with customers will be greater. Customer -> Agent (Predictive): when this algorithm is used, the application makes several requests for numbers of next queued customers and initiates calls to customers based on resulting numbers by filling all the Active Lines configured in the settings. Once the customer picks up the phone, the call is put in the campaign's queue and immediately assigned to a free agent or put on hold if all agents are busy. The Agent Alerting Timeout for this queue of the campaign will be used as the timeout for calling the agent and customer. While the campaign is running, the Contact Center administrator can control the load on this queue by modifying the Active Lines setting so that, with the specified number of agents in the queue and the specified share of calls picked up by customers, the number of queued calls in the campaign's queue is not too high to avoid customers hanging up before the agent is able to answer. This algorithm is recommended for campaigns where the percentage of calls picked up by the customer is small (i.e. most calls to customers remain unanswered), and the agent's work hours are relatively expensive, while the campaign's priority is to reach the maximum number of customer as soon as possible. On Fail, On Busy, No Answer: a group of settings specifying how to handle further a customer whose call ended with the specified status. Skip means the processing of this customer terminates and the current status of the call is to be interpreted as final. Redial means a repeat call is scheduled to this customer after the period indicated in Period in seconds. The number of Attempts means that if repeat calls terminate with this status for the specified number of times in a row, the processing of this customer terminates and the current status of the call is to be final. If the values of statuses of consecutive repeat calls alternate, the counter of successive attempts is reset every time the call status changes. Start Date, Stop Date, Start Time, Stop Time: these settings are used to define the time periods, dates and days of the week during which the campaign is carried out. Dates should be in the dd-mm-yyyy format. Customers' numbers are not auto-dialed beyond these time periods. Once the next time period starts, the application resumes auto-dialing customers' numbers. This setting allows for flexible planning of lengthy campaigns in the context of agents' limited work hours.
Upload File: use this button to upload the list of customers whose numbers will be used for the current outbound campaign. No campaign will be created without a file with the list of customers uploaded. Customer numbers should be listed in a text file with the telephone number in the first column, and the customer's real name as it appears in call headers (optional field) in the second. The file's first line is ignored (for example, it can be used for column names), columns are separated by tab (TSV format). Click Create to create the campaign once the settings are configured and the file with the list of customers has been uploaded. The page for monitoring and statistics of the campaign's calls will open. To launch the campaign, click Start. The Contact Center application will start auto-dialing customers' numbers if the current time is within the campaign's time period as configured in settings. The button under Campaign, in the right side of the queue panel will change to On. While the campaign runs, the Contact Center administrator can adjust its settings. To do this, click Settings to open the page with the current campaign's settings. Click Update for changes in these settings to take effect. Click Back to Campaign to return to the page for monitoring the campaign's calls. Use the Campaign button in the queue panel to switch between the regular mode of monitoring agents and queue calls and the mode for monitoring and displaying statistics of the campaign's calls. As well as the automatic function to stop the campaign when outside the selected time periods, the Contact Center administrator can suspend and resume the campaign manually by clicking Pause and Start. The Active Calls line shows the customers' numbers of current calls in the campaign. These numbers appear when an attempt is made to call the customer, in the process of connecting the customer to the campaign's queue once the customer has picked up the phone and during the conversation with the agent. The current calls of the campaign that are at the stage of calling the campaign's queue or during a conversation with the agent can also be seen in the regular mode of monitoring of agents and queue calls.
Below are four tables with current information about the campaign calls. Use the Go and navigation buttons on the right to go to any page of these tables. Client List: this table includes the list of customers loaded from the file, their numbers, real names, and the current statuses of customer handling. Answered: this table chronologically lists customers who have been dealt with, with Answered as their final status, i.e. customers who have spoken to agents. The columns show the date and end time of the call, the customer's number or address, the address of the agent that has answered the call, and the duration of the conversation. Scheduled: this table includes information about customers scheduled for a repeat call. The columns show the date and time for which a repeat call is scheduled (the time of the actual call can be several seconds to a minute after the specified time), the customer's number or address, and the status of the previous call to the customer. Failed: this table chronologically lists customers who have been dealt with, with Busy, No Answer, Unreachable as the final status, i.e. customers connection to whom failed as a result of repeat calls as configured in the settings. The columns show the date and end time of the call, the customer's number or address, the address of the agent that could be assigned to the customer, and the final status of the call to the customer. After all customers in the main list and the list of scheduled calls have been finally dealt with, with final statuses, the campaign finishes. The value of the Campaign button will then change to Done. The Contact Center administrator still has access to campaign settings and statistics for the campaign's calls, which will
appear in four tables until the campaign is removed. All files with campaign's results can also be copied from the campaign's sub-folder in the folder /private/contactcenter/outbound of the pbx account. To remove the campaign, click Remove. As a result, all the files with the campaign's results will be deleted, and the queue can be used for the creation of another campaign. 5.3. CG-Card The CG-Card tab is the agent's workspace. This tab provides information about calls and statuses of all Contact Center agents, their names and extensions, and agents' scripts, the database of customer cards and iframe, a built-in interface element that can be used for integration with third-party web-applications. Starting with Version 2.1 and newer, the Contact Center implements basic CRM functionality that supports saving, editing, and searching customer cards directly via the Contact Center interface. Access to this functionality is available to Contact Center administrators, supervisors, and agents. You can use GC-Card to: Search an existing customer card by Number, Name, or E-Mail. The special character * can be used in the Name field to show all cards:
Create New cards in the database: View the history of the customer's last 10 calls under the History tab: In case of an incoming call, the Contact Center interface automatically shows the customer card assigned to this phone number. If no card has been created yet for this phone number, the Contact Center user can add it or assign this number to an existing card. Apart from the CRM functionality itself, CG-Card has a panel with a list of all Contact Center agents displaying their real-time statuses and calls:
The list of a Contact Center agent's scripts can be accessed under the relevant tab: The agent can select and open the required script manually from the list. If any standard script is specified in the agent's settings, it will open automatically after the agent is connected to the customer. To open the contents of the built-in iframe element, you can use the relevant button in the right-hand corner of the top panel of the interface:
5.4. Statistics The Statistics page offers various views of the Contact Center's statistical data. Information about calls is presented as a table with columns such as Date, Time, Queue (if the call was placed to a queue, this field shows the name of the queue), Queue length (if the call was placed to a queue, this field shows the length of
the queue as of the time the call was connected), From, To, Time Wait (time spent waiting for a call to be distributed to an agent in the queue), Time Alert (time spent by the customer waiting for the agent's answer after distribution), Time Connect (duration of the conversation), Status Call, and Record. The Contact Center uses the following call statuses: Answered: calls that were connected successfully; Unanswered: calls that were distributed to an agent but not connected (for example, the agent did not pick up the phone or rejected the call); such calls are returned to the queue and distributed in accordance with the configured distribution algorithm; Missed: calls that were terminated by the customer before connection to the agent; Transferred: calls that were successfully connected and further transferred by the agent to another number; Failed: agents' outgoing calls that were not connected; Outgoing: outgoing calls that were connected successfully. To show calls with a specific status, click tabs above the Contact Center statistics table. The page also supports filtering statistic records by Queue, From, To. These filters can be combined. There is an icon of a red cassette in the table's respective field next to calls with conversation recordings available for download. There is an icon of a gray cassette next to calls that were successfully connected but not recorded on the basis of the Contact Center settings. In the statistics table, a call of a customer may be displayed in several lines at a time (for example, if the call was distributed to but not answered by an agent and then distributed to and answered by another agent), so it allows for highlighting of all table lines related to this call. To highlight them, you need to click the required line. On the statistics page, you can call back the customer's or agent's phone number. To do this, click the number in the statistics column From or To to display the Call To button. By default, statistics show data for the current calendar day. To modify the time range for statistics, use the relevant date and time editor. The time editor is only available once the current date has been selected. After the range has been modified, click Request to update information on the page. The Contact Center interface allows for downloading reports on calls for the selected period as a CSV file, supported by MS Excel and other spreadsheet applications. To do this, click Download Report in the top right corner of the screen. To display Contact Center statistical data graphically, click Graphs. There is a graphical view for the following data: Incoming: a bar chart showing the quantity of incoming calls by their statuses;
Outgoing: a bar chart showing the quantity of outgoing calls by their statuses; Queue length: a chart showing variations in the queue length, it may be used when the filter by queue name is active; Time Wait: a chart showing time spent by customers waiting in the queue;
Agent Statuses: pie charts showing time spent by an agent in a specific status. All these charts can be exported as graphical files by clicking Download Graphs. 5.5. Chat Center Chat Center is an application that allows agents to communicate with customers by text messages (chats). The customer can access the chat via a special form that can be built into a website, or over XMPP. Several chats can be created within the chat center, and agents and administrators can be added to them. Customers using the chat center will be distributed to agents based on the Round-Robin algorithm. 5.5.1. Chat Center Web Interface The Chat Center tab in the Contact Center interface includes the chat settings editor, chat event statistics, and access to text logs of chats. There is a list of chats under the Settings tab. Click a chat name to expand a panel of settings with the following parameters: Change Subject: allows the modification of the chat subject; Invite Member: enables the invitation of new participants to the chat; Logging: enables the collection of statistics for this chat; Welcome Message in 10 Sec: this welcome message will be automatically sent to the customer after 10 seconds of waiting if his/her chat has not been distributed to an agent; Max Size of Log File (Lines): the maximum size of the file for saving the text log of the chat; Max Size of Chat History (Lines): the maximum size of the chat history that an agent can request; Max Number of Participants: the maximum number of chat participants (agents and customers); Waiting Customer Message (Short): the message that is automatically sent to a customer waiting to be distributed to an agent every 30 seconds; Waiting Customer Message (Long): the message that is automatically sent to a customer waiting to be distributed to an agent every 60 seconds.
The Agent Statistics tab shows information about agents' actions in the chat (for example, entered chat, joined chat with a customer, finished chat with a customer, exited chat, etc.). Below the Customer Statistics tab there is information about Chat Center customers' actions (entered chat, joined chat with an agent, exited chat, etc.). There are links to text logs of customer chats available in the statistics table. To view them, click the red file icon. Like for Contact Center call statistics, a time range editor and filters by chat name, agent name and customer ID are available for chat statistics.
5.5.2. Using the Chat Center When a new customer is connected to the Chat Center and distributed to an agent, the agent will see a dialog titled chat_name+nnn. This is the dialog where the customer and agent will be communicating. The main chat dialog is used only for information about connections, communication between agents, and the commands available to agents. The main chat window supports the following commands: #cmd: detach <customer-nickname> detaches the customer <customer-nickname> from the agent that connection has been established with; #cmd: attach <customer-nickname> <agent-nickname> detaches the customer <customernickname> from the agent that connection has been established with and attaches him/her to the agent <agent-nickname>; #cmd: attach <customer-nickname>: detaches the agent who has entered this command from the current customer and attaches <customer-nickname> to him/her; #cmd help: displays the entire list of the agent's commands. In all commands, the argument <customer-nickname> can be replaced with a full name Guest-NNNN (by default) or without the prefix Guest-, using only the customer's number NNNN. 5.6. Managing Your Calls CommuniGate Pro domain accounts that are Contact Center agents can manage their calls and have access to main Contact Center services regardless of what terminal device (Pronto, SIP phones, softphones) they are using for calls. Agents have access both to the call management web interface the Contact Center interface and to a set of DTMF commands, which can be used during a conversation. 5.6.1. Agent's Call Management Panel The Contact Center agent's interface includes the agent's panel for managing his/her calls and statuses and sending SMS. The agent's panel is in the bottom of the interface and available on all pages. On the left is the agent's current status, which the agent can change by selecting Available (agent is ready to receive calls) in the menu, Unavailable (agent is not ready to receive calls, the Contact Center will not transfer them to this agent), and Break (the agent is not ready to receive calls from group queues but can receive personal calls).
The Calls list shows the numbers of customers currently calling or already speaking to the agent. Such current calls can be more than one, for example, when a personal call is received by an agent who is already talking to a customer, or when the agent transfers a call with consultation. Current call management buttons are to the left of the panel: Hang Up: cancels acceptance of the incoming call, cancels an outgoing call or terminates a phone conversation already in progress (hanging up). Hold, when this button is clicked during the conversation, the customer is temporarily disconnected from the agent and hears the waiting music, while the agent can make an outgoing call, answer another incoming call or perform any other actions. Click this button again to stop holding the agent and return to your conversation with him/her. Mute: disables or enables your own voice during the conversation while you can still hear other call participants. This feature can be useful in conferences with several participants. Transfer: during the conversation, the agent can transfer the call to another agent, a queue, or any external number, and become free. Clicking this button opens a list of domain accounts, agents, and queues, while the customer is put on hold. Select the required address for transfer from the list or enter the address in the field and click Call. The Contact Center application initiates a consultation call to the specified number on behalf of the agent. To make the transfer itself, the agent can simply terminate the call by clicking Hang Up or by using the device itself. If the agent hangs up during a conversation within a consultation call, the customer will be connected to the specified number right away; if the agent hangs up when ringing in a consultation call, the customer continues to await connection with the specified address, while the agent becomes free. To return to the customer in the process of transfer or conversation in a consultation call, put the customer off hold by clicking Hold.