Avaya Call Center Overview and Contact Center Express

Avaya Call Center Overview and Contact Center Express
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Avaya Call Center ............................................................................................................................ 2 Avaya Call Center Elite .................................................................................................................... 4 Call Center Features ...................................................................................................................... 13 Avaya one-X Agent ........................................................................................................................ 40 Avaya IP Agent .............................................................................................................................. 51 Avaya Customer Service Essential Edition .................................................................................... 60 Avaya Customer Service Standard Edition .................................................................................... 63 Avaya Customer Service Advanced Edition .................................................................................. 66 Avaya Contact Center Express ...................................................................................................... 70 Whats New ................................................................................................................................ 73 Contact Center Express Components ....................................................................................... 74 Supported Platforms and Minimum System Requirements ....................................................... 95 Avaya Contact Center Express Sample ROI ............................................................................... 100 Avaya Interaction Center ............................................................................................................. 116 Avaya Proactive Contact .............................................................................................................. 126 Proactive Contact Overview ..................................................................................................... 128 Differentiating Features of Proactive Contact .......................................................................... 137 Multi-Dialer Capabilities ........................................................................................................... 144 Avaya Proactive Contact System Feature Summary............................................................... 146 Avaya Customer Interaction Express .......................................................................................... 153 Avaya NES Contact Center ......................................................................................................... 191 Avaya Aura Contact Center...................................................................................................... 196
Avaya Call Center
Avaya Call Center

For call centers, the pressure to deliver a competitive advantage has never been greater. To achieve that advantage, a call center must simultaneously deliver differentiated customer service while reducing the total cost of ownership. Customer satisfaction is critical to success so it is vital that call centers deliver consistent, personalized customer service. In addition, there is a need to accomplish more with less. That means operating a call center at a lower cost by increasing agent efficiency and effectiveness across the national or global enterprise. The right solutions can make all the difference in improving the ongoing productivity and revenue generating potential of your call center. Effective call center solutions allow agents to respond rapidly to customer demands. They provide for optimum load balancing based upon the work handling guidelines that you want to implement under both call surplus (more calls than agents to handle them) and agent surplus (more agents than calls) conditions. They make the most of agent availability, skills, and experience and integrate readily with other productivity tools in a multi-vendor environment. Finally, and most importantly, superior call center solutions lower your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase Return on Investment (ROI). Avaya Call Center software provides the framework for a total customer service solution. Call Center is built upon proven and innovative automatic call distribution (ACD) technology. It offers a suite of call routing and resource selection capabilities designed to help 's agents handle calls effectively and boost the overall level of your call center's productivity. Avaya Call Center software enables business-defined routing strategies and leverages all customer knowledge across the enterprise to make each customer interaction more effective. It is also highly versatile, spanning all communication infrastructures from traditional circuit switched to H.323, and now SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). Today, the Avaya Call Center offers more capabilities and capacity than ever before. Capable of supporting up to 10,000 agents, the Avaya Call Center 6.0 is well suited for companies like , with large advanced call centers as well as smaller less sophisticated call centers. can rely on call center technology from Avaya to help support your success in todays increasingly competitive economy. Avaya is a global leader in business communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and competitiveness. Avayas unique combination of communications applications, software and services helps companies simplify complex communications and integrate with technologies from other vendors, enabling customers to unlock value and potential from their network. By embedding communications into the operations of an enterprise, Avaya helps improve the way organizations work making people more productive, processes more flexible and customers more satisfied. Avaya Global Services evaluates, designs, implements and manages enterprise communications networks for superior business results. Services including application and
Avaya Call Center
network design, integration, implementation, security, business continuity, maintenance, and support are available globally.
Avaya Call Center Elite

Call Center Elite features Avaya Expert Agent Selection (EAS), Avayas name for skills based routing, and the full complement of advanced Call Vectoring (conditional routing) capabilities. Call Center Elite includes Avaya Virtual Routing, which provides effective load-balancing across multiple call center sites. It also includes IP Agent Shared Control, which provides a softphone desktop for agents and allows all agents to be IP enabled. Features such as Service Level Maximizer can help your call center achieve targeted service levels by evaluating current versus target service goals in determining call priority. Variables in Vectors and VDN Variables add flexibility to call routing, reduce administration, and facilitate centralized control. Maximum Occupancy helps prevent agent burnout by ensuring agents are less than 100% occupied. Advanced Segmentation allows for the segmentation of contacts based on data collected both internal and external to the call center. It provides the tools to implement enterprise routing strategies designed to maximize every customer interaction, helping improve first time call completions. Local Preference Distribution and Locally Sourced Music and Announcements save bandwidth and trunking costs for distributed call centers. Basic Call Management System is provided with Call Center Elite at no additional charge. Basic Call Management System provides basic built-in call center reporting capabilities without requiring any adjunct server or software. Also provided at no additional charge with Call Center Elite 6.0 is Business Advocate, Avayas patented call routing and resource selection software. In previous releases of Call Center software, Business Advocate was an optional, extra charge software package. Business Advocate helps businesses deliver a superior customer experience through predictive monitoring and matching technology that intelligently assesses customer needs and then executes a real-time match to the right agent in the right time. Business Advocate actively monitors customer needs and business value, customer segmentation policies and service level objectives, as it analyzes the qualifications and availability of agents to predict how soon they will become available. Business Advocate manages all agent resources using a single enterprise wide pool and decides which agents should be matched to which customers. This does not necessarily mean choosing the customer who has waited longest, but the customer whose immediate service may bring the greatest value to the business.
Automatic Call Distribution

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is a Communication Manager feature that processes highvolume incoming, outgoing, and internal calls and distributes them to groups of extensions called hunt groups or splits. With Call Center Elite, hunt groups or splits are referred to as skills. Calls to a specific skill are automatically distributed among the agents that possess the desired skill. Calls queue to the skill until an agent is available. ACD allows a system administrator to create an efficient call management environment. The administrator can add or remove skills from the system, add or remove announcements, add or remove agents, add trunk groups and route calls to the appropriate skills. The administrator can also specify ACD measurement criteria to provide reports on ACD efficiency.
When an inbound ACD call arrives for a skill, the ACD software checks to see if a staffed agent with the desired skill is available to handle the call. If an agent is not available, or busy, the call enters the skills queue. Calls queue only if no agents are available, a queue is assig ned to the skill, and the queue is not full. A skill queue is a holding area for calls waiting to be answered. When a call is put into queue, the caller may hear one or more delay announcements, music, and/or silence, depending on the treatment assigned for the skill. Calls enter the queue at the bottom and move toward the top or head of the queue. After a call reaches the head of the queue, it connects to the next available agent. Call Center Elite can allow your staffed agent to be active in as many as sixty assigned skills. With Expert Agent Selection (EAS) active, you can administer agents to accept delivery of inbound ACD calls under call surplus conditions using Greatest Need, Skill Level with support for up to sixteen different skill levels per skill, or Service Level Maximizer. You can set the Avaya Call Center software to maintain a separate queue for available agents in each skill ensuring that when agents answer an ACD call they are only removed from the available agent queue for the skill for which that call arrived. Or, you can create one systemwide combined queue for all staffed agents, ensuring that staffed agents are removed from the queue whenever they answer a call for any of their assigned skills.
Logical Agent
Logical Agent is a capability of the Expert Agent Selection (EAS) feature. With Logical Agent, an agents ACD Login ID is associated with a particular telephone only when the agent actually logs in at that telephone. When the agent logs off, the association of an agents ACD Log in ID with a particular telephone is removed. Extension numbers from the system station numbering plan are used to assign ACD Login IDs. Agents become logical entities and not physical entities. Logical Agent allows ACD agents to log into any telephone on the system regardless of type, designation, or location. This can be very useful when additional ACD positions are needed on short notice or when a disaster strikes. All agents in the system can be designated as Logical Agents if desired. In addition to skills, the following capabilities are associated with agents' login IDs. Calls Calls to the Login ID reach the agent independent of the telephone the agent is currently using. These can be Direct Agent calls (calls to a particular agent treated as an ACD call). Name Calls to the Login ID display the name associated with the Login ID and not the name associated with the telephone. This is also true for calls made from a telephone where an agent has logged in. Coverage When the agent is logged out, or when calls go to coverage because the agent is busy or does not answer, calls to the Login ID go to the coverage path associated with the agent and not the telephone. When an agent is logged out, calls go to the agent's busy coverage destination. Restrictions Calls to the Login ID or from the agent use the restrictions associated with the agent and not the telephone.
Work Modes A single work mode button applies to all the skills assigned to the agent currently logged in. The Multiple Skills feature allows agents to log in to up to 60 skills simultaneously. Message Waiting Lamp This lamp by default tracks the status of messages waiting for the logged in Expert Agent Selection Login ID rather than messages for the physical terminal. If desired, the Message Waiting Lamp can be programmed to track the physical terminal. Auto-Answer With Expert Agent Selection, auto answer settings can be assigned to agents on the Agent Login ID form. An agent's auto answer setting will apply to the station where the agent logs in. If the auto answer setting for that station is different, the agent's setting overrides the station's setting.
Add or Remove Agent Skills

This feature allows an agent using Expert Agent Selection to add or remove skills. A skill is a numeric identifier that refers to a specific ability of an agent. For example, an agent who speaks English and Spanish could be assigned a language-speaking skill with an identifier of 20. The agent then adds skill 20 to his or her set of working skills. If a customer needs a Spanishspeaking agent, the system routes the call to an agent with that skill. Each agent can have up to four active skills, and each skill is assigned a priority level.
Service Level Maximizer

Service Level Maximizer ensures that a defined service level of X% of calls are answered in Y seconds. When Service Level Maximizer is active, the software verifies that inbound calls are matched with agents in a way that makes sure that the administered service level is met. Service Level Maximizer cannot coexist with Business Advocate for Communication Manager active as it uses some of the same underlying software. Under call surplus conditions, when you have more inbound ACD calls than you have available agents, you can use Service Level Maximizer rather than either Greatest Need or Skill Level as the call selection method. Administered per agent, Service Level Maximizer will pick the skill in the worst shape as compared to its Answer X% in Y Seconds expressed service level target. If all skills are ahead of their targets, the skill closest to its target is selected and the highest priority, oldest call waiting will be delivered to that skill.
Variables in Vectors (VIV)

The Variables in Vectors feature allows you to create variables that can be used in vector commands to: Improve the general efficiency of vector administration. Provide increased manager and application control over call treatments. Allow your company to create more flexible vectors that better serve the needs of your contact center operations.
The vector variables are defined in a central variable administration table, but the values assigned to some types of variables can also be quickly changed by means of special vectors, Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs), and Feature Access Codes that you create for that purpose. Different types of variables are available to meet different types of call processing needs.
Depending on the variable type, variables can use either call-specific data, or fixed values that are identical for all calls. In either case, an administered variable can be reused in many vectors. These variables, which can also be VDN Variables, are: ani - a local (per call) variable used to test the calling partys telephone number. asaiuui - a local (per call) variable used for processing call-specific user data associated with the inbound ACD call collect - either a global or local (per call) variable used for processing collected digits for user-defined control, routing, or treatment tod - the global variable used to hold the current time of day for processing dow - the global variable used to hold the current day of week for processing. doy - the global variable used to hold the current day of year for processing. stepcnt - a local (per call) variable used to count the number of vector steps executed for the call, including the current step in the vector. value - the global variable used to hold a single user-defined numeric digit (0-9) for user-defined processing. vdn - a local (per call) variable used to hold the VDN extension number of the call for processing. vdntime - a local (per call) variable used to test the time, in seconds, that a call has been in vector processing.
Vector Routing Tables

You can test ANI against entries in a Vector Routing Table. There are 100 Vector Routing Tables containing up to 100 entries per table that are used to store Automatic Number Identification (ANI) / Calling Line Identification (CLID) or digits that you refer to in goto vector steps. ANI can be tested to see if it is either in or not-in the specified table.
Reason Codes
This feature allows agents to enter a numeric code that describes their reason for entering auxiliary (AUX) work mode or for logging out of the system. Reason codes give call center managers detailed information about how agents spend their time. You can also use this data to develop more precise staffing forecasting models or use it with schedule-adherence packages to ensure that agents are performing scheduled activities at the scheduled time. You must have Expert Agent Selection (EAS) enabled to use reason codes.
Forced Agent Logout from After Call Work

The Forced Agent Logout from After Call Work (ACW) feature provides the ability to automatically log out an Expert Agent Selection agent that spends more time than you believe they should be allotted in the ACW state. The timeout period can be specified on a systemwide basis and on a per agent basis. The per agent timeout setting takes precedence over the system-wide setting and the Timed ACW feature takes precedence over the Forced Agent
Logout from ACW feature. The forced logout due to timeout in ACW will be reported with a customer assignable AUX (Auxiliary) Work Reason Code which is administered on a systemwide basis.
Holiday Vectoring
Holiday Vectoring enables a set of commands that can be used to write vectors for calls to be routed on holidays or any days when special processing is required. Holiday Vectoring allows for branching and routing of calls based on information about special schedules. The special schedules are recorded in tables.
Service (Office) Hours Table Routing

Similar to Holiday Table Routing, Service Hours tables offer the ability to have different hours of operation for each day of the week with only one vector step, eliminating the need for a series of potentially complex goto if time-of-day vector steps. The tables can be defined to contain office working hours specifications used for testing in call vectors. Working hours can be specified as time ranges (start/end) for each day of the week.
Location Preference Distribution

The Location Preference Distribution feature provides the option to preferably connect an incoming ACD call to an Expert Agent Selection agent within the same location/network region as the ACD call's trunk facility. This reduces the quantity of incoming ACD calls based upon their trunk arrival destinations distributed to agents across the interconnecting WAN (Wide Area Network) or other facilities, allowing inter-node bandwidth to be used for other purposes. The Local Preference Distribution feature gives preference to connecting the Expert Agent Selection agent to a trunk with the same location number during agent/call selection for incoming ACD call delivery with widely distributed Media Gateway configurations. When there is more than one choice for call delivery, the call and agent with the same location number as defined by the Multiple Location feature will be selected and take precedence over most other preferences for call-agent selection. The ability to route calls to a resource in the same location to which the call arrived will improve customer operational networking costs by reducing the amount of intra-switch network traffic and improving audio quality. The call will be handled with lower cost at a level of service that meets the goals established by the customer, based on their business objectives. Calls will only be routed to agents in a different location when it cannot be handled locally and still meet the administered objectives for speed of answer, service level, etc.
Best Service Routing

Best Service Routing allows the communication server to compare specified skills, identify the skill that will provide the best service to a call, and deliver the call to that resource. If no agents are currently available in that skill, the call is queued. To respond to changing conditions and operate more efficiently, Best Service Routing monitors the status of the specified resources and adjusts call processing and routing as appropriate. Best Service Routing is available in single and multi-site versions. Single-site Best Service Routing compares skills on the local communication server to find the best resource to service a call. Multi-site Best Service Routing extends this capability across a network of communication servers, comparing local skills, remote skills, or both, and routing calls to the
resource that will provide the best service. For single-site Best Service Routing applications, your communication server must meet the same requirements as for multi-site Best Service Routing applications except that Look Ahead Interflow and ISDN or SIP interconnectivity are not necessary. Single-site Best Service Routing is a simple, logical extension of call vectoring. Like any other vector, vectors with Best Service Routing commands are assigned to one or more Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs). Using vector commands, you tell the communication server to compare, or consider, specific skills for each call that is processed in that particular vector. Throughout the comparison, the server remembers which resource is the best based on how you define best. Best Service Routing vectors can deliver a call to the first available agent found, or they can consider all of the specified resources and deliver the call to the best skill. If no agents are available in any skill, the call is queued to the skill with the shortest adjusted Expected Wait Time (EWT). For purposes of calculating the best resource in a call surplus situation, Best Service Routing allows you to adjust the Expected Wait Time calculation for any skill. The consider vector command is used to obtain the Expected Wait Time or agent data that is needed to identify the best local resource. One consider command must be written for each skill that you want to check in the order that you wish to check them. Because the consider command is usually designed to compare two or more resources, consider commands are typically written in a series with the sequence terminating in a queue-to best vector step. In an enterprise with multiple Communication Manager instances and Avaya Virtual Routing (Multi-Site Best Service Routing), a call that arrives at a local Communication Manager, regardless of the type of Avaya Server used to drive it, can be rerouted to a remote server located in a different part of the world. When the trunks between the sending and receiving switches are IP trunks, bandwidth is utilized when music or recorded announcement packets are sent from the destination switch to the caller. Because of the continuous nature of music, the bandwidth required to provide this audible feedback to callers in queue is generally greater than that required to support a conversation between a caller and an agent. Communication Manager allows vector processing to continue at the local sending switch, even after a call has been routed to a queue on a destination switch. Vector processing at the sending switch can then continue to provide audible feedback to the caller while the call is in queue at the destination switch. No packets need be sent over the IP trunk during the queuing phase of the call. This feature provides the following benefits for call center operations: For multi-site operations that include sites located in different countries, the local treatment feature can result in significant bandwidth savings for IP calls. Audio quality problems that may occur when music is sent over wide area networks that use low bit-rate codecs are eliminated. Announcements and other treatments can be maintained and managed in a central location.
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Forced Agent Logout by Clock Time

The Forced Agent Logout by Clock Time feature provides the ability to automatically log out an Expert Agent Selection agent based on an administered time of day setting. The forced logout due to clock time will be reported with a customer assignable logout Reason Code set on a system-wide basis. This capability is available only when the Expert Agent Selection feature is active.
Route Calls to Agent by Skill Level

The Route Calls to Agent by Skill Level feature enables additional control of how inbound ACD calls are routed to staffed agents by further qualifying agent selection based on skill level in addition to existing criteria. By using administered skill level (1-16) as an additional criterion, a staffed (logged in) agent is no longer necessarily selected from the top of the skill queue. This allows, for example, the ability to indicate a preference to reserve the best agents for high value calls or critical conditions, or to route low value calls to agents with low skill levels. The feature only applies under agent surplus conditions and denotes a routing preference rather than a required characteristic. This feature facilitates agent effectiveness by improving resource matching.
Percent Allocation Routing

Percent Allocation Routing provides a way to route incoming calls to different resources based on the percentage of calls to be distributed to each resource. Toll-free inbound calls and other types of traffic can be allocated among outsourcers and/or internal resources on a percentage basis. This feature uses existing Vector Directory Number (VDN) and vector routing to send calls to a VDN (called the routing VDN) that has a Policy Routing Table assigned. The Policy Routing Table determines which VDN to route the inbound call to. The routing VDN does not have a vector assigned; it uses the Policy Routing Table to determine where the call goes next.
Interruptible Auxiliary Work

Interruptible Auxiliary Work offers improved utilization of call center resources for customers who wish to selectively override non-talk work modes. It provides a way to utilize staffed agents who are in Auxiliary Work mode for certain Reason Codes to handle incoming ACD calls when needed. Call centers gain additional flexibility in agent utilization by administering certain Auxiliary Work Reason Codes as interruptible for priority customers. When a service level threshold is exceeded, agents in Auxiliary Work mode with an interruptible Reason Code are notified by a display message (You are needed), flashing buttons, and an audible tone. Notification continues until the agent becomes available, logs off, or the service level threshold is no longer exceeded. The service level target is administered as a percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds. If, for example, 90% or more of calls are answered within 15 seconds, then the skill is meeting the service level target. If fewer than 90% of calls are answered within 15 seconds, then the skill is not meeting the service level target and interruptible agents in Auxiliary Work mode start getting interrupted.
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New Call Center R6.0 Features

Capacity Increases
The following call center capacities have been increased for Call Center 6.0: Skills per agent increased from 60 to 120 VDNs increased from 20,000 to 30,000 Skills per ACD increased from 2,000 to 8,000 Policy Routing Tables increased from 2,000 to 8,000 Policy Routing Table Routing Points increased from 6,000 to 24,000 Vectors increased from 2,000 to 8,000 Maximum number of agents logged in simultaneously increased from 7,000 to 10,000 Maximum number of administered agent login IDs increased from 20,000 to 30,000
Two Additional Thresholds for Interruptible Auxiliary Work

In addition to service level, Call Center 6.0 adds two additional thresholds that trigger Interruptible Auxiliary Work: calls warning threshold and time warning threshold. The calls warning threshold activates Interruptible Auxiliary Work if the number of calls in queue for a hunt group or skill exceeds a specified number. If the calls warning threshold is set to 20, interruptible agents in Auxiliary Work mode start getting interrupted as soon as the number of calls in the queue goes to 21 or beyond. The time warning threshold activates Interruptible Auxiliary Work if the oldest call has been in queue for longer than the specified number of seconds. If the time warning threshold is set to 60 (seconds), interruptible agents start getting interrupted as soon as the duration of the oldest call in the queue for a hunt group or skill exceeds 60 seconds. In addition to the activation threshold, an administered threshold for deactivation is used to help keep a buffer (differential) between the two levels at which Interruptible Auxiliary Work mode is activated and deactivated.
Retain Active VDN Context

With Call Center 6.0, you can specify whether to retain the active Vector Directory Number (VDN) context when Redirection on No Answer, Redirection on IP Failure, or Redirection on OPTIM Failure (for SIP endpoints) redirects a call to an alternate VDN defined as the redirect VDN due to an agent who has not answered. If you choose to retain the active VDN context, you can set up a generic VDN-vector combination that handles calls redirected from multiple VDNs with specialized treatment based on the context parameters of the previous active VDN.
Forced Agent Logout by Location or Skill

This feature is used to force all agents in a location or skill to logout. This feature does not apply to Auto-Available Splits or Skills. Auto-Available Splits or Skills allow members of an ACD split or skill to be in auto-in work mode continuously and are used for splits or skills that are used, for example, for quality recording or Interactive Voice Response systems. A Class of
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Restriction can be set up to specify which agents can or cannot be forced to logout and which users can dial the Feature Access Code to force agents to logout.
Forced Agent into Auxiliary Work Mode by Location or Skill

This feature is used to force all agents in a location or skill into Auxiliary Work mode. This feature does not apply to Auto-Available Splits or Skills. A Class of Restriction can be set up to specify which agents can or cannot be forced into Auxiliary Work mode and which users can dial the Feature Access Code to force agents into Auxiliary Work mode.
Local Persistent Variables

When a collect type variables scope is administered as local persistent, its value is assigned on the basis of call-specific information (the same as local scope) and applies in one or more vectors that process the call. Unlike a local collect variable, the value assigned to a local persistent variable persists until a call disconnects. The application continues to use the variable and its most recently-assigned value when the call leaves vector processing but then returns to vector processing, such as when the call is transferred to a VDN for further processing by the answering agent.
Star, Pound, and Digits Allowed in Route-to Destination Command with Variables
The route-to number command destination syntax has been expanded to allow combinations of star (*), pound (#), and digits with vector or VDN variables. This capability allows the destination for a route-to number command to be greater than 16 digits.
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Call Center Features

This section contains short descriptions of the features in the Call Center Elite software package.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is the basic building block for call center applications. ACD offers you a method for distributing incoming calls efficiently and equitably among available agents. With ACD, incoming calls can be directed to the first idle or most idle agent within a group of agents. Agents in an ACD environment are assigned to a hunt group, a group of agents handling the same types of calls. A hunt group is also known as a split or skill with Expert Agent Selection (EAS). A hunt group is especially useful when you expect a high number of calls to a particular telephone extension. A hunt group might consist of people trained to handle calls on specific topics. For example, the group might be: A benefits department within your company A service department for products you sell A travel reservations service A pool of attendants
In addition, a hunt group might consist of a group of shared telecommunications facilities. For example, the group might be: A modem pool A group of data-line circuit ports A group of data modules
A system administrator can add or remove splits/skills from the system, add or remove announcements, add or remove agents, add trunk groups, and route calls to the appropriate splits or skills. The administrator can also specify ACD measurement criteria and use an optional Avaya Call Management System to provide reports on ACD efficiency. Agent availability is different for splits that are assigned the Multiple Call Handling (MCH) feature.
Auto Available Split/Skill

The Auto-Available Split/Skill feature allows members of an ACD split or skill to be in auto-in work mode continuously. An agent in auto-in work mode becomes available for another ACD call immediately after disconnecting from an ACD call. Use the Auto-Available Split/Skill feature to bring ACD agents back into auto-in work mode after a system restart. Although not restricted to such, this feature is intended to be used for splits or skills containing only non-human split members such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) / Voice Response Unit (VRU) ports. If the IVR/VRU ports are to be part of the ACD and optionally measured by Avaya Call Management System then those ports should be administered as members of an Auto Available Split.
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Most Idle Agent (MIA) Across Skills or Splits Option

You can administer the Avaya Server that is driving your Communication Manager to maintain a separate queue for available (idle) agents in each split/skill, or you can create one combined queue for agents in all splits/skills. The staffed agent is returned to the agent queues, based on how you administer the following: If forced Multiple Call Handling applies, the staffed agent is placed in the queue when the call stops alerting. If the After Call Work (ACW) Agents Considered Idle? field on the Feature-Related System Parameters form is set to yes, then the staffed agent is queued when the call completes. If the ACW Agents Considered Idle? field is set to no, the agent is queued when ACW completes. If you are using one of the Expert Agent Distribution (EAD) methods such as either Expert Agent Distribution Most Idle Agent (EAD-MIA) or Expert Agent Distribution Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA), then the staffed agent is put back in queue(s) after completing an ACD call based on skill level. If you are not using an EAD call distribution method, meaning you are using either Uniform Call Distribution Most Idle Agent (UCD-MIA) or Uniform Call Distribution Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA), then the staffed agent is put at the bottom of the queue(s) after completing an ACD call.
MIA Across Splits/Skills can be assigned by Expert Agent Selection Login ID as well as by a system-wide setting.
Most Idle Agent Treatment for After Call Work

An agent should enter After Call Work (ACW) mode when he or she needs to perform ACD call related activities such as completing a form. Another term for After Call Work is Post Call Processing. Call Center software administration determines whether the agent remains in the Most Idle Agent queue while they are in After Call Work. If the system-wide setting of ACW Considered Idle? is set to yes, the agent is queued when the call completes, and if set to no, the agent is queued when the ACW completes. Your company should use ACW Considered Idle if you do not want ACW to be included in the agents work time (impacts agent occupancy), and no if you do want ACW to be included in the agents work time in a skill. ACW Considered Idle can be assigned by EAS Agent Login ID as well as by system-wide setting.
Multiple Call Handling

You can use Multiple Call Handling in either an Expert Agent Selection (EAS) or a non-EAS environment. The idea behind using Multiple Call Handling is to support those typically rare times when you want staffed agents to take additional inbound ACD calls without having to drop their already active ACD call. Examples of these applications include: An agent and a caller may both need to wait on a subsequent call for information so the use of Multiple Call Handling allows the staffed agent to put the call they are currently handling on hold and handle other ACD calls until information is available.
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ACD calls are usually more important to your business than non-ACD calls. So you could use Multiple Call Handling to interrupt staffed agents who are on non-ACD calls with an inbound ACD call. In an EAS environment (Call Center Elite is required) that features active skills based routing, inbound ACD calls directed to one skill may be more important than calls to another skill, so Multiple Call Handling could be used to interrupt an agent who has a call from a less-important skill with a call from a more-important skill. Agents can receive multiple calls only when in auto-in or manual-in work mode. All forced Multiple Call Handling calls are delivered with ringing at the agents station, not with zip tone. Requested Multiple Call Handling calls are delivered with ringing or zip tone. Agents can toggle between auto-in and manual-in work mode. If an agent selects ACW (After Call Work) or AUX (Auxiliary) work mode with calls on hold, the work mode is pending until all calls complete or until a manual-in call completes. New ACD calls are not delivered when AUX work is pending. When an ACD or direct agent call with pending ACW completes, the agent enters ACW. When an agent is active on a non-ACD call with ACW pending, the staffed agent can receive forced Multiple Call Handling calls. If an agent is either in auto-in work mode and active on an ACD or direct agent call, or in auto-in or manual-in work mode and active on a non-ACD call and a Manual-In ACD or direct agent call abandons from hold, the agent is pending for ACW work mode and the after-call button lamp flashes. If a staffed agent reconnects to an ACD or direct agent call on hold, their work mode changes to the calls work mode (auto-in or manual-in). Do not use forced Multiple Call Handling with Direct Department Calling (DDC) distribution because the first agent continues to receive calls until all line appearances are busy.
Multiple Call Handling On Request

In on-request splits/skills, Multiple Call Handling works as follows: If an agent goes into auto-in or manual-in work mode, but there are no inbound ACD calls in the queue, the agent is placed at the bottom of the Most Idle Agent (MIA) queue or at the bottom of their skill level in the Expert Agent Distribution (EAD) queue, or is made available in the Direct Department Calling queue (if Expert Agent Selection is not active). Staffed agents must select auto-in or manual-in work mode for each new incoming ACD call they take while a call is on hold. The staffed agent can take additional ACD calls as long as there is an available line appearance.
Multiple Call Handling On-Request would commonly be deployed with a feature such as VuStats, which enables staffed agents to see when the queue is getting full and take additional calls. Agents and supervisors in on-request Multiple Call Handling splits/skills can use Queue
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Status, VuStats, and Basic Call Management System or Call Management System reports to determine how quickly calls must be answered.
Multiple Call Handling One Forced

A staffed agent who is available or active on a non-ACD call is automatically interrupted with an ACD call from this split/skill when no other ACD call for any of the agents splits/skills is alerting, active, or held. In addition, the following must also be true: The staffed agent is in manual-in or auto-in work mode. The staffed agent is the most idle or next available. An unrestricted line appearance is available for use. An AUX work or Move from Call Management System is not pending.
As long as an ACD call is active or held, the staffed agent does not automatically receive an additional ACD call from the one-forced split/skill. An agent in a one-forced split/skill in auto-in or manual-in work mode is unavailable for that split/skill from the time that an ACD call rings until all ACD calls are abandoned, redirected, or dropped. However, the agent can request another ACD call from a one-forced split/skill by placing the active call on hold and selecting Manual-In or auto-in work mode. If an agent with multiple skills is active on an ACD call for a group with one-forced Multiple Call Handling, the staffed agent could be forced to take an ACD call for one of his or her other skills, depending on that skills Multiple Call Handling settings. Because one-forced Multiple Call Handling forces an ACD call to alert a staffed agent who is not on an ACD call, use it when you want inbound ACD calls to take precedence over other calls.
Multiple Call Handling One Per Skill

You must have Expert Agent Selection active (must have Call Center Elite) to use one-per-skill Multiple Call Handling and this is the most popular setting which is typically deployed when calls from one skill are a higher priority than other ACD calls. An agent with no ACD calls for this skill is automatically interrupted with a single ACD call from this skill under the same conditions listed for Multiple Call Handling - One-Forced. If a one-per-skill call is active or held, the staffed agent does not automatically receive additional calls from that skill. However, the agent can request another ACD call from a oneper-skill group in the usual way. If a staffed agent with multiple skills is active on an ACD call for a one-per-skill group, the agent could be forced an ACD call for one of his or her other skills if those skills are assigned many-forced or one-per-skill Multiple Call Handling.
Multiple Call Handling Many Forced

Staffed agents are automatically interrupted with an ACD call under the same conditions listed for one-forced. As soon as an agent answers an alerting ACD call, the agent immediately becomes available to receive another ACD call from a many-forced split/skill. Agents in manyforced groups in auto-in or manual-in work mode are unavailable only when an ACD call is ringing. You would use many-forced Multiple Call Handling when agents must answer important or urgent calls, even when they must put equally important calls on hold. This feature can also be used to force direct agent calls to an agent.
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Move Agents / Change Skills or Splits While Agent Staffed

With the Move Agent While Staffed and Change Splits/Skills While Staffed features, an agent with a move pending can place a call on hold and request another ACD call but all calls in progress and After Call Work for the call in progress must complete before the pending move occurs.
Multiple Announcement Boards

Multiple announcement boards/sources (TN2501s or embedded virtual VAL sources integrated in Media Gateways/Servers) are supported even without Call Center Elite administered. The quantity varies by the Avaya Server used to support the Communication Manager with the largest Servers (S8800, S8720XL and S8730) supporting a maximum of 128 TN2501s for up to 128 hours of announcement time. The Avaya G450 Media Gateway can support 45 minutes of onboard announcement time.
Redirection On No Answer (RONA)

Redirection on No Answer (RONA) redirects a ringing ACD split/skill call or a direct agent call after an administered number of rings. RONA prevents an unanswered call from ringing indefinitely. The call can redirect either to the split/skill to be answered by another staffed agent or to a Vector Directory Number (VDN) for alternative call handling. Direct agent calls route to the staffed agents coverage path or to a VDN if no coverage path is administered. You must have ACD enabled to use RONA. Administer RONA for each ACD hunt group as required. RONA can be used in Auto-Available Splits/Skills or in splits/skills with agents operating in Manual-In work mode. You can administer RONA for vector-controlled or non vector-controlled splits/skills. Do not administer RONA for splits/skills controlled by adjuncts or Messaging or for auto-answer agents because calls must ring at a telephone to be redirected.
Remote Logout of Agents

The Remote Logout of Agent feature makes it simpler to logout an agent from the users station and allows a user to logout an idle ACD or Expert Agent Selection agent without being physically present at the agents station. The user who is logging out the agent can be locally or remotely located. The Remote Logout of Agent is similar to the Add/Remove Skills feature. The reason to use Remote Logout of Agents is that if a staffed agent walks away from their station without logging out, ACD calls may be sent to the station without being serviced. Without the Remote Logout of Agent feature, supervisors or other agents had to walk over to the agents station, enter the logout Facility Access Code (FAC) to change the agents work mode or log out the agent. Customers could also busy-out the station from the equipment room. Using the Redirection On No Answer (RONA) feature puts the station in auxiliary (AUX) work mode without logging out the agent. The Remote Logout of Agent feature can only be used if user permissions are administered appropriately for the person or VDN attempting to use the feature. The administrator must ensure that the appropriate users have permissions administered so that they can use this feature.
Service Observing Basic

Service Observing allows a specified user, such as a supervisor, to observe or monitor another users calls. The term observer typically refers to the supervisor who is observing calls while
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the term agent is used to refer to the extension, attendant, or logical agent being observed. A vector directory number (VDN) call can also be observed. Observers can observe in either a listen-only or a listen-and-talk mode. You set up Service Observing to observe a particular extension, not all calls to all extensions at a station. Service Observing may be subject to country, state/province, or local laws, rules or regulations or require the consent of one or both of the call parties. Because of this, it is a good idea to understand and comply with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations before using this feature. To begin observing, the observer presses the Service Observing button and dials the agents extension number. Initially, the observer is in listen-only mode. The observer presses the Service Observing button to toggle between listen-only and listen/talk mode. The lamp indicates which mode the observer is in. To deactivate Service Observing, the observer hangs up, selects another call appearance, or presses the disconnect or release button. An observer can observe an agent who is not active on a call. The observer is in the wait state until the agent receives a call, and then the observer is bridged onto the call. You can administer a warning tone on each system to let agents and callers know when someone is observing a call. Before connection, the warning tone may add 2-3 seconds delay if enabled. The parties hear a 2-second, 440-Hz warning tone before an observer connects to a call, followed by a half-second burst of this tone every 12 seconds during observation. Although a staffed agent can be a member of multiple splits/skills, an agent can be observed by only one observer at a time. If two agents with different supervisors are being observed and one agent calls the other, the originators supervisor observes the call, and the other supervisor is placed in the wait state. An attendant can be service observed but cannot be a service observer.
Listen Only Service Observing using a Facility Access Code (FAC)

A station user or a Service Observing route-to number vector operation can optionally activate Service Observing in a listen-only/no-talk mode that does not reserve a second timeslot in port network gateway configurations. This capability does not apply to H.248 Media Gateway configurations. With this option, the ability to switch to the Service Observing talk mode while observing stations or ACD agents is denied. By not reserving the extra timeslot, call recording applications that use Service Observing in a listen-only/no-talk mode have greater recording capacity since timeslot usage is reduced. To use this option, first assign an appropriate access code to the Service Observing No-Talk feature. Then activate observing associations for call recording using the defined No-Talk access code. Since the Service Observing No-Talk Feature Access Code used by the recording device to activate a recording session does not provide a talk-path, a warning tone cannot be inserted by the recording device when the recording session begins. If you need to notify the parties in a call that the call may be recorded, design a vector to execute an announcement step that provides an audible warning message prior to queuing or routing the call.
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Service Observing Logical Agent IDs

With Expert Agent Selection active, an observer can observe agents based on their logicalagent ID rather than their physical phone. The observer enters the logical-agent ID extension number of an agent, who must be logged in to a phone. The observer can monitor every ACD, personal, and direct agent call delivered to or placed by the agent, including calls placed to the physical extension. Only one observer can observe an extension at one time. An observer cannot observe a logical agent ID extension at a physical terminal that is already being observed. Likewise, an observer cannot observe a physical extension that is being observed as a logical-agent ID extension.
Service Observing by Vector Directory Number (VDN)

To observe a VDN, the observer enters a specific VDN extension and bridges onto calls (one call at a time) that have started vector processing for that VDN. The observer hears all tones, call prompting, caller dialing, announcements, music, and speech that the agent and caller hear. If an observer is in a Class of Restriction (COR) administered to hear VDN of Origin announcements and has a VOA (VDN of Origin Announcement) Repeat button, he or she can hear and replay VDN of Origin announcements. Service observing of VDNs has been enhanced to, optionally, start observation of a call to the VDN when the call is delivered to the agent or station. When this VDN option is active, VDN service observing activation still associates the observer with calls to the VDN, but the observer does not hear a call during vector processing. After initial activation, the first call to be observed must first pass through vector processing before the observing is enabled. When the observing connection is completed for the first call (the call is released), the observer is bridged on a subsequent call to the VDN (which has also been through vector processing) when the call is answered by an observable agent/station. This ability saves time for the observer because, after observing of the VDN has been activated, the observer does not have to wait (and listen) for each subsequent call to go through vector processing and for the agent to answer. The observer sees the name of the VDN, agent, or trunk as each is accessed in sequence by the VDN. For example, during vector processing the VDN name is displayed, but when the call connects to an agent, the agent name is displayed. When the observer connects to a call in vector processing, the system maintains the connection until the call is disconnected or the observer hangs up, even if the call is routed or transferred externally. If the observer does not disconnect after one observed call is disconnected, the observer is connected to another call on the same VDN. Observing is listen-only as long as the call is in vector processing. Once the call is out of vector processing, an observer with listen/talk capability can talk as well as listen.
Service Observing by Class of Restriction (COR)

In support of general security, use the following Class of Restriction (COR) restrictions to prevent unauthorized observing: For the observer, set the Can Be An Observer field on the COR form to yes. For the agent to be observed, set the Can Be Observed field on the COR form to yes. For the observer, grant permissions to all CORs to be observed on the Service Observing Permissions Class of Restriction table.
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In support of Vector Directory Number (VDN) level security, use the following COR restrictions for VDN-call observing: For the VDN extension to be observed, set the Can Be Observed field on the COR form to yes. For the VDN destination, set the Can Be Observed field on the COR form to yes. Enter the VDN extensions to be observed in the observers Service Observing Permissions COR table. In support of vector level security, use call prompting commands in Service Observing vectors to provide passcode protection and limit access to specific destinations or vector-verified, caller-entered digits. Use Time of Day and Day of Week checks in Service Observing vectors. Create a vector used exclusively for Service Observing. If you use route-to commands to observe a VDN extension, ensure the extension has an observable COR. If the observer is observing locally, grant calling permission to the observer on the VDNs COR.
Use the following guidelines for vector-initiated observing:
In vector-initiated Service Observing, the Class of Restriction (COR) assigned to the VDN used to initiate Service Observing, the COR assigned to the internal caller extension, and the COR assigned to agent to be observed are used to determine if Service Observing will be allowed. If the agents COR is not observable, observation fails regardless of the VDN or caller COR. When a call routes through multiple VDNs, the COR of the last VDN is used for calling/observing permissions regardless of VDN Override settings. If you have administered the optional warning tone, the caller and the observer hear the tone only when the system connects the call to the answering or routed-to destination after vector processing is finished. The periodic tone is heard during the call even if the call is transferred off the communication server. Use a warning announcement at the beginning of vector processing to inform the caller of observation since the system cannot give a warning tone until the call is out of vector processing.
Service Observing Remote

Observers can observe calls from a remote location or locally using the Service Observing Facility Access Codes (FACs). When observing remotely, observers must use FACs. Different Facility Access Codes are required for listen-only and listen/talk modes. When observing locally or remotely by FAC, the observer cannot toggle between modes. Physical extensions, logicalagent ID extensions, and Vector Directory Numbers can be observed remotely. Remote observing is initiated through Remote Access or Call Vectoring. With Remote Access, an observer accesses a communication server using a trunk group dedicated to Remote Access or using Direct Inward Dialing to the Remote Access extension. Remote observing works with all types of Direct Inward Dialing trunks, including ISDN-PRI and tie trunks, and Distributed Communications Service (DCS) over analog, T1, or Primary Rate Interface (PRI).
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With Call Vectoring, an observer accesses a communication server by dialing a VDN extension or a Central Office (CO) trunk that has a VDN extension as its incoming destination. Using route-to commands, you can design a Service Observing vector to allow a VDN call to directly access a specific extension to be observed or a Service Observing dial tone. You can combine Call Prompting and Call Vectoring to provide security and to limit observation. At the dial tone, observers can enter any extension that they are authorized to observe.
Timed After Call Work / Agent Pause Between Calls

With Timed After Call Work administered, an auto-in agent is immediately placed in After Call Work (ACW) mode for a specific length of time after completing the currently-active ACD call. When the Timed ACW interval expires, the agent automatically returns to the auto-in work mode. If the agent activates After Call Work while not on a call, the agent is placed in ACW (not timed) mode regardless of whether the agent is in auto-in or manual-in mode. You can administer Timed ACW for all calls to a split or skill and/or to a VDN. Any completed calls to the split or skill or to the Vector Directory Number (VDN), including direct agent calls, are followed by a timed ACW when the answering agent is in auto-in work mode. If a VDN call routes to a split/skill, the Timed ACW interval for the VDN overrides the Timed ACW interval for the hunt group (split/skill). VDN override applies to VDN-Timed ACW. You can use Timed ACW to allow agents to rest between incoming ACD calls, or to pace staffed agents when they have to complete work from the previous call within an allotted time.
VuStats
VuStats presents contact center statistics on phone displays. Although VuStats can run with either Basic Call Management System or Call Management System enabled, neither is required. Agents, supervisors, contact center managers, and other users can press a button and view statistics for agents, splits or skills, VDNs (vector directory numbers), and trunk groups. An example of Vu-Stats is: STAFF = 4 AV = 0 AUX = 2 WAIT = 4 ASL = 87. These statistics reflect current information collected during the current Basic Call Management System interval, information collected since the agent logged in or since the day began, or historical data accumulated over an administered number of intervals. The information is limited to 40 characters displayed at a time. VuStats can display on demand or update periodically. With VuStats, anyone who is using a telephone with digital display can view statistics which are otherwise available only on Basic Call Management System or Call Management System reports or management terminals. These statistics can help agents monitor their own performance or can be used to manage splits/skills or small contact centers.
Call Vectoring Promoting

Call Prompting uses specialized vector commands to process incoming calls based upon information collected from the caller or from an ISDN-PRI message. It can be used in various applications to better handle incoming calls. The following list gives a brief description of some Call Prompting applications. Automated Attendant - Allows the caller to enter the extension of the party that they would like to reach. The call is routed to that extension.
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Data In/Voice Answer (DIVA) Capability - Allows the caller to hear an announcement based on the digits that they have entered, or to be directed to a hunt group or another system extension. Data Collection - Allows the caller to enter data that can be used by a host/adjunct to assist in call handling. This data, for example, may be the callers account number. CINFO (Caller Information Forwarding) Routing - Allows a call to be routed based on digits supplied by the AT&T network in an ISDN-PRI message. CINFO requires the AT&T Intelligent Call Processing (ICP) service, ISDN-PRI, and Call Vectoring (Prompting) Message Collection - Gives the caller the option of leaving a message or waiting in queue for an agent.
Basic Call Management System

Basic Call Management System is included with Call Center Elite at no additional charge. The maximum number of Basic Call Management System measured agents is 3,000. Basic Call Management System provides real-time and historical reports to help you manage agents, ACD splits/skills (hunt groups), VDNs, and trunk groups. You can display Basic Call Management System reports on a terminal or print a paper copy. Basic Call Management System provides the following Real-Time Reports: Split/Skill Status System Status VDN (Vector Directory Number)Status
Basic Call Management System provides the following Historical Reports: Agent Agent Summary Split/Skill Split/Skill Summary Trunk Group Trunk Group Summary VDN (Vector Directory Number) VDN Summary
Dynamic Hunt Group Queue Slot Allocation

Communication Manager dynamically allocates queue slots across all the systems administered hunt groups or skills, removing the need to estimate and administer queue slots on a per hunt group (split/skill) basis. The system dynamically allocates hunt group or skill queue slots on an as needed basis. When a queue slot resource is needed, it is extracted from a common pool. When the call is removed from queue, the queue slot resource is relinquished
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and returned to the common pool. There are enough queue slots to allow all possible calls to queue.
Redirection on IP Failure
Redirection on IP Failure is applied system-wide and the default for the system is not active. The Redirection on IP Failure feature applies only to agents using ACD auto-answer and IP telephones or softphones. Redirection on IP Failure provides redirection of calls back into queue or to the specified Vector Directory Number (VDN) when calls to auto-answer ACD stations cannot be connected due to loss of IP connectivity. Redirection on IP Failure works as follows: When the system option is active, Redirection on IP Failure checks IP connectivity before delivering an inbound ACD call to the staffed auto-answer agent using an IP phone. Invokes Redirection On No Answer (RONA) if IP connectivity is not acknowledged which means that the staffed agent will be taken out of service and the call is either placed back into the queue or forwarded to a RONA-specified Vector Directory Number (VDN). This ability prevents a lost call during the period when IP connectivity failure has not been detected by Communication Manager Maintenance. Redirection on IP Failure places the non Auto-Available Split/Skill agent into Auxiliary (AUX) Work mode, and then redirects the call to the split/skill queue or RONA-specified VDN if an IP connectivity failure is detected while that call is being delivered. If the Reason Codes feature is active, the change to AUX Work is reported with the Redirection on IP Failure reason code. Logs out the Auto-Available Split/Skill agent instead of putting the agent into AUX Work.
Support for Multiple (2) Service Observers

This feature enables up to 2 observers to observe the same entity and, if a conference occurs between 2 different observed entities, allows up to 2 observers in the conference, each still associated with their entity being observed. This capability however is limited to a maximum of two observers in the conference (who will also be counted as conferees). Any additional observers on calls that join the conference will be removed from the observing bridge per existing operation. This enhancement allows customers with Avaya Agent Performance systems (NICE, Verint/Witness) to do separate quality monitoring on agents who are also being Service Observed for call recording. Up to two observers can observe the same Expert Agent Selection Login ID or station extension. That means two service observers can be in a merged conference call, where the service observers may be monitoring an Expert Agent Selection Login ID, station extension, or VDN (1 observing the VDN and 1 other type). Multiple service observers will be counted as conferees in a conference call, but they will not be included in the number of conferenced parties shown for the Conference <n> station display. The idea is to allow automated Agent Quality Recording via switch-adjunct products (for example, Verint/Witness, or NICE) that use the Service Observing feature to continually record Expert Agent Selection agents or stations after two service-observed agents are merged by a call conference (where previously one
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recording was stopped) or be able to have an observer monitor Expert Agent Selection agents or stations for quality while being observed for recording. If a call-conference occurs with more than two service observers in both call legs, this feature allows the conference to take place, but only two observers will be left in the merged call with an observer in each call leg. Highest preference is given to keeping the service observer(s) whos associated Class of Restriction (COR) has the Service Observing by Recording Device? field set to yes. That is, automated equipment can be given preference over a supervisor.
Call Work Codes (CWCs)

Call work codes are up to 16-digit sequences that ACD agents enter to record customer-related information. You define the codes for your Call Center. Codes that staffed agents enter are sent to an Avaya Call Management System for storage for splits/skills measured by Call Management System. Agents must have multi-appearance phones to enter call work codes. To enter call work codes, the agent must be off-hook and either: On an ACD call In After Call Work (ACW) mode after disconnecting from a call while in Manual-In mode and remaining off-hook In Timed ACW after disconnecting from a call while in auto-in mode In auto-in mode and pending for ACW mode
Call work codes may be used by as many as 100 agents simultaneously.
Forced Entry of Stroke Counts and Call Work Codes

You can administer a split/skill so that agents must enter a stroke count and/or a call work code before becoming available (idle) for another call using Manual-In mode. Multi-appearance phones or an attendant console must be used for entering stroke counts or call work codes. To enter a stroke count and/or call work code, the agent must be on a call or in After Call Work (ACW) mode after releasing a call in Manual-In mode. After releasing a call, the agent automatically enters ACW mode and cannot return to Manual-In mode until a stroke count or call work code has been entered.
Call Vectoring
Vectors are equivalent to call control tables and are used to process incoming and internal calls according to a programmed set of commands that often feature if/then routing logic. These commands, called vector commands, determine the type of processing that calls will receive. For example, vector commands can direct calls to on-premise or off-premise destinations, to any hunt group, split/skill, or to a specific call treatment such as an announcement, forced disconnect, forced busy, or delay. Vectors can queue or route calls based on a variety of different conditions. With combinations of different vector commands, incoming callers can be treated differently depending on the time or day of the call, the expected wait time (EWT), the importance of the call, or other criteria. Each vector can have up to 99 commands. Vectors can be linked through the goto vector command.
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There are many different applications for Call Vectoring. However, it primarily is used to handle the call activity of ACD splits/skills. Features such as Best Service Routing, Look Ahead Interflow, and Network Call Redirection all are implemented using Call Vectoring.
Support for Network Provided Digits (CINFO)

CINFO (Caller Information Forwarding) Routing allows a call to be routed based on digits supplied by the network in an ISDN-PRI message. If Call Vectoring is not enabled, the Call Prompting feature cannot queue calls or make conditional checks based on queue or agent status, time of day, or day of week. CINFO requires the AT&T Intelligent Call Processing (ICP) service, ISDN-PRI, and Call Vectoring - Prompting. You can administer any display-equipped phone or attendant console with a Caller Information button. The button displays digits collected for the last collect digits command.
Service Observing of Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs)

To observe a VDN, the observer enters a specific VDN extension and bridges onto calls (one call at a time) that have started vector processing for that VDN. The observer hears all tones, call prompting, caller dialing, announcements, music, and speech that the agent and caller hear.
Service Observing Upon Agent Answer

Service observing of VDNs can, optionally, start observation of a call to a VDN when the call is delivered to the agent or station. When this VDN option is active, VDN service observing activation still associates the observer with calls to the VDN, but the observer does not hear a call during vector processing. This capability saves time because the observer does not have to wait (and listen) for each call to go through vector processing and for the agent to answer.
VDN of Origin Announcement (VOA)

VDN of Origin Announcement provides agents with a short message about a callers c ity of origin or requested service based on the VDN used to process the call. Use VDN of Origin Announcement messages to help agents to respond appropriately to callers. When an agent answers a call, he or she hears the VDN of Origin Announcement message and can respond appropriately to the caller.
VDN Return Destination

The VDN Return Destination feature allows an incoming trunk call to be placed back in vector processing after all parties, except the originator, drop. The VDN that the call will be placed in is determined by the return destination. This VDN may be the same or different than the original VDN. This feature is used to keep the call active and give the caller the opportunity to ask for sequence dialing (by entering #).
VDN in a Coverage Path

VDN in a coverage path enhances call coverage and call vectoring to allow you to assign vector directory numbers as the last point in coverage paths. Calls that go to coverage can be processed by vectoring/prompting to extend call coverage treatments.
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Vector Administration: Route-to without Coverage

The route-to command attempts to route a call to a set of digits collected from the caller, from an adjunct, or from the network. The route-to command also attempts to route a call to the destination specified by the administered digit string. For the route-to number ... if digit command, the call is conditionally routed to a specified destination according to a single digit entered by the caller.
Vectoring Subroutines
Subroutine calls for vector processing are provided through use of the goto vector command and a return command allowing the use of common vector programs by many different vectors. This feature helps customers consolidate redundant vector routines which will help reduce the need for more vector capacity and simplify administration. Vector subroutines can be utilized by many vector programs without duplicating the same sequence in each vector. This can significantly decrease the number of steps and vectors required.
Vectoring Advanced Routing: Automatic Number Identification (ANI) Routing

The ANI (Automatic Number Identification) and II-digits (Information Indicator Digits) Call Vectoring features help make vector routing decisions based on caller identity and the type of originating line. Caller Information Forwarding (CINFO) makes it possible for you to collect caller entered digits and customer database provided digits for a call from the network. When ANI and II-digits are provided with an incoming call to a Vector Directory Number (VDN), they are also sent to Avaya Call Management System when vector processing starts. ANI, II, and CINFO digits are forwarded with interflowed calls. This information can be used to route calls or provide visual displays on agent voice terminals. ANI, CLID, and Information Indicator Digits (only sent when ANI is received) are also passed over the Adjunct Switch Application Interface (ASAI) in event reports. ANI provides information about the caller identity that can be used to improve call routing decisions. For example, calls from a specified customer can receive unique routing, local calls can be routed differently from long distance calls, or calls from different geographical areas can receive different routing. ANI also can be compared against entries in a Vector Routing Table. The following call types have ANI values associated with them: Incoming ISDN-PRI calls that send ANI Incoming R2-MFC signaling calls that send ANI Distributed Communication System (DCS) calls Internal calls
If ANI is not provided by the network for an incoming call, ANI is not available for vector processing on that call.
Vectoring Advanced Routing: Information Indicator (II) Digits Routing

Information Indicator digits are sent if Automatic Number Identification (ANI) is delivered with the inbound call. Information Indicator digits provide information about the originating line that the caller is using to place the call. This information can be used for a variety of purposes, such as:
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Help detect fraudulent orders for catalog sales, travel reservations, money transfers, travelers checks, and so forth Assign priority or special treatment to calls that are placed from pay telephones, cellular telephones, and lines originating from prisons, hotels, motels, and so forth. For example, special priority could be given by an automobile emergency road service to calls that are placed from pay telephones Convey the type of originating line on the agent display by routing different type calls to different Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs)
II-digits are a 2-digit string that is provided for an incoming toll-free call delivered to a Communication Manager by ISDN PRI trunks. II Digits can be used with vector routing tables in much the same manner as is true for ANI routing and collected-digit routing. When a call is returned to vector processing as a result of the VDN Return Destination feature, the II-digits are preserved.
Vectoring Advanced Routing: ASA (Average Speed of Answer) Routing

Rolling Average Speed of Answer (ASA) routing allows routing decisions to be based on the current average time for a call to be answered in a split/skill or VDN, so that vectors route calls to the VDN or split/skill where it is likely to be answered most quickly.
Vectoring Advanced Routing: EWT (Expected Wait Time) Routing

Expected Wait Time (EWT) routing allows routing decisions based on the wait time in queue for a call or split/skill. The EWT can also be passed to a Voice Response Unit so that a caller can be notified of his or her expected time in queue.
Vectoring Advance Routing: VDN (Vector Directory Number) Calls Routing

VDN Calls Routing helps you to make routing decisions that are based on the number of incoming trunk calls that are currently active in a VDN. With the VDN Calls conditional, a vector can be used to limit the number of simultaneous calls that are made to a particular VDN. For example, if a service agency is contracted to handle up to 100 simultaneous calls for a client, calls in excess of that number can be routed to a busy tone or other call treatment.
Duplicate Vector Command

The Duplicate Vector command provides a System Administration Terminal (SAT) command that duplicates an existing vector to create one or a range of new vectors. The Duplicate Vector command is an Avaya Integrated Management system (including the SAT) function and not an Avaya Call Management System function, but after duplicated vectors are created, Call Management System can access these vectors as usual.
VDN Skill Preferences

VDN Skills, along with certain vector commands, define the requirements for routing calls to ACD agents with their set of administered skills. A maximum of three different skills can be administered to a Vector Directory Number (VDN). Skills administered to a VDN are commonly called VDN Skill Preferences and in addition to being directly specified by skill (hunt group) number they can be indirectly referenced as VDN skill preferences. While skills can be
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optionally administered to VDNs, the vector associated with a VDN controls when and to which VDN skill the call queues.
VDN Override
VDN Override allows information about a subsequently routed to Vector Directory Number, if any, to be used instead of the information about the current VDN. The term active VDN represents the active VDN as modified by VDN override rules and the term latest VDN represents the most recent VDN to which the inbound ACD call was routed. VDN Override can be used in conjunction with a vector that prompts the caller for a particular service. Let us assume that your company has a Sales and a Service operation. Callers to a particular toll-free number could arrive at a Main Vector and be eventually routed to either Sales or Service. If VDN Override is assigned to the Main VDN, the Sales VDN name appears on the agents display when the call is connected to the agent. If VDN Override were not assigned to the Main VDN then the agents display would have shown Main. In this case, Main is the active VDN and Sales is the latest VDN.
Display VDN (Vector Directory Number) for Route-to Direct Agent Call
This feature gives Expert Agent Selection agents the ability to correctly identify the Vector Directory Number (VDN) associated with a personalized service Direct Agent Call that is initiated by a route-number or a route-to digits vector step with the with cov parameters set to yes. Typical customer types requiring this feature are travel agencies, banks, and insurance companies that provide personalized customer service by assigning an Expert Agent Selection agent to a particular customer account or accident claim. If a personalized service agent has to answer these calls from many different VDNs, and they want calls to follow the agents coverage path when not logged in or not available, the VDN Display for Route-to DAC information (showing the VDN associated with a call) is very beneficial.
Voice Response Unit (VRU) Connect & Disconnect (C&D) Tones (DTMF)
Voice Response Integration (VRI) integrates Call Vectoring with the capabilities of Interactive Voice Response units (IVRs) such as Avaya Interactive Response. You can: Run an IVR script while retaining control of a call in vector processing Run an IVR script while a call is queued, retaining its position in the queue Pool IVR ports for multiple applications Use an IVR as a flexible external-announcement device Pass data between the system and an IVR Tandem IVR data through a communication server to an ASAI host
Communication Manager uses the Converse vector command to pass information to and from the Avaya Interactive Response system. The data passed (such as ANI, DNIS, expected wait time, queue position, or digits) is used to perform database lookups or execute IVR scripts in order to determine a Route-to destination which can be passed back to the Avaya Server to support Custom Call Routing applications. Any data passed from the Avaya Media Server to the IVR is outpulsed in-band. The Converse command can outpulse up to two groups of digits to the IVR. The digits typically serve two
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purposes: the digits may notify the IVR of the application to be executed, and they may share call-related data, such as ANI, DNIS, expected wait time, queue position, or digits collected from the caller. In many applications, both application selection and data sharing are required. The touch-tone outpulsing rate is adjustable. Voice Response Integration allows callers and companies to make productive use of queuing time. For example, while a call is queued, a caller can listen to product information using a textto-speech or recorded speech application or can complete an interactive voice-response transaction. It may be possible to resolve the callers questions while the call is queued, which helps reduce queuing time for other callers during peak times.
Best Service Routing

Best Service Routing allows the communication server to compare specified skills, identify the skill that will provide the best service for a call, and deliver the call to that resource. If no agents are currently available in that skill, the call is queued. To respond to changing conditions and operate more efficiently, Best Service Routing monitors the status of the specified resources and adjusts call processing and routing as appropriate. Best Service Routing is available in single and multi-site versions. Single-site Best Service Routing compares skills on the local communication server to find the best resource to service a call. Multi-site Best Service Routing extends this capability across a network of communication servers, comparing local skills, remote skills, or both, and routing calls to the resource that will provide the best service. For single-site Best Service Routing applications, your communication server must meet the same requirements as for multi-site Best Service Routing applications except that Look Ahead Interflow and ISDN or SIP interconnectivity are not necessary. Single-site Best Service Routing is a simple, logical extension of call vectoring. Like any other vector, vectors with Best Service Routing commands are assigned to one or more VDNs. Using vector commands, you tell the communication server to compare, or consider, specific skills for each call that is processed in that particular vector. Throughout the comparison, the server can remember which resource is the best based on how you define best. Best Service Routing vectors can deliver a call to the first available agent found, or they can consider all of the specified resources and deliver the call to the best skill. If no agents are available in any skill, the call is queued to the split/skill with the shortest adjusted Expected Wait Time (EWT). For purposes of calculating the best resource in a call surplus situation, Best Service Routing allows you to adjust the Expected Wait Time calculation for any skill. The vector command of consider split/skill is used to obtain the Expected Wait Time or agent data that is needed to identify the best local resource. One consider step must be written for each skill that you want to check in the order that you wish to check them. Because the consider command is usually designed to compare two or more resources, consider commands are typically written in a series with the sequence terminating in a queue-to best vector step.
Best Service Routing Available Agent Adjust-by

The Available Agent Adjust-By is used to specify your preferences for the skills that might handle calls in a particular vector. Any time a consider step returns Expected Wait Time for a local skill, you can increase the Expected Wait Time value to make that skill less likely to service the call. For example, you may prefer that a main skill in a vector handle as many
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calls as possible but want to use another skill as a backup skill. You can write the consider step that checks the backup skill to increase the returned Expected Wait Time by a set amount.
Best Service Routing Available Agent Wait-Improved

The wait-improved conditional is used to prevent calls from being queued to an additional skill (hunt group) when the reduction in Expected Wait Time is not enough to be useful. W ait improved means that a calls Expected Wait Time must be improved by a specific amount (specified in seconds) over its current Expected Wait Time or Communication Manager will not queue it to the additional skill.
Best Service Routing Polling Over IP without B (Bearer) Channel

Best Service Routing polling can be configured so that the use of a Bearer channel is not required when a polling signal is sent over an H.323 IP trunk. This feature offers the following advantages: Improved trunk efficiency - Uses QSIG CISC (Call Independent Signaling Connections) and TSCs (Temporary Signaling Connections) to send Best Service Routing polls over a Data (D) channel without the associated seizure of a B-channel. This polling strategy allows more trunk bandwidth to be available for other forms of voice or data traffic. Reduced hardware requirements - If Voice over IP functionality is not required for the trunk, an IP Media Processor circuit pack (TN2302) is not required.
Local Feedback for IP and ISDN Queued Calls

In an enterprise with multiple Communication Manager instances and Avaya Virtual Routing (Multi-Site Best Service Routing), a call that arrives at a local Communication Manager, regardless of the type of Avaya Server used to drive it, can be rerouted to a remote server located in a different part of the world. When the trunks between the sending and receiving switches are IP trunks, bandwidth is utilized when music or recorded announcement packets are sent from the destination switch to the caller. Because of the continuous nature of music, the bandwidth required to provide this audible feedback to callers in queue is generally greater than that required to support a conversation between a caller and an agent. Communication Manager allows vector processing to continue at the local sending switch, even after a call has been routed to a queue on a destination switch. Vector processing at the sending switch can then continue to provide audible feedback to the caller while the call is in queue at the destination switch. No packets need be sent over the IP trunk during the queuing phase of the call. This feature provides the following benefits for call center operations: For multi-site operations that include sites located in different countries, the local treatment feature can result in significant bandwidth savings for IP calls. Audio quality problems that may occur when music is sent over wide area networks that use low bit-rate codecs are eliminated. Announcements and other treatments can be maintained and managed in a central location.
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Expert Agent Selection (EAS)

Use Expert Agent Selection (EAS) to route incoming Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) calls to the agent who is best qualified to handle the call. That is, the agent with the specialized skills or experience required to best meet the callers needs. Expert Agent Selection calls are treated and reported as ACD calls. All agent functions are assigned to the agent login ID and not to a physical phone. Therefore, Expert Agent Selection agents can login to and work at any phone in the system. The following capabilities are associated with agent login IDs: Auto-Answer : When Expert Agent Selection is optioned, auto answer settings are assigned to an agents login ID. An agents auto answer setting will apply to the station where the agent logs in. If the auto answer setting for that station is different, the agents setting overrides the stations. Calls: To call an Expert Agent Selection agent, the caller dials the login ID extension. The call is extended to the physical extension where the agent with that login ID is logged in. Calls to the login ID reach the agent independent of the phone the agent is currently using. For example, when agents use multiple phones because they have multiple offices or rotate desks, login IDs allow these agents to be reached independent of their current location. Name: Calls to the login ID display the name associated with the login ID and not the name associated with the phone. This is also true for calls made from a phone with an agent logged in. Coverage : When the agent is logged out, or when calls go to coverage because the agent is busy, or does not answer, calls to the login ID go to the coverage path associated with the agent and not the phone. When an agent is logged out, calls go to the agents busy coverage destination. Restrictions: Calls to the login ID or from the agent use the restrictions associated with the agent and not the phone. Phones are fully functional when an agent is not logged in. The restrictions, coverage, and name revert to the phone administration when the agent logs out.
EAS: Add/Remove Agent Skills

This feature allows an agent using Expert Agent Selection to add or remove skills. A skill is a numeric identifier that refers to a specific ability of an agent. For example, an agent who speaks English and Spanish could be assigned a language-speaking skill with an identifier of 20. The agent then adds skill 20 to his or her set of working skills. If a customer needs a Spanishspeaking agent, the system routes the call to an agent with that skill. Each agent can have up to four active skills, and each skill is assigned a priority level.
EAS: Call Distribution Based on Skills

Calls that require certain agent skills (such as knowledgeable about product X or speaks Spanish) can be matched to an agent who has the required skill. You can assign skill numbers to each need or group of needs. The skills are administered for and associated with each of the following: Vector directory numbers (VDN) Agent login IDs
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Callers
This skill definition capability allows you to organize call handling based on customer, product, and language, for example. Expert Agent Selection can use either Uniform Call Distribution (UCD) or Expert Agent Distribution (EAD) to select agents for calls. Both methods can use the Most-Idle Agent (MIA) or the Least Occupied Agent (LOA) algorithm to select agents.
EAS: Service Observe of EAS Logical Agent ID

With Expert Agent Selection active, an observer can observe agents based on their agent login ID rather than their physical phone. The observer enters the login ID (extension number) of an agent, who must be logged in to a phone. The observer can monitor every ACD, personal and direct agent call delivered to or placed by the agent, including calls placed to the physical extension. Only one observer can observe an extension at one time. An observer cannot observe an agent ID extension at a physical terminal that is already being observed.
EAS: Service Level Maximizer (SLM)

Service Level Maximizer ensures that a defined service level of X% of calls are answered in Y seconds. When SLM is active, the software verifies that inbound calls are matched with agents in a way that makes sure that the administered service level is met. Service Level Maximizer cannot coexist with Business Advocate for Communication Manager active as it uses some of the same underlying software. Under call surplus conditions, when you have more inbound ACD calls than you have available agents, you can use Service Level Maximizer rather than either Greatest Need or Skill Level as the call selection method. Administered per agent, Service Level Maximizer will pick the skill in the worst shape as compared to its specified service level target. If all skills are ahead of their targets, the skill closest to its target is selected and the highest priority, oldest call waiting will be delivered to that skill.
EAS: Maximum Agent Occupancy (MAO)

The Least Occupied Agent (LOA) and Most Idle Agent (MIA) call distribution methods attempt to maintain equitable agent occupancy rates based on time spent in call service. In contrast, Service Level Maximizer operations are driven solely by the needs of a skill in terms of meeting a specified target service level, and overall occupancy rates for individual agents are not a factor in the agent selection process. When Service Level Maximizer is used, an optional feature called Maximum Agent Occupancy (MAO) can be used to set thresholds on the amount of time an agent spends on a call. MAO is used to avoid agent burnout. The MAO threshold is a system-administered option with a system-assigned maximum occupancy percentage value that is applied across all administered agents and is based on the total percentage of agent time in servicing calls. MAO data is derived from the same calculations that are used to derive the Least Occupied Agent (LOA). When an agent who exceeds the specified MAO threshold attempts to become available, he or she is automatically placed in the AUX work mode for the reason code administered for this purpose. When the occupancy for such pending agents drops below the MAO threshold, they are released from AUX work mode and made available.
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EAS: Variables in Vectors (VIV)

The Variables in Vectors feature allows you to create variables that can be used in vector commands to: Improve the general efficiency of vector administration. Provide increased manager and application control over call treatments. Allow your company to create more flexible vectors that better serve the needs of your contact center operations.
The vector variables are defined in a central variable administration table, but the values assigned to some types of variables can also be quickly changed by means of special vectors, VDNs, and Feature Access Codes that you create for that purpose. Different types of variables are available to meet different types of call processing needs. Depending on the variable type, variables can use either call-specific data, or fixed values that are identical for all calls. In either case, an administered variable can be reused in many vectors. These variables, which can also be VDN Variables, are: ani - a local (per call) variable used to test the calling partys telephone number. asaiuui - a local (per call) variable used for processing call-specific user data associated with the inbound ACD call collect - either a global or local (per call) variable used for processing collected digits for user-defined control, routing, or treatment tod - the global variable used to hold the current time of day for processing dow - the global variable used to hold the current day of week for processing. doy - the global variable used to hold the current day of year for processing. stepcnt - a local (per call) variable used to count the number of vector steps executed for the call, including the current step in the vector. value - the global variable used hold a single user-defined numeric digit (0-9) for userdefined processing. vdn - a local (per call) variable used hold the VDN extension number of the call for processing. vdntime - a local (per call) variable used to test the time, in seconds, that a call has been in vector processing.
EAS: VDN (Vector Directory Number) Variables

Supports from 5 to 9 variables per VDN, administered as Global and/or Local (per call) variables. The list of variables is the same as for Variables in Vectors. The number of supported variables per VDN depends on the type of Avaya Server.
EAS: Support for Advanced Segmentation

Information collected by Advanced Segmentation that is used for making routing decisions can also be delivered to the desktop. This optional solution does not require additional CTI servers
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and relies on IP Agent at the desktop for communication. Advanced Segmentation provides an out-of-the-box solution for screen-pop that does not require custom development, as it simply uses the IP Agent screen-pop feature to open a browser window to display the customer data at the time of call arrival. Avaya Professional Services can provide custom screen-pop solutions, which open 3rd party applications and pass them customer data.
EAS: Vectoring Enhancements

Gateway-server registered/unregistered conditionals have been added to the goto step and goto vector commands to allow alternate routing of calls if the H.248 Media or Port Network Gateway is not registered with the Media Server processing the call or a backup server is processing the call (in survivability mode due to IP connectivity failure). A VDN Time-Zone Offset field has been added to the VDN form to be applied against the Communication Manager clock when a time-of-day (TOD) vector command is executed. It allows execution of TOD testing vectors using local time relative to the called VDN. This capability simplifies programming and enables entry of actual time in vector commands. For example, 9 am to 5 pm can be used in all vectors without having to convert for local time relative to the switch clock.
EAS: Vector Routing Tables (VRTs)

You can test ANI against entries in a Vector Routing Table. There are 100 Vector Routing Tables containing up to 100 entries per table that are used to store ANI (Automatic Number Identification) / CLID (Calling Line Identification) or Digits that you refer to in goto vector steps. ANI can be tested to see if it is either in or not-in the specified table.
EAS: Location Preference Distribution

The Local Preference Distribution feature is intended for use by Avaya customers who have a distributed call center Wide Area Network (WAN) configuration with agents located at a main Communication Manager site as well as at Avaya Media Gateways, and who wish to connect an incoming ACD call preferably to an agent within the same WAN location as the ACD call's trunk facility. This reduces the number of incoming ACD calls distributed to agents across the WAN, allowing inter-node WAN bandwidth to be used for other purposes. Selection of an agent for a direct agent call takes precedence over location distribution preference. Selection of reserve agent via either Service Level Maximizer or Business Advocate, if active, also takes precedence.
EAS: Reason Codes

This feature allows agents to enter a numeric code that describes their reason for entering auxiliary (AUX) work mode or for logging out of the system. Reason codes give call center managers detailed information about how agents spend their time. You can also use this data to develop more precise staffing forecasting models or use it with schedule-adherence packages to ensure that agents are performing scheduled activities at the scheduled time. You must have Expert Agent Selection (EAS) enabled to use reason codes.
EAS: ACD Options by Agent

The following ACD agent and call selection options can be administered on a per-agent basis: Most Idle Agent (MIA) Across Skills
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After Call Work (ACW) Agent Considered Idle Auxiliary Work Reason Code Type Logout Reason Code Type
EAS: Forced Agent Logout from After Call Work

The Forced Agent Logout from After Call Work (ACW) feature provides the ability to automatically log out an Expert Agent Selection agent that spends more time than you believe they should be allotted in the ACW state. The timeout period can be specified on a systemwide basis and on a per agent basis. The per agent timeout setting takes precedence over the system-wide setting and the Timed ACW feature takes precedence over the Forced Agent Logout from ACW feature. The forced logout due to timeout in ACW will be reported with a customer assignable AUX (Auxiliary) Work Reason Code which is administered on a systemwide basis.
EAS: Holiday Vectoring

Holiday Vectoring enables a set of commands that can be used to write vectors for calls to be routed on holidays or any days when special processing is required. Holiday Vectoring allows for branching and routing of calls based on information about special schedules. The special schedules are recorded in tables.
EAS: Service (Office) Hours Table Routing

Similar to Holiday Vectoring, Service Hours tables offer the ability to have different hours of operation for each day of the week with only one vector step, eliminating the need for a series of potentially complex goto if time-of-day vector steps. The tables can be defined to contain office working hours specifications used for testing in call vectors. Working hours can be specified as time ranges (start/end) for each day of the week.
EAS: Assign to ASAI-UUI via Vectoring Set Command

This capability allows the set vector command to be used with the asaiuui vector variable to function as a reverse vector variable type. It will change the ASAI (Adjunct Switch Applications Interface) UUI (User-to-User Information) stored for the call instead of obtaining the current value. Using this variable with the set command will assign a set value to the ASAI UUI for the call. This enhancement provides the ability to add to or replace digits in the ASAI UUI string associated with the call during vector processing for use with: Applications that display UUI digits to the agent Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) applications that forward the User-to-User Information with the call
EAS: Forced Agent Logout by Communication Manager Clock Time

The Forced Agent Logout by Clock Time feature provides the ability to automatically log out an Expert Agent Selection agent based on an administered time of day setting. The forced logout due to clock time will be reported with a customer assignable logout Reason Code set on a system-wide basis. This capability is available only when the Expert Agent Selection feature is active.
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EAS: Improved Integration with Avaya Proactive Contact

Avaya Call Center integration with Avaya Proactive Contact has been improved to account for outbound time as ACD time. This includes accounting for outbound time in reporting and in call distribution algorithms such as Most Idle Agent (MIA) and Least Occupied Agent (LOA). Now an Avaya Call Management System can track switch-classified and agent-classified outbound calls placed by the Proactive Contact CTI Dialer.
EAS: Redirection on OPTIM Failure

Redirection on OPTIM Failure is a Communication Manager capability that works with Avaya Call Center Elite and the Avaya Agent 16CC SIP display telephones. It is similar to Redirection on IP Failure for H.323 IP telephones. If a Redirection on OPTIM Failure time out occurs during an attempted call delivery, the staffed Expert Agent Selection agent will be automatically placed into AUX (Auxiliary) Work using the AUX-Work Reason Code for Redirection on IP Failure. The call will be put back in queue at above the top skill queue priority level or rerouted to the RONA (Redirection On No Answer) assigned VDN (Vector Directory Number), if assigned on the skill hunt group form.
EAS: Support of Avaya SIP 16CC Desktop Telephone (true SIP Endpoint)
The Avaya Agent Deskphone 16CC, requires Communication Manager 5.0 or later and is an affordable, purpose-built SIP telephone that supports Avaya Call Center Elite agent features. Expert Agent Selection (EAS) must be active. The 16CC combines traditional agent features such as LED (light emitting diode) buttons and fixed feature keys with todays latest SIP deskphone enhancements including softkeys, a navigation wheel and a context sensitive agent interface.
EAS: Avaya Intelligent Enterprise Connect (IEC) Best Service Routing Polling
Avaya Call Center Elite running on Communication Manager supports shared User-to-User Information (UUI) in the INVITE message to provide Call Center Multi-Site Best Service Routing (Avaya Virtual Routing) with Information Forwarding (CINFO) and Universal Call ID (UCID). This enables all the normal UUI-related Call Vectoring and CTI event notification features to work across SIP trunks. For UUI and CTI routed calls based on adjunct route with UUI, User-to-User Information can be provided for outgoing as well as incoming calls.
Service Provider Support of SIP NCR and User-to-User Information

In todays call centers many customers use ISDN trunks on Communication Manager with Network Call Redirection (NCR) to reduce costs in a multi-site call center. Network Call Redirection is a Service Provider feature that Communication Manager supports whereby the public network (PSTN) manages the call redirection to reduce the need for overflow ISDN trunks. User-to-User Information (UUI) is forwarded to the receiving Call Center to expedite call handling. Previously, NCR and UUI were not offered by SIP service providers. Now Communication Manager SIP trunks support Network Call Redirection and UUI in cooperation with certified Service Providers that follow the Avaya IETF draft defining a method for providing them. As with the SIP networking features offered by Service Providers, Avaya Call Center and the Avaya G860 Media Gateway will provide Network Call Redirection (NCR) inter-working so that
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Communication Manager resources are removed following the SIP NCR request and the Userto-User Information (UUI) for the call will also be inter-worked.
Route Calls to Agent by Skill Level

The Route Calls to Agent by Skill Level feature enables additional control of how inbound ACD calls are routed to staffed agents by further qualifying agent selection based on skill level in addition to existing criteria. By using administered skill level (1-16) as an additional criterion, a staffed (logged in) agent is no longer necessarily selected from the top of the skill queue. This allows, for example, the ability to indicate a preference to reserve the best agents for high value calls or critical conditions, or to route low value calls to agents with low skill levels. The feature only applies under agent surplus conditions and denotes a routing preference rather than a required characteristic. This feature facilitates agent effectiveness by improving resource matching.
Percent Allocation Routing

Percent Allocation Routing provides a way to route incoming calls to different resources based on the percentage of calls to be distributed to each resource. Toll-free inbound calls and other types of traffic can be allocated among outsourcers and/or internal resources on a percentage basis. This feature uses existing Vector Directory Number (VDN) and vector routing to send calls to a VDN (called the routing VDN) that has a Policy Routing Table assigned. The Policy Routing Table determines which VDN to route the inbound call to. The routing VDN does not have a vector assigned; it uses the Policy Routing Table to determine where the call goes next.
Interruptible Auxiliary Work

Interruptible Auxiliary Work offers improved utilization of call center resources for customers who wish to selectively override non-talk work modes. It provides a way to utilize staffed agents who are in Auxiliary Work mode for certain Reason Codes to handle incoming ACD calls when needed. Call centers gain additional flexibility in agent utilization by administering certain Auxiliary Work Reason Codes as interruptible for priority customers. When a service level threshold is exceeded, agents in Auxiliary Work mode with an interruptible Reason Code are notified by a display message (You are needed), flashing buttons, and an audible tone. Notification continues until the agent becomes available, logs off, or the service level threshold is no longer exceeded. The service level target is administered as a percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds. If, for example, 90% or more of calls are answered within 15 seconds, then the skill is meeting the service level target. If fewer than 90% of calls are answered within 15 seconds, then the skill is not meeting the service level target and interruptible agents in Auxiliary Work mode start getting interrupted.
Capacity Increases
The following call center capacities have been increased for Call Center 6.0: Skills per agent increased from 60 to 120 VDNs increased from 20,000 to 30,000
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Skills per ACD increased from 2,000 to 8,000 Policy Routing Tables increased from 2,000 to 8,000 Policy Routing Table Routing Points increased from 6,000 to 24,000 Vectors increased from 2,000 to 8,000 Maximum number of agents logged in simultaneously increased from 7,000 to 10,000 Maximum number of administered agent login IDs increased from 20,000 to 30,000
Two Additional Thresholds for Interruptible Auxiliary Work

In addition to service level, Call Center 6.0 adds two additional thresholds that trigger Interruptible Auxiliary Work: calls warning threshold and time warning threshold. The calls warning threshold activates Interruptible Auxiliary Work if the number of calls in queue for a hunt group or skill exceeds a specified number. If the calls warning threshold is set to 20, interruptible agents in Auxiliary Work mode start getting interrupted as soon as the number of calls in the queue goes to 21 or beyond. The time warning threshold activates Interruptible Auxiliary Work if the oldest call has been in queue for longer than the specified number of seconds. If the time warning threshold is set to 60 (seconds), interruptible agents start getting interrupted as soon as the duration of the oldest call in the queue for a hunt group or skill exceeds 60 seconds. In addition to the activation threshold, an administered threshold for deactivation is used to help keep a buffer (differential) between the two levels at which Interruptible Auxiliary Work mode is activated and deactivated.
Retain Active VDN Context

With Call Center 6.0, you can specify whether to retain the active Vector Directory Number (VDN) context when Redirection on No Answer, Redirection on IP Failure, or Redirection on OPTIM Failure (for SIP endpoints) redirects a call to an alternate VDN defined as the redirect VDN due to an agent who has not answered. If you choose to retain the active VDN context, you can set up a generic VDN-vector combination that handles calls redirected from multiple VDNs with specialized treatment based on the context parameters of the previous active VDN.
Forced Agent Logout by Location or Skill

This feature is used to force all agents in a location or skill to logout. This feature does not apply to Auto-Available Splits or Skills. Auto-Available Splits or Skills allow members of an ACD split or skill to be in auto-in work mode continuously and are used for splits or skills that are used, for example, for quality recording or Interactive Voice Response systems. A Class of Restriction can be set up to specify which agents can or cannot be forced to logout and which users can dial the Feature Access Code to force agents to logout.
Forced Agent into Auxiliary Work Mode by Location or Skill

This feature is used to force all agents in a location or skill into Auxiliary Work mode. This feature does not apply to Auto-Available Splits or Skills. A Class of Restriction can be set up to specify which agents can or cannot be forced into Auxiliary Work mode and which users can dial the Feature Access Code to force agents into Auxiliary Work mode.
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Local Persistent Variables

When a collect type variables scope is administered as local persistent, its value is assigned on the basis of call-specific information (the same as local scope) and applies in one or more vectors that process the call. Unlike a local collect variable, the value assigned to a local persistent variable persists until a call disconnects. The application continues to use the variable and its most recently-assigned value when the call leaves vector processing but then returns to vector processing, such as when the call is transferred to a VDN for further processing by the answering agent.
Star, Pound, and Digits Allowed in Route-to Destination Command with Variables
The route-to number command destination syntax has been expanded to allow combinations of star (*), pound (#), and digits with vector or VDN variables. This capability allows the destination for a route-to number command to be greater than 16 digits.
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Avaya one-X Agent
Avaya one-X Agent

Avaya one-X Agent is a contact center agent desktop that gives agents the tools they need to provide a superior customer experience, whether theyre working in a headquarters location, in a branch office, or home office. The simple, intuitive user interface is designed to be easy for agents to learn and use while providing one touch access to common agent features. Advanced contact handling features such as integrated video, on-demand access to customerspecific information, and immediate access to experts throughout the enterprise support your agents in delivering a superior customer contact experience. With Avaya one-X Agent, agents are able to more effectively manage both communications and agent tasks, making them more productive, responsive, and collaborative regardless of where they are working. Avaya one-X Agent provides a new dynamic user interface that requires minimal space, is easily configured to meet a variety of agent needs, and has been optimized for agent use. It leverages modern user interface conventions and utilizes the concept of work items, which addresses agent work styles more completely than does the traditional extension line appearance and feature buttons structure of Communication Manager. A Work Item, which is a container for related media items, provides a superior way to manage multiple concurrent interactions and allows the agent to be able to understand at a glance which media items are related. The user interface is also dynamic in that it adapts to the functions being performed. This creates a clean work environment absent of any unnecessary distractions and reduces multiple step interactions with features like Drag and Drop Transfers and Conferences. This rich set of features along with context sensitive on-line help with integrated tutorials makes the new user interface easy to learn and use, which lowers agent training costs and improves productivity. Avaya one-X Agent supports a variety of deployment options and a full compliment of Communication Manager connection modes including My Computer (Roadwarrior/VoIP), Another Phone (Telecommuter/Dual Connect) and Desk Phone, where Avaya one-X Agent shares control of an Avaya Telephone via the Communication Manager server. This set of options enables customers to deploy a single desktop application and provides seamless support for at-home agents, remote agents, outsourced agents and agents physically located in a centralized contact center. Avaya one-X Agent is a Thick .NET Client, enabling rich multi-media and contact-centerquality VoIP. For customers interested in utilizing Thin technologies, Avaya one-X Agent supports Windows Desktop Virtualization so that customers can deploy the product on Windows Server 2003 and 2008, which can be managed by the native capabilities within the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services platform, or through technologies like Citrix XenApp, VMWare VDI, and Sun SunRay. Avaya one-X Agent is customer installable via an industry standard MSI installation which offers significant flexibility and a number of options. Very simple interactive installations can be initiated from the Avaya one-X Agent Installation Wizard, a user-friendly wrapper around the base MSI database for Avaya one-X Agent. An optional command line installation provides the ability to run the installation silently by using installer defaults which can be modified by an administrator. The base MSI database may be extracted and further transformed by the customer administrators, Avaya Professional Services or Avaya Business Partners. In addition,
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Avaya one-X Agent
administrators will have the option of providing global user configurations to each desktop, either as part of an MSI transform installation, or by other standard PC administration tools. Avaya Professional Services provides a comprehensive set of services to support customized installations, configuration, screen pop, agent greetings, and other valuable desktop related services.
Key Features and Benefits

Increases agent productivity and accuracy by providing an attractive, easy to use interface optimized for agent work and by leveraging the power of desktop integrations including Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, and LDAP enterprise databases Enables deployment on a wide variety of platforms including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 on Intel standard machines, either real or virtual, which can be managed by a variety of tools including the native capabilities within the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services platform, Citrix, Sun, VMWare and others. When deploying to agent desktops, Avaya one-X Agents Microsoft Installer (MSI) enables the IT group to create a customized silent install that can be pushed down to the agent desktop so that no agent interaction is required. Integrated video capabilities open the door for innovative new customer service applications. For example, video kiosks in busy retail outlets such as mobile phone stores and home improvement centers enable immediate customer assistance with a remote agent when in-store personnel are busy with other customers. Video also enhances learning and collaboration when used for home and remote agent training, and for consulting with supervisors and experts. Reduces talk time and facilitates first call resolution by providing customer-contextual data in a screen pop while avoiding the complexity and expense of a conventional CTI desktop application and hardware. Screen pop of customer contextual data improves productivity and customer satisfaction, eliminating time-consuming agent lookup of relevant information. Now agents know who is calling, what the customer is calling about, and the pertinent information needed to satisfy the customers request. With Avaya one-X Agent, screen pops can easily be configured to launch based on commonly used triggers, such as dialed number identification service (DNIS), automatic number identification (ANI), and prompted digits. When used in conjunction with Avaya Advanced Segmentation, companies can quickly and easily use data from a customerspecific database to drive their routing decisions and agent screen pops. Drag and Drop Conferencing An agent can drag one call on to another to quickly conference the two parties. Launch Application menu - Provides the ability to centralize, organize and launch applications directly from the Avaya one-X Agent window. Each item in the Launch Application menu inherits the associated icon of the application. Dynamic Hot Desking facilitates agent mobility. Any agent can sit at any desk and upon login see their own customized instance of one-X Agent.
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Avaya one-X Agent
Contact Log - Keeps call records for incoming and outgoing calls. A single call record contains contact name, telephone number, date/time, and call duration. Each call record also contains dialed number, screen pop name, and work code details. Contact List This administrable list of agent contacts can be managed within Avaya one-X Agent or integrated with Outlook or an LDAP directory. Its search capabilities speed access to commonly dialed numbers for consultation, conferences, or transfers. Section 508 compliance means you can expand your agent pool to include the physically handicapped. Keyboard shortcuts provide access to common agent functions. Alerts are both visual and audible, and Avaya one-X Agent is easily integrated with text to speech applications. Business continuity options are inherent with the connectivity and virtualization choices embedded in Avaya one-X Agent. Even companies who have no immediate plans to deploy remote agents are beginning to include remote agent capabilities as part of their business continuity and survivability operations in case of disaster, or for instances where severe weather conditions may prevent agents from coming into the office. With Avaya one-X Agent, in-office agents simply become remote agents for the necessary period of time, and your business continues its operations without a hiccup. Central Management enables you to create and manage user profiles centrally via a web client interface. These profiles include user customized data (such as feature access), contact logs, and recorded agent greetings. No matter where agents log in from, their own configurations follow them. Supervisor Desktop features are embedded, giving one-click access to features such as service observing and barge-in. A supervisor can coach an agent in real-time via instant messaging, and view agents history logs and presence status. A quick -alert messaging capability enables supervisors to send an immediate notification to a group of agents when the situation demands. The Subscribe and Command API allows other applications to subscribe to events as well as to execute common one-X Agent functions, facilitating integration of one-X Agent into existing environments. Feature Access Control - Administrators can control which features can be accessed or configured by agents. The dynamic user interface presents the agent with only those features to which they have access.
Connection Modes
Agents can choose one of the following connection modes depending on their location, telephone set, and network: My Computer (VoIP) - Agents can connect to the Avaya communication server by using their personal computer and an IP network connection. In this connection mode, a telephone set is not necessary because all communication is performed through a sound device on the personal computer. Another Phone (Telecommuter) - Agents can use the advanced call features provided by the Avaya communication server using any phone. In this connection mode the
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Avaya one-X Agent
signaling between the application and the call server is IP while the voice media is delivered over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to any device whether it is analog, digital, cellular or other. For example, an agent working from home can use Avaya one-X Agent and their home telephone to transfer calls, place calls on hold, change agent work mode, and perform other agent activities. Desk Phone (Shared Control) - Allows Avaya one-X Agent and Avaya DCP and IP telephones to share control of the same administered station.
Call and Contact Center features

Avaya one-X Agent provides the following features for easier call handling and to optimize call center operations.
VuStats
The VuStats feature passes contact center information from Communication Manager to the VuStats Monitor display. Supervisors and agents use the VuStats feature to monitor critical contact center activity and statistics such as queue status, talk time, and other configurable metrics. Now agents have the information they need to help meet the companys business goals.
Agent Greetings
Agents can record, play, stop or configure and erase greetings through an easy to use wizard. Greetings can be based on variables such as login status, agent work mode, agent ID, prompted digits, Automatic Number Identification (ANI), or Vector Directory Number (VDN). Agents can choose a greeting to be played by clicking an icon on the standard desktop. The agent greetings are stored as .wav files on the agent's PC.
Work Item
A Work Item provides an optimized Work Item paradigm for agents in the contact center. Work Items in the work list window provide a superior way to manage multiple concurrent interactions and allow agents to understand the status of each interaction with its corresponding media items.
Screen Pops
Agents can display Web pages, start applications, or retrieve and display caller information from a database. They can create Screen Pops using the Screen Pops menu on the System Settings window. A Screen Pop can consist of any process or application that can be initiated through one of the commands in the Windows executable or through registered file type activation.
Launch Application
With the Launch Application menu, agents can centralize, organize, and launch applications directly from the Avaya one-X Agent primary window.
Follow Up Work
Follow-up Work is an extension to Communication Manager After Call Work (ACW). Agents can perform follow-up work for an associated work item after the call disconnects. A timer can
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Avaya one-X Agent
be set for the follow-up work. In follow-up with timer, the countdown timer starts when the agent begins to complete the task for the associated work item. When the wrap-up time reaches its limit, the work item closes and the agent status changes accordingly. When the agent is in the Follow-Up Work mode, Communication Manager interprets the agent's status as Auxiliary and does not send any calls to the agent's extension until the agent's work state changes to Ready. In follow-up without timer, an agent's status remains Auxiliary until the work item is manually closed.
Caller information
This feature allows agents to display the following caller data: Caller ID Automatic Number Identification (ANI) Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) User to User information (UUI) Prompted Digits
When an agent clicks the phone display, the application displays caller information with other collected digits originating from other applications, such as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
TTY call handling

Tele Type (TTY ) calls are calls initiated by callers having hearing or speech impairment. The TTY capability enables you to serve these customers with the same queue groups as other calls, eliminating the need for separate agent pools and TTY hardware devices. TTY calls are received as a normal voice call work item. However, Communication Manager recognizes the TTY call signal and prompts to initiate a TTY interaction by displaying a TTY-specific icon. Agents can interact with TTY callers using a set of abbreviations available on the TTY interaction window. The text messages between the caller and the Agent are broken when either the agent or the caller types GA an abbreviation for Go Ahead. GA signifies end of a statement and that the other party can provide a response. Avaya one-X Agent also supports a parallel video call with TTY callers, provided both agent and the caller have the necessary hardware. The video response is handled as a normal video call and is displayed in a separate media window in parallel with the TTY text interaction window.
Instant Messaging and Presence

Instant messaging and Presence are available provided Presence Services are installed as a part of server components in your network. Instant messaging (IM) allows agents to send instant messages using their Avaya one-X Agent client. Only agent-to-agent instant messaging (IM) is supported in this release. Presence allows agents to know the availability of other agents. Presence status can be seen for agent state, voice channel state, and IM state. After you have configured the IM settings, you simply need to add the IM address of your contact in your contact list to be able to view the contact's Presence status and use Click to IM to send messages.
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Avaya one-X Agent
Video calling and video file sharing

Agents can initiate a video call with a customer having the necessary hardware. Both parties can view videos in a picture-in-picture display. Agents can also play a video file containing a demo, tutorial, or a product promo for the customer on the video call.
Desktop and application sharing

Agents can share desktops and desktop applications with callers. Avaya one-X Agent opens a separate window to display the agents desktop. Agents can use this feature to share applications with callers and provide a more interactive experience. Agents can control or give control of the sharing right.
Contact Management features

This section describes Avaya one-X Agent features that agents can use to manage contact details.
Contact List
The Contact List window contains a list of individual records of customers, prospects, vendors, and business partners. Each contact record can contain a work telephone number, home telephone number, cell phone number, postal address, and other personal information. Agents can create any number of contact records, or import a contact from Outlook or from the corporate directory. Agents can manage these contacts within Avaya one-X Agent, or integrate Avaya one-X Agent with Outlook or a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory. Agents can also import a contact list from an existing Avaya IP Agent or IP Softphone program.
Outlook Contacts
This feature provides support for configuring Microsoft Outlook to include Outlook Contacts in the Avaya one-X Agent contact list. Agents can configure the exchange sever address with Avaya one-X Agent and import contacts from Outlook Contacts. With Outlook integration, agents can click to dial a call to Outlook Contacts in the Avaya one-X Agent Contact List. Agents can also search any contact in their configured Outlook directory through the advanced search feature of Avaya one-X Agent.
Directory Services
The Directory feature allows agents to define a public directory service and configure it within the Avaya one-X Agent. Directory provides access to corporate or public directory services. Agents can search through public or company information using the advanced search feature of Avaya one-X Agent.
Work Log
The Work Log window maintains all records of agent interactions. These include incoming and outgoing call records, IM interaction records, TTY interaction records, and desktop sharing records. A record contains contact name, telephone number (for a telephone interaction), date/time, and interaction duration. Further, each call record contains dialed Dual Tone Multiple Frequency (DTMF) number, screen pop name, and work code details. Agents can search or sort work log records from the work log window and add the search records to the Contact List. Avaya one-X Agent can also import the work log records from Avaya IP Agent (if the computer
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Avaya one-X Agent
has an existing IP Agent installation) and IP Softphone when an agent launches the Avaya one-X Agent program for the first time.
Supervisor desktop
Contact center supervisors need to perform various functions to monitor quality and perform contact center management. Avaya one-X Agent integrates telephony, presence, instant messaging, desktop sharing, agent monitoring, reporting, and Communication Manager supervisor features into a single user interface.
Service observing
Service observing allows a supervisor to listen to an agent-customer conversation. Service observing is displayed as a work item on the Avaya one-X Agent application interface of the supervisor. The supervisor performing service observing can see the name of the agent being observed and the time duration of observation.
Quick alert
Quick alert provides an instant messaging capability to the supervisor. You can use this feature to send important messages or reminders to an observed agent while the agent is on a call. The messages are displayed to the agent on the Top bar of the Avaya one-X Agent application interface.
Agent coaching
A supervisor can perform agent coaching while an agent is on a call. A supervisor can listen to the agent's telephone interaction and simultaneously engage in a coaching session using instant messaging (IM). An agent can respond to the supervisor's messages on the IM window.
Barge in
The Barge In feature allows a supervisor to directly enter an active call and engage in a conversation with the agent and customer.
Ad hoc transfer
Ad hoc transfer is done for calls where a supervisor has already connected to a call between an agent and the customer, and the agent has to drop from the call. After the agent drops the call, the call appears as a normal work item on the supervisor's Avaya one-X Agent application interface. The call gets transferred to the supervisor and is treated as a normal call work item.
Remote agent log out

A supervisor can remotely log out an agent from the supervisors contact list. This is possible only when the agent state is either Available or Auxiliary and not Busy. The supervisors Contact List window displays the list of supervised agents with their respective agent status displayed.
Other features
Voice Mail
Avaya one-X Agent provides voice mail support for registered extensions in the voice mail system. It provides message waiting indication and allows the agent to call a number or to
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Avaya one-X Agent
execute a program. Agents or system administrators can integrate a voice mail system with a telephone system, third-party voice mail application, or web-based voice mail server.
Speed Dial
The Speed Dial feature allows agents to quickly dial numbers that they dial frequently. Agents can save the contact numbers of agents and others in the Speed Dial list.
Favorites
Agents can save contacts to the favorites list. This feature can be used to gain quick access to contacts, especially when the Contacts list is large.
Conference call
Avaya one-X Agent offers two types of conference calls: Direct Conference: Agents use direct conference to add a participant to the conference call first without speaking to the contact. Consultative Conference: Agent use consultative conference to conference a call after announcing the call to the contact.
An agent can add a maximum of five participants to a conference call. Agents can drag an active call and drop the call into another active call to initiate a conference.
Call transfer
Avaya one-X Agent offers two types of call transfer: Direct Transfer: Agent uses direct transfer to forward an active call without speaking to the contact. Consultative Transfer: Agent uses consultative transfer to forward after announcing the call to the contact.
Call Hold
The Call Hold feature allows agents to put an active call on hold. An agent can answer other calls while the call is on hold. Depending on the system settings, an agent can either put a call on manual hold or on auto hold. By default, Avaya one-X Agent puts an active call on hold automatically when an agent initiates a new call or reactivates a previously held call.
Click-to-Dial
The Click-to-Dial feature allows an agent to use the mouse to automatically dial the properly formatted telephone numbers that appear on Web pages. This feature only functions with Web pages displayed in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Video
Avaya one-X Agent supports video with H.323 telephony protocol in My Computer and Desk Phone modes. Using video, agents can conduct face-to-face video communication with a customer or an agent. An agent can also share a desktop or an application. The video feature provides the following controls:
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Avaya one-X Agent
Desktop video controls: start, stop, mute, unmute, display properties and options, and relinquish camera control Point-to-point video control Bandwidth management and class of service control
Citrix Presentation Server

Citrix Presentation Server allows agents to connect to the Avaya one-X Agent application on central servers. An agent can connect to Avaya one-X Agent remotely, from home, airport Internet kiosks, softphones and other devices outside the corporate network. Avaya one-X Agent appears to be installed and running on an agent's desktop computer. However, it is actually running on Citrix Presentation Server hosted in the corporate environment. Citrix Presentation Server supports H.323 softphones for Avaya one-X Agent in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 environments. Avaya one-X Agent does not support My Computer mode or video in a Citrix environment.
Favorites toolbar
Avaya one-X Agent allows you to set the toolbar buttons on the main window. These buttons provide quick-access to options including release a call, changing the answer settings to manual or auto, changing the agent status to ready or auxiliary, make a call to the supervisor directly, assign a work code to the work item, and dial the last-called number.
Phone display
Avaya one-X Agent allows you to view a 40-character display of information from Communication Manager. You can view both call-related and non-call-related information including call-prompting digits, VuStats data, and the local date and time display from the ACD.
Dynamic Hot-Desking
Agents can sit at any desk and make or receive calls. Agent settings get automatically downloaded to the agent desktop immediately after an agent authenticates against the Central Management server. For agents to be able to hot desk, they must be administered on Central Management.
Configuration features
Central Management
Avaya Central Management is a Web-based solution developed to centrally manage operations for contact centers running Avaya one-X Agent. It can manage end points, Avaya one-X Agent users, and agent configuration data from a central location. This is an optional solution that can be deployed based on management requirements. Avaya one-X Agent Central Management has a task-based user interface that helps in efficient and effective management of Avaya oneX Agent users and user settings. The user interface is consistent with the Avaya one-X Agent client interface for the respective settings and therefore is easy to configure. The prominent features of Central Management are listed below: Provides secure and role-based access. Provides centralized control of end points.
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Avaya one-X Agent
Allows creating global settings for all users. Allows creating parent and child templates that can be assigned to agent groups based on role and business area. Centrally controls agent from accessing various critical client settings. Imports multiple agent profiles, with their customized settings, from an existing setup. Supports Active Directory User infrastructure. Centrally stores setting changes made by an agent and makes them available the next time the agent logs on. Centrally stores and manages predefined location data and links the desktop client to Communication Manager. This enables agent hot-desking.
Profiles
A Profile is a collection of pre-configured settings and preferences. Agents can select profiles to load the pre-configured settings required to handle calls. Administrators can design profiles for agent groups and deploy them with the installation.
Importing settings
If IP Agent or Avaya IP Softphone is installed on your computer, you can import the following settings: Login credentials Contacts Work log
Control of agent permissions

Administrators can set attributes to control agent permissions. Most user interface settings have a Read Only attribute. If the Read Only attribute is set to true, agents cannot change the settings for the corresponding field on the user interface. The Read Only attribute works hierarchically, which means the attribute value set for parent applies to all its children elements. This provides granularity to control agent permissions.
Security and Management features

Avaya one-X Agent provides agents with options for a secure implementation. All passwords are stored in encrypted format.
Silent installation
In Avaya one-X Agent, installations without user interaction are accomplished through the use of MSI command-line parameters.
Secure connections through firewall

Avaya one-X Agent supports connections through a third-party, external, VOIP-aware firewall.
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Avaya one-X Agent
User authentication through the enterprise directory

Avaya one-X Agent integrates with an existing enterprise directory. Avaya one-X Agent uses the Active Directory or LDAP user records for authentication and authorization.
Denial of Service protection

Avaya one-X Agent is protected against Denial of Service attacks.
Alternate Gatekeeper
When an agent registers an IP endpoint with a Communication Manager, the Communication Manager sends a C-LAN IP address to the IP endpoint. If registration is successful, Communication Manager sends back IP addresses of all the C-LAN circuit packs in the network region. Agent can use these addresses if call signaling on the original C-LAN circuit pack fails.
Support for server load balancing across gatekeepers

Registration and usage of Communication Manager can be distributed across multiple C-LAN circuit packs within a network region. This increases performance and reliability for all IP endpoints.
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Avaya IP Agent
Avaya IP Agent
Avaya IP Agent, Release 7 is a soft phone application that enables agents to work from any PC, anywhere, as long as they can connect to your corporate network. Avaya IP Agent provides the complete set of sophisticated agent features that youve come to expect from Avayas best-in-class suite of contact center products, plus an additional set of powerful capabilities. IP Agent is often a call center's first step towards SIP and Presence, improving agent productivity both in the office and in the virtual office with its strong integration and interoperability with other applications. IP Agent incorporates enterprise Instant Messaging in conjunction with the Converged Communication Server. IP Agent can provide a screen pop of customer-contextual data when integrated with Advanced Segmentation. It interoperates with Internet Explorer and Outlook to provide click-to-dial. And, using shared control mode, IP Agent adds value to Callmaster IV and V terminals by adding agent greetings, VuStats Monitor, and other IP Agent enhanced features. IP Agent can address several separate client scenarios or requirements: Allows a customer to extend their call center with a converged IP solution and take the first step toward SIP and Presence. Provides a PC-based agent Softphone that allows agents to focus all their attention on the PC, rather than splitting their time between two devices to complete a transaction. Delivers a sophisticated, full-featured remote agent solution. Provides the same user interface for remote and on-premise agents to help reduce training time.
Avaya is creating and executing one of the best suites of Contact Center solutions in the industry. The IP Agent application will interact with and access these solution features and capabilities and bring them wherever an enterprise chooses to put its workforce - at home or in the office.
Key New Features & Benefits

Additional Administration Control A new configuration utility in IP Agent R7 makes it easy for an administrator to provide agents access only to the features deemed necessary. And, new feature access permissions are available, including audio options, import/export settings, the launch toolbar, and configuration administration. Easy Installation and Deployment Options Now with IP Agent R7, configuration and deployment become even easier. IP Agent now utilizes standard MSI and SMS technologies to enable contact center managers to deliver the right tools to the right agents. Customers can either use the standard installation provided with IP Agent or can customize the installation to meet their specific deployment needs. In conjunction with the new configuration utility, newly documented registry settings provide administrators the ability to generate custom registry configuration files for any user, simplifying the process of setting parameters such as program options and feature access. Use of these new tools and technologies not only enables a more customized
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Avaya IP Agent
user experience, but also simplifies installation, configuration and administration, serving to reduce overhead and the total cost of ownership. Enhanced Security Underlying these capabilities is a focus on security from encrypted signaling links to user account security for multi-user desktops; IP Agent puts security at a premium. The Secure Desktop feature brings IP Agent R7 in conformity with Microsoft best-practice security guidelines by storing all configuration files and user-specific information in Windows user specific locations. A single PC can now be used by multiple users, all with individual settings. Support for new Contact Center capabilities New Avaya terminals are now added to the list of natively supported IP Agent telephones the 9620, 9630 and 9630C, 9650, 4622, and 2410. IP Agent R7 also supports a 13-digit dial plan. Usability enhancements Avaya IP Agent R7 makes it easy to launch other applications from the agent GUI by adding icons to the tool bar. Any item that can appear on the Windows desktop up to 20 icons - can be added here. And, two dynamic parameters can be added as well. For example, a link to the callers web site, or a link to a record-on-demand application, serves to put relevant tools at the agents fingertips, thereby enhancing agent productivity. Web Dialer Enhancements Provides more support for international number formats, one-click dialing from arbitrary customer selected text and support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. Support for 60 Agent Greetings An increase from the previous maximum of 15 Agent Greetings.
Graphical User Interface

Avaya IP Agent accommodates all the Avaya call center agent features and capabilities for agents working remotely or in an office location. Agents have access to the full range of Avaya agent capabilities using an intuitive, customizable, graphical user interface (GUI) using standard Microsoft Windows conventions.
Avaya IP Agent GUI
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Avaya IP Agent
The highly customizable graphical user interface gives agents easy and immediate access to customer care functions supported by Avaya Aura Communication Manager on an Avaya Media Server. Agents can customize their desktop by selecting their most frequently used phone features for display in a separate window. In addition the solution enables features such as integrated phone directories, last numbered dialed, and screen pops with relevant customer data to enable more personalized service.
Feature Summary
Administrable program options Answer calls from system tray Auto-answer support Basic phone features: hold, transfer, conference Call timer and hold timer Contact direction status (e.g. incoming, outgoing) Contact history dialing Dial a number from any Windows application Dial from Internet Explorer Dial from Microsoft Outlook Dial pad Dial Recent call Enhanced transfer and conference Message waiting lamp and missed calls indication Personal phone feature list Program setting - Import/Export Public directory search (LDAP) Second line display Station buttons support Extremely flexible Rich set of features facilitates agent tasks Quick dial when experts are needed History of previous contacts serves as a handy reference Allows personalization of agent phone display and features Easy to build and share directories via Import/Export feature and LDAP compliance Improves agent productivity Multiple call appearances
SIP and Presence

Avaya IP Agent integrates a flexible IP Softphone client with a SIP/SIMPLE-based Instant Messaging (IM) client. It incorporates a contact list of other IP Agent and IP Softphone users and makes both phone and IM presence visible to other users. It is simple to toggle between the softphone and IM applications. The IM and presence capabilities require registering with the Avaya Converged Communications Server, which is available separately. Instant Messaging menu Contact History will log phone and IM transactions IM toolbar provides quick access to start an IM session or change the reported presence state.
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Avaya IP Agent
Drop down list to publish IM status New IM response button appears on the call display. When an incoming call phone number in the contact table matches an online tracked contact, the agent can respond with a canned IM to the inbound call. IM presence status bar indicator if the IM feature is active. This visual indicator will reflect the Presence status of the registered end-user.
Instant Messaging
IP Agent integrates Instant Messaging with telephony contact handling. The user's IM and phone Presence can be made visible (or hidden) to other Presence-enabled IP Agent and IP Softphone users (unless the IM-only mode is used). The Contact list also integrates phone and IM contacts showing their status (Available, Away, Busy, On the Phone, or Offline). The Contact History includes a log of IM transcripts and indicates whether the session was inbound or outbound in origin. This feature facilitates first call resolution by enabling agents to find expert help within or beyond the contact center. Instant Messaging requires registration with the Avaya Converged Communications Server (CCS) and does not support either the Callmaster VI endpoint configuration or the Terminal Services / Citrix configuration.
Screen Pops
Screen pops provide a way of displaying information related to a telephone call on a terminal screen before, as, or right after the call arrives. The information, usually a customer record, is popped by a customer application in response to a trigger from IP Agent. The trigger (e.g. prompted digits, calling party number) to the customer record will be sent to the application using dynamic data exchange (DDE). A wizard greatly simplifies screen pop set-up. Screen Pops shorten talk time and improve agent productivity. Customer satisfaction is increased as the caller does not have to wait for the agent to do a database lookup.
Screen Pops with Advanced Segmentation

Advanced Segmentation (AS) Screen Pop provides a new capability to the voice call center market by presenting agents with appropriate caller information collected from internal and external data sources without the need for a traditional desktop CTI component. Facilitates first call resolution by providing customer-contextual data to assist with each call. Avoid the complexity and expense of a conventional CTI desktop application and hardware.
Click to Dial from Internet Explorer and Outlook

Microsoft Internet Explorer will have new UI elements to support the Click-to-Dial feature. A Web Dialer toolbar button is visible when the WebDialer.dll is registered and customized to be viewed, and the Web browser add-on Avaya Web Dialer-browser extension is enabled. The Avaya Web Dialer toolbar contains the Avaya logo, dial-edit area, Contact History dropdown, Dial button, and Activate IP Agent button. The user may hide and show the toolbar by selecting View > Toolbars > Avaya Web Dialer from the Internet Explorer Web browser window when the Web browser add-on Avaya Web Dialer-Toolbar is enabled.
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Avaya IP Agent
The North American phone numbers and the most common formats for Internal numbers (E.164) are highlighted. Just click on the highlighted number and IP Agent will dial the number for you. For Outlook, the Click-to-Dial from Outlook feature does not have IP Agent User Interface impact. The Microsoft Outlook phone line needs to be administered to dial the phone numbers for contacts in the Outlook contact list with Avaya IP Agent.
Click to Dial
Customizable Interface
IP Agent has an easy to use and easy to learn user interface. It uses standard Microsoft Windows conventions. The toolbars can be toggled on and off or they can be arranged in any order. Most of the windows can be resized. A simple user interface is used to transfer or conference calls. Agents can use the shortcut icon to make and receive calls from any application.
Contact Directory and Public Directory Search

The IP Agent Contacts window provides the user interface for creating, editing and deleting contact and group information. In addition, Instant Message tracking, blocking, and other related contact and presence management features are provided. Agents can dial a call or start an IM from the Contact Directory, improving agent productivity by enabling rapid retrieval of contact information.
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Avaya IP Agent
Alternate User Interfaces

IP Agent provides three alternate user interfaces that can be used in place of the standard interface. These alternate interfaces use much less space on your desktop, and then can eliminate the problem of the Avaya IP Agent interface being hidden behind other applications or requiring too much space on the desktop. These productivity enhancements complement rather than compete for precious desktop real estate.
Speed Dialing
The IP Agent interface supports speed dialing. Agents dial stored numbers by selecting them from the list. Additionally, telephone numbers can be mapped to keyboard function keys. When the key is pressed, the related number is dialed automatically. Again, the focus remains on the interface, and the agent's attention is not divided between the PC and telephone.
Integrated Contact History

Avaya IP Agent records a complete call history of incoming and outgoing calls, even calls that are missed when the caller does not leave a voice message. When Instant Messaging is deployed, the Contact History includes a log of the IM transcripts. A notes entry can be added to each contact. Entries can be redialed or messaged, and added to the Contact Directory. Improves both agent productivity and first call resolution. Agents can quickly find recent phone contact numbers and notes as well as instant messaging transcripts containing relevant information.
Agent Greetings and Agent Greeting Selection

Avaya IP Agent supports agent greetings. The agent can record, play, stop or erase greetings through an easy to use menu. Up to 60 different greetings can be recorded, each with a length of approximately 30 seconds. An option allows for the agent greetings to be stored on a network drive rather than on the local agent PC, which is ideal for call centers that utilize hot seating arrangements. Improve your agent satisfaction by eliminating repetitive work.
VuStats Monitor
Agents and administrators can check the VuStats Monitor window for information on Contact Center operations, such as the number of calls waiting for a particular skill. The information is updated periodically, based on user-selectable refresh rates. Improve your agent productivity by providing call center status that your agents can use to guide their talk and wrap-up times.
Administration Features
Almost every feature provided by IP Agent can be configured using the Program Options window. Administrators can set up and maintain program options for all agents by providing a configuration file to all agents using a menu driven import/export option. Some of the program options include: Automatic Station Login and Agent Login Location of program database, enabling agent to have same information on multiple PCs Administration for voice messaging access
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Avaya IP Agent
Enabling and viewing of program event logging Feature restriction and deactivation CALLMASTER VI phone settings PASTE feature access code
This provides enormous flexibility in customizing the agent desktop. The administrator will be able to deactivate IP Agent features that will not be used by agents. The features that can be deactivated include: screen pops, screen pops administration, phone directory, public search directory, call history, phone features configuration, personal phone features, program options and agent greeting selection.
Multiple Language Support

The Avaya IP Agent GUI and on-line help information is translated into Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, European French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish, Russian, and simplified Chinese. The User's Guide is in English only.
Contact Directory and Public Directory Search - Additional Information

Contact Directory entries can be grouped by categories, and they can be sorted by name, number, or category. Each directory entry supports: Business, Business Fax, Home, Home Fax, Mobile, Car, Assistant, Company and Pager numbers. If the agent has a Contact Directory entry for the incoming number, then the call display will contain that information.
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

The IP Agent solution includes an intuitive interface to access existing corporate database information via LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). Agents have the ability to search through public or company information using LDAP. Corporate directories can also be accessed using the LDAP protocol.
IP Agent Shared Control

IP Agent Shared Control licenses enable users who already have conventional phones or Callmaster IV and V terminals to use the advanced communication application features of IP Agent, such as instant messaging, screen pop, and VuStats Monitor.
Configuration Options
Avaya IP Agent supports seven configuration options including a dual-line mode for separate voice and data, combining over one VoIP path, and sharing control with an existing phone. Avaya IP Agent supports agent greetings for the Road Warrior, Telecommuter, Shared Control, and Callmaster VI configurations as described below. (Telecommuter and Shared Control use the Avaya Switch II adapter.) Telecommuter One network connection for the PC and one telephone connection. Supports agent greetings using Avaya Switcher II. Road Warrior (VoIP) One network connection for the PC to access the Avaya communication server. Agent greetings are stored in the PC.
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Avaya IP Agent
Terminal Services/Citrix One network connection for the client device and one telephone connection. No greetings. No IM Shared Control - Avaya Telephone (DCP and IP) One network connection and one DCP/IP telephone connection (DCP: 2400 or 6400, IP: 4600 series telephones), one network connection for the PC to access Avaya communication system 2.0 (DCP) 2.1 (IP). Supports agent greetings using Avaya Switcher II. IP Telephone One TCP/IP network connection for the PC and one IP network connection for the IP telephone. Does not support greetings. Callmaster VI One DCP connection to the Avaya communication server and a serial (RS-232) connection between the PC and the Callmaster VI telephone. Greetings stored on the Callmaster VI. No IM.
In the VoIP Telecommuter, and Shared Control configurations, the agent greetings are stored as .wav files on the agent's PC. Up to 60 different greetings can be recorded, each with a length of approximately 30 seconds. For the Telecommuter configuration, an additional piece of hardware is required, the Avaya Switcher II. In the CALLMASTER VI configuration, the agent greetings are stored on the internal announcement unit within the voice terminal. Up to six different greetings can be stored, each with an approximate length of 9 seconds. Neither the IP Telephone configuration nor the Windows Terminal Services/Citrix configuration supports agent greetings.
Avaya IP Agent Configurations
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Avaya IP Agent
Agent Greetings
IP Agent will provide support for selecting the appropriate greeting when receiving an incoming call. The user (agent or call center administrator) will be able to administer which greeting is played based on the login status, agent state, agent id, prompted digits, and ANI or VDN. Starting with IP Agent R5, a new program option has been added to allow for the agent greetings to be stored on a network drive rather than on the local agent PC. This feature is ideal for call centers who utilize hot seating arrangements. Agent greeting can be accessed on the main window with the Agent Greeting toolbar. The Agent Greeting toolbar allows the agent to select a greeting, play, and stop the greeting. The greetings are administered on the Agent Greetings window. The window allows the user to record, play, stop, and erase or delete a greeting.
System Requirements
Operating System for IP Agent desktop: Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional for Intel x86 processors or Microsoft Windows XP Professional PC Configuration: Intel Pentium III 300 MHz or higher PC, 30 MB of available hard disk space, Minimum of 128 MB RAM, Full-duplex sound card, headset, microphone, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 or higher Avaya PBX release: Avaya DEFINITY 10, Avaya MultiVantage 1.1 or 1.2, and Communication Manager 1.3 or higher Call Center software release: Avaya Call Center, Release 9 or later (NOTE: Release 7 requires Call Center, Release 2.0.1 or later) Advanced Segmentation (AS) Screen Pop requires Communication Manager, Release 3.0 or later with Advanced Segmentation Instant Messaging requires Converged Communication Server, Release 2.1 or later Shared Control of Callmaster IV and V terminals requires Communication Manager, Release 3.0 or later Agent Greetings in telecommuter mode requires the Avaya Switcher II adapter
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Avaya Customer Service Essential Edition

Today, business success is less determined by what you sell and more and more by your customers ongoing experience with your business. Business leaders know they must evolve into true customer-driven enterprises in order to gain customer loyalty and increase profits. By fully leveraging all the resources of the enterprise, organizations gain a new level of business agility and customer responsiveness. Businesses that meet the challenge and consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences are those that acquire and grow customer loyalty while staying profitable. They are proven performers who have learned the art and science of balancing customer values with organizational objectives, while honing their competitive edge as they are putting the enterprise at the service of the customer. How can you do the same? React quickly to business needs and deliver personalized and superior customer experiences with unmatched contact center solutions from Avaya. Avaya helps you put your customers at the heart of your business. The Avaya Customer Service Essential Edition is an end-to-end inbound voice call center that includes skills-based routing, premier reporting, self-service, standard agent softphone with simple screen pop, agent Instant Messaging, and introductory remote agent licenses, allowing to employ remote or branch office workers. Customer Service Essential Edition is an enabler for adoption of new technologies and integration with existing applications and processes. Deploy capabilities at your own pace and according to your business and customer service needs. Built on proven technology, this solution affords the ability to enhance and optimize your business.
Benefits
Avaya Customer Service Essential Edition offers proven capabilities to help you drive real results today with the flexibility to change with you as your business evolves. Avaya consultants have extensive experience in designing communications solutions that deliver the right level of access, convenience, and personalization that are essential to nurturing customer relationships and building repeat business.
Inbound routing and agent selection

Flexible routing and agent selection capabilities help execute your customer contact strategies while maximizing existing contact center talent. A full range of configurable routing and agent selection techniques including skills-based and data-directed routing help ensure each customer is delivered to the right resource the first time.
Remote agent softphone

Agent softphones can be deployed in a variety of modes across both traditional or IP networks and include basic screen pop, agent instant messaging, and SIP presence. Remote softphone options allow to offer flexible work options that help recruit and retain skilled contact center talent while helping maximize business and customer service continuity. Attract a diverse workforce, retain valued agents, contract casual or seasonal resources, reduce real estate footprint, and reduce agent burn-out with home or remote agent options.
2009 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved
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Voice self service

Fully integrated voice self-service routing and service automation capabilities work alongside assisted service operations. Businesses can offer innovative, lower cost, around-the-clock services, such as order inquiry, package tracking, driving directions, password resets, and emergency notification. The latest advances allow to reuse existing web applications through Web Services. This delivers accurate, convenient customer access to information and service options, regardless of time and location, through voice, speech, or web access. Customer Service Editions self-service software includes a VoiceXML 2.1 certified voice browser and an application generator that creates VoiceXML markup dynamically during runtime.
Reporting and analytics

The comprehensive reporting and analytics platform consolidates real-time data from Avaya customer service solutions and enterprise business resources. Reporting tools include standard reports with easy customization. Consolidated contact center data helps realize a single view of the real customer experience. Important decisions are based on facts with drill-down capabilities that make details immediately available. Features like web reports reduce reporting administration and simplify sharing customer service information with key stakeholders and decision makers. Unified reporting and analysis tools streamline management of business and customer service initiatives turning data into knowledge into action. Integrate key enterprise data with key customer contact information to generate reliable, credible reports and analysis that enables more effective KPI (Key Performance Indicators) dash boarding and cross enterprise problemsolving for increased customer satisfaction. Agent behavior reporting helps spotlight exemplary customer service behavior and better manage problem behaviors and staff. Optional call recording and agent performance management solutions help managers monitor service quality and optimize utilization of staff.
Manage your business not just technology

Avaya offers full-service contact center software packages with licensing and integration options. All inclusive licensing and packaging simplifies integration and decision-making to empower your IT staff with the right set of capabilities and tools to speed responsiveness to changing market and business conditions. All inclusive licensing also helps lower ownership costs and reduces the time needed to deploy new services and functionality. Single vendor accountability and licensing, coupled with end-to-end maintenance support and upgrades free your IT staff to focus more on where to add customer value rather than what particular software or system you need to buy. The Customer Service Essential Edition simplifies software evaluation, management, feature activation, upgrades, and support. Prepackaged licensing and capabilities allow to be more focused and responsive to business requirements, rather than stalled in constant product purchasing and evaluation cycles every time new capabilities are needed. Customer Service Essential Edition exposes functionality as Web Services interfaces for simpler integration of self-service applications and reporting data to enterprise CRM and
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business applications. Essential Edition includes application design support for Web Services technologies such as SOAP/XML/WDSL and initiatives like OASIS. Web Services and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) support improved responsiveness, reducing the time-to-market for new applications and services. Exposing telephony and system management functions via a Web Service provides a standard and familiar method for application developers to implement value-added solutions.
Solutions for your business challenges today, and in the future

Youre considering new business communications solutions for one simple reason: success. Whether its driving down costs and increasing revenue, meeting demand for new ways to interact with customers, enabling Web-based transactions and self-service, or creating a service experience customers wont find with your competitors, your challenge is as unique as your business and your definition of success. Your solution must deliver on your terms. The Customer Service Essential Edition from Avaya meets the challenge. Built on proven technology and more than 20 years of experience and best practices, its how businesses around the world achieve their unique communication objectives.
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Avaya Customer Service Standard Edition

Today, business success is less determined by what you sell and more and more by your customers ongoing experience with your business. Business leaders know they must evolve into true customer-driven enterprises in order to gain customer loyalty and increase profits. By fully leveraging all the resources of the enterprise, organizations gain a new level of business agility and customer responsiveness. Businesses that meet the challenge and consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences are those that acquire and grow customer loyalty while staying profitable. They are proven performers who have learned the art and science of balancing customer values with organizational objectives, while honing their competitive edge as they are putting the enterprise at the service of the customer. How can you do the same? React quickly to business needs and deliver personalized and superior customer experiences with unmatched contact center solutions from Avaya. Avaya helps you put your customers at the heart of your business. The Avaya Customer Service Standard Edition includes skills-based and data-directed routing options, premier reporting, voice self-service, desktop application integration, standard customizable agent desktop with integrated screen pop, agent Instant Messaging, introductory remote agent licenses, and outbound preview dialing. Customer Service Standard Edition is an enabler for adoption of new technologies and integration with existing applications and processes. Deploy capabilities at your own pace and according to your business and customer service needs. Built on proven technology, this solution affords the ability to enhance and optimize your business.
Benefits
Avaya Customer Service Standard Edition offers proven capabilities to help you drive real results today with the flexibility to change with you as your business evolves. Avaya consultants have extensive experience in designing communications solutions that deliver the right level of access, convenience, and personalization that are essential to nurturing customer relationships and building repeat business.

Flexible routing and agent selection capabilities help execute your customer contact strategies while maximizing existing contact center talent. A full range of configurable routing and agent selection techniques including skills-based and data-directed routing help ensure each customer is delivered to the right resource the first time.
Outbound preview dialing

Preview outbound dialing options enable customer service operations to execute outbound communication campaigns for marketing, sales, or business continuity. Blend outbound and inbound contact management to maximize use of contact center resources. Agent blending sends calls to inbound or outbound resources as needed, helping minimize both overloads and agent idle time while contact center productivity is maximized. Automated management of calls optimizes service level achievement and agent utilization.
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Agent desktop
Agent desktop options are fully configurable and customizable to customer service needs. Configure agent desktops with screen pop, customer data, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and enterprise applications information. Agent desktops can be deployed to a variety of client operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux via the desktop software development kit (SDK). Mix and match deployment options unify agent interfaces while significantly reducing IT maintenance and management needs. Streamlined access to information and contact history improves agent productivity and increases responsiveness to requests. Preconfigured, standardized, agent desktops improve consistency in service response and first contact resolution, resulting in greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Agent softphones can be deployed in a variety of modes across both traditional or IP networks and include basic screen pop, agent instant messaging, and SIP presence. Remote agent desktop and softphone options allow to offer flexible work options that help recruit and retain skilled contact center talent while helping maximize business and customer service continuity. Attract a diverse workforce, retain valued agents, contract casual or seasonal resources, reduce real estate footprint, and reduce agent burn-out with home or remote agent options. Expand your available knowledge-worker resource pool at branches and across the enterprise using remote agent desktops and softphones. Home and remote worker options including SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) based IP softphone with IM (Instant Messaging) keep all your resources connected and on the same page.
Voice self service

Fully integrated voice self-service routing and service automation capabilities work alongside assisted service operations. Businesses can offer innovative, lower cost, around-the-clock services, such as order inquiry, package tracking, driving directions, password resets, and emergency notification. The latest advances allow to reuse existing web applications through Web Services. This delivers accurate, convenient customer access to information and service options, regardless of time and location, through voice, speech, or web access. Customer Service Editions self-service software includes a VoiceXML 2.1 certified voice browser and an application generator that creates VoiceXML markup dynamically during runtime.

The comprehensive reporting and analytics platform consolidates real-time data from Avaya customer service solutions and enterprise business resources. Reporting tools include standard reports with easy customization. Consolidated contact center data helps realize a single view of the real customer experience. Important decisions are based on facts with drill-down capabilities that make details immediately available. Features like web reports reduce reporting administration and simplify sharing customer service information with key stakeholders and decision makers.
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Unified reporting and analysis tools streamline management of business and customer service initiatives turning data into knowledge into action. Integrate key enterprise data with key customer contact information to generate reliable, credible reports and analysis that enables more effective KPI (Key Performance Indicators) dash boarding and cross enterprise problemsolving for increased customer satisfaction. Agent behavior reporting helps spotlight exemplary customer service behavior and better manage problem behaviors and staff. Optional call recording and agent performance management solutions help managers monitor service quality and optimize utilization of staff.

Avaya offers full-service contact center software packages with licensing and integration options. All inclusive licensing and packaging simplifies integration and decision-making to empower your IT staff with the right set of capabilities and tools to speed responsiveness to changing market and business conditions. All inclusive licensing also helps lower ownership costs and reduces the time needed to deploy new services and functionality. Single vendor accountability and licensing, coupled with end-to-end maintenance support and upgrades free your IT staff to focus more on where to add customer value rather than what particular software or system you need to buy. Customer Service Standard Edition simplifies software evaluation, management, feature activation, upgrades, and support. Prepackaged licensing and capabilities allow to be more focused and responsive to business requirements, rather than stalled in constant product purchasing and evaluation cycles every time new capabilities are needed. Customer Service Standard Edition exposes functionality as Web Services interfaces for simpler integration of agent desktops, self-service applications, and reporting data to enterprise CRM and business applications. Standard Edition includes application design support for Web Services technologies such as SOAP/XML/WDSL and initiatives like OASIS. Web Services and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) support improved responsiveness, reducing the time-to-market for new applications and services. Exposing telephony and system management functions via a Web Service provides a standard and familiar method for application developers to implement value-added solutions.

Youre considering new business communications solutions for one simple reason: success. Whether its driving down costs and increasing revenue, meeting demand for new ways to interact with customers, enabling Web-based transactions and self-service, or creating a service experience customers wont find with your competitors, your challenge is as unique as your business and your definition of success. Your solution must deliver on your terms. The Customer Service Standard Edition from Avaya meets the challenge. Built on proven technology and more than 20 years of experience and best practices, its how businesses around the world achieve their unique communication objectives.
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Avaya Customer Service Advanced Edition

Today, business success is less determined by what you sell and more and more by your customers ongoing experience with your business. Business leaders know they must evolve into true customer-driven enterprises in order to gain customer loyalty and increase profits. By fully leveraging all the resources of the enterprise, organizations gain a new level of business agility and customer responsiveness. Businesses that meet the challenge and consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences are those that acquire and grow customer loyalty while staying profitable. They are proven performers who have learned the art and science of balancing customer values with organizational objectives, while honing their competitive edge as they are putting the enterprise at the service of the customer. How can you do the same? React quickly to business needs and deliver personalized and superior customer experiences with unmatched contact center solutions from Avaya. Avaya helps you put your customers at the heart of your business. The Avaya Customer Service Advanced Edition is a full service contact center solution that offers sophisticated routing and any-media customer service strategies including advanced multi-channel reporting and analytics. It includes support for end-to-end SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)-based contact center, patented predictive routing and agent selection algorithms, predictive outbound dialing, and fully customizable agent desktops with support for any media including e-mail, chat, and video customer service. Customer Service Advanced Edition is an enabler for adoption of new technologies and integration with existing applications and processes. Deploy capabilities at your own pace and according to your business and customer service needs. Built on proven technology, this solution affords the ability to enhance and optimize your business.
Benefits
Avaya Customer Service Advanced Edition offers proven capabilities to help you drive real results today with the flexibility to change with you as your business evolves. Avaya consultants have extensive experience in designing communications solutions that deliver the right level of access, convenience, and personalization that are essential to nurturing customer relationships and building repeat business.

Flexible routing and agent selection capabilities help execute your customer contact strategies while maximizing existing contact center talent. A full range of configurable routing and agent selection techniques including skills-based, data-directed, multimedia, and predictive, adaptive routing help ensure each customer is delivered to the right resource the first time. With universal routing and queuing of virtually any media type, the Customer Service Advanced Edition simplifies contact management, making customers more satisfied and operations more effective. Connect with customers through their chosen medium - Web, 3G Video, Email, or Instant Messaging.
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Outbound preview and predictive dialing

Preview and predictive outbound dialing options enable customer service operations to execute outbound communication campaigns for marketing, sales, or business continuity. Blend outbound and inbound contact management to maximize use of contact center resources. Proactive notification services keep customers up to date and in the know. Agent blending sends calls to inbound or outbound resources as needed, helping minimize both overloads and agent idle time while contact center productivity is maximized. Enhanced call analysis filters out nonproductive call attempts more accurately than other predictive dialing systems. Automated management of calls optimizes service level achievement and agent utilization.
Agent desktop
Agent desktop options are fully configurable and customizable to customer service needs. Configure agent desktops with screen pop, customer data, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and enterprise applications information. Agent desktops can be deployed to a variety of client operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux via the desktop software development kit (SDK). Mix and match deployment options unify agent interfaces while significantly reducing IT maintenance and management needs. Streamlined access to information and contact history improves agent productivity and increases responsiveness to requests. Preconfigured, standardized, agent desktops improve consistency in service response and first contact resolution, resulting in greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Agent softphones can be deployed in a variety of modes across both traditional or IP networks and include basic screen pop, agent instant messaging, and SIP presence. Remote agent desktop and softphone options allow to offer flexible work options that help recruit and retain skilled contact center talent while helping maximize business and customer service continuity. Attract a diverse workforce, retain valued agents, contract casual or seasonal resources, reduce real estate footprint, and reduce agent burn-out with home or remote agent options. Expand your available knowledge-worker resource pool at branches and across the enterprise using remote agent desktops and softphones. Home and remote worker options including SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) based IP softphone with IM (Instant Messaging) keep all your resources connected and on the same page.
Voice self service

Fully integrated voice self-service routing and service automation capabilities work alongside assisted service operations. Businesses can offer innovative, lower cost, around-the-clock services, such as order inquiry, package tracking, driving directions, password resets, and emergency notification. The latest advances allow to reuse existing web applications through Web Services. This delivers accurate, convenient customer access to information and service options, regardless of time and location, through voice, speech, or web access.
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The self-service software includes a VoiceXML 2.1 certified voice browser and an application generator that creates VoiceXML markup dynamically during run-time.

The comprehensive reporting and analytics platform consolidates real-time data from your customer service solution and enterprise business resources. Reporting tools include standard reports with easy customization. Consolidated contact center data helps realize a single view of the real customer experience. Important decisions are based on facts with drill-down capabilities that make details immediately available. Features like web reports reduce reporting administration and simplify sharing customer service information with key stakeholders and decision makers. Unified reporting and analysis tools streamline management of business and customer service initiatives turning data into knowledge into action. Integrate key enterprise data with key customer contact information to generate reliable, credible reports and analysis that enables more effective KPI (Key Performance Indicators) dash boarding and cross enterprise problemsolving for increased customer satisfaction. Agent behavior reporting helps spotlight exemplary customer service behavior and better manage problem behaviors and staff. Optional call recording and agent performance management solutions help managers monitor service quality and optimize utilization of staff.

Avaya offers full-service contact center software packages with licensing and integration options. All inclusive licensing and packaging simplifies integration and decision-making to empower your IT staff with the right set of capabilities and tools to speed responsiveness to changing market and business conditions. All inclusive licensing also helps lower ownership costs and reduces the time needed to deploy new services and functionality. Single vendor accountability and licensing, coupled with end-to-end maintenance support and upgrades free your IT staff to focus more on where to add customer value rather than what particular software or system you need to buy. Customer Service Advanced Edition simplifies software evaluation, management, feature activation, upgrades, and support. Prepackaged licensing and capabilities allow to be more focused and responsive to business requirements, rather than stalled in constant product purchasing and evaluation cycles every time new capabilities are needed. Customer Service Advanced Edition exposes functionality as Web Services interfaces for simpler integration of agent desktops, self-service applications, and reporting data to enterprise CRM and business applications. Advanced Edition includes application design support for Web Services technologies such as SOAP/XML/WDSL and initiatives like OASIS. Web Services and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) support improved responsiveness, reducing the time-to-market for new applications and services. Exposing telephony and system management functions via a Web Service provides a standard and familiar method for application developers to implement value-added solutions.
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Youre considering new business communications solutions for one simple reason: success. Whether its driving down costs and increasing revenue, meeting demand for new ways to interact with customers, enabling Web-based transactions and self-service, or creating a service experience customers wont find with your competitors, your challenge is as unique as your business and your definition of success. Your solution must deliver on your terms. The Customer Service Advanced Edition from Avaya meets the challenge. Built on proven technology and more than 20 years of experience and best practices, its how businesses around the world achieve their unique communication objectives.
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Avaya Contact Center Express

Avaya Contact Center Express provides a solution designed to support in being more competitive in the global marketplace with extensive, proven Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and multi-channel capabilities that translate into real results for your contact center. Contact Center Express is designed to meet the requirements of todays mid-sized contact centers (with 20 to 400 concurrent users/agents) that have traditionally been considered expensive and time consuming to implement. This multi-channel contact center solution can be implemented in days, at an investment level that even the most budget conscious of managers can appreciate. Avaya Contact Center Express is a family of desktop productivity tools and components designed to enhance your mid-size contact center. It provides a set of CTI and multi-channel capabilities that you can use and build upon. Contact Center Express is a software application that runs on Microsoft Windows operating systems enabling control of telephone calls (both incoming and outgoing), email, web chat, and instant messaging (MSN, AOL and SMS) from a personal computer. Multimedia technology in Contact Center Express means that email, mobile Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging, and web-based customer inquiries are blended with inbound telephone calls. Customers enjoy the same benefits of priority queuing and distribution to agents with relevant skills and knowledge no matter what type of media they use. Contact Center Express leverages existing investments because it is designed to enhance Avaya contact centers by integrating the powerful capabilities of Avaya Aura Communication Manager and Call Center solutions with customer data, applications, and processes. Contact Center Express has been developed specifically for Avaya contact centers using Avaya Application Enablement Services as the CTI server platform and Microsoft Windows as the client Operating System. It is easy to implement and simple to use and maintain. In fact, the Agent Rules and Routing Rules wizards can eliminate software development for system integration in many applications. Contact Center Express also solves the costly proactive customer contact issues, from callbacks to targeted campaigns, using simple but effective outbound dialing with automated and agent initiated Preview Contact. Whats more, Contact Center Express manages the collection, queuing, and delivery of voice and non-voice work items such as e-mail and chat sessions to an appropriately skilled agent. Contact Center Express utilizes the powerful routing algorithms resident in Communication Manager to determine the right resource for the right interaction. Avaya Contact Center Express provides the following multi-channel capabilities that mediumsized contact centers can leverage and build upon: Multi-channel routing for voice, e-mail, web chat and instant messaging allowing you to create true universal agents. Out-of-the-box desktop applications, including agent, supervisor and utility applications allow you to begin working with new technologies within hours.
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Framework applications for the contact center, including Intelligent Routing, Interaction Data, and Centralized Configuration. Powerful application development tools for complete customization and integration capabilities. Simple and fast wizards for desktop screen pops and routing rules.
Contact Center Express provides functionality that can easily and quickly adapt to business dynamics without requiring a large budget and IT staff. Contact Center Express is able to fully leverage the unique abilities of Communication Manager, and provides multi-channel and agent performance enhancement capabilities that translate into real results for your contact center, for example: Increase revenues through enhanced customer interaction, differentiated service, and customer satisfaction. Improve communications by offering your customers their preferred method of interaction, leading to better customer loyalty and retention. Enable competitive differentiation and build lasting relationships by implementing effective customer relationship strategies to create better customer experiences across all contact channels. Enable business anywhere and scale operations as conditions change by employing strategies such as home agent, remote worker, and universal agent while integrating these with the business ecosystem of branches, partners, and suppliers. Optimize contact center operations by improving the handling and tracking of online customer requests through contact center routing and management capabilities. Optimize agent productivity and improve agent utilization by using CTI screen pops, blended inbound/outbound and multimedia, unified desktop, and application integration. Improve customer segmentation and increase customer loyalty and retention by leveraging customer insight and previous interactions or purchases to optimize interactions. Increase investment value by building upon existing functionality with powerful self service applications and other products from the Avaya portfolio. Provide differentiated service to your customers, leading to a competitive advantage. Enhance contact center efficiency by providing options for routine information requests, designating universal agents (working in all access methods) to maximize use of available agent workforce, and improving handling and tracking of online customer requests through contact center routing and management capabilities. Reduce contact center costs through optimized agent resources and improved use of existing contact center systems. Leverage existing Avaya Call Center implementations and infrastructures, increasing the value of legacy investments.
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Integrate seamlessly with Communication Manager call centers and take full advantage of advanced routing and reporting capabilities. Enhance customer service and satisfaction while boosting agent productivity. Reduce time and costs associated with implementation, integration, and technical support. Because Contact Center Express is IP-enabled, it can be easily extended to remote agents, allowing to scale operations as conditions change, and implement and manage contact center applications centrally without a large IT staff
Contact Center Express is a very attractive option for mid-sized businesses like , which need robust contact center solutions, because the solution offers a wide range of capabilities, as well as ease of implementation, and integration with new media channels. This multi-channel contact center solution can be implemented in hours or days, at a budget-conscious price, for an attractive return on your investment. Implementing simply a voice channel in your contact center is only addressing 25% of customer requirements today. Contact Center Express will quickly and effectively allow your business to address many of todays contact center and customer service challenges in an affordable and smart way. With Contact Center Express, you can leverage and integrate existing legacy systems and databases, as well as utilize Avaya Call Management System (CMS), Avaya IQ, and Avaya Call Center capabilities (such as pending wait time, reason codes, and agent state) to provide maximum effectiveness in the contact center. All of this allows you to deploy and grow your CTI and multi-channel solutions at your pace, and in a way that makes sense for your business.
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Contact Center Express has been designed with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in mind. Contact Center Express uses and includes application design support for Web Services technologies such as SOAP and XML. Included is support for Web Services Description Language (WSDL) for interface definition and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) over eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for Web Services integration.
Whats New
Contact Center Express Release 4.1 is primarily focused on enhancing administrator and supervisor capabilities to help better manage the contact center performance while improving the customer experience. The following capabilities have been added in Contact Center Express 4.1: Administration Enhancements Contact center administration has been further simplified. The Contact Center Express administration tool has been enhanced to provide administration for contact center related components of Avaya Communication Manager such as agents, agent stations, VDNs, skills, and Holiday and Service Hours tables. With new administration capabilities, Contact Center Express supervisors can now quickly change skill and skill levels for agents, helping to reduce customer waiting time and improve the customer experience. Additionally, Contact Center Express database administration has been further simplified by providing easier upgrade and management of the Contact Center Express database through the Contact Center Express administration tool.
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Reporting Enhancements Contact center managers can now schedule reports to be generated at specified intervals and sent automatically to a connected printer or written to a file. Supervisor Dashboard Enhancements The supervisor dashboard has been enhanced and is now integrated within the Contact Center Express desktop application as a plug-in to provide a unified view. The new supervisor dashboard can be setup to display and manage up to four different agent groups. Microsoft Office Communicator Plug-in With the new Microsoft Office Communicator client plug-in to Contact Center Express desktop, agents can send Instant Messages to other agents, supervisors and other subject matter experts within the organization to improve first call resolution. Contact Center Express does not ship with the Microsoft Office Communicator server infrastructure, but merely uses it, if available in the enterprise. New Instant Messaging Gateways With support of Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) Gateways, Contact Center Express further expands the set of IM clients that customers can use to reach the contact center. Contact Center Express can now interface with generic XMPP servers as well as the Google Talk server; thereby increasing the flexibility of the contact center and improving customer satisfaction. Option to Enter Call Back Number for Customer Requested Call Back Contact centers can now provide more choices to customers to improve their customer service experience. Contact Center Express enables customers to enter a call back number while they wait in queue for the next available agent. Platform Enhancements Contact Center Express now supports Windows 7 OS for desktop applications and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as a supported database server.
Contact Center Express Components

Contact Center Express contains a number of components that can be broadly classified in three categories: desktop components, development components, and server components. These will be described in the following sections.
Contact Center Express Desktop

Contact Center Express Desktop is a thin client or thick client desktop application for presenting multimedia work items to agent positions anywhere in the world. Contact Center Express Desktop uses plug-in architecture to give agents everything they need in one screen.
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Without leaving the Contact Center Express Desktop, agents can: Receive and reply to work items from customers who make contact using: Telephone Email Web chat MSN Messenger AOL or ICQ Instant Messenger Simple message service (SMS)
Record specific, work item-related notes as well as general, session related notes Work quickly and efficiently by inserting auto text, spell checking their work, and printing work items View the conversation history of the customer they are working with Search a directory for a phone number or email address View real-time statistical information on their personal work performance
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Monitor the telephone activity of other call center agents or staff they work closely with
Contact Center Express Desktop also distributes internally held customer records to agents, prompting them to initiate contact with customers by phone. It also gives agents access to external applications within the Contact Center Express Desktop interface, such as Internet Explorer, so they don't have to minimize their work screen. Or, Contact Center Express Desktop can be configured to launch external applications in a separate screen. The application can be different depending on the work item type and task required. Contact Center Express Desktop also offers a complete range of telephony functions, which are fully synchronized with a desk phone, so a user can: Make a call Answer a call End a call Hold a call Divert calls Send DTMF tones (Touch Tones) Transfer a call Conference a call with up to six members Drop yourself or another party from a conference call Forward all incoming calls to voicemail or another extension
What's more, if you choose to integrate Avaya iClarity with Contact Center Express Desktop, agents can complete their telephony tasks using voice over IP functionality. When an agent makes or receives a call, iClarity enables them to speak and hear the other party via a headset connected to their PC or the PC's microphone and speakers. Contact Center Express Desktop is available in the following languages: English Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) French German Italian Japanese Korean Portuguese (Brazilian) Russian
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Spanish (Castilian) Spanish (Colombian)
Desktop Plugins
The following plugins can be added to the Contact Center Express Desktop: AutoText Presents the following buttons to the user: An AutoText button that allows the user to insert pre-defined text into their current work item to save typing time. A Work Codes button that allows a user to assign a work code to a work item.
Text for both buttons is categorized by topic and presented via a drop-down list. Call Information Allows an agent to view four plug-ins in a four-item grid. Close Suspend Work Item Allows an agent to suspend a work item so it is presented to another agent at a later date. It also allows an agent to close the work item and record the outcome. Contact Management Allows an agent to add, change and delete a contact's information via Contact Center Express Desktop's directory. It also allows an administrator to customize some of the field names in a contact's record. Custom Buttons Allows an administrator to create buttons on the user interface that the agent can click to perform certain actions. It works in conjunction with the Rules Plug-in. After a custom button is clicked, the event associated with that button is initiated, triggering any rule set up for it within the Rules Window. Customized Forms Allows an administrator to add one or more additional work forms to multimedia work items. These work forms, which are accessed through additional tabs on the side of a work item, are created using Contact Center Express Control Panel. DMCC Allows Contact Center Express Desktop to communicate with the station (phone) it is connected to as though the buttons were being pressed on the phone itself. On connecting to the station, the buttons configured in the Communication Manager for that station will be displayed within Contact Center Express Desktop. Device, Media, and Call Control (DMCC) buttons may be placed on either a left or right toolbar in addition to the standard top and bottom toolbars. Directory Allows an agent to search a database for a contact based on first name, last name, full name or phone number. Once found, they can dial the contact or transfer or conference an active call. Email Allows an agent to receive email work items. E-mail capabilities include: Close E-mail, Reply to sender, Reply to all, Forward, Forward to Subject Matter Expert (SME), Suspend, Send, and Attach File. Email Template Allows an agent to insert text and attachments from an email template into the body of any replied to or forwarded email work item.
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Enhanced Dial Allows an administrator to include user-to-user information, which follows a customized format, with a new outbound call, transferred call, or conferenced call. External Application Container Allows an agent to view and use a completely different application within the Contact Center Express Desktop interface. External Application Execute Allows an agent to transfer information from an incoming work item to another application. It copies information from the incoming work item and stores it in an XML file which is then sourced by the external application. The application launches independently of the Contact Center Express Desktop interface. GN8120 Headset If agents are using the iClarity Plug-in with Contact Center Express Desktop, this plug-in allows them to use the GN8120 headset. History Allows an agent to view or change information in old work items as well as view a customer's conversation history. The History tab (plugin) allows you to: Open a previously closed work item so you can remember the customer's situation or issue Open a previously closed work item and perform some action, such as replying to an email work item or calling a customer from a preview contact work item. View the conversation history of the customer you are currently working with. The Customer History tab displays the conversation and interaction history of the customer you are currently working with. The Agent History tab displays a list of work items that you (or another agent you specify) have previously worked on. It gives you the ability to search for work items based on type (email, preview contact or simple messaging), age and state.
iClarity Provides Road Warrior (Voice over IP) or Telecommuter connection modes which gives Contact Center Express Desktop voice over IP functionality, enabling remote agent functionality. When an agent makes or receives a call, iClarity enables them to speak to and hear the other party using a headset connected to their PC or the PC's microphone and speakers. This is the same functionality as that provided by Avaya IP Softphone with the User and Telephony plugins providing the Agent and Call functionality. MS CRM GUI Microsoft CRM integration is a pre-built connector that makes it possible to provide screen pops for incoming calls based on contact phone number or account phone number. There are also icons on the Accounts and Contacts screens to provide dial capability from the phone fields. Presence Allows an agent to monitor the telephone activity of other call center agents or staff they work closely with. A quick mouse-over this tab and the Presence window will provide an array of details about agent availability as well as contact information. Presence allows you to monitor a group and several tabbed sub-groups and people within those groups. To contact any of the agents displayed in Presence simply right click anywhere along their information line to reveal various options to call, transfer, or use conference options.
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Preview Contact Allows an agent to receive preview contact work items. Printing Allows an agent to print all the information associated with a work item. Python Breakout Allows a developer to invoke IronPython scripts when Contact Center Express Desktop events are triggered. Quick Dial Allows an agent to create buttons on the user interface that can be clicked to make a call. This saves them from typing in the number or searching the directory. Rules Allows you to create rules that will automatically perform actions on call events that meet certain criteria. For example, you can configure a rule to deflect calls from a specific phone number to voicemail. Save Close Document Window Allows an agent to save new and edited data back to the ASContact Database, the telephone directory used by Contact Center Express Desktop. Session Notes Allows an agent to record notes that don't specifically relate to a work-item. Simple Messaging Allows an agent to receive simple messaging work items. Spell Checker Allows an agent to check the spelling accuracy of their work item text. Telephony Connects an agent to the Communication Manager. Time In AUX Display Adds a time counter to Contact Center Express Desktop's status bar that displays how long an agent spends in any of the three work modes: Available, Auxiliary, and After Call Work. User Allows an agent to log in and out of skills, change agent mode, select reason codes, access voicemail, and forward calls to another agent. It displays as an interface toolbar. Voice Allows an agent to make, answer, transfer, conference, and end calls. It displays as an interface toolbar. Wallboard Displays real-time and statistical information on agents, Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs), queues, and splits/skills. Work Item Notes Allows an agent to record work item-related notes. Several notes can be stored for one work item and they are displayed chronologically at the top of the window. Work Item Alert Alerts an agent with a pop-up window when a new work item arrives.
Contact Center Express Control Panel

Contact Center Express Control Panel is the user interface that allows you to configure and manage all Contact Center Express media stores, License Directors, XML Servers and Media
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Directors. It also allows you to add and manage data in the ASMediaStore and ASContact databases. Contact Center Express Control Panel receives information from the Application Management Director, an application that runs in a Microsoft server environment and gathers status and health information about Contact Center Express servers. Contact Center Express Control Panel connects to Application Management Director to display that information in graphical tree structure.
Connections to Application Management Director are established either by multicast functionality or the pre-configured data from the configuration set or both. When a connection is established to Application Management Director, Contact Center Express Control Panel indicates that it is a management interface and asks the Application Management Director to send a complete list of available information. The control panel receives a collection of XML documents that allow it to accurately display that information within a hierarchical node structure.
Contact Center Express Reporting

Contact Center Express Reporting allows you to visually evaluate the activity of your contact center. It is an easy to use reporting application for managers and administrators who want to examine all facets of their multimedia environment, including: Which customers make contact
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How customers make contact How often they make contact How customers are treated (for example, how long they wait before talking to an agent) How you could restructure your staffing according to the busiest periods of the day How successful various methods of contact are (email vs. simple messaging vs. voice) How well agents are meeting expected levels of service How long agents are taking to complete a task How long agents are talking on the phone How long customers wait for their call to be answered before hanging up How many work items are being suspended and why How work codes are being applied How well your multimedia system is performing, for example: How long work items are spending at certain phases of the work flow process How many work items some queues are processing How many calls some VDNs are processing How busy some stations are
Contact Center Express Reporting also allows you to evaluate the operation of your contact center programs and schedules that govern when and how a work item flows through your call center. The reporting application provides the exact same functionality as the Contact Center Express Desktop application, with the addition of the Reporting functionality, so it is not necessary to install both applications on each Desktop. Agents requiring Desktop functionality need only install Contact Center Express Desktop while Agents and Supervisors requiring the reporting functionality should install Contact Center Express Reporting. Real-time reporting provides current, blended data on multi-channel Agent, Device, Queue, Split/Skill, and VDN statistics in your contact center. Historical reporting provides historical blended data on all channels from an agent and customer perspective. Optionally, an Avaya Call Management System (CMS) interface enables Contact Center Express data to be displayed using CMS reporting via a collection mechanism to pull data into a CMS Informix database.
Historical Reports
Agent: Agent Attendance, Agent Graphical Time Spent Daily, Agent Group Attendance, Agent Login-Logout (Skill), Agent Split Skill, Agent Summary Interactions: Conversations And Interactions, Customer Statistics, Customer Statistics - Order By Agent
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Outcomes: Queue Service Level, Work Code Programs And Schedules: Program Interactions, Program Interactions - Date Details, Program Interactions - Date Details (Order By Agent), Program Schedules, Program Schedules - Daily And Weekly Schedules, Program Schedules - Monthly And Yearly Schedules, Program Statistics, Program Status Split Skill: Split Skill, Call Profile (Graphical), Split Skill Service Level (Graphical), Split Skill Summary, System Report VDN: Call Profile, Call Profile (Graphical)
Real-time Reports
Agent Reports: Realtime Agent Status - State, Realtime Agent Status - State (Order by agent), Realtime Agent Status - Statistics, Realtime Agent Status - Statistics (Order by agent) Device Reports: Realtime Device Status Queue Reports: Realtime Queue Status - Count Statistics, Realtime Queue Status State, Realtime Queue Status - Time Statistics VDN Reports: Realtime VDN Status
Supervisor Desktop Tools to Effectively Manage Your Contact Center

The Supervisor desktop module allows contact center supervisors to monitor the call activity of a group of agents. The application allows supervisors to: See an agents request for help Join a call as an observer (the supervisor can hear the conversation but the agent and customer cannot hear the supervisor) Join a call as a coach (only the agent can hear and talk to the supervisor) Join a call as a participant (the agent and customer can hear and talk to the supervisor) View the current state of each agent
Whats more, if Supervisor is connected to the Interaction Data Server, supervisors can: View the current state of each agent and call statistics relating to agent work patterns, such as number of calls taken and average time spent in work modes Send text-based messages to agents Send call-related data to the Interaction Data Server and agents.
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The Supervisor Desktop
Server Components
ASContact Database
ASContact Database is Contact Center Express's repository for all contact information. Contact Center Express uses ASContact Database to identify people and to understand how it should communicate with them. Contact Center Express refers to ASContact Database for all its contact-focused activities; no contact specific data is held elsewhere in Contact Center Express. Instead, other Contact Center Express databases hold a contact's ContactId (a key that uniquely identifies a contact within Contact Center Express, and potentially, beyond it) to link contact data in ASContact Database. We appreciate that many organizations prefer to store their contact data in databases external to Contact Center Express. So ASContact Database comes with a Contact Gateway that can
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point directly to external data, and then use it as if it were its own. In this mode Contact Center Express never updates the external data. However once the gateway is in place, the external data participates fully as contact data within Contact Center Express. As ASContact Database accumulates history and detail about its contacts, Contact Center Express will increasingly offer communication tailored specifically to contact preferences, and to their value to your organization.
Application Management Service

The management and monitoring of all Contact Center Express media stores, License Directors and Media Directors is accomplished by the Application Management Service. This service enables you to: View the status of servers Configure servers in real time Manage servers Gather statistics
In addition, the Application Management Service allows you to add and manage the following data in the ASMSControl Database: Programs Schedules AutoText Priority contacts Denied contacts Allowed contacts
The Application Management Service consists of two components: Application Management Director is an application that gathers status and health information about Contact Center Express servers Contact Center Express Control Panel is a desktop application that connects to the Application Management Director to display the state of currently available servers. Contact Center Express Control Panel allows users to start and stop, view and change server configuration information. It also allows you to add and manage data (such as programs, schedules and AutoText) in the ASContact Database.
Call Routing Server Intelligent Routing for Your Contact Center

The Call Routing Server enables intelligent call routing for inbound calls. The routing is based on received call data matched with customer information, contact center statistics, or agent availability. The Call Routing Server: Monitors Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs)
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Manages VDN licensing Registers for routing services Receives call events Issues routing instructions Manages generic extensions, such as the Generic SQL Extension, which gives the server access to SQL Server databases.
Configuration Server
Configuration Server is a central repository for all configuration data belonging to Contact Center Express applications and is an alternative to files residing on every workstation. Configuration Server allows a contact center or network administrator to change an application's configuration without needing to go to individual desktops. All the information processed by the server is stored in a backend database.
Email Media Store

The Email Media Store allows you to blend customer email inquiries with inbound telephone calls, essentially using this work to fill in the gaps between peaks in inbound call traffic. The Email Media Store receives emails from one or more mail servers using the POP3 protocol. It uses its configuration data and the information specified in its database schema to: Distribute emails sent to certain mailboxes to certain queues in the Media Director Manage that distribution by making email queues 'open' for certain times and days of the week Give queuing priority to emails received from special customers Assign different queuing priorities to the first email a customer sends and all subsequent emails they send as part of the same conversation Reject emails from certain customers and automatically email them that this has happened Only allow emails from certain customers to queue to a certain email queue Automatically inform a customer (via email) that their email has been received during or outside the operating hours of that queue.
Interaction Data Server

The Interaction Data Server is a key component to the Contact Center Express suite of products. It monitors Vector Directory Numbers, splits/skills, trunk groups, and agent extensions to gather detailed statistical information about all facets of a call. The server receives real-time information from Communication Manager and, based on the regularity you specify, calculates statistics such as talk and wait-time averages. The information is managed locally in memory and recorded to an SQL database.
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Task Director
The Task Director provides mechanisms to execute tasks as per the defined schedule. In Avaya Contact Center Express, Task Director is provided as a server component that users can install and configure. Using Task Director, users can do the following: Define tasks Store tasks in a database Define an instance of a task Edit the task definition Access the defined tasks stored in a central database Manage the defined tasks Make a task active or inactive Request a one-off execution of a task
An administrator can interact with the task definitions. This allows the administrator to view the tasks that have been defined and to view scheduling details of each task, such as: The type of task. For example, email, report, and so on Where the task will be executed Scheduled rules When the next task execution is scheduled
An administrator can also monitor task execution and view the following: Which tasks have been executed When they were executed If and when they completed What was the terminating condition for the task Which tasks are currently running Which tasks are scheduled to run in the next period where the period is provided by the administrator Terminate a running task
Following are the tasks that can be scheduled using the Task Director: Create reports Create ASMSData databases Import data into the ASContact database Create Preview Contact lists Cleanup Databases
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License Director
License Director is a central repository for all Contact Center Express run-time licenses. License Director can also poll licenses from the WebLM server. License Director manages licensing by accepting license requests from Contact Center Express applications. It only issues the number of licenses that have been purchased or made available for trial. If the number of licenses requested exceeds the number purchased, the request is denied. The number of purchased run-time licenses is encrypted in a license key. License Director has no direct user interaction once it has been installed. License information is added, deleted and modified using the Application Management Service.
Media Director Queuing Email, Web Chat, Instant Messaging & Outbound Contacts for Your Agents
Media Director distributes non-voice work items to contact center agents. These items could be email, web chat, AOL or MSN sessions, an SMS text message, or an outbound call request. The distribution of the work item is achieved using the queuing algorithms built into the Communication Manager server. Non-voice work items originate from plug-in modules called media stores. Media stores connect to disparate sources such as email servers or web servers and interact with the Media Director and clients using a well-defined protocol. When a media store receives a new work item from a media source, it creates a work item object and passes a reference for that object to the Media Director. The reference tells the Media Director what queue the work item is to be associated with and what priority it must have in the queue. Using the information in its configuration that relates specifically to that queue, the Media Director asks the Communication Manager server (via the Avaya Application Enablement Services server) to queue it to the appropriate skill group. When an agent logged into that skill group becomes available, the Communication Manager server delivers the most appropriate work item to the agent. The Media Director is monitoring the Vector Directory Number (VDN) and sees the work item delivered to the agent. The Media Proxy delivers the reference to the correct client application based on the specified work item type. The client application uses the reference to retrieve the data directly from the actual work item at the media store.
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Media Proxy
Media Proxy is a bridge component that manages the connections between Media Director and any number of client applications running on the same computer. Running as a Windows service in the background, Media Proxy: Reduces network traffic when multiple client applications on one machine need to connect to the Media Director Automatically connects to the Media Director when it restarts (client applications do not need to re-connect to the Media Director when they restart) Allows users to build client applications using the Contact Center Express Desktop.
Preview Contact Media Store

The Preview Contact Media Store allows you to blend on-screen customer contact prompts with inbound calls, essentially using this work to fill in the gaps between peaks in inbound call traffic. Preview contact is defined as distributing a customer record to an agent so that the agent can initiate contact with the customer by phone. The Preview Contact Media Store retrieves contact details from an SQL database. The task to contact a group of contacts is defined in the database as a campaign. The campaign is prescribed to start at a certain date and time and run until another date and time. It can run over multiple time periods and may be recursive (for example, starting every Monday morning at 9:00). Campaigns can be scheduled to coincide with: Different shifts Quieter times of the day (low-peak call times) Times of the day when it is easy to contact customers
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A campaign's configuration identifies which queue work items must queue to and their priority within that queue.
Voice Media Store

The Voice Media Store delivers voice work items (a visual representation of a phone call) to contact center agents through Contact Center Express Desktop. Voice work items are answered by agents who verbally respond to a customer's inquiry while processing (and closing) the work item on their screen. Agents can use any number of the features available to them through Contact Center Express Desktop, such as: Assigning a work code to their voice work item Recording notes for their voice work item (or displaying previously made notes for a work item that has history) Printing all the information relating to their voice work item Inserting autotext into their work item notes (or any text field on a customized vertical tab) Viewing the conversation history of a customer, or retrieving a work item that was previously closed.
Voice work items are stored like other multimedia work items (for example: email or simple message work items) in the ASMSControl and ASMSData databases. As the work item below shows, Voice Media Store creates and stores a sequence of data that shows the progress of the call through various devices within the switch:
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If the customer's calling number has been matched with a contact record in the ASContact database, a vertical contact tab appears on the left as part of the work item (as shown above).
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While handling this inquiry, an agent can click this tab and edit the customer's contact record. If the customer has not been matched with a contact record, the agent can create a new contact record and associate it with this work item. The next time the customer makes contact, their contact record will automatically display as part of the work item. Each contact record has a unique Contact ID as shown at the top of the Contact tab.
Virtual Agent Adding Interactive Voice Response

Virtual Agent is a service that provides Avaya Voice Portal and Avaya Interactive Response integration and distributes calls to and monitors IVR ports. Virtual Agent allows you to process work items using virtual agents instead of real agents. It gives you the ability to send out email or text messages to customers via a group of virtual agents, essentially creating an automated messaging service. What's more, Virtual Agent gives customers who call a phone number answered by an Avaya Voice Portal, access to data that is stored in Contact Center Express's customer database. This service allows non-Contact Center Express Desktop applications to access work item data without an agent intermediary. Once again, Virtual Agents process the multimedia work items that are generated when these incoming phone calls are received. There is no manual effort (other than some initial set-up by an administrator) required. Virtual Agents process work items the way real agents do - they log into Contact Center Express's XML Server, and then wait to receive and handle Contact Center Express work items.
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The Virtual Agent service supports up to 300 concurrent virtual agents, each capable of receiving one work item per second. The service starts automatically with the server's operating system, and is fully configured using the Contact Center Express Control Panel. Virtual Agent comes with the following plug-ins: Web Service Worker Plug-in This plug-in gives customers who call a phone number answered by an Avaya Voice Portal, access to data that is stored in Contact Center Express's customer database. Outbound Worker Plug-in This plug-in gives you the ability to automatically send simple outbound email or text messages to customers.
XML Server The New Standard for Information Exchange

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has quickly become the standard for information exchange between disparate devices. This mechanism has been chosen by the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) as a standard for interfacing computer telephony. XML Server enables developers to build CTI applications in .Net. The CSTA XML-over-TCP interface presented by XML Server complies with the international standard for computer telephony interfacing as set by the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA).
Simple Messaging Media Store

The Simple Messaging Media Store is one of many media stores that interact with the Media Director, Media Proxy and Contact Center Express Desktop to deliver non-voice work items to contact center agents. Running as a service, it sits between Media Director and the following simple messaging gateways: Web Chat Gateway, MSN Messenger Gateway, AOL-ICQ Instant Messenger Gateway and Short Message Service Gateway. Simple Messaging Media Store provides the base (common) messaging functionality required by these gateways, allowing you to blend customer messages via email, a web chat, AOL or MSN sessions, and SMS with inbound/outbound telephone calls. Installed on a machine running Microsoft Windows 2003 Server (Enterprise & Standard) or Microsoft Windows Server 2008, the Simple Messaging Media Store uses its configuration data and the information specified in its database schema to: Send simple messages from different gateways to different Media Director queues Give queuing priority to messages received from special customers Reject messages from certain customers and automatically email them that this has happened Only allow messages from certain customers to queue to certain Media Director queues.
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AOL-ICQ Instant Messenger Gateway

The AOL-ICQ Instant Messenger Gateway interacts with the Simple Messaging Media Store to give customers or business associates who use AOL or ICQ Instant Messenger the ability to interact with call center agents. AOL-ICQ Instant Messenger Gateway allows you to blend AOL or ICQ instant messages with inbound telephone calls. By using your existing computer telephony environment, customers using AOL Instant Messenger can enjoy the benefits of priority queuing and distribution to agents with relevant skills and knowledge.
MSN Messenger Gateway

MSN Messenger Gateway interacts with the Simple Messaging Media Store to give customers or business associates who use MSN Messenger the ability to interact with call center agents. MSN Messenger Gateway allows you to blend MSN instant messages with inbound telephone calls.
Short Message Service Gateway

Sending text messages is a popular, convenient and cheaper way of using your mobile phone to communicate. Contact Center Express now broadens the customer service capability of your contact center by allowing you to blend SMS (short message service) messages with inbound telephone calls. Customers or business associates who like the convenience of mobile messaging can make contact with you and receive the same treatment as regular callers. Short Message Service Gateway works alongside the Simple Messaging Media Store, Media Director, and Contact Center Express Desktop as part of a multimedia suite. Simple Messaging Media Store is one of three media stores that deliver a range of non-voice work items to contact center agents. Providing base messaging functionality for the Web Chat Gateway, it: Gives queuing priority to messages received from special customers Rejects messages from certain customers and automatically email them that this has happened Only allows messages from certain customers to queue to certain Media Director queues.
Short Message Service Gateway sits between the remote server and Simple Messaging Media Store.
Web Chat Gateway

The Web Chat Gateway interacts with the Simple Messaging Media Store to give internet-using customers the ability to interact with call center agents. Web chat functionality allows the customer, browsing the clients web site, to click a URL and have a session initiated with the call center agent. Using this session, the customer and agent can exchange text-based messages allowing a simple conversation to take place.
Rules Plug-in
The Rules Plug-in is used to create a simple set of rules that automatically perform actions on call events that meet certain criteria. This rule functionality is similar to the email rules capability in the Microsoft Outlook.
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Without changing an application's code, you can use the Rules Plug-in to enhance desktop functionality. For example, you can configure rules to: Deflect calls from a specific CLI to voicemail Open another application or web site Send data and key strokes to another customer-related application Bring another window to the front to help process a call
Rules Wizard
The Rules Wizard provides a user interface for the Rules Plug-in. The Rules Wizard allows users to create and manage the rules that automatically perform actions on call events that meet certain criteria.
Script Plug-in
The Script Plug-in is a simple plug-in that takes advantage of scripting engines developed by Microsoft and others, to allow simple scripts written in VB Script or Java Script to be executed and provide services to the Contact Center Express suite. This plug-in can be plugged in to any Contact Center Express server application that supports the Plug-in Manager, such as Virtual Agent and the Call Routing Server. All scripting engines that conform to the Microsoft standard implement the IActiveScript interface. This common interface allows all scripting engines to be consumed by parent applications in an identical manner regardless of the scripting language they implement. The two most commonly available scripting engines are VB Script and Jscript from Microsoft. These are components installed with Internet Explorer.
SOAP Plug-in
The SOAP Plug-in is a simple plug-in that allows you to integrate Avaya Contact Center Express server applications with any web service or SOAP service on an intranet or the internet, without the need for new development on the server. This plug-in can be plugged in to any Contact Center Express server application that supports the Plug-in Manager, such as Virtual Agent and the Call Routing Server. The SOAP Plug-in uses the Microsoft Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to connect to the web service and allow web-based information to be available to the controlling application. SOAP is a message-based protocol based on XML for accessing services on the Web. Initiated by Microsoft, IBM and others, it employs XML syntax to send text commands across the Internet using HTTP.
SQL Plug-in
The SQL Plug-in is used to integrate Avaya Contact Center Express server applications with any SQL Server database without the need for new development on the server. This plug-in can be plugged in to any Contact Center Express server application that supports the Plug-in Manager, such as Virtual Agent and the Call Routing Server.
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SQL Plug-in uses Microsoft ADO to connect to a database and allow simple SQL functionality to be available to the controlling application. The plug-in's detailed configuration set allows named events to be received from the controlling application. The events and associated parameters are converted to a direct SQL statement which is then passed to the database for processing. Returned results are extracted from the returned record set and passed back to the controlling application via an associated return event.
Communication Manager Plug-in

The Communication Manager Plug-in is a simple plug-in that allows you to view and configure the settings of the Communication Manager server that are using for Contact Center Express. In the Contact Center Express Control Panel, you can add a connection to the Communication Manager server that you want to use for Contact Center Express. You can configure the settings for the following objects: Agents Stations Skills VDNs Holiday Tables Service Hours Tables Software Version
Developer Components
Developer is a collection or toolkit of .Net assemblies for Avaya switches. Developers can use these controls to quickly build CTI applications. Developer controls make it is possible to build the foundation of a soft phone with no coding required. The toolkit includes: XML Client XML Station XML Routing XML VDN Multimedia
Supported Platforms and Minimum System Requirements

Telephony Server Supported with Contact Center Express
Telephony Telephony Server CTI Software Hardware
Avaya Application Enablement Services Any Avaya telephony server hardware and media gateway R4.2 supported by Avaya Computer
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Telephony or Application Enablement Services.
Contact Center Express Browser & Reporting Specifications

Feature Browser Description Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later Internal Contact Center Express Real-time and Historical reports or Reporting Avaya Call Management System R9, R11, R12, R13.x, R14 or Basic Call Management System Reporting Desktop Release 2 Version 4
Contact Center Express Desktop/Client PC Specifications

Item Desktop Applications (Contact Center Express Desktop, Reporting, Control Panel, and Supervisor) Operating System or Platform Either: Windows Vista Enterprise or Hardware Contact Center Express desktop applications run on hardware that meets the minimum specification for the installed operating system.
Windows XP Professional 32- Agent example: bit, SP2 or SP3 A 1.6 GHz Pentium or higher Citrix Presentation Server 3.0.2 processor* or Windows Terminal Service 32bit with Avaya Application Enablement Services client software release 4.2.1 At least 512 MB of RAM memory* 50 MB of free hard disk space for the application, 10 to 18 MB for online documentation (file sizes depend on the language you install), Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and about 2 MB for client sample applications. SP1 or higher Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 or A DVD drive. 2.0 SP1 A graphics card and monitor with resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels or higher. A mouse or other Windowscompatible pointing device. A TCP/IP LAN connection.
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Contact Center Express Desktop/Client PC Specifications

Item Operating System or Platform Hardware *These are minimum specifications. Additional CPU and RAM may enhance performance.
Contact Center Express Server Specifications

Item License Director XML Server Configuration Server Operation system or platform Either: Hardware A 2.4 GHz Pentium or higher processor*
Windows 2003 Server (Enterprise & Standard) 32-bit At least 2GB of RAM memory*
or Application Management Service Windows 2008 Server (Enterprise or Standard) 32-bit Media Director with Application Enablement All Media Stores and Services (AE Services) client Gateways software, Release 4.2.1 Call Routing Server Virtual Agent Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or higher Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 or 2.0 SP1 VMware and Virtual Server are also supported
*These are minimum specifications. Additional CPU and RAM may enhance performance.
Interaction Data Service Either: A 2.4 GHz Pentium or higher Only processor* Windows 2003 Server (Enterprise & Standard) 32-bit At least 2GB of RAM memory* or Windows 2008 Server (Enterprise or Standard) 32-bit with Application Enablement Services (AE Services) client software, Release 4.2.1 Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 or 2.0 SP1 *These are minimum specifications. Additional CPU and RAM may enhance performance.
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Customer Contact Express Supported Database

Item Operation System or Platform
Databases for One of the following: Interaction Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Data Server Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Configuration Server Databases for ASMSControl, One of the following: ASMSData, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express ASContact For best performance host Microsoft SQL Server on a dedicated machine and ensure that both the Interaction Data Server and ASContact database are run on identical operating systems.
IVR Support
Item IVR support Operation System or Platform Avaya Interactive Response 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x Voice Portal 3.x, 4.x
Contact Center Express Supported E-mail Server

Item Email Server Operation System or Platform Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Version 6.5 or Microsoft Exchange Server 2007* *Only POP3 and SMTP are supported
Contact Center Express Supported Application Development Platforms

Item Operation System or Platform
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Contact Center Express Supported Application Development Platforms

Item Developing Applications Operation System or Platform Windows XP Professional 32-bit, SP2 or SP3 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Avaya Application Enablement Service client software Release 4.2.1 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or higher Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 or 2.0 SP1
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Contact Center Express Sample ROI
Avaya Contact Center Express Sample ROI

Need a Fast Return On Investment Avaya Contact Center Express Answers the call
Attention: The following are SAMPLE ROI scenarios from Robin Foster. It is preferable to include a Customer Specific ROI if you know enough information about your customer. If so, please download and run the CCE ROI Tool at: https://enterpriseportal.avaya.com/ptlWeb/gs/spCP/CS20053147132856095/C2005 421123310786013/SN2005421125951843057/SN2005421125951843057 then replace this Sample ROI with your output.
Illustrative Case Study: Company One

The following is a fictitious but realistic case study for a retailer requesting proposals for saving money or expanding their business. Avaya Contact Center Express answers the call. Company One is a retailer who has an opportunity to do more with its 45 customer service reps. These reps handle Sales, Service, and Shipping Calls. All calls come into the same number and are delivered without differentiation across the entire pool of agents. The first step in handling a call is to bring up the screens needed to handle the call. The time to perform this task ranges from 20 seconds to 30 seconds. A screen pop is estimated to save 12 seconds per Sales call and 15 seconds for each Service or Shipping call. Reps are transferring about 15% of calls to other reps in the center because some reps are better than others in handling certain types of calls. If the center were to use some prompting to sort among Sales, Service, and Shipping calls it would be reasonable that most callers would respond properly and transfers would drop to 5%. Additional sorting in the Sales category would permit identification of clients wanting to reorder consumable products or whose delivery contract is expiring. These callers would be routed to agents specializing in upgrading the sale or renewing contracts, leading to additional revenue from existing clients. Therefore, from a single split environment where three types of calls are distributed in an undifferentiated way, this client would move to an environment of 4 or perhaps more skills, and each agent could be assigned the skills most appropriate for their abilities. With differentiation among callers and agents, Company One management expects to see a 10 second talk time decrease for each type of call. Company One has little reporting capabilities today. Reports are limited to summary data that does not permit the manager to understand any of the details behind the summary data. Without the details, the managers are not sure how to reduce abandons among Sales callers now 7% -- to the corporate target of 3%. Individual agent behavior cannot be measured. Improved reporting capabilities that will help the manager understand the demand for services by interval, the service levels by interval, the actual staffing by interval and individual agent behaviors will help productivity to improve. Being able to segment calls will enable service
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levels to improve and abandons of Sales calls to drop. A total of 5% improvement is expected as a result of better reports. Agents at Company One earn an average of $29,400 in wages. Cost of benefits above wages is 25%. Wage increases have averaged 3% for the past 2 years.
Improve Existing Operations with Contact Center Express

Company One management would like to know what benefits could be expected by implementing Contact Center Express. These benefits would include productivity savings and the impact of upgrading sales to existing customers on the current Sales calls. Management agrees to assume that 60% of sales calls result in a sale of $140 and that 8% of clients who buy would buy an additional $25 of product as a result of this enhancement. Margins on all sales average 30%. The charts that follow will illustrate the savings identified.
Call Handling Time Improvements

In the chart below the current operational information has been entered as well as the future call flow and specific handle time improvements. The center handled 604,000 calls annually. Agents are about 71% occupied when available to handle calls. This is a fairly suitable occupancy level for a center of this size. The productivity improvements of reduced transfers, screen-pop, and segmentation of calls amount to over $138,000 annually.
Reporting Benefits
Additional benefits will result from clearer, more detailed reporting that helps managers take actions to eliminate wasteful practices and to improve productivity. These benefits are expected to total 5%. The benefit in productivity from improved, actionable reporting is expected to be just over $82,000 annually.
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Improved Productivity Reduces Cost per Call

Total productivity benefits are summarized below. Annual productivity benefits (after setting aside labor to reduce the number of abandoned calls) of just over $165,000 are possible. These benefits are the equivalent of 4.5 voice agents in loaded labor costs, or about 9% of current loaded labor costs. If the 4.5 agents were re-deployed and productivity benefits were realized as hard dollar savings, the cost per transaction would be expected to drop from the current level of $2.74 to $2.46.
Reducing Abandoned Calls

The abandoned calls would require approximately 1.2 Full Time Equivalent agent labor. To be conservative, 1.5 FTE of potential labor productivity benefits, equivalent to$55,125, will be set aside to reduce abandons. The Improve Existing Operations evaluation will therefore include revenue improvements from reducing the number of sales calls that abandon. A reduction in abandoned calls would generate $144,000 in incremental margin, assuming that only 60% of callers who abandon call back later.
Increasing Sales to Existing Callers

The up-sell program on inbound calls from existing clients that will be accomplished by prompting to sort among inbound Sales calls. The charts below show that improvements to
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margins could reach $158,000 in the first year. Combined with margin from calls that would otherwise abandon and not return, there is the potential for $325,000 in incremental margin in Year 1. The graph shows the effect of the up-sell program on increasing call volumes would reach $374,000 in Year 5.
Benefits Summary for Improved Operations

The table below represents the benefits proposed from the analysis above. The client would like a conservative evaluation, so only 80% of the expected benefits have been taken, while all of the costs projected for reducing abandoned call levels on Sales calls have been taken. Further, the projected benefits are not expected to be instantaneous. Rather, the ramp-up curve for benefits in the first year calls for only 40% of the final run rate of benefits to be achieved in the first quarter. Not until the fourth quarter are the benefits expected to reach the full run rate. Given this conservative approach, the total benefits expected in the first year are just over $293,000. By the fifth year, given increasing call volumes and increase labor costs, annual benefits are expected to reach over $493,000.
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Expected Costs
Company One currently has 45 agents but would like to purchase 55 agent licenses in order to accommodate the growth expected in the next one to two years. Management has requested that the proposal include multimedia agent licenses, even though agents are only handling inbound voice today. The implementation costs, however, are based on implementing only the inbound voice channel. Other channels will be implemented at a later date as needed. Company One management has asked that, in addition to the costs for the system, a $4500 annual budget line item for recurring training and $65,000 annual labor cost line item for an additional systems administrator be added to the case. This final cost will be incremented by 3% annually to account for wage increases. The initial costs for the Solution total $162,980 in the first year. $85,380 is the initial cost for Contact Center Express. $8,100 is the initial cost for servers. $69,500 is the initial years budget for systems administration. Notice in the chart below that Year 5 costs are not populated. In this conservative analysis, costs are assumed to be paid one year ahead. For example, the first year costs for maintenance are assumed to be paid in full on the first day or beginning of year 1. The costs of maintenance in year 2 are paid in full on the last day of year 1. Therefore, the maintenance costs shown in year 4 are paid on the last day of year 4 to cover year 5. This simplification is conservative.
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Return on Investment for a Purchased Solution

The Return on Investment is illustrated in the table below. The corporate tax rate, required rate of return, and the basis, method, and years for depreciation have been selected according to Company Ones requests. The results show that The solution has a payback period of just less than one year (8 months) A substantial, positive Net Present Value of is achieved by the end of Year 2 The Internal Rate of Return (66%) has exceeded the required rate of return of 15% in the Year 2 By the end of Year 5 the NPV has reached over $561,000 todays value of Company Ones decision to benefit from Contact Center Express over the next 5 years.
Notice that the table below illustrates the end-of-year assumption for benefits. For the purposes of the Net Present Value calculations, all of Year 1 benefits are assumed to arrive in lump-sum at the end of Year 1. Year 1 post-tax cash flow of $141,263 are reduced to a beginning of Year 1 value of $122,838, a 15% decrease according to the clients required rate of return.
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The payback illustration below charts the benefits on a monthly basis with a graph of front-end loaded costs. The first point at which benefits exceed the purchase + operational costs is in month 8. At month 12, if we assume all of Year 2 costs are paid at once, the costs approach the benefits line very closely. However, the dotted line in the graph illustrates a more realistic cost curve where monthly payments, rather than a single annual payment, are expected.
Return on Investment for a Leased Solution

Leasing will provide Company One with a different cost structure for implementing and maintaining the solution. A leasing partner, such as Avaya Financial Services can construct a lease that meets a clients specific needs. The Return on Investment evaluation illustrated below assumes that Company One can obtain a 48-month lease for the purchase of the solution (excluding recurring training and administrator costs). A monthly payment of $2326 is expected.
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The Payback Period, or the number of months until a positive cash flow, is now only 5 months. In reality, the payback period is less because the ROI methodology used here treats administrator salary costs and training costs as initial costs to the project, when in reality these costs are paid over time. The project has a positive NPV by the end of the first year and the first year IRR of 57% exceeds the requirement of 15%. The 5-year NPV of the leased solution to Improve Existing Operations is $578,000 roughly the same NPV as the purchase option over this time frame.
Summary of Company One Opportunities to Improve Existing Operations

Company One can justify the purchase of their Contact Center Express solution simply to improve existing operations. Company One management may choose to lease, rather than purchase, the solution. Leasing reduces the initial cost of the solution, reducing the number of months to payback, or positive net cash flow. Leasing may be an important financial alternative for many companies. Several factors built into the analysis create a conservative ROI outlook for Company Ones investment opportunity. Costs are modeled as front-end loaded. For example, A full years administrator costs is charged on the initial day of cut-over Year 2 maintenance is paid in full on the last day of Year 1, rather than being spread, month by month, through Year 2
Benefits are modeled as back-end loaded. All benefits from Year 1 are assumed to be available to the business on the last day of Year 1, resulting in a full years financial discounting of these benefits from a Net Present Value view
Benefits are assumed to ramp-up to full run-rate levels over a period of several months, reducing early benefit levels For the Improved Operations case, benefits are assumed to reach full run-rate only after 9 months of operation
All benefits were subjected to a conservative factor that addresses the lack of accuracy in projecting incremental revenues and labor savings throughout the 5-year projection. In no case were savings credited at more than 80% of the nominal, calculated value
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Incremental costs, such as network costs for new, additional outbound calls were added at 100% of nominal, calculated value
A summary of key ROI analysis findings are shown below.
Improve Existing Operations

Parameter Initial Costs Payback period IRR at Year 2 5-year NPV Ramp up time Purchase $162,980 8 months 66% $561,805 9 months Lease $71,826 5 months 158% $578,244 9 months
Improve and Expand Operations with Contact Center Express

Company One management would like to know how advantageous it would be to expand the business using the employees on staff now and productivity improvements as the source of labor for increased contact handling capacity. Over the next 18 months management plans to serve customers using proactive outbound voice and proactive email campaigns as well as support online sales through web chat. The client would like to be able to do the following: Place about 15,000 outbound calls annually to clients who have not ordered in a while or to clients whose delivery contracts have elapsed. Assume that 15% of clients will place an order of $140. Average handle time estimate is 240 sec. Handle 5,000 inbound emails annually in response to outbound email campaigns that the company will conduct next year. Assume that 10% of these inbound emails will result in an order of $100. Average handle time estimate is 360 seconds. Handle 15,000 web chats that will enhance customers use of the corporate sales site. Assume that 25% of these web chats will result in a sale of $140. Average handle time estimate is 330 seconds.
In addition to the above capacity expansion plans, the abandons on Sales calls should be reduced from 7% to 3%.
Productivity Improvements
All of the productivity calculations performed in the first evaluation apply to this second evaluation. What is different in the second evaluation is that the productivity improvements that resulted in the possibility to redeploy agents will now result in additional call handling capacity.
Expanding the Business

The charts below show that, after 1.2 FTE have been set aside as requested to reduce caller abandonment on Sales calls, there are 3.0 FTE that can be used to handle additional calls.
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It is expected that each of these employees will spend 1525 hours annually actively engaged handling contacts. By setting the usage of these hours to 90%, the analysis accounts for interruptions or special needs that occur during these hours. A level of 83% occupancy is set to ensure that good service levels are maintained overall. On a per-FTE basis, the usage of a given individuals time an annual total of 1139 hours of contact handling in this case is illustrated below.
Representation of FTE Time 2500 2000
Hours
1500 1000 500 0

Annual Paid Hours Annual Time Worked Annual Annual Time Time Available Engaged for in Contacts Contacts
Using these factors as well as the expected average handle time for each type of contact, the percent of the available 3.0 voice FTE are applied is set to derive the number of contacts required for outbound voice, email, and web chat. Only 82%, or 2.6 FTE of the 3.0 FTE, need to be applied to new contact in order to produce the required number of contacts. The chart shows that 0.9 FTE is allocated to voice calls in order to handle 15,364 new outbound voice calls of 240 sec average handle time; $161,322 is the incremental margin from these contacts. 0.5 FTE is allocated to email in order to handle 5,298 email replies with an average handle time of 360 seconds; $22,251 is the incremental margin from these contacts. 1.2 FTE is allocated in order to handle 15,099 web chats with an average handle time of 320 seconds; $158,541 is the incremental margin from these contacts. A total capacity of 35,761 additional contacts can be accommodated with an incremental margin contribution totaling $342,115. The additional voice minutes at 4 cents/minute will cost about $2,458 in the first year.
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The remaining 0.6 FTE is unallocated. Further analysis (not shown) would indicate that, at a weighted average handle time of 243 seconds for the current mix of voice calls (assuming expected productivity gains in talk time); an additional 9,300 calls voice can be handled annually.
Increased Margins for Improved and Expanded Operations

The additional contacts that will be handled result in additional revenue, and margin, for Company One. The incremental margin from new contacts is fairly significant, resulting in over $667,000 incremental margin in Year 1. This figure should grow to $716,000 in Year 5.
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Benefits Summary
The benefits portrayed in the Improve and Expand Operations evaluation do not include any type of labor savings. All redeployment of labor (to reduce abandoned calls and to handle new contacts) is part of Company Ones existing labor costs. The benefits that are included are the areas for increased margin, which not includes margin from new contacts. For a conservative view, the increase in margins is counted in the case at an 80% level. Network cost savings are modest and are also offset by additional network costs for new voice calls, taken at 100% of calculated value. The benefits are further subject to a Ramp-up curve that projects that Company One will not reach peak usage of its new contact capacity until one year after project cut-over. This assumption reduces the benefits in the first year, but may reflect a more realistic situation for expanding the business.
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Solution Costs to Improve and Expand the Operations

This more ambitious project has somewhat higher costs, as illustrated below. Company One management would expect to implement all Contact Center Express channels and use some IVR ports as well. Additionally, Company One management would need to acquire and integrate some IVR applications.
Return on Investment for Purchase, Improve and Expand the Operations

With the emphasis placed on increasing operational capacity and increasing margin contributions from new sales, the benefits for the Improve and Expand Operations case are higher. This case is more strategic to Company Ones desire to grow the business by serving its growing customer base through new service media. Higher benefits counterbalance the higher initial and ongoing costs of the complete solution. For example, The Payback period for the solution is 10 months The Internal Rate of Return is 59% in Year 2 Positive NPV reached in Year 2 The 5-year Net Present Value is $697,927
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Return on Investment for Leasing

Again, Company One could consider leasing the solution. A 48-month lease that covered all initial costs except for administrators and training line items would be about $5166 per month. With the alternative cost structure, Company One would see a positive net cash flow from the 5th month of the project. The 5th month projection is a conservative assessment, as in reality Company One would not incur a full years charges for administrators and training budget on the day of cut-over. The IRR at the end of year 2 would reach 190% and the 5-year NPV would reach $724,811. These projections compare favorably to all other ROI scenarios studied for Company One.
The Payback illustration for the Improved and Expanded Operations case again shows a stairstep view of purchase costs and an alternative view of a more realistic, smoother cost curve, as a dashed line. Payback points for Purchase (10 months) and Lease (5 months) are shown with dotted line for emphasis.
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Summary of Company One Opportunities

Company One can justify the purchase of their Contact Center Express solution simply to improve existing operations. A stronger case can be made for purchasing a more costly solution that supports the expansion of the business to increase revenues. In this latter case, using existing employees to handle new contacts is possible because of productivity improvements in how existing calls are handled and how the center is managed. Company One management may choose to lease, rather than purchase, the solution. Leasing reduces the initial cost of the solution, reducing the number of months to payback, or positive net cash flow. Leasing may be an important financial alternative for many companies. Several factors built into the analysis create a conservative ROI outlook for Company Ones investment opportunity. Costs are modeled as front-end loaded. For example, A full years administrator costs is charged on the initial day of cut-over Year 2 maintenance is paid in full on the last day of Year 1, rather than being spread, month by month, through Year 2
Benefits are modeled as back-end loaded. All benefits from Year 1 are assumed to be available to the business on the last day of Year 1, resulting in a full years financial discounting of these benefits from a Net Present Value view
Benefits are assumed to ramp-up to full run-rate levels over a period of several months, reducing early benefit levels For the Improved Operations case, benefits are assumed to reach full run-rate only after 9 months of operation For the Improved and Expanded Operations case, benefits are assumed to reach full run-rate only after 12 months of operation
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All benefits were subjected to a conservative factor that addresses the lack of accuracy in projecting incremental revenues and labor savings throughout the 5-year projection. In no case were savings credited at more than 80% of the nominal, calculated value Incremental costs, such as network costs for new, additional outbound calls were added at 100% of nominal, calculated value
Company One may invest in either a solution to improve its existing operations or in a solution that will allow them to improve and expand their operations. A summary of key ROI analysis findings are shown below. While each case is strong on its own merits, the strategic case to expand the business yields the higher Net Present Values whether for purchase or lease. The higher NPVs are primarily due to the additional margins from increased contact volume. Increased revenue, contact volume and the choice of media for competitive customer service make the business expansion case the more strategic choice for Company One.
Summary of Company One Opportunities

Improve Existing Operations Purchase Initial Costs Payback period IRR at Year 2 5-year NPV Ramp up time $162,980 8 months 66% $561,805 9 months Lease $71,826 5 months 158% $578,244 9 months Improve and Expand Operations Purchase $231,080 10 months 59% $697,927 12 months Lease $73,521 5 months 190% $724,811 12 months
This Company One case is meant to be illustrative of how a company could benefit from a solution such as Avaya Contact Center Express. The choices in how a company implements the capabilities of a solution, restructures call handling or other business processes, and realizes the benefits of improved productivity will determine many important features of an ROI analysis. All ROI analyses are projections, based on reasonable assumptions of current and future conditions and investment requirements. For help in learning how your company could benefit from Avaya Contact Center Express or any other solution from Avaya, contact your Avaya sales representative.
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Avaya Interaction Center

Meeting customer demand for consistently high-quality service across all communication channels voice, email, instant messaging, mobile SMS (text messaging), video delivers true business value through increased customer satisfaction, higher rates of retention, and enhanced revenue. Avaya Interaction Center helps you achieve these goals because it simplifies communication channel management and enables you to maximize your existing investment in people and technology. With Interaction Center, your business can deliver outstanding sales, service, and relationship management even if customers use several different communication media to complete a single transaction. Designed with pre-built support and integration with todays leading switching and contact management technologies, Interaction Center helps businesses apply customer segmentation strategies as well as leverage enterprise business data to intelligently route interactions to the best available resources within your business regardless of location. With Avaya, your contact center can accommodate todays ever expanding communication needs and help you move to a higher plane of customer satisfaction and agent efficiency in addition to a stronger bottom line. Avaya is dedicated to helping businesses become more customer driven and to helping your business deliver first-rate service consistently, no matter how your customers choose to make contact.
Key Benefits
Deliver consistent, personalized cross-channel customer care -voice, email, web, and video - based on predefined segmentation policies and service levels Optimize efficiency and first contact resolution by applying segmentation that routes interactions to the best available resource Improve agent productivity through screen pop and unified agent desktops you design to meet your unique service and business requirements Reduce development time, costs, and risk by using pre-built and pre-tested applications and systems integration Minimize cost of ownership with accelerated installation and configuration, pre-built agent clients, and pre-tested integration to applications and systems
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Avaya Interaction Center Architecture
Capabilities Summary
Agent Desktop
Fully Customizable Unified Desktop Mix Browser-based and Standard Clients Agent Status and Control Work Status Summary Interaction History Transaction History Agent Scripts and Resource Library Common Work Handling Controls (work acceptance, transfer, conference) Media Controls Voice, video, email/fax, web chat, and other media Agent Directory
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Web Collaboration
Text Chat Voice over IP Chat Escorted Browsing Page Push Collaborative Form Filling Customer Call Back Chat Transcript Viewing Frequent Response library Spell Checking Configurable Emoticons
E-mail Contact Management

Natural language content analysis Read and compose e-mail Auto-response Suggested Responses Frequent Response library Spell Checking Attachments Quality Assurance
Operations, Administration, and Management

Management Console Agent Administration Console Systems Administration Console
Workflow, Database, and Agent Desktop Design and Development

Workflow Designer Database Designer Agent Desktop Designer
Universal Routing and Queuing

Avaya Interaction Center manages all interactions through a universal, media-independent contact engine that allows voice, e-mail, web chat, and other media to be managed based on common enterprise segmentation and business rules. The contact engine acts a single point of
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control and intelligence for all defined interactions. This enables organizations to create and apply routing strategies and business rules across the entire agent pool and all channels simultaneously, instead of managing each channel separately, regardless of the physical location of agents and enterprise resources. The contact engine coordinates and personalizes routing decisions while collecting interaction and transactional customer information in a common Customer Interaction Repository. Data capture and coordination is accomplished via a shared data object called an Electronic Data Unit (EDU). As workflows are executed, the contact engine uses the EDU as input and then contributes more data to it based on customer profile and other enterprise data. The EDU is created for each interaction to record the cradle-to-grave history of that interaction and to allow each application and employee that interacts with the customer to access the shared data and contribute to it. This allows your contact center to leverage the latest customer interaction and transaction history to make the best routing decision for each and every customer contact. Through EDU technology, Interaction Center tracks and records every detail of every interaction, which a business can then use to improve future routing decisions, to update customer profiles, and to generate additional sales. The EDU allows all applications and agents to know what has occurred so far in each customer transaction independent of the media through which the interactions occurred. Previous customer contact history and business data collected via EDUs is archived in real-time to a common, centralized Customer Interaction Repository. The Customer Interaction Repository allows a contact center operation to provide an integrated, consistent view of a customer and contact center activities, real-time and historical, across all communication media, and across all contact center sites and locations. Interaction Center includes Avaya Business Advocate which can be optionally configured to manage agent selection, staff resources, and customer service levels across all channels. Business Advocate is a set of patented algorithms that evaluate real-time conditions and distribute work items to the right agent based on agents available, agent skills, service level objectives, and expected wait times.
Voice Contact Management

Despite the proliferation of e-mail and other channels such as instant messaging, voice is still the dominant communication medium of choice. Voice Contact Management enables faster service and more efficient use of enterprise resources by managing all incoming calls and delivering callers to the best enterprise resource agent or self service according to predefined business and routing rules. Agents receive relevant customer information via screen pop simultaneously with the call which improves service response and agent productivity. Interaction Center routing is designed to leverage existing investment in routing and switch ACD. It separates use of business rules from agent selection to optimize the reuse of existing routing capabilities from traditional ACDs like Avaya Call Center or other routing engines such as Relational Database Management System-based routing for voice and other media types. Existing voice ACD agent groups and ACD routing tables can continue to handle contacts during transition from a traditional voice call center to a single platform multi-channel contact center.
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E-mail Contact Management

Interaction Center e-mail contact management automatically routes high volumes of e-mail transactions alongside voice and other media efficiently and effectively. It allows supervisors to view and update message queues, agents, service levels, and workflow rules in real time. Incoming emails can be routed based on virtually any characteristic including fully automated natural language content analysis of messages. Agents receive a screen pop containing the customers message and complete interaction history along with automatically generated suggested responses which agents can modify or personalize. Automatic scripted responses reduce agent message load to enable faster issue resolution while enabling agents to concentrate on specific needs. A library of frequently asked questions enhances service quality and efficiency. Contact center supervisors can establish quality assurance rules within Interaction Center to monitor outbound email service quality and agent performance in real time. To further increase responsiveness of routine requests, Interaction Center can compose personalized responses which can be sent directly back to the customer automatically or forwarded to an agent for quality assurance review.
Web Collaboration
Interaction Center web collaboration helps differentiate your customers online service experience by integrating live help options. Online customers can be greeted with intuitive selfhelp tools that provide browsing, targeted searches, and automatic responses to inquiries. Interaction Center web collaboration tools offer several ways for businesses to enhance and deliver a more satisfying online user experience through web chat, collaborative browsing, web form completion, and scheduled callback. Customers can continue to view the web while agents synchronize browsers to see exactly what customers see and to assist them as they browse, fill out order forms, and ask questions via live web chat.
Agent Desktop
Productivity and customer goodwill decrease every time an agent asks callers to repeat key data or has to waste time searching for scripts, applications, and information. The Avaya Agent desktop environment improves service and reduces frustration via a single easy to use unified desktop with pre-built access to your key enterprise applications and contact management controls. Agent screen pop provides immediate access to the right information and applications. Context based menus and controls dynamically adjust the agent desktop based on task selected to display relevant data only, while windows containing pertinent customer information display throughout the contact session. Managers can centrally administer individual and grouped agent task assignments and media channel workload and can deploy updates immediately across all locations and switching environments. Agent prompting can be designed to accompany each task with all the appropriate scripts or prompts for FAQs, URLs, and company policies and procedures. Businesses can choose browser based thin or thick client desktops depending on technology and business need. Open standards-based design tools enable easy customization of the agent desktop to meet specific needs of your business and contact center. Developers
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use server side configuration and agent desktop designer tools to define a standard interface which optimizes access to scripts, information, and contact management controls required for web chat, e-mail, contact history, web pages, customer data, as well as back-office enterprise and CRM applications. Interaction Center also includes a multi-media software development kit (SDK) that gives developers the ability to custom design clients based on your customer care practices, processes, and applications without the need for extensive professional services or IT support. Toolbars, communication controls, and informational displays (like contact history) can be designed and embedded within existing enterprise applications. Standalone, web-based, or client-server clients can be deployed in any language, even alongside existing Avaya Agent clients, and can support any operating system supported by .Net or Java including Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and others. The SDK includes a single common client interface API, documentation, as well as both .Net and Java sample clients from which enterprise developers can design new agent interfaces within their development tool of choice.
Agent Desktop
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Enterprise Applications Integration and Workflow Design

Interaction Center includes a rich development environment that allows workflows, business rules, data models, screen layout, web-page presentation, database access, and legacy and external system access to be tailored to meet changing business needs - all without requiring low-level programming. An intuitive graphical user interface allows design of custom workflows for customer interaction and agent scripting that guide agents through sequential steps. All workflows, business rules, and scripts are centrally managed through a common repository. Updates are accessed and automatically distributed each time an agent logs in for work. An open standards-based architecture enables seamless systems integration and effective workflow management across different platforms and operating systems. Interaction Center provides voice and data collection, mapping, and reporting; event monitoring and alarming; and directory services. Industry standard interfaces (like the Web Services API) facilitate integration to popular e-mail systems, e-commerce software and tools, self service and interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD) switches, and imaging systems. In addition, Avaya offers pre-built, pre-tested integration to market leading CRM applications from SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, and many others. With Interaction Center you benefit from one of the most easily installed, cost efficient, responsive and integrated contact-center solutions available.
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Workflow Design
SIP Services
SIP is an information-rich protocol for powerful peer-to-peer communication that allows simpler, lower-cost design and execution of communication services. SIP Services capability is included within Interaction Center to enable organizations to more easily manage the myriad of new SIP-capable communication devices and media. Innovations like 3G mobile video, presence-based user collaboration and access to available resident experts through capabilities like Find-me/Follow-me can help differentiate service, drive firstcontact resolution and ensure delivery of a consistent customer experience. Businesses can reduce ownership costs by taking advantage of low-cost, high density SIP trunks terminating on SIP self service applications that can collect information from users and can pass call and context to the contact center for routing and reporting. SIP can also be used as a medium to lower the infrastructure costs for deployment of new sites, home and remote workers, integration with other native SIP applications and devices, and support for SIP VoIP contact center architectures where both the end customer and agents leverage their own native SIP device or endpoint.
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Administration and Management

Interaction Center Manager centralizes configuration and administration of human and system resources. Server resources can be distributed across multiple sites and can be grouped into different domains for addressing failover and redundancy requirements. Interaction Center Manager includes standard alarm monitoring and real-time reporting on the status of the system with customizable charts and graphs. Avaya Operational Analyst gives contact center managers and business analysts the ability to examine mission-critical customer data, service levels, and other performance measures across a variety of channels in support of proactive customer-service initiatives.
Systems and Software Support

Server OS Support
IBM AIX 6.1 LPAR and non-LPAR Sun Solaris 10 on SPARC Microsoft Windows 2003
Database
IBM DB2 9.5 Microsoft SQL Server Oracle 11i
Pre-built Application Integration and Adapters

Siebel PeopleSoft CRM SAP E.Piphany Onyx
Switches
Avaya Aspect Cisco Nortel Meridian, Symposium
IVRs
Avaya Voice Portal Avaya Interactive Response Edify/Intervoice
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IBM Nortel
Agent Desktop Clients

Windows Vista - Enterprise and Ultimate Editions Windows Vista Business - Enterprise and Ultimate Editions Windows 2000 Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox Apple Safari
Customer Browser Support

Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox Apple Safari
Languages
French German Russian standard Italian Latin American Spanish Brazilian Portuguese Japanese Korean Thai US English Simplified Chinese
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Avaya Proactive Contact

The Avaya Proactive Contact system portfolio can make more efficient by optimizing the time of your most expensive resource your skilled agents. Proactive Contact solutions provide excellence in automated dialing, list management and connectivity across networks to optimize every campaign. Avaya Proactive Contact allows your agents to reach more customers, more quickly and more profitably through the use of automated technology and applications for outbound communications solutions. In addition, Proactive Contact gives your organization the ability to proactively reach out to your customers with timely information they need and appreciate, helping you to build stronger relationships. Avaya Proactive Contact is a suite of software and hardware that delivers best-in-class efficiency and effectiveness to today's call center, as it optimally manages calls to and from customers. Whether a calling mission requires inbound, outbound or blended solutions, Avaya Proactive Contact provides unparalleled technology to meet the demands of every customer's business. It contains superior call pacing algorithms and industry leading call detection resulting in increased agent productivity and better return on investment compared to other dialing systems. The Proactive Contact solution includes powerful decision making applications designed to optimize the administration and day-to-day management of the system. will achieve more transactions per hour, deal more positively and effectively with customers, raise performance and productivity of both agents and call center management, and do so with a return on investment that is quite remarkable.
Why Avaya Proactive Contact?

In todays tough economic climate of increasing consumer debt and rising delinquencies; in the environment of ever-changing and strict regulations, of ever-present security threats, and when the industry has seen significant vendor shakeout and consolidation, there are now more reasons than ever to choose Avaya as your outbound solutions partner: For 2007, Avaya is the #1 outbound provider in North America with 28.1% market share (Frost & Sullivan). Avaya was awarded the 2007 Outbound Market Leadership award from Frost & Sullivan, for portfolio vision and market penetration. Avaya Proactive Contact is the most widely deployed outbound solution in the world. Although named Proactive Contact Release 4.x, the current version is in reality Release 14.x, a mature and stable application with a 20 year legacy. An investment protection plan, Software Support plus Upgrades (SS+U), which provides future software releases free of charge. An enterprise licensing model that provides dynamic flexibility for licensing, drives down costs, provides economies of scale, and helps in the development of robust disaster recovery plans.
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A low risk migration from your existing Avaya platforms that provides minimal disruption to your current operations. A move to the Red Hat Linux operating system, in order to provide a more open system, and to better align with the rest of Avaya's contact center portfolio. An 80% increase in scale, from a maximum of 240 agents to a maximum of 432 agents, on a single, robust, highly reliable switch and server. Over 25 major security enhancements with Proactive Contact R4. The industry's most effective Call Detection algorithms, improved from 97.5% accuracy to 98.9% accuracy, as verified by an independent test lab, IQ Services. (White paper available upon request.) Integration with Avaya's industry leading IVR applications, Avaya Interactive Response (IR) and Voice Portal, which allows companies to cut labor costs and increase revenue using automated agents instead of costly human agents, where feasible, such as early stage collections or reminder calls. Integrated inbound and outbound data with Avaya IQ, Avayas next generation enterprise reporting package. Cruise Control, a revolutionary predictive dialing algorithm that allows companies to adhere to the ever increasing regulations governing outbound calling.
What's New?
Avaya Proactive Contact 4.x is the newly evolved, enhanced release of the trusted, awardwinning Avaya Proactive Contact system, and delivers an extensible and scalable solution that builds on the superior call detection, pacing algorithms, and blending functionality of previous versions of the system. Avaya Proactive Contact 4.x provides you with critical changes designed to increase your ability to administer the system and guarantee the long-term viability of the systems within the overall suite of Avayas contact center products. Key changes include: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Operating System This aligns Proactive Contact with the rest of the Avaya contact center product suite. This enables tighter long-term product integrations that deliver value-added features and return on investment to your call center. Enhanced Security Based on input from our installed base we have greatly strengthened the systems security features. Security enhancements include the implementation of Secure Shell, Secure Sockets, Secure FTP, CORBA security layer, and advanced Oracle security. Calling List Management Via a series of easy to use Wizards, the new calling list management features provide full add, change, and delete for all host downloads, calling lists and host uploads. This provides you with the flexibility to quickly adapt to the ever changing requirements of your business. Enterprise Licensing This provides aggregated licensing across all systems within a call center. This provides management the flexibility to strategically deploy agents on a
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day-to-day basis without the limitation of licenses that are system specific. In addition, enterprise licensing provides a great opportunity to build robust disaster recovery scenarios. Roles Based Access -- Through this feature, you can set up specific roles for Supervisor and/or Administrator access. Each role created is assigned specific system functionality and whether the permissions are read or read/write. Finally, individual users of the systems are assigned a role which in turn limits their access to what is defined in that role.
Proactive Contact Overview

Avaya Proactive Contact is a suite of hardware and software that enable proactive, opportunistic management of customer relationships within the contact center. This solution delivers best-in-class efficiency and effectiveness to today's call center, as it optimally manages calls to and from customers. Whether a calling mission requires inbound, outbound or blended solutions, Avaya Proactive Contact provides unparalleled technology to meet the demands of every customer's business. It contains two superior call pacing algorithms, Cruise Control and Expert Calling. Cruise Control ensures the automatic control of Service Levels, allowing strict regulatory restrictions to be met without constantly monitoring system performance. Expert Calling is used to maximize agent productivity by minimizing the amount of time between each customer contact. These world class systems provide robust tools to optimize profitability in the contact center efficiency tools include superior voice detection technology, for example, to help drive down agent idle time and increase right party connects. Effectiveness tools, with features that allow agents personal ownership of selected accounts, help deliver on promises to pay or sales, and encourage fewer abandons.
Proactive Contact Hardware

Avaya Proactive Contact is available in two distinct deployment options: Proactive Contact with PG230RM, and Proactive Contact with Computer Telephony Integration (CTI).
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Avaya Proactive Contact with PG230 RM

Avaya Proactive Contact with PG230 RM uses the following components: Digital Switch Enhanced Network Bus Controller Input/Output (ENBC I/O) Transition Module Avaya Proactive Contact Computer Processing Unit (CPU), the server Console/Remote Access Server Ethernet Switch Maintenance modem (US/Canada only) Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS).
In this implementation, Avaya provides the Avaya PG230 RM switch, which houses the Digital Switch and the ENBC I/O Transition Module, and a DVD containing the Avaya Proactive Contact system software applications. All the other system components are purchased directly by the customer, or are available from Avaya at an additional cost. This implementation is offered to give you more latitude when sourcing the system components, which can result in a cost savings.
Avaya Proactive Contact with CTI

Avaya CTI enabled dialing is a software solution that uses Avaya Application Enablement Services (AES) to communicate with Avaya Communication Manager. This deployment option
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provides the same full-featured dialing application, without the PG230 digital switch that is typically used where high performance dialing is required. The Supervisor, Agent and other dialer applications are identical between CTI enabled dialing and the traditional Avaya Proactive Contact System deployment.
Proactive Contact Supervisor Suite

The Proactive Contact Supervisor applications are a suite of call management software that serve as the interface between the call center supervisors/administrators and the Proactive Contact system. The applications allow a supervisor/administrator to easily and dynamically design, control, monitor, and analyze call center activity and provides dynamic, real-time reporting and management of calling campaigns. The application software runs on the supervisor/administrator workstation and provides an intuitive Microsoft Windows-based graphical user interface. The Supervisor applications seamlessly integrate with the Avaya Proactive Contact system to provide a set of functions essential to the enterprise calling missions. First, it enables you to set targeted and effective strategies for the campaigns. Next, it efficiently runs the campaign and allows real-time modifications, as needed, to ensure maximum campaign effectiveness. Finally, it reports on the activity of the campaign, both while the campaign is running and after it is completed. With the Supervisor Suite, the supervisor can focus on the contact center and its customers, not waste valuable time managing or administering the system. The Supervisor Suite includes four main applications that provide specific benefits to the contact center. Take a look at how these work together to help you succeed.
Editor Campaign Management

Editor offers a suite of functionality designed to provide full control of all aspects of creating and administering campaigns and all of their associated attributes. Supervisors can design and edit campaigns (called Jobs on Proactive Contact), create phone strategies and select precise groups of customer records in order to optimize the targeting of each campaign. In addition to supervisors tasks, administrators have access to the following functionality: Calling Lists Allows the creation, modification and deletion of calling lists and their associated configurations. In addition, administrators can set-up and manage both the download and upload of content for each calling list. Messaging and Scripting Provides full control of all system messaging and the scripts that play them. This includes the messaging for outbound wait queues, inbound wait queues, Virtual Jobs, and agent initiated messages. Completion Codes Provides an interface that the enables the supervisor(s) to define disposition or result codes and their attributes. Along with the code description, attributes include whether or not the customer contact was a Right Party, Closure (successful) or an abandoned call. Scheduling Using a Microsoft Outlook look and feel, the scheduler enables supervisors to schedule common tasks; such as, running campaigns, starting jobs, file transfers, running reports, or system maintenance. Agent Keys Provides an interface that enables the supervisor to create and modify agent shortcut keys (function keys).
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The following screen shows the Editor Main Screen for editing all parameters associated with a campaign. Please note that the tabs on the left of the screen provide administrators access to all these features. Access to this functionality is restricted based on user login and the role associated with that login.
Monitor Real-Time Reporting and Campaign Control

In March 1992, Avaya (as Mosaix, Inc.) became the first company to introduce real-time monitoring for predictive dialing. A U.S. Patent (No. 5,101,425) was granted for the invention that graphically displays the real-time events on a predictive dialing system. Avaya continues to enhance and improve the invention and now offers real-time control over call center operations. The Monitor application Supervisors can monitor desired, including current toward campaign goals. provides a real-time view of system, job, and agent statistics. as many systems, jobs, or agent activities (single or group) as call results, call quality, agent productivity, talk times, and progress Powerful Scope Selectors present options for filtering the data to
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exactly what each supervisor needs to see. Supervisors can also monitor inbound and outbound wait queues and view call completion results for each campaign to analyze current campaign effectiveness. The following is a sample Monitor screen showing three real-time views; Dialer Agents, Job Status, and Job Quality. Supervisors can use Monitor to easily create and save similar views to meet their particular business needs.
In addition to presenting comprehensive real-time statistics, Monitor allows real-time control of many agent and campaign settings. For agents, supervisors can right-click on the agent to see additional statistical details or, as shown in the sample screen below, can monitor the agent, transfer or remove the agent from the job, or send the agent a message.
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For Jobs, supervisors have an extensive set of controls that enables them to maximize the effectiveness of each campaign. Shown below, these controls include system pacing, phone strategies, time zones, and phone line usage.
To help manage the contact center more effectively, supervisors can set both visual and audible alarms that are triggered when certain characteristics of a campaign or agent performance are reached: for example, when an agent has exceeded a specified talk time or when a campaign has reached a preset goal. These alerts can even be emailed to the supervisor and then forwarded to a pager or other mobile device. Used effectively, alerts can
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all but eliminate the time consuming process of constantly monitoring agent and/or system performance.
Analyst Historical Reporting and Analysis

Analyst is a powerful query and analysis tool that provides comprehensive historical agent, campaign, and time-of-day reporting for Avaya Proactive Contact. A combination of Crystal Reports, an industry leading query and reporting tool from Business Objects, and value-added software from Avaya, Analyst provides the ability to assess the contact center performance. In addition to over 180 comprehensive standard reports, Analyst puts ad hoc reporting in the hands of contact center management, thereby helping to satisfy the need for timely, pertinent information on which to base operational and strategic decisions. Using a powerful tool called Hierarchy Manager, Analyst can be customized to filter data according to agent, supervisor, job, or dialer, depending on the call center goals. The following is a sample report from Analyst showing the Proactive Contact agent data customized into a grouping by supervisor and manager.
Health Manager System Monitoring and Self-Service

An administrator tool, Health Manager provides a unified view of all key Avaya Proactive Contact system processes. It also provides the capability to activate and/or deactivate these services in order to fix many system issues without the need to call Avaya Customer Support.
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Health manager also displays system resource usage statistics for the CPU, disk, memory, and processes. The following sample screen provides a view of a Proactive Contact system with a down process, Stats_Pump, which is highlighted in red. As shown in the second screen the user simply right-clicks on the service and selects Start Service in order to fix it.
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As is the case with Monitor, administrators can set visual, audible, and/or email alarms that are triggered when the status of a service changes from up to down, or vice-versa.
Proactive Contact Agent

Avaya Proactive Contact Agent is a Windows-based Graphical User Interface that supports an agents interactions with the dialer using the systems Agent Application Programming Interface (API). The primary function of the application includes viewing and updating customer information, recording call results, and miscellaneous activities; such as, transferring calls, setting recalls, and marking records as Do Not Call. Nearly all Agent functionality can be accessed through a single window. The use of dialogs is minimized as much as possible in order to simplify the interface. There are two reasons for this approach: Speed Agents often memorize the sequences required to do repetitive tasks and then execute them very quickly. Decrease Minimum Screen Size Many organizations use the Proactive Contact Agent only as a secondary application. This often means the application is minimized and placed in a corner of the desktop while agents use their primary host application.
It should be noted that all functionality within Avaya Proactive Contact Agent is also supported with the Avaya Proactive Contact Agent API and its associated Software Developers Kit (SDK). The Agent API provides an open interface to accelerate integration with existing proprietary and third-party desktop applications. With the Agent API SDK, you are able to build customized agent applications that meet the contact centers specific needs.
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Internet Monitor
Internet Monitor provides low-cost real-time campaign monitoring visibility that allows an unlimited number of workstations to view real-time Proactive Contact results via the Internet. This can be accomplished from any computer equipped with Web browser software and Internet access. Internet Monitor enables a person to view agent and active call campaign information (calls remaining, call results, and agent activity).
Agent API Software Developer Kit (SDK)

The Agent API Software Development Kit (SDK) provides an open interface to accelerate integration with existing proprietary and third-party desktop applications. With the Agent API SDK, you are able to build customized agent applications that meet the contact centers specific needs.
Event Services Software Developer Kit (SDK)

The Event Service Software Development Kit (SDK) provides an open CORBA interface to accelerate integration with existing proprietary and third-party applications.
Differentiating Features of Proactive Contact

The Industrys Most Accurate Call Progress Analysis
Avaya Proactive Contact provides industry-leading call progress analysis that includes the detection of answered calls, busy signals, no answers, SIT tones, and answering machines.
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The Proactive Contact Enhanced Call Progress Analysis (ECPA) has been independently tested to be 98.9% accurate, the best in the industry. This accuracy, combined with the powerful predictive dialing capabilities of Avaya Proactive Contact, drives the maximum number of productive customer contacts to the agents. Simply put, ECPA is the process of determining how a telephone call is answered and is designed to distinguish between various possible conclusions when a call is placed. The categories handled by ECPA include: The Phone keeps Ringing This is called a Ring No Answer condition. Most people listen for five or six rings and then hang up, assuming that no one is there. In the United States, ring cycles run about six seconds (two seconds ring, four seconds silence). The Ring No Answer condition is normally defined for the Avaya Proactive Contact by the administrator, who specifies the number of rings the system listens for before "hanging up." A Busy Signal is Heard The busy signal tells the caller that the phone is off-hook at the other end of the line; that is, the receiver has been lifted from its cradle and, presumably, someone is talking on the phone. An Operator Answers the Call This condition, known as Operator Intercept, occurs for a variety of reasons, but basically means that the call cannot get through. It could be that the phone has been disconnected, the number was misdialed, long distance circuits are busy, and so forth. Live operators do not often handle these calls anymore, except on very old network switches, and intercepts are now handled automatically. A Series of Three Tones and an Automated Recording is Heard This condition is also known as an Operator Intercept, but is fully automated and does not require a live operator. The tones heard are known as Special Information Tones (SIT) and the tone frequency and duration provide a readily identifiable coding for this specific condition that can be recognized by a well-designed call progress analyzer. An Automated Voice Answers the Line with no Special Information Tones An AutoVoice condition has been reached, which is usually a voice mail system or an answering machine. The Phone is Answered with a Continuous Tone In these cases, a fax machine or a computer modem has answered the call. A Live Voice is Heard on the Phone The called party has answered the phone.
From the beginning, the Avaya Proactive Contact set a new standard with fully digital call progress analysis capability. Our Enhanced Call Progress Analysis (ECPA) is quicker, more consistent, and more reliable in discriminating between the conditions that occur on the telephone line than all other call progress analysis solutions on the market. It builds on years of highly optimized, proprietary algorithms, coupled with high speed Digital Signal Processing technology and can identify and categorize call responses with higher accuracy than ever before. ECPA is also able to hear and identify weaker signals (as well as signals hidden in static or other sounds) better than ever before.
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How it Works
The heart of the Avaya Proactive Contact ECPA technology is advanced signal processing software techniques, based on extensive field experience in accurately analyzing telephone line signals. The technology is built on powerful Signal Processing chips. This enables the ECPA to determine whether an outbound call has been connected to a live voice, an answering machine, voice mail, operator intercept, Special Information Tones (SIT), a modem or fax machine, a busy signal, or there is Ring No Answer. Based upon the results of the ECPA analysis, the telephone line can be connected to an agent or any other appropriate handling method. Special handling may include leaving an automated message on an answering machine. The way an Avaya Proactive Contact responds to line conditions is defined by a sophisticated, supervisor-determined call strategy system. All call outcomes identifying the call type are recorded in the data record associated with the call.
The Industrys Most Efficient Predictive Dialing Algorithm

Avaya Proactive Contact has two methods to pace outbound dialing during an outbound job: Cruise Control and Expert Calling Ratio. When a job is defined in Editor, the supervisor sets the call pacing method based on the type of calling activity to be completed. For example: To limit abandoned or nuisance calls while maximizing agents handling calls, Cruise Control should be selected. To pace calling activities based time agents spend handling calls, Expert Calling Ratio should be selected.
Cruise Control Cruise Control automatically maintains the Service Level of outbound dialing during a job and connects the calls to the agents within a specified period of time. During the job, the supervisor does not have to monitor or modify the call pacing settings. When setting up an outbound job that uses Cruise Control, the Desired Service Level and the Time to Connect Tolerance settings must be defined. The system uses these settings to: Predict when to automatically dial phone numbers Distribute phone calls within the tolerable time period that was set.
Once a job that uses Cruise Control is started, the settings do not have to be changed. In fact, to change the settings the job must first be stopped, the changes made, and then restarted in order to resume calling activities with the new settings. Cruise Control is the latest creation to emerge from a long series of advancements in predictive technology from Avaya and its predecessor, Mosaix. It is the culmination of 20 years of experience in real-world dialing environments, complemented by deep expertise in queuing theory, statistical analysis, and software implementation and testing. Cruise Control takes into account the full spectrum of outbound dialing considerations, from the age-old problem of optimizing the dialing rate to exactly match the availability of agents, to the latest issues in nuisance calling compliance and reporting required by state and federal agencies. Cruise Control is backed by solid mathematical principals, patent-protected software implementation, and rigorous testing load testing at call volumes up to 400,000 calls per hour. Technically speaking, Cruise Control is an adaptive, closed-loop control system with optimizations for specific stochastic factors that are important in maximizing outbound call
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center profitability. Cruise Control automatically adjusts the pacing of outbound calling to meet a guaranteed Service Level goal set by the supervisor/administrator, while simultaneously optimizing performance to minimize Agent Idle Time. This is accomplished by a system that utilizes multiple feedback loops to calculate the probability of availability for each agent in the system in real time, and adjusts the number of outbound calls accordingly. Many semi-random factors in the outbound calling process, such as hit rate, agent talk time, wrap-up time, and so forth, are continually absorbed as input into the predictive calculations, resulting in the best possible match of outbound calls to available agents. The Cruise Control dialing algorithm lets customers better utilize their agents to match the needs of their business by managing Nuisance Calls while optimizing Agent utilization. This is accomplished by real-time monitoring of service levels. Avaya Proactive Contact now has the ability to control outbound service levels to achieve Contact Center goals by determining the nuisance forecast, determining arrival forecasts by tracking agent states, self-adjusting based on the number of agents, and ensuring service levels up to 99.9%. Expert Calling Ratio Expert Calling Ratio allows the supervisor to change the way the system determines when to place the next call while a job is running. When an outbound job is set up using Expert Calling Ratio, the supervisor selects the following settings: The method that the system uses as a basis for its predictive dialing algorithm calculations. A value that sets the pace at which the system places phone calls.
The Expert Calling Ratio method tells the dialer how aggressively to place calls based on one of the following values: Calls in the Wait Queue The Proactive Contact achieves a balance between agents waiting for a call and customers placed in the wait queue. Agent Work Time The Proactive Contact monitors the time agents take to complete calls and update records and adjusts the calling pace accordingly. Agent Update Time The Proactive Contact monitors the time agents take to update records and adjust the calling pace accordingly.
Once a campaign using Expert Calling Ratio is started, the settings can be changed in Monitor without stopping the campaign or the need for agents to logout temporarily.
Call Blending Smoothly Integrates Inbound and Outbound Calls

Avaya Proactive Contact helped pioneer call blending in the early 1990s. Blending allows call centers to make outbound calls as well as service inbound calls, all while maximizing the productivity of each and every agent. Avaya Proactive Contact offers two types of blending, Intelligent Call Blending and Agent Blending, that can be used separately or together on the same system in order to address even the most complicated blending scenarios.
Intelligent Call Blending

Avaya Proactive Contact uses Intelligent Call Blending (ICB) as a call blending method for call centers whose main priority is outbound dialing. ICB works with inbound trunks from a Central
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Office (CO), a telephony Switch (a PBX), or with inbound trunks from an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD). When Avaya Proactive Contact is working with a CO or PBX, inbound calls are routed directly to Avaya Proactive Contact, whereas, with an ACD, inbound calls are distributed from the ACD to Avaya Proactive Contact based on thresholds configured on the ACD. In either case, ICB distributes a blend of inbound and outbound calls to the Avaya Proactive Contact agents. With ICB, blend agents handle outbound calls until there are more inbound calls than available inbound agents, at which time the excess inbound calls are passed to the blend agents. When the inbound call volume decreases, the Avaya Proactive Contact returns to passing outbound calls to the blend agents.
Agent Blending
Agent Blending integrates outbound calling activities on the Avaya Proactive Contact with inbound calling activities on the ACD. In an Agent Blending scenario ACD agents log on to both the Avaya Proactive Contact and the ACD. The Proactive Contact monitors the activity on the ACD and uses this information to determine when to acquire agents for outbound calling and when to release ACD agents to handle inbound calls. Pooled agents are acquired for outbound calling when the inbound calling activity decreases and the agents are release to answer inbound calls when the inbound calling activity increases. This movement keeps the ACD blend agents busy while keeping the ACD service level within the call centers prescribed limits.
Agent Blending supports two distinct configurations, Predictive Agent Blending and Proactive Agent Blending, which are discussed below: Predictive Agent Blending If the first priority is servicing inbound customers and inbound volume is fairly high, the use of Predictive Agent Blending will be beneficial. Predictive Agent Blending focuses on the inbound mission and only acquires agents for outbound when the Service Level or Average Speed to Answer (ASA) parameters are above the desired value.
These agents take inbound calls until Avaya Proactive Contact predicts that there will be too many agents on inbound (Avaya Proactive Contact bases the prediction on the service level
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requirements set by the administrator/supervisor). Avaya Proactive Contact then acquires agents from the ACD to handle outbound calls until the inbound volume increases. Call Centers with moderate-to-heavy inbound traffic, and more than 25 agents in the inbound pool, will benefit from using Predictive Agent Blending. Predictive Agent Blending uses events from the ACD to forecast call volume and determine when to move ACD agents between inbound and outbound calling. There are two control method options within Predictive Agent Blending: Average Speed to Answer and Service Level. To configure Predictive Agent Blending, an Average Speed to Answer or a Service Level domain group is set up that contains one or more acquire domains and at least one inbound domain. Each type requires different settings. Average Speed to Answer (ASA) This domain group type uses the target ASA field (MAAS) for calculating when to acquire and release agents. Agents are acquired for outbound calls when the average speed to answer for all inbound domains in the group is less than, or equal to, the targeted value. Agents are released when the value rises above the target. Average Speed to Answer (ASA) parameters include: Desired Level (required) The average number of seconds within which agents must answer calls. A setting between zero (0) and 100 seconds is selected and represents an average calculated over the Average Speed to Answer (ASA) interval. Average Speed to Answer The interval that Avaya Proactive Contact uses to calculate the ASA. This parameter influences how responsive the system is to fluctuations in answer delays. This interval is a rolling interval that starts whenever the Avaya Proactive Contact is start or Agent Blending is restarted. The minimum setting is 0.25 hours (15 minutes). For example, a setting of one (1) calculates the activity during the past hour. Traffic Intensity Threshold (required) The percentage of agents available to take calls. This setting is used to determine how quickly Avaya Proactive Contact moves agents between inbound and outbound calls. The goal is to prevent agents from being acquired or released too frequently. Agents are available if they are not taking calls or updating records. Agent Blending tracks calling statistics and uses this information to predict future availability. To calculate the threshold, Avaya Proactive Contact divides the projected inbound call volume by the projected number of available agents. Minimum Number of Agents on Outbound (optional) The minimum number of ACD blend agents, in this domain group, dedicated to handling outbound calls. This setting overrides Desired level. For example, no matter how low the ASA, there will always be this number of agents unavailable to handle inbound calls. This option is used when the call center must meet outbound goals before inbound calls are serviced. Initial Traffic Rate (optional) The estimated number of calls per second. Avaya Proactive Contact uses this rate for the first 30 calls. It ensures that there are enough agents to handle the first 30 calls.
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Minimum Talk Time (optional) The estimated minimum number of seconds agents spend connected on each inbound call. Avaya Proactive Contact adds Talk time and After Call Work time to determine agent availability. Agent availability is sometimes called service capacity. Minimum After Call Work Time (optional) The estimated minimum number of seconds agents spend, after a call, updating records and processing information.
Service Level (SL) This domain group type uses the Service Criterion (SC, seconds), Desired Service Level (DSL, %), and Abatement Service Level (ASL, %) fields for calculating when to acquire and release agents. Agents are acquired for outbound calls when the percentage of inbound calls answered within the Service Criterion is greater than, or equal to, the Desired Service Level percentage. Acquisitions will stop when the actual service level reaches the Abatement Service Level value. Agents will be released back to inbound when the service level falls below the desired value. The actual service level is calculated using all inbound domains in the group. Service Level parameters include: Desired Service Level (required) The percentage of calls agents can answer within the Service Criterion. Abatement Service Level (required) The percentage (of the Service Level, SL) where Avaya Proactive Contact stops acquiring agents for outbound calling. A value greater than the Desired level and less than, or equal to, 100 must be selected. Service Criterion (required) The maximum time within which an agent must answer a call. It measure the seconds an inbound call is in the ACD queue. Service Level Interval (required) The interval that Avaya Proactive Contact uses to calculate the SL. This parameter influences how responsive Avaya Proactive Contact is to fluctuations in answer delays. The interval is a rolling interval that starts whenever Avaya Proactive Contact is started or Agent Blending is restarted. The minimum setting is 0.25 hours (15 minutes). For example, a setting of 1 calculates the activity during the past hour. Traffic Intensity Threshold (required) The percentage of agents available to take calls. This setting determines how quickly Avaya Proactive Contact moves agents between inbound and outbound calls. The goal is to prevent agents from being acquired or released too frequently. Agents are available if they are not taking calls or updating records. Agent Blending tracks calling statistics and uses this information to predict future availability. To calculate the threshold, Avaya Proactive Contact divides the projected inbound call volume by the projected number of available agents. Minimum Number of Agents on Outbound (optional) The minimum number of ACD blend agents, in this domain group, dedicated to handling outbound calls. This setting overrides the desired level. For example, no matter how low the ASA, this number of agents is always unavailable to handle inbound calls. This option is used when the call center must meet outbound goals before inbound calls are serviced.
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Initial Traffic Rate (optional) The estimated number of calls per second. Avaya Proactive Contact uses this rate for the first 30 calls. It ensures that there are enough agents to handle the first 30 calls. Minimum Talk Time (optional) The estimated minimum number of seconds agents spend connected on each inbound call. Avaya Proactive Contact adds Talk time and After Call Work time to determine agent availability. Agent availability is sometimes called service capacity. Minimum After Call Work Time (optional) The estimated minimum number of seconds agents spend, after a call, updating records and processing information.
Proactive Agent Blending If the focus is on Outbound Calling, but there is a need to service a low volume of inbound customers, the use of Proactive Agent Blending will be beneficial. Proactive Agent Blending focuses on outbound calls and releases agents to answer inbound calls only when an inbound call enters a monitored queue on the ACD. When an ACD agent logs on, Avaya Proactive Contact immediately acquires the agent for outbound calling. When an inbound call comes into the ACD queue, Avaya Proactive Contact releases the agent to handle the call. The number of queued calls before agents release to inbound can be configured for each Outbound Only domain group. If inbound calls continue to come in, Avaya Proactive Contact continues to release agents. As soon as the queue is empty, Avaya Proactive Contact acquires the agent for outbound calls.
Avaya Proactive Contact with CTI

Avaya Proactive Contact with CTI supports Agent Blending with Communication Manager using Avaya Application Enablement Service (AES) for its CTI link. All other Agent Blending functionality is as described above.
Multi-Dialer Capabilities
The Multi-dialer capabilities of Avaya Proactive Contact enable a single supervisor to manage multiple dialers across the enterprise. You can create and manage log-ins and passwords for multiple dialers from a single system, create, edit and delete campaign information, combine real-time data from multiple dialers, and share user-defined views. A log-in and password created on one dialer may be populated to all of your dialers, regardless of their physical location. And one or more Avaya Proactive Contact systems can then run jobs using a single master list residing on any other Avaya dialer. Our Multi-Dialer capabilities give supervisors the unparalleled ability to manage jobs and execute big projects across multiple dialers simultaneously and re-allocate resources based on real-time feedback. This provides three important advantages: Agent and List Aggregation Supervisors may execute a campaigns across two, three, or four dialers simultaneously, treating all of the agents in the dialers as a single pool working from a single list.. One or more Avaya Proactive Contact systems can then run jobs using a single master list residing on any other Avaya dialer. In its purest form, any Avaya Proactive Contact system can be used to dial another systems calling list. Execute a campaign across two, three, or four dialers
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Treat all of the agents in your system as a single pool All agents can work from a single list Master list can reside on any dialer Log-ins and passwords can be populated to all dialers.
Simplified Administration Multi-dialer capabilities enable a single supervisor to manage multiple dialers across the enterprise. All of the dialers configured in a Pod can be administered from a single point, and from a single screen, including dispatching campaigns and viewing campaign status. You can create and manage log-ins and passwords for multiple dialers from a single system. And you can combine real-time data from multiple dialers and share userdefined views. A single supervisor can manage multiple dialers Supervisor sees entire enterprise from a single screen Create and manage log-ins and passwords for all dialers Combine real-time data from multiple dialers Share user-defined views.
Load Balancing By treating all agents on all dialers as a single resource, the Avaya Proactive Contact systems can more effectively assign agents to campaigns based on each jobs overall system priority. It is a vital priority for supervisors to ensure that their agents and lines are operating at peak efficiency. Yet all too often, higher-priority campaigns arent given equitable access to Avaya Proactive Contact system resources. The Multi-Dialer option makes it easier for supervisors to deploy campaigns across their entire pool of agents, through its active loadbalancing feature. Assign agents to campaigns based on each jobs overall system priority Ensure that entire agent pools are being utilized on top-priority jobs.
Nuisance Calling, Call Abandonment, and Do Not Call Regulations

Some legislative requirements state that for each calling campaign no more than a certain percent (x.x %) of calls connected to a "live" called party can be "abandoned" per day, or conversely, a particular percentage (y.y %) percent or more of these calls must be answered by a live agent within a stated number of seconds. In this scenario, a call is considered to be "abandoned" when a customer answers and is not connected to an agent within the stated number of seconds. Avaya Proactive Contact provides features to enable you to meet all legislative regulations for Nuisance Calling, Call Abandonment, and Do Not Call. Proper and diligent use of features must be enforced to ensure compliance: User definable number of seconds from end of greeting to connection to an agent User definable Service Level for outbound Minimum of ring time hanging up Recorded message for Calls Queued or Abandoned
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Capture of pertinent call events Reporting of historical call statistics.
Proactive Contact also offers a solution for Do Not Call compliance with state and federal laws allowing companies to match their calling list against a national registry before calling potential customers. This solution is delivered through third party integration via Gryphon Networks.
Avaya Proactive Contact System Feature Summary

Agent Management
The following features provide greater agent flexibility and increased productivity: Agent Interface Options Options include a standard Windows-based desktop with the flexibility to build basic scripts for agents using the built-in ScreenBuilder application, or in-house programmers can develop custom agent interfaces using the Agent API Software Development Kit. Agent Owned Recall Allows the agent to set a recall that will only be delivered back to that agent, no matter what job he/she is on. Agent Generated Messaging Increases the consistency of customer messages by having the agents play pre-recorded messages directly to customers or onto Answering Machines. Auto-Play Automatically plays a message to a detected answering machine while passing live contacts to agents. Auto-Wrap Avaya Proactive Contact reduces line costs and increases agent productivity by automatically moving agents to after-call work mode when a customer hangs up. Auto-wrap can be defined on a per job basis. Enterprise Licensing All Proactive Contact licensing (agents and supervisors) is based on concurrent usage. For customers with multiple systems this means that licenses purchased for one system can easily be used on any other system. This is especially helpful in Disaster Recovery planning. Manual Dial Calls can be placed by agents to any number not on the current customer record by using an open field to type the phone number. Multi-Dialer Agent Log-in Management Customers can create and manage logins and passwords for multiple dialers from a single system. For example, a login and password created on one dialer may be populated to each of the customer's other dialers. Proactive Outreach Interface automated agents to the dialer using either Avaya Interactive Response (IR) or Avaya Voice Portal solutions. Remote Agents Agents can be connected to the Avaya Proactive Contact remotely through data and voice connections. Connections can be traditional TDM (E1 or T1) or via IP/SIP (with appropriate supporting infrastructure). Virtual Agent Campaigns can be run without live agents by automatically delivering prerecorded messages to both live contacts and answering devices.
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Campaign Management
The following features enhance the flexibility of campaigns and can be used by the contact center supervisors to design, control, and analyze calling campaigns dynamically and in real time. Agent Keys These provide an interface to add, change, or delete shortcut/function keys for the agent interfaces. Alerts Real-time Alerts can be created based on System, Campaign, Groups, or even individual agents. These audio, visual, or email Alerts can save valuable management time by eliminating or reducing the time required to monitor the system and agents. Campaign Template This feature allows a supervisor to search for a previously created campaign by entering key terms in a search box. Once a list of campaigns is generated based on the search criteria, the user will be able to select one of the campaigns and copy all aspects to a newly created campaign. Completion Code Manager This feature allows supervisors to configure information such as, Completion Code labels, Right Party Contacts, Closures, and Abandonment. The Analyst and Monitor applications can then use this data for labeling and to calculate and group historical and real-time information. Cruise Control Dialing With Cruise Control the Desired Service Level and the Connect Tolerance settings are used as precise limits for automatically pacing the dialing. After starting a job that uses Cruise Control, it is not necessary to monitor or adjust settings relative to call pacing. The system does it for you! And in fact, Cruise Control is designed to always meet or exceed your goals. Expert Calling Ratio This method of call pacing provides full manual control to allow an aggressive or conservative approach to calling campaigns. In contrast to Cruise Control, Expert Calling Ratio may be adjusted in real-time to optimize productivity or adapt to a quickly changing calling environment. Detect the Beep Avaya Proactive Contact detects the last beep of an answering machine before leaving a message, instead of using a timed delay. Event Service SDK and Certified Integrations for Third-Party Applications Event Service SDK provides an open CORBA interface to accelerate integration with existing proprietary and third-party applications. Certified integrations include, Austin Logistics CallTech and OnQ for Best-Time-to-Call Analytics, synTelate agent scripting, NICE call recording, Verint/Witness call recording, IEX workforce management and Syntora/VPI Agent Dashboard. Filters Filters are used to apply one additional criterion to selected Monitor views, for user-specific needs, where the application of criteria is feasible. For example, a supervisor could use a Filter to limit agent data to "agents with a Talk Time greater than 120- seconds". Filters may be created, changed or deleted by the user. Health Manager This provides a unified view of the Avaya Proactive Contact system (or group of systems) processes and services and provides the capability to activate or
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deactivate these services. It also displays system resource usage statistics on CPU, disk, memory, and processes. Job Linking This allows jobs to be chained or linked while enabling agents to move smoothly from one job to another without downtime. Letter Generator This feature enables the creation of customized form letters as a calling campaign follow-up. Data may be extracted from Proactive Contact based on the outcome of any phone call. Based on the outcome of phone calls and the extract data, form letters may be generated using common Word Processing tools. Managed Dialing With Managed Dialing agents are able to provide specialized handling on sensitive accounts by previewing the client record before a call is placed. Messages and Scripts The Message Wizard can be used to add new messages or change existing ones. The Scripts button displays a list of the scripts stored in the system. The Script Wizard can be used to add new scripts or to change existing ones. Multi-Dialer Campaign Monitor Supports multiple dialers across an enterprise, allowing a single aggregate view of real-time job data from multiple dialers. Person to Person Monitors customer connection rates and ensures that excess calls from sudden changes in the connect ratios are answered by a live voice. Phone Strategy Provides a number tools which provide the flexibility for you to determine how to call each account within a campaign. Settings include the first phone number to call, the number of rings before a No Answer is recorded, and automatic system retries. Quotas When using Unit Work Lists users can specify a quota for each unit. Once the quota is met, accounts from that unit will no longer be called but the campaign will continue until all units have met the quota. Real-Time Campaign Management Optimize performance with real-time monitoring and on-the-fly control of campaign parameters and agents. Recent Data The Monitor application will display, at the option of the supervisor, data from jobs that have been completed. This will allow data from previously run jobs to be added to real-time data. For example, rather than only showing an agent's statistics from the currently running job, the data would include data from all previous jobs that they had participated in during the specified time period. Record Selection Provides a number of tools to help you define who to call in each campaign. Settings include criteria based on fields within the customer calling list records, time zones and previous attempts to call each account. These features also enable supervisors to control Agent Set Recalls and the sorting of records within each campaign. Roles Based Access This feature allows assignment of specific roles and permissions for Supervisor/Administrator access to dialers.
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Sales Verification Automatic creation of a second calling campaign (to confirm sales or commitments obtained in a prior campaign) that allows use of a different pool of agents to perform verification tasks. Scheduler Using a familiar Outlook interface, the Scheduler enables system administrators to schedule repetitive tasks such as Jobs, Selections, backups, and so forth. Scope Selectors Settings for common job definitions include options that allow users to specify the data view based on the chosen characteristics. Scope Selectors are used as the default method for filtering the "scope" of the data on any given Campaign Monitor view. For most views, the default Scope Selectors will be System, Job and Supervisor. Options within each Selector include all, multiple, or one of the available options within the List Box. For example, a manager looking at several systems could select all systems, two currently running jobs, and a single supervisor. Data would then be filtered to display only these statistics. Time Zone Control Provides the ability to turn Time Zones on or off before and during individual Jobs. In addition, Time Zones can be configured to provide a follow-the-sun strategy thereby maximizing the number of phone calls in each Time Zone during optimal call hours. Unit Work Lists An outbound campaign during which agents can work specific subsets of customer records within the same campaign. For example, in a campaign for 30 and 60 day collections, half the agents could be working on the 30 day unit and the other half on the 60 day unit.
Report Management
The following features allow contact center supervisors to report on the activities of Calling Lists, Campaigns, and Agents, either while campaigns are running or after they are complete. Campaign Metrics Proactive Contacts Event Service (see Event Service SDK) can be utilized to gather customer interaction and agent performance data in real time. This raw data can then be analyzed, configured and displayed in near real-time to supervisors and/or agents via an agent dashboard. Enterprise Reporting Enables users to combine statistical data from up to four Proactive Contact systems configured in a Pod. Hierarchies Users can create hierarchical relationships such as agents to supervisors. This information is then available to other modules, such as Analyst and Monitor for calculating, sorting and grouping real-time or historical data. The Hierarchy Manager can be used to create additional grouping alternatives for Monitor data. Once a hierarchy is created, it can be substituted for the default Scope Selectors by the enduser. The hierarchy then functions in the same manner as the Scope Selector. For example, a customer could create a hierarchy that defines his/her company's organizational structure; directors, managers and supervisors. The hierarchy can be used by various organization levels to view only the data that is germane to their responsibility.
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ODBC Access This interface allows customers full read access to the systems Oracle 10g database. This enables the data to be extracted or for third party tools to be used for customized agent and campaign reporting. PC Analysis Provides full access to the systems raw statistical data, which allows the raw data to be exported in CSV format for use in the customers own reporting environment or data warehouse. PC Analysis Extracts (automated) Enables managers or supervisors to select critical campaign statistics they want to monitor and set the Avaya Proactive Contact to automatically extract this data hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.
Telephony Resource Management

The following features utilize telephony resources to control the flow of calls to contact center agents. Blending features allow the transition of inbound and outbound calls to the agents. ANI/DNIS Number Pop Populates fields on the inbound calling record with automatic number identification (ANI), which identifies the inbound phone number, or dialed number identification system (DNIS), which identifies the destination number when those numbers are available on the network. This provides agents with front-end account information and allows calls to be answered based on call type. ANI Support Provides identification to the called party as necessary to meet state regulation requirements for telemarketing. Control of the ANI can be system wide, per campaign, or even based on each record with the customer calling list. Avaya CTI Enabled Dialing CTI enabled dialing provides full Avaya Proactive Contact outbound dialing functionality while leveraging your existing ACD and PBX infrastructure, hardware, software, and telephone sets. Many features of the Avaya Communication Manager can be used in conjunction with CTI enabled dialing to optimize your calling. Agent Blending (Predictive) By utilizing a CTI link, the Avaya Proactive Contact can monitor customer ACDs and predict when inbound agents can transition to take outbound calls, or vice-versa. Agents can be acquired for outbound dialing quickly via multiple simultaneous acquires. The Avaya Proactive Contact can also predict when these agents will be required to return to inbound. Agent Blending (Proactive) By utilizing a CTI link, the Avaya Proactive Contact can monitor customer ACDs and based on the inbound hold queue, move agents from outbound calling to inbound to take calls, or vice-versa. Intelligent Call Blending (no ACD) Connects directly to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) without an ACD/PBX. Routes both the inbound and outbound calls to blend agents in the contact center. Intelligent Call Blending (overflow) A customers ACD/PBX can integrate with the Avaya Proactive Contact and route calls into the Proactive Contact to blend agents when ACD/PBX agents are unable to handle unusual spikes in inbound volume. Line Pooling Allows multiple jobs to share common pools of lines. This enables the Avaya Proactive Contact to automatically assign and release lines to campaigns as
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needed. In cases where dedicated lines are needed for specific campaigns the line pools are simply assigned to specific campaigns. Multi-Country Dialing Configuration allows the system to place outbound phone calls to multiple countries. A single campaign can be used to dial multiple countries. Native Voice and Data Transfer Allows any outbound agent on an outbound or blend job to transfer a call, with its associated data, to any available inbound or blend agent that is actively joined to an inbound or blend job.
List and Data Management

The following features impact calling list records that are loaded onto the Avaya Proactive Contact. Supervisors can set targeted and effective strategies for calling campaigns. Area Code Update Supervisors can quickly add and change area codes and prefixes. Backups Full or incremental system backups can be created using DVD, tape or your network. These backups can be automated by end-users using the systems scheduling utility. Calling List Management Allows the Supervisor to quickly add, change, or delete calling lists, messages, upload/download processes and completion codes to meet the changing needs of your contact center. Campaign Update Automatically removes records from the calling list while the campaign is in progress, eliminating outbound nuisance calls to clients who have previously called into the contact center. Do Not Call Update - Allows the agent or supervisor to mark a customer record as do not call and have all matching records in other selected calling lists marked as well. Flexible List Preprocessing The Avaya Proactive Contact has an extensive set of preprocessing tools that allow users to manipulate data, eliminate duplicate accounts, update information on their current list from a previous list, check phone numbers, and determine time zones prior to implementing a campaign. Infinite Job Appends a subsequent host download to a calling list that is already in progress (and will automatically re-sort if desired) without shutting down the active campaign. List Distribution Analyzes the records in your outbound calling list before you run an outbound job. Using a cross-tabular distribution format it creates reports that count the records in the distribution sets. Multi-Dialer Management Manages multiple dialers from a single location. Log-in and password administration is distributed to multiple systems. Runs multiple record selections and starts jobs on multiple dialers at the same time. Edits to record selection and phone strategies can be saved to multiple dialers. Record Edits Allows the supervisor or agent to access and edit the calling list. The supervisor may search the list on a unique client field and then update any piece of the clients data stored in the calling list.
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Record-Specific Messaging Specific recorded messages can be played to the called party based on a unique identifier in the customer record. Shared Calling Lists The Avaya Proactive Contact can run jobs using a calling list that resides on another Avaya Proactive Contact, enabling one or more systems to run jobs from a single master list. In its purest form, any Avaya Proactive Contact can be used to dial another systems calling list. Security Secure Sockets, Secure Shell and Secure FTP are all standard protocols. Additionally, data encryption and password aging is standard. Oracles advanced database security is used and the Event Services API uses Secure CORBA access. An Auditor role is provided for monitoring bad logins and historical event data.
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Avaya Customer Interaction Express

Avaya Customer Interaction Express is a software based contact center suite offering a wide range of functionality to effectively manage the complete customer interaction life cycle. Customer Interaction Express is a complete IP communication solution designed for the midmarket organization with 20 to 150 agents. The suite offers: Voice-Inbound Routing Voice-Outbound Routing Email, Fax and Short Message Service (SMS) Routing Skill Based Routing Real-time and Historical reporting Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Screenpop Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Customer Interaction Express
Customer Interaction Express also offers the following features. Flexible routing mechanisms Customer Interaction Express offers flexible routing mechanisms for voice, email, fax, SMS, and voicemail. Depending on priority, calls can be routed to various agent groups, or to the best qualified and available agents using the skill-based routing feature. By identifying the callers number or sender's email address, interactions can be further routed in a customized manner.
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Outbound Campaigns The Customer Interaction Express solution has a built-in Dialer for outbound calling. Agent productivity can be increased by ensuring that agents take outbound calls for the duration that inbound call volume is low or agents are idle. This feature can be effectively used to increase your customer base, creating greater opportunities for revenue generation. Real-time and Historical Reporting Customer Interaction Express offers both Real-time and Historical reporting. Reports can be pulled to consolidate information such as the number of calls, or average time on hold. More granular information can also be obtained like, details on each individual call and individual time on hold. Real-time mode provides a precise look at the current situation without delays. This includes the status of an agent's call as well as the announcement a caller who is in the waiting queue is currently hearing. Reports for other offline media such as email can be made available as well. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text to Speech (TTS) Features Avaya Customer Interaction Express offers standard IVR features that can be leveraged to automate simpler tasks. Features such as account balance inquiry through PIN entry, changing an address using ASR or simply using menu inquiries to pre- qualify a call reduce the number of calls an agent receives. Data entered via IVR is available to the agent when the caller is routed to that agent. Language Localization Customer Interaction Express can be localized in the following languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Brazilian, and Portuguese. Support for Wallboards Customer Interaction Express can be configured to support Messagemaker and Wibond Wallboards. A wallboard is a device used to display real-time call and agent statistics in a contact center. Real-time statistics include: Topic, Team, Agent Group, Time and Date.
Brief History and Market Base

Customer Interaction Express was brought to Avaya via our acquisition of Tenovis. The core technology is based on Tenovis Business Contact Center which has been available in the market for several years. Based on proven Tenovis Business Contact Center technology, Customer Interaction Express has gradually evolved in functionality and user experience. Tenovis Business Contact Center already has an installed base of over 2200 in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Mid-Market Contact Centers.
Architecture
Customer Interaction Express has a platform independent architecture and can run on Avaya Aura Communication Manager, or Tenovis Integral 33/55 PBXs. Customer Interaction Express is a pure Soft ACD solution. The architecture is divided into several layers (multi-tier) and the communication between each layer is established through Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). This enables flexible distribution over multiple servers.
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Overview
The architecture can be broadly classified into three layers; External media Server Client
External media are located in the bottom layer. These include Communication Manager, Tenovis Integral 33/55, and mail server etc. The different media channels, as well as the different PBX switches are connected via a module called Taskserver. The Taskserver handles the media specific implementation and communicates via the CORBA with the kernel of Customer Interaction Express. The Taskservers are responsible for the task handling. For each media type, a unique Taskserver has to be realized. Therefore, Communication Manager, Tenovis Integral 33/55, and mail server each require a separate Taskserver. Because of this architecture the upper processes are mostly media independent. All the information from the Taskserver is sent to the Kernel where it is processed. The kernel is responsible to combine the different media channels in abstract interfaces. The kernel delivers information to the upper processes for calculating statistics, real-time information and routing. The Vectoring process is responsible for the routing. The routing is programmed with a script generated by the Call Flow Editor Graphical User Interface (GUI). The monitoring system calculates real-time statistical information which can be displayed in the GUI. This statistical information is stored in the database as historic data. The different media channels are handled and viewed only differently in the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which is the front-end of Customer Interaction Express.
Customer Interaction Express Channels
The client side is comprised of the Business Logic Components that form the basis for the User Interface. The client part is a Thick client implementation GUI. The information and data from
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the system is abstracted in a Business Logic Component to separate business logic from the external view. Some client parts are thin clients running in an embedded internet explorer object inside the thick client. The upper-most layer is the User Interface which the agents, supervisors, and administrators operate.
Database
All configuration and task record data is stored in a relational database (Sybase) on the server. The relational database is abstracted with a CORBA interface. If configuration data is changed the related servers are notified. The system can be configured dynamically during runtime. Because no SQL or vendor interfaces are needed, there is no need for client database communication software.
Customer Interaction Express Components and Functions

Before we describe the system and its application it is important to understand some basic terminology about the major components in the Customer Interaction Express system. The six components - Task, Topic, Task Tag, User, Agent, and Agent Group are described in detail in the following table.
Customer Interaction Express Components

Term Task Description A Task is a media independent contact like a voice call or an email. This may be an inbound call, outbound call, e-mail, fax, or SMS (text message). The task flow defines rules on how a task (contact) should be handled. Topic The topic is the entry point into the system and the source for Task objects. A topic can be an e-mail address, a dialed number, or a fax number. As soon as a contact for a topic is present, Customer Interaction Express decides what to do with the contact. If it is not possible to directly route the contact, they are generally held at the topic. This makes it possible to make very flexible routing decisions during the time on hold. Task Tag Task Tags are properties stored at a Task. Each Task Tag has a name and a value. Every process can read and write Task Tags to a Task. Task Tags can be defined in the System.
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Customer Interaction Express Components

Term User Description A user in the system can log into the Customer Interaction Express application using the Customer Interaction Express User Interface. A User has a set of privileges which allows him or her to use and administer parts of the system. There is no difference between agents, supervisors, and administrators. These roles can be defined by a combination of privileges. Agent An agent can login in for one or more specific media types. A User can be related to an agent. Only agents can get Tasks from the call center routing. Each agent can have different states for each media type. The agent media states are independent between each other. An agent for example can be signed on for mail and signed off for voice. Agents may belong to one or more Agent Groups. An agent can sign on to an agent group, when he/she is logged in. Agent Group An agent group is a list of agents. The agent group organizes agents and is needed as a routing target and for statistic. An agent can be part of a maximum of five agent groups but can have any number of skills allocated to him/her. Agents can sign on to an agent group to receive calls. Agent groups are used for inbound and outbound calls as well as e-mail. With the basic understanding of the architecture and major components of Customer Interaction Express we can now take a look at the functionality that Customer Interaction Express has to offer. These functions include Inbound Voice, Outbound Voice, Email, IVR, CTI Integration, and Reporting.
Major Functions
Inbound Voice The inbound voice solution routes the customer to the agent with the best skills to handle the interaction, while providing the necessary customer information to the agent to successfully handle the customer's request the first time. The treatment of a call is designed using the Task Flow Editor which is a component of the Customer Interaction Express User Interface application. Using the Task Flow editor call flows and routing solutions can be created. You can also decide for calls in the waiting queue which announcements or music is to be played to the caller.
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Call with ID based routing allows calls to be identified and treated based on the transmitted phone number. Based on priority assigned, the caller can be distributed with a higher priority or to the best qualified agent. The Customer Interaction Express call distribution can be programmed to meet most contact center requirements, the configuration of the workflows is done with the graphical Task Flow Editor. The callers can be identified based on individual, company, region, country, and VIP.
Customer Interaction Express Task Flow Editor
With Skills Based Routing the distribution is even more advanced. The caller will be automatically distributed to the agent who is best qualified to handle this request. As an example the caller will be distributed directly to an agent who speaks the required language and has the required product knowledge. With skills based routing, efficiency and first call resolution will be increased. Customer contacts from any or all channels like voice calls, emails, fax, voicemails, or SMS are routed through a topic. A topic represents a service or task. Up to 4000 different topics per switch can be configured. In the workflow, such topics will be usually routed to an agent group. Within the agent group the tasks are distributed to the next available agent. The agent has to be signed on to an agent group. The assignment to the agent groups or the selectable agent
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groups for an agent can be changed in real time by a supervisor. If a supervisor sees that an inbound queue is not meeting the desired service level he/she can move agents to the queue using the graphical interface. With the advanced routing feature, additional routing possibilities are available. A supervisor can switch on or off an announcement to every incoming call by changing values of variables in real time. For example, if a power supply company has an outage the supervisor can switch on a welcome message in the real-time information screen just by changing the variable. Every caller will then hear this welcome message. Another possibility would be to switch on an overflow to another agent group for a topic. So a supervisor can influence the Task-flow without the need to reprogram the flow. Outbound Voice Customer Interaction Express offers the Dialer feature that ensures optimal utilization of resources because employees will be more productive and focused on revenue-generating activities throughout the day. Adding outbound work into the slow periods of inbound activity or "agent blending" is also possible with Customer Interaction Express. The outbound functionality provided by Customer Interaction Express is variable based on licenses (Standard versus Advanced), but most importantly based on the agent availability for blended interactions. Agents can be dedicated to outbound calling, or given opportunities based on availability or by campaigns. A call can be initiated from Customer Interaction Express and distributed to an available agent, only upon a live connection. Alternatively, the task can be first assigned to an agent in preview mode, and then initiated via the agent phone. Both inbound and outbound voice calls can be controlled via the programmable call distribution. Additionally, it is possible to view the status of the calls and the status of the whole campaign.
Dialer Categories, Types, and Modes of operation
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Dialer Categories
Type Campaign Dialer Explanation When the target numbers are entered in the system it is not determined which agent will process the job. The call distribution of the Customer Interaction Express system (task flow) handles the assignment to agents. In a Customer Interaction Express system a campaign is associated with a topic. When the target numbers are entered in the system, the jobs are assigned to an agent.
Agent Dialer
Dialer Types
Type Mechanic Explanation The customer is called by the Customer Interaction Express system. If the customer is reached, he/she is automatically connected to an available agent. A high efficiency is reached since agents do not have to deal with unavailable customers or invalid numbers. There is, however, the risk that no agent is available when a customer is reached. The call is initiated from the agent telephone to the customer. This ensures a high degree of quality for the customer since the agent is available from the moment of contact. However, the efficiency is low since agents have to deal with unavailable customers and wrong numbers. The agent is automatically provided with customer data and initiates the call from his or her telephone to the customer with an action (e.g. clicking a button). This is a sub-form of the direct dialer where the agent can do preparatory work concerning a call.
Direct
Preview
Dialer Modes of Operation

Type Auto Explanation An Auto dialer initiates a call only when an agent is available. This corresponds with a fixed dial factor of 1.0. The dial factor determines the number of calls that are initiated in relation to signed on agents. A Power dialer initiates as many calls as possible. Connections that cannot be assigned to an agent are released (dropped). A fixed value, e.g. 2, is set for the dial factor. With a dial factor of 2 two calls are initiated for each signed on, available agent. A progressive dialer uses settings to initiate more calls according to the number of available agents. The dial factor is adjusted automatically depending on the drop rate.
Power
Progressive
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For the integration of Campaign Management Software there is an easy way of CSV-Import and Export to provide call jobs (the numbers to be called are the so called call jobs) for the dialer. An example of granularity that is offered through the voice outbound feature is that an agent can determine whether a call was successfully initiated, and if not, what the possible reasons are. Also, the outcome of the call can be updated to the system as soon as the call is completed.
Agents Qualifying Outbound Calls
Email
Many customers today prefer communicating via the Email channel. The Customer Interaction Express facilitates customers by providing Email as a medium for customer interaction. Customer Interaction Express also includes features for use by agents that can enhance the effectiveness of this medium. The Customer Interaction Express offer allows high quality Email communication by using predefined text blocks. Text blocks are standard pre-formatted responses to routine queries and can be easily inserted into the email to provide uniform answers to the customers. This also saves time on typing repetitive information thus boosting agent productivity. Use of escalation mechanisms in email are important in order to stick to defined service levels. Email can be delegated or postponed. Further, email streams can be initiated. Cross-Media reporting delivers important information on email as well. Unified Media Routing in Customer Interaction Express enables multi-channel routing platform for support of voice-mail, email, fax and SMS channels.
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The Unified Media Routing server receives email messages via SMTP or can collect messages via POP3/IMAP4 from a Mail server Account. Sending an email (reply) and forwarding of customer messages is done via the SMTP Protocol.
Email Inbox
How does it work? A mail message arrives at the Unified Media Routing server via the SMTP server and the SMTP connector. The Unified Media Routing server saves this mail in the database. The Unified Media Routing server requests further processing of email through vectoring. The vectoring process determines how this email should be treated and routed and responds back. The Unified Media Routing server then authorizes the mail client to read the mail in the database. Finally, the mail is displayed in the User Interface via the browser.
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Email Routing Process
Interactive Voice Response

Customer Interaction Express provides an integrated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) function; the Customer Interaction Express Voice Control Voice Dialog system. This enables interactive menus with DTMF (touch tone) recognition, Text To Speech (TTS) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Using the Customer Interaction Express IVR feature, an automatic interactive dialog can be created with a caller. Additionally, the IVR can play an announcement and use DTMF recognition to process caller input, such as a customer account number. Alternatively an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine can be used to improve the customers experience. If certain individual information should be played automatically to the customer, a Text to Speech (TTS) engine can read any text and play it as speech to the customer. ASR and TTS functionality can be provided through integration with Nuance. For database access the IVR offers elements to read, write, change, and delete records in any ODBC compatible database. What is more, the database can be queried for future routing steps. The deep integration within Customer Interaction Express allows transmitting any values out of the database or values that have been entered by the customer to the agent. The variables can also be used in the call-flow for routing decisions. The Customer Interaction Express User Interface has a built-in IVR Script Editor that is used to create IVR scripts. IVR scripts are used for:
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Determining which process is requested. What is done with a connection? Which announcements are played to a caller? Which entries can/does the user have to make? What happens with the user's entries (voice mail, database entries, etc.)?
IVR Script Editor
Computer Telephony Interface (CTI) Integration

CTI integration enables your contact center to share the rich feature set of the Communication Manager or Tenovis Integral 33/55 and make it available to CRM applications. For example, web pages can be embedded into the agents user interface for quick reference when responding to queries. This feature allows seamless integration between the data applications and telephony features and can be leveraged to further enhance the functionality and usability of the Customer Interaction Express application. In order to integrate CTI-functions with the agent-desktop Customer Interaction Express provides an object oriented interface, called Telephony Object Model. This allows System
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Integrators to create custom Customer Interaction Express interfaces and offers functions such as sign in to an Agent group, pause, initiate a call, accept a call, etc.
Screen pop up sheet with a Word file on an HTML page
Reporting
Customer Interaction Express Suite offers both real-time information and historical reporting features. Real-time information, for example, provides a close look at the status of agents, topics and queues. One can find all current and past information using the history reporting feature.
Historical Reporting
Using history reporting, a supervisor can conduct minute-based statistical assessments up to annual-based assessments. Over 1, 000 different counters are available for assessments. Supervisors must only select the desired counter, time periods, agents and topics, groups to generate a new report. The Reporting engine is built into Customer Interaction Express. It collects, analyses, evaluates and presents all contact center data of the Customer Interaction Express System. The reports are highly flexible, configurable and can be customized to meet most contact center monitoring
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requirements. The reports can be generated manually or automatically in a variety of ways. In addition, the data from these reports can be exported to other applications or files including Excel, Word, Adobe Acrobat Reader (.xls, .csv, .pdf, .rtf), etc. Reports can be viewed in table, graph or combination formats. Several tables and graphs can be included in one report. In addition to creating separate reports, frequently used reports are also supplied and can simply be selected. The Customer Interaction Express system delivers detailed information about contact center events, which are processed to statistical data. The system collects and classifies data for the call, email, SMS or fax and additional information like calling number, order codes, or skill combinations for defined objects such as agents, topics, agent groups etc. For all tasks it is also possible to have contact-by-contact tracking. The data can be presented in a variety of ways. Further, reports can be pulled by duration (start/stop, day of week) and time (minutes, hours, days and weeks). Using statistical data, contact centers performance can be evaluated. It also gives an insight into how customer contacts are handled. Furthermore the statistical data can be used by StaffPlanning tools or ERP programs. All statistical values are stored in a database. The collected data are the base for further analyses or special algorithm adjustments. The following types of statistics, which correspond to the different objects, are available: Agent specific statistics Agent Group specific statistics Device specific statistics Dialer specific statistics Trunk specific statistics (only Tenovis Integral 33/55 ) Skill-combination specific statistics System specific statistics Team specific statistics Topic specific statistics PABX specific statistics Voice Unit specific statistics
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Statistic Report
In addition to reports based on statistics, reports can also be generated for Tasks. This adds the ability to generate a cradle-to-grave report on a call. Using Task based reporting the following activities can be monitored: Call and mail handling How does a customer communicate with the call center? Which Topics/Agents are involved? How long does the customer communicate and with whom? Detail of call and mail handling Information about Transfers, Consultations, answering speed Analyzing the work flow (e.g. Announcements in Call Flow)
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Task Based Report
Real-time Statistics
Real-time information provides the team leader or supervisor with precise information on the current status of agents, topics, queues and lines. This information is displayed directly in real time. Using this information, a supervisor can intervene directly and initiate counter measures if problems arise. For example, he or she can log additional agents into a group or edit priorities. Because no two contact centers are alike, Customer Interaction Express provides the option to quickly gather real-time information using the drag & drop function, so that each supervisor can configure the data according to their needs.
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Real-Time Monitoring
Customer Interaction Express Application

All the major functions are handled and operated through the Customer Interaction Express application. This application is common to all users of the Customer Interaction Express system and based on the authorization level assigned to each user, the functionality can be utilized.
Customer Interaction Express User Interface

The Customer Interaction Express User Interface is the application used by all users of the Customer Interaction Express system. It is a thick client written in C++. Customer Interaction Express User Interface contains an L-shaped frame application, where other ActiveX applications can be docked. There are also thin clients running in a browser plugged in by running in an Internet Explorer window. The following thin clients applications are in this release: Mail client Statistic Viewer
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The Customer Interaction Express User Interface is separated in the Business Logical Components and the viewing application. Like any standard Windows application, the Customer Interaction Express User Interface has menus, commands, a title bar, a tool bar, and a status bar. In addition, Customer Interaction Express User Interface also includes the Task Bar, The Cockpit Bar, Branding Area, and the Work Area. The following table describes these components.
Customer Interaction Express User Roles

Component Title Bar Description The title bar shows the icon and the name of the application. The Customer Interaction Express User Interface application can be minimized to a icon. Further, you can select full screen display or close it. The menu bar shows the File, Edit, View, Window, and Help menus. Additional menus are shown in the different areas. The Global Tool Bar includes functions for hiding and showing the Task and Cockpit bar, logging in and out of agent groups, pause activation, and agent log out. The icons on the right of this bar inform the agent when contacts such as e-mails or calls arrive. This is where you can insert your company logo. The taskbar is on the right side of the application frame. All functions available to a user are integrated here. The functions are divided according to agent, supervisor, and administration. The cockpit bar shows real-time information for agent groups, topics, and Favorites. The work area shows the different applications: real-time information, contact bar, Monitoring, Statistics, Protocol, and Web browser. The status bar shows the following information. Name of the logged in agent Status of the signed on agent Which telephone is configured Duration for which logged-in Duration of Pause
Menu Bar Global Tool Bar
Branding Area Task Bar
Cockpit Bar Work Area Status Bar
The Customer Interaction Express User Interface is highly customizable. Any number of elements can be customized, that is, arranged on the user interface. Although the Customer Interaction Express user interface is a common application, the functionality and view are based on roles. A role is the specific function assigned to a user. It
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determines the user's privileges and rights. In order to understand the Customer Interaction Express User Interface it is important to understand the various User Roles and Privileges. User Roles and Privileges There are four main roles in Customer Interaction Express. These are Agent, Team Leader, Supervisor, and Administrator. Each role has access to certain privileges. A user may possess several roles, for example an Administrator may be a supervisor. These roles are managed using privileges. Some privileges are available to all agents while others are only accessible by a few agents, supervisors, and administrators. Furthermore, a team leader can have the privileges of an agent and a supervisor can have the privileges of a team leader and an agent. However an administrator may or may not possess the privileges of team leader or supervisor based on licenses purchased. Any user can possess the rights of an administrator. Privileges control which modules in the Customer Interaction Express system a user can use and which actions a user can carry out within the module. Privileges and rights are normally allocated using a profile and are assigned individually for each user. Rights determine what information a user can access. An agent role in the Customer Interaction Express system is defined using these settings. One agent can be given the right to change settings while other agents may not be able to do so. Also, you can determine whether the agent may pass on his privileges or not. The available User Roles are described in the following table.

Term Agent Description An agent can login in for one or more specific media types. A User can be related to an agent. Only agents can get Tasks from the call center routing. Each agent can have different states for each media type. The agent media states are independent between each other. An agent for example can be signed on for mail and for voice Agents may belong to one or more Agent Groups. An agent can sign on to an agent group, when he/she is logged in. Has full voice agent rights Has rights for viewing statistics Has rights for viewing real-time information Can perform remote call transfer Has full voice agent rights
Team Leader Supervisor
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Administrator Has rights for configuring and viewing statistics Has rights for configuring and viewing real-time information Can perform Silent Monitoring Manages the overall Customer Interaction Express system Configuration, User Interface Configuration, Task flow editor, IVR editor, Dialer and Wallboard setup, etc.
Each of these users has a set of functions which are accessible through respective interfaces. The Customer Interaction Express User Interface can be classified based on users in the following categories: Agent Interface Supervisor Interface (Team leader uses this interface with limited functionality) Administrator Interface
A brief description of each of these interfaces is provided in the following paragraphs.
Customer Interaction Express User Interface - Agent Interface
The User Interface for the Agent includes the Home Screen (welcome page), the First Screen for the voice contacts and the Email client for Email, Fax, and SMS.
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The Home Screen is the entry point after login. Contents of Home Screen are configurable with a subset of real-time statistic elements (e.g. personal statistic values or an embedded browser element). In the Home screen the agent can see his personal statistic for the day. The agent can see the number of calls and new emails, how many of them have been finished, or how long in total the agent has been in pause. The First screen is the interface for handling calls and viewing real-time statistic values. Calls are displayed and managed on the agent's First Screen. As the name implies First Screen is normally the primary screen that agents will use to handle inbound and outbound voice work items. The contact bar on the First Screen consists of contact information lines and a function bar. You can also use the contact bar as a minimized view.
Contact Bar
The Email Screen is the application where agents handle their emails. This screen provides the Email Inbox and work space powered with text blocks, if used for compiling replies. This application is available only if it has been licensed. In addition to the Task Bar, agents can also use the Cockpit Bar. It shows information about the current state of the contact center. Agent group topics and assignments can also be seen. Agents can speed up the work to meet the desired service levels. Further, bookmarks can be saved for useful internet links, word documents, or any other useful files.
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Cockpit Bar
Additionally, a web-page like the intranet start-page or other web-pages / web-applications with additional information for the agent can be integrated. Single or multiple windows can be arranged so that an agent can operate the necessary telephony functions quickly and simply. Agents are also informed of processes and get warnings if certain events happen.
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Customer Interaction Express User Interface Team Leader / Supervisor Interface
The Customer Interaction Express User Interface Supervisor application allows the supervisor to monitor, control, and receive reports on agent and contact center activity. Supervisors can actively intervene and influence call allocation. Based on volume or any other criteria, agents can be forced to log-in or log-out. In case of high call volume, calls can be pulled from the queue and forcibly assigned to agents. It is also possible to reserve calls for certain agents. Various monitor reports can be pulled to view real-time information. Each monitor report can consist of different sheets. Team leaders can only view reports while supervisors have rights to change reports or create new ones. By assigning certain rights, a supervisor can be limited to view certain agents, groups, topics, or teams. Reports on past statistics (Historical reports) can be started manually or scheduled to run, for example, at night. To create a manual report, you must only determine and select, the time period and time resolution for the desired statistics. Supervisors can also help agents in call resolution. There are two ways to do this - silent listening or active participation of the supervisor. With Customer Interaction Express, Tenovis
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Integral 33/55 supports both types of listening; however, Communication Manager supports only silent listening. Silent Monitoring: The supervisor listens to the conversation silently, while the Agent and the caller do not hear the supervisor. Coaching (Not supported on Communication Manager with Customer Interaction Express 1.0): The supervisor can help the agent actively. The agent can hear the caller and the supervisor. The caller cannot hear the supervisor. Call Escalation Assistance (Not supported on Communication Manager with Customer Interaction Express 1.0): The supervisor is in the conversation and can speak with both the agent and customer. The supervisor can actively participate in the conversation.
Additionally the supervisor can leverage these functionalities without the knowledge of the agent. The supervisor has full voice agent rights and can leverage all features available through the task bar and cockpit bar as needed.
Customer Interaction Express User Interface Administrator Interface
The Administration interface is used for Basic Configuration, User Interface Configuration, task flow editor and dialer, etc.
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The Basic Configuration includes organizing topics, setting up agent profiles, agent groups and announcements. Setting up agents includes authorizing privileges and setting passwords for agents. Each agent is further assigned to an agent group and has certain skills allocated. On the email tab, the email addresses and email groups are assigned. Agent Groups and queue definitions are also created as part of Basic Setup. As part of User Interface Configuration, customized windows and the appearance of the interface to be used by agents is created for each agent individually. This encompasses the Home Screen, First Screen, Contact Bar, and the Cockpit Bar. The data to be presented and made available to the agent is embedded into the various screens. In the User Interface, global settings can be created which are the defaults for all agents. Profile wide or individual agent settings can also be created. The agent settings are the highest priority. Profile or Global settings are used only if no agent settings are provided. Another important module of the administration interface is the Task Flow Editor. In the task flow editor, all routing instructions of Customer Interaction Express are programmed. Based on the source which is usually a topic, you will define the conditions required to handle a contact or to route a contact from an agent group to an overflow group because the waiting period is too long. Announcements can also be included using the announcement element. For more complex scripts additional elements such as queries for the number of agents available, agent group that possesses a certain skill, last agent, and current agent destinations are available as well. For emails, assigning emails to topics, designing the email flow, creating text modules, linking Customer Interaction Express to an existing or new email system and support for multiple languages can all be done.
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Task Flow Editor
The IVR editor is structured like the task flow editor. Creating scripts is nearly identical. Several scripts may be created here as well. If the system is aware of these as a result of the configuration, they are simply called up in the task flow. System- wide Task Tags are available directly in the editor and can be used or edited in the IVR scripts. Campaigns are configured and started in the Dialer. The call jobs can be imported here manually or automatically and then edited. Many parameters such as threshold values are available to manage how the campaign runs. Text modules can also be defined according to topics or system-wide for email routing in the configuration section. If a node should appear in another language, the language must be selected. The text is entered in the corresponding language's tab. This feature adds efficiency in the way emails are handled.
Switch/PBX Connection
Customer Interaction Express can be linked to Communication Manager, Release 3.1 or greater and / or Tenovis Integral 33/55 release E07 and higher. If both systems are in use in an enterprise, separate Taskservers must be installed for each telephone system.
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Connecting to Communication Manager
Communication Manager is linked to Customer Interaction Express via the Application Enablement Services (AES) and the TSAPI basic interface. The Communication Manager powered PBX adapts the TSAPI interface and provides an abstract CORBA application interface. The Communication Manager Taskserver adapts the telephone-specific behavior of the Communication Manager and makes it available to the kernel process and the Business Logical Components (BLC) using the Communication Manager Taskserver. The Taskserver interface has a standardized definition for all Taskservers (voice, email), which prevents the kernel process from having to differentiate between the individual media types and PBX types. The kernel process uses the Communication Manager Taskserver interface to control call routing and agents, monitor agents and devices, forward topic calls to the correct destinations like agent, topics, announcement scripts (Voice Extension Adapter, Common Hardware Abstraction Platform, and Voice Control), external destination, etc. In addition to the Taskserver, the Voice Extension Adapter and Common Hardware Abstraction Platform are required for preparing the Taskserver functions like signaling a topic call, queuing calls on the queue device, and switching calls to announcement scripts. The Voice Extension Adapter controls the call center routing and queuing devices. IP channels are used as routing devices. If a call is pending at a routing device, it is signaled as a route request. The PBX Taskserver notifies the kernel using the Communication Manager Taskserver interface. The Voice Extension Adapter receives the call destination determined by the kernel and vector processes from the Communication Manager Taskserver. The Common Hardware Abstraction Platform provides a specific adapter for each telephony interface supported. A QSIG over IP adapter is currently available. The Common Hardware
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Abstraction Platform also lets you play announcements. The announcements are stored in the database and are available as WAV files. When a Customer makes a call into a specific topic, Communication Manager routes the call directly to the Common Hardware Abstraction Platform in Customer Interaction Express. The calls are then queued in the Common Hardware Abstraction Platform. At the same time, a query is made to Vectoring via the Kernel regarding how the call will be treated. If no agents are available, the call stays in the Common Hardware Abstraction Platform and an announcement is played via the Voice Extension Adapter. If an agent is available, the Common Hardware Abstraction Platform establishes a second connection to the agent. As soon as the agent accepts the call a QSIG path replacement takes place within the Communication Manager. Both lines to the Common Hardware Abstraction Platform are disconnected and the customer is now connected to the agent via the Communication Manager.
Connecting to Tenovis Integral 33/ Communication Server Integral 55 (Integral 33/55)
Tenovis Integral 33/55 can be linked directly to Customer Interaction Express via an IP connection. You can connect the PBX to Customer Interaction Express using an ISDN card and the Module Manager or with L02. In addition to this the I55 Taskserver must be installed. Unlike Communication Manager, Tenovis Integral 33/55 does not require Application Enablement Services. These already operate the Computer Supported Telecommunications Application (CSTA) tab and the message traffic is processed directly between and Tenovis Integral 33/55 PBX, I55 Taskserver, and Customer Interaction Express. The CSTA protocol is used as the control protocol between these components.
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With Tenovis Integral 33/55 when a customer makes a call into a specific topic, the call is queued within the PBX. At the same time a query is made to the Vectoring via Computer Supported Telecommunications Application (CSTA) regarding how the call will be treated. As soon as an agent is available, vectoring decides, for example, how the call will be routed to an agent. Tenovis Integral 33/55 is informed of this via CSTA. The customer is now connected to the agent via Tenovis Integral 33/55.
A Virtual Contact Center Networking Customer Interaction Express

Customer Interaction Express enables you to combine multiple locations in a network into a Virtual Contact Center. To achieve this, all locations are linked to one central server. These locations can be reached using the central location's telephone number or the distant location's telephone number. The onsite telephone system will be controlled by a server at the central location. The server has a complete database of statistics of all agents at all locations based on which it can decide if a contact can be routed to another location due to overflow or any other reason. All the remote locations can be controlled by a central server or an individual Taskserver at each of the locations in case of bandwidth limitations. This feature has the advantage in the Communication Manager that not every call is put on IP to the central location in order to queue the call and play announcements. These locations will each require their own set of topics and associated task flows and will have the capability, just like the central server, to route calls to another location in an overflow condition. This virtual contact center can be monitored in real time by a supervisor irrespective of the geographical location. The supervisor can view the status of the queue, calls being handled by agents, and re-route contacts to another location in case of a contact overflow. The supervisor also has the ability to remotely log-in agents in an overflow queue. This unique ability adds to the efficiency of the Customer Interaction Express solution. The illustration below shows the queue status of a virtual contact center distributed over multiple geographical locations, being monitored by a supervisor in real time. The UK is a grouping of contact centers in various geographical locations in Europe.
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Virtual Contact Center Queue Status

Virtual Contact Center Queue Status
Capacity and Scalability

Avaya Customer Interaction Express is optimized to meet the needs of mid-market organizations with 20 to 150 agents. All server components can run on a single or multiple servers. CORBA based architecture ensures that the system can be scaled as needed. Distributing the server components to different servers depends on the size and load of the system. Scaling the system becomes mandatory if some parameters exceed limitations. The limitation can be enforced due to some of the following reasons: High load (Tasks to route per hour) Number of connected User Interface agents Statistics reporting Number of people viewing statistics Size of the system Time the statistics needs to be uncompressed in database
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Multiple switches Announcements Number of queue positions Usage of TTS Usage of ASR Complexity of the call flow
The Sizing Tool can be used to determine the exact number of servers to run the system efficiently.
Backup and Archives

The Customer Interaction Express Database can be backed up to and restored from a file or tape. Customer Interaction Express must be running at the time backup is to be done. The following factors must considered while backing up the master database. Back up the master database after every change. Each process concerning hard disks, memory, databases or segments leads to changes in the system tables of the master database. Back up the master database after creating the Customer Interaction Express database and after increasing the size of the Customer Interaction Express database. The following factors must considered while backing up the Customer Interaction Express database. Back up the Customer Interaction Express database after the following events: Right after installation to have a basic backup copy. Afterwards, back up the database according to a schedule. The recommended minimum is to back up the transaction log daily and the database weekly. After deleting entries from the transaction log without creating a backup copy. Before each upgrade using the Customer Interaction Express setup.
The reports that are generated by the Customer Interaction Express supervisor can be stored within the system and can be run even after the data is archived.
Archives
The Customer Interaction Express Unified Media Routing component works with documents stored in a runtime database and archives these documents in various levels once they have been completely processed. Multi-Level archiving for Unified Media Routing includes: First-level archiving Documents can be archived in the first-level archiving using the Unified Media Routing WebClient. Agents can access these documents from the Unified Media Routing WebClient. They behave similarly to un-archived documents. This is achieved by adding an archive flag to the documents in the runtime database. Second-level archiving
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At the second level of archiving the documents are stored in a second database. The archiving is done by the Archie archiving process and can be started cyclically via the Unified Media Routing Administrator. A second database (archiving database) is needed for the following reasons: If the runtime database (first-level archiving) grows too large and can no longer be handled efficiently it is necessary to store (archive) the data in a second database at certain intervals. A second database (second-level archiving) can make the data access by customer applications easier.
Any ODBC-capable database can be used for Second-level archiving. However, due to the different behavior of ODBC databases of different vendors, only the following databases are supported: Sybase 12.5 MS SQL Server 2000 Oracle (as of 9i)
Only the archive data stored in the Archive folder of the Unified Media Routing WebClient module can be accessed.
Security
Customer Interaction Express has several built-in features that provide security at different levels and for various components of the system. These include:
Database access rights and security

A Customer Interaction Express system uses a relational database from the internationally renowned manufacturer Sybase. The access rights and security features of the database are regulated by the implemented user administration of Sybase.
Access for installation and updates

For access to the database, the Customer Interaction Express system uses a user created by the Sybase administration. For installation and update procedures, the system uses the Sybase administrator for access. Access to the database and its data is only given to this user, using the corresponding passwords.
Security provided by the Reporting and Real-time Information servers

Within the database, the Customer Interaction Express system works with identifiers. These identifiers can only be assigned to readable user names in a database table. Customer Interaction Express reporting data are saved in the Customer Interaction Express database in coded form as basic values. A Customer Interaction Express process can evaluate these basic values using programmed algorithms and generate readable reporting data from them.
Access to the Customer Interaction Express User Interface

Access to reporting is controlled using the Customer Interaction Express user interface and its user authorizations. You must have a user ID and a password for that user ID to access the
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User Interface. Additional privileges control which reporting types can be filled by which content by the user. Authorizations and privileges are assigned when you configure the Customer Interaction Express system. Further security for the data is offered by the implemented "FourEye Principle". This principle allows access to reporting data only when two passwords are entered. This enables works councils and other employee representatives to fulfill their rights. Further, Avaya recommends that you protect their systems against viruses as well as other unauthorized intrusion. Several email scanning and filtering products are readily available in the market. Avaya recommends that you scan all incoming emails. If an issue is reported regarding improper functioning of Customer Interaction Express, Avaya will work with you as needed to resolve the issue. Avaya further suggests that you follow the security guidelines and recommendations for Avaya AE Services (AES) to prevent hackers from gaining control of your network.
Supported Platforms / Minimum System Requirements

The following table provides the Platform and System Specifications for Customer Interaction Express Servers and PC Client in conjunction with the IP Telephony switch.
Customer Interaction Express System Specifications

Switch Switch Release PC for Interaction Server Specifications Customer Express Avaya Communication Manager Release 3.1 or higher Server Operating System PC for Customer Fujitsu Siemens e.g. TX150 HP DL385 IBM x306m Minimum: Intel Processor 3 GHz Recommended: Dual Core 3 GHz or higher 3 GB random access memory (RAM) minimum Hard disk with at least 80 GB storage capacity At least one free PCI slot DVD-ROM drive MF keyboard Pointer (mouse) Network card (Ethernet card) Raid-system (Raid 1 Minimum requirement) Windows 2003 Server 32 Bit PC Intel Pentium IV 2.2 GHz processor (or comparable) or
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Switch Interaction Express Client Avaya Communication Manager higher Memory (RAM): Client Operating System Requirements on Communication Manager for Customer Interaction Express for an Agent (Standard or Advanced): 512 MB, 1GB recommended for a Team Leader: 1 GB, 2GB recommended for a Supervisor: 1 GB, 2GB recommended
Hard disk with at least 10 GB storage capacity Mouse Keyboard Network card (Ethernet card) Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 or Microsoft Windows 2003 Server SP1 or R2 or Microsoft Windows 2003 Terminal Server or Terminal Server CitrixXP AES 3.1 TSAPI basic license per Customer Interaction Express User IP Trunks between Communication Manager and Customer Interaction Express The number of IP trunks depends on the call volume and call characteristics in the contact center. A sizing tool determines the required number of trunks for your contact center. QSIG on Communication Manager requires Enterprise Edition
NOTE: The requirements may be higher (number of servers) depending on the number of calls and whether you use Voice Control and Unified Media Routing.

Switch Switch Release Tenovis Integral 33 /Communication Server Integral 55 Software release E070V08_1_6_4 or higher
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Or System software L021V00_1_1_1.0 or higher PC for Customer Interaction Express Server Specifications Fujitsu Siemens e.g. TX150 HP DL385 IBM x306m Server Operating System PC for Customer Interaction Express Client Minimum: Intel Processor 3 GHz Recommended: Dual Core 3 GHz or higher 3 GB random access memory (RAM) minimum Hard disk with at least 80 GB storage capacity At least one free PCI slot DVD-ROM drive MF keyboard Mouse Network card (Ethernet card) Raid-system (Raid 1 Minimum requirement) Windows 2003 Server 32 Bit
PC Intel Pentium IV 2.2 GHz processor (or comparable) or higher Memory (RAM): for an Agent recommended (Standard or Advanced): 512 MB, 1GB
for a Team Leader: 1 GB, 2GB recommended for a Supervisor: 1 GB, 2GB recommended
Client Operating System
Hard disk with at least 10 GB storage capacity Mouse Keyboard Network card (Ethernet card) Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 or
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Microsoft Windows 2003 Server SP1 or R2 or Microsoft Windows 2003 Terminal Server or Terminal Server CitrixXP
NOTE: The requirements may be higher (number of servers) depending on the number of calls and whether you use Voice Control and Unified Media Routing.
Licensing
Licensing and pricing for Customer Interaction Express 1.0 is user based. You can choose between number agents based on the agent functionality required Standard and Advanced. Upgrade from standard to advanced agent is also available. Further, a choice can be made between Team Leader and Supervisor Licenses. Additionally, you can choose to purchase licenses for features including IVR ports and ASR and/or TTS. For licensing the Avaya WebLM, license manager is used. WebLM is a Web-based license server that was implemented as a Java Servlet and runs on the Tomcat in the Customer Interaction Express environment. The license client (application/Customer Interaction Express server components) and license server communicate using a standard HTTP connection. Licenses are managed and monitored using a Web browser.
Customer Interaction Express Standard Agent

Selected # of agents Voice Inbound Voice Outbound (Preview)
Customer Interaction Express Advanced Agent

Selected # of agents voice inbound voice outbound (Preview, Auto and Predictive) E-Mail
Real time and Historical reporting Skills based routing 1 Team Leader (One per system)
Real time and Historical reporting Selected # of integration interfaces Skills based routing Usage of text blocks in E-Mail 1 Supervisor (One per system) 10 IVR ports (Once per system)
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Avaya Consulting and Solutions Integration

Avaya Consulting & Solutions Integration provides the vital tools, expertise, and resources needed to install, integrate, or upgrade a new or existing communications network. This portfolio gives you the flexibility to select one service or an entire suite of services to match your particular needs and technical expertise. In addition, the comprehensive portfolio of Avaya CSI delivers the benefits of Avaya's Service Organization with the experience, knowledge, and capabilities for successful high-quality implementations. The Customer Interaction Express Standard Offer by Avaya Consulting & Solutions Integration delivers Customer Interaction Express contact center capabilities within a single contact center site. The Services Offer is designed to deliver the desired Customer Interaction Express contact center capabilities through the selection of appropriate implementation options. Presale support is available globally by contacting the Avaya Communication Solutions & Integration team in the relevant region. Customer Interaction Express can be implemented by 3rd party system integrators, however, Avaya Consulting & Solutions Integration is essential to ensure your satisfaction and minimize any chances of deviation from expected performance.
Implementation Activities
The following are implementation activities that Avaya will perform regardless of the desired solution functionality: Pre-installation Support Avaya will communicate with you to be sure the target environment is ready for installation of the licensed Customer Interaction Express product. Project Initiation and Kickoff Avaya will initiate the project through tasks such as assigning the project team and establishing project timelines and activity assignments. Product Installation Avaya will install the licensed Customer Interaction Express product in your contact center according to the option set that has been chosen. Solution Administration Avaya will administer and configure the solution according to the options that have been chosen for implementation. Solution Implementation Avaya will implement the solution according to the options that have been chosen for implementation. Solution Testing Avaya will perform a unit test of each developed component, and an integrated system test of the solution. Solution Demonstration Avaya will demonstrate the developed Customer Interaction Express solution to your technical and business staff. Solution Documentation Avaya will document the solution requirements and design.
Knowledge Transfer Using the accepted solution in the deployed environment, Avaya will provide one ad-hoc, undocumented, hands-on, installation-specific, single-day knowledge transfer session for to up to two resources.
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Project Completion and Review Avaya will review all work completed for the purpose of acquiring solution acceptance.
Why Avaya Customer Interaction Express A Competitive View

Customer Interaction Express offers you an all-in-one solution with astounding features and capabilities that will optimize the overall communication process, is easy to deploy/implement, scalable, user friendly, requires effortless administration, merges seamlessly with your IT infrastructure, has low total cost of ownership, and offers quick return on investment.
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Avaya NES Contact Center

Avaya NES Contact Center is an advanced contact center application. It offers hundreds of features that reduce costs, enhance the customer experience and improve time-to-revenue. Contact Center offers open interfaces for communications enabled business processes, advanced unified communications within the contact center and integrated predictive outbound campaigns. Contact Center enables organizations to accelerate the speed of doing business by simplifying the integration of contact center functions with business applications and processes through a Service Oriented Architecture. We are excited by the opportunity to partner with to assist you in overcoming the challenges you face including: Without newer technology, such as network skill-based routing, and management control (historical and real-time reporting), it is difficult for managers to know that service agents are efficiently handling inquiries. Inefficient operations lead to lower productivity, which in turn leads to longer wait times, fewer first call resolutions, and lower customer satisfaction. In addition, your agents are more likely to be unhappy after frequent dealings with dissatisfied customers. You want your customers to have a good experience each time they contact . A lack of technology (i.e. network skills-based routing, computer telephony integration, contact recording, and quality monitoring) results in customers being transferred to multiple agents for problem resolution, agents not having access to the customers history, callers repeating account information for each agent, and other customer service issues. This can lead to frustration for your customers and agents. And frustrated customers will often take their business elsewhere. Getting new customers is difficult. Once you have an established relationship with a customer, selling them additional products and services should be a high priority. Unfortunately, without a usable customer relationship management system, a lack of outbound proactive campaigns, and a poor use of IT systems through your computer telephony integration applications, is limiting growth and missing the opportunity to leverage your existing customer base. When employees are not well trained, cannot work from home, repeatedly do the same tasks, and deal with frustrated customers, their morale will likely suffer and they will eventually look for better employment. Continually hiring and training new staff means that productivity is never maximized. And acquiring a new employee can cost from $15,000 to $30,000. s customers use your products and services more than just eight hours a day. So, to keep your customers satisfied and loyal, you need to make customer support personnel available at all times24 hours a day, seven days a week. With customers in varying time zones, you need to provide the necessary supporton their scheduleto keep them happy. Whether through your own internal growth or through acquisitions, operating multiple contact centers can be costly. is faced with purchasing and maintaining more
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equipmentand hiring and training more employeesto keep your contact centers running. We can deliver the following benefits: Capture new customers in new ways: Deliver high levels of service to customers visiting your Web site with powerful new communication channels to your contact center like Web chat, instant messaging, scheduled call back and email Simple implementation: Enables you to successfully address service needs at each stage of growth Effectively manage on-line customer care: Administrators and supervisors have access to necessary tools through real-time displays, statistics and reports Record customer interactions: Obtain valuable customer insights, enhance training and track for regulatory requirements The comprehensive Contact Center solutions create versatile, end-to-end customer contact centers that deliver complete, seamless customer experiences.
Contact centers are the hub of customer interaction and in most business situations, contact center applications are tightly integrated with business applications and processes. In todays world, if a business requires a change to their customer interaction process, the work required to achieve the desired change is no small undertaking, requiring time and resources. Fierce competition and the need for businesses to differentiate themselves through the customer experience are driving the need for agility within the business and contact center applications. Businesses are finding that having the ability to automate services and process, while offering multiple channels of communication is critical in achieving differentiation through the customer experience. By speeding application integration through open interfaces, businesses achieve greater day-to-day efficiency and cost control. This enhances the customer experience and enables long term customer loyalty. Avaya NES Contact Center advantages include: Communications enablement using Service Oriented Architecture Unified Communications Agent Desktop Unified Contact Center and Self-Service Workflow Orchestration Tool Integrated predictive outbound dialing campaigns Accelerates the speed of doing business for greater cost efficiency Enables proactive customer interaction to increase business profitability Improves first contact resolution and enhances the customer experience
Open interfaces/Service Oriented Architecture

Contact Center provides a number of Web Services/open interfaces to simplify and speed the process of enabling business integration with Avaya Contact Center applications. For example, a business may have home-based agents who are waiting for shift assignments. With NES Contact Center and Agile Communication Environment, a business could automatically send
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out notices requesting agents for a particular shift, but only the first 20 that respond will be chosen. And, because the workflow is integrated with the Workforce Management system, only the most skilled and highly rated agents will be chosen for the shift. This is just one example of how automation of processes using Service Oriented Architecture and Web Services can reduce costs and speed time-to-revenue. Some of the other contact center Web Services include: Agent contacts Agent and supervisor information can be retrieved or added to the contact center by third party applications through Web Services. Agent Skillsets Agent skillsets can be added or removed via a Web Service. Agent Presence - Agent availability (agent idle or busy) information can be obtained from a third party application through a Web Service. Historical Statistics Allow custom database inquiries to be run and the data returned as a Web Service. Outbound campaigns Real-time modification of outbound contacts by a third party application while a campaign is in progress. Open queue Third party applications (CRM, etc.) can directly route multimedia contacts to be queued in the contact center. Communication Control Toolkit Communication Control Toolkit Computer Telephony Integration capabilities are available as a Web Service to allow integration with third party applications.
Unified Communications in the Contact Center

Building on our established leadership of Avaya in the UC market, Avaya has further extended unified communications within the contact center. This unique integration provides a single unified agent desktop interface for inbound/outbound voice, email and instant messaging (IM) making it easier than ever for customers to interact with businesses. By integrating unified communications within the contact center, new modes of communication with customers can be routed and handled more efficiently, which results in reduced costs and enhanced customer satisfaction. Federated IM provides the ability for customers to connect with a business using their preferred IM client and have their IM routed to a knowledgeable agent. The integration also provides presence status directly within the agent desktop interface, allowing agents to view the availability of experts who can help resolve customer interactions faster. This includes the ability to control access to subject matter experts with rule based access management. And because NES Contact Center is based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), geographies are transparent creating a truly virtual contact center and community of subject matter experts around the globe. Federated presence also provides contact center agents with a network of business partner experts to assist in helping customers faster.
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The integration also provides presence status directly within the agent desktop interface, allowing agents to view the availability of experts and other agents who can help resolve customer interactions faster. And because Contact Center is based on SIP, geographies are transparent, creating a truly virtual contact center and community of subject matter experts around the globe. Federated presence also provides contact center agents with a network of business partner experts to assist in helping customers faster.
Open Agent Desktop

The open agent desktop provides the ability to customize the agent desktop to a businesses own IT environment. This is accomplished through a Web Service for integrating third party applications. For example, Web Chat contacts can be received from external Web pages through this Web Service. This feature can also allow the third party client to capture preconfigured auto responses, depending on complexity.
Agent Desktop
Service Creation Environment GUI

This next-generation tool takes the work out of contact center and self-service workflow orchestration and provides the mechanism to create communications enabled business
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processes. Traditional programming methods are time-consuming and tedious, requiring extensive expertise and resources and often the end result is inflexible, making it difficult to make simple modifications. With Service Creation Environment, the workflow orchestration between front and back office applications is simplified using open Web Services interfaces that reduce cost and speed deployment. With this new graphical-based application, you can drag and drop contact center and self-service elements and re-use existing elements. Additional time is saved by having a tool that creates the workflow diagrams for you versus spending time creating these in ad hoc tools. Canned workflows are also provided for simple, out of the box set-up in new contact centers. Service Creation Environment also simplifies the creation of call-flow scripts and removes the need for special expertise required to develop traditional text based scripts. Script quality is also improved with special error checking parameters built in to reduce common scripting errors, resulting in additional cost savings. From initial creation to ongoing maintenance, this easy-to-use tool will simplify management of your contact center environment.
Multiple Contact Handling

Now agent productivity can be maximized by allowing agents the ability to handle multiple contacts simultaneously. For example, an agent can be handling an email contact for which there are inevitable back-and-forth delays with the customer. But with NES Contact Center, the agent can continue his email interaction and accept up to five additional web chat contacts simultaneously. This means that all time is productive time and helps boost faster customer response times.
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Avaya Aura Contact Center

Avaya AuraTM Contact Center is a context-sensitive, collaborative, voice and multimedia customer contact solution. Contact Center allows enterprises to anticipate, automate and accelerate customer interactions. The solution optionally routes one voice and up to five nonvoice contacts to the most appropriate resource through a unified agent interface and also helps reach out to customers proactively. Contact Center combines historic and real-time contextual information about a customer allowing enterprises to manage customer experience and consistently deliver a superior level of engagement. It improves agent productivity and enhances supervisor performance. This results in a superior customer experience and drives sustainable business growth.
Contact Center
SMS
Voice
Social Media
SMS
Chat
Email
We are excited by the opportunity to partner with to assist you in overcoming the challenges you face including: Demographics are changing. needs to serve customers with various needs and expectations. Changes in communications include access methods (Web self service), different media (SMS), and exploding types of modes (smart phones). The challenge is that many Gen X and Y and some Baby Boomers do not even consider contacting a businesses call center for information but rather collaborate with peers using social media including tweeting. needs to plan for changes in demographics and how to be flexible to evolve to meet the changing needs and expectations of different customers of how, when, and where to be served. Interactions are changing. Voice is a significant interaction channel but both customers and companies are expanding interaction methods to include email, Web, and other emerging channels like SMS and social media. Customers expect to be able to reach businesses when, how, and where they want. More importantly, customers expect to
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have a consistent experience across the different touch points with businesses. needs to plan for changes in interaction channels and to add additional interaction channels while delivering a consistent customer experience. Customer satisfaction risks are increasing. Although there has been more focus in the last few years on cost reduction, customer satisfaction is critical since customers form their opinions about a business based on their contact center interactions. Surveys highlight that there is a significant customer satisfaction risk based on the gap between the level of service that companies are delivering and what customers expect. Companies need to plan for how to evolve and integrate their communications, information, and processes to be able to dynamically adapt in real time to proactively manage customer experience expectations. The challenge is that every new channel and service added to increase differentiation and stimulate growth also increases the risk of dissatisfying the customer.
We can deliver the following benefits: Increase access options for customers: Deliver high levels of service to customers with powerful new contact center communication channels such as Web Chat, SMS text, instant messaging, social media and email. Integrated applications suite: An integrated, collaborative, multimedia, contact center solution, Contact Center includes reporting, preview and progressive outbound calling, contact recording and quality monitoring, workforce management, as well as innovative features such as the ability to integrate with social media. It reduces the need for customization and utilization of proprietary, CTI-based APIs required by competitors. The out-of-the-box multi-channel agent desktop application reduces cost, complexity, and improves time-to-market. Note: Workforce Optimization on Midsize Enterprise is expected to be available in the next product release. Standards based ecosystem: As a standards-based solution, leveraging SIP, SOA and Web services, Contact Center attracts a larger ecosystem of application developers who can develop and deploy applications to suit the specific needs of businesses. Multi-vendor deployment: As proprietary CTI links are replaced by SIP-based integration, businesses have the potential to standardize their contact center applications on a multi-vendor infrastructure. SIP-based collaboration and conferencing for context persistence is more current, flexible, simple and a lot less expensive to develop and maintain compared to the obsolete model of CTI overlays of networks, applications and protocols. Standardsbased SIP, SOA and Web services interfaces increase deployment flexibility compared to the use of old-world, proprietary APIs to manage old-world infrastructure. Standard SIP, SOA and Web services interfaces increase deployment flexibility compared to competitive solutions proprietary architecture and rip-and-replace approach that may require devices and the underlying infrastructure to be replaced. Avaya single server and compact deployment options result in lower total cost of ownership compared to competitive solutions server proliferation.
A software application that runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers, Avaya Aura Contact Center is the next upgrade step for customers who have deployed:
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Avaya Contact Center Express; Avaya Aura 5.2.1 for Midsize Enterprise; Avaya Aura Communication Manager 5.2.1 standalone support will be added at a future date; Avaya Symposium Call Center Server (SCCS), Avaya NES Contact Center 6.0, 7.0 or 7.1 over the Application Meridian Link to Avaya Communication Server 1000; Avaya NES Contact Center 7.0 or 7.1 using a SIP/OCS based integration to Avaya Communication Server 1000; or Avaya NES Contact Center 7.1 Express via SIP on Avaya Communication Server 1000.
Features and Benefits Contact Center helps enterprises improve customer satisfaction, increase revenues and profitability, and enhance agent and supervisor productivity while reducing capital expenditure and operational expenditure costs. Contact Center addresses the needs of all stakeholders including the line-of-business manager, contact center manager, IS/IT manager and agents. The following are some of the key capabilities: Agent efficiency Unified agent desktop: Unified agent desktop allows agents to optionally simultaneously handle multiple contacts of various media types. The Email editor, auto suggest, auto response, Web push and context sensitive handling capabilities substantially enhance agent productivity while minimizing training requirements. Contact Center Offsite Agent: The ability to offer flexible, at-home teleworking arrangements, allows contact center managers to hire the best agents, motivate them, improve performance and reduce agent-churn. This optional add-on feature is currently only supported for contact center deployments over Avaya Communication Server 1000. Proactive interaction: Preview and Progressive outbound dialing enables enterprises to utilize their agents for revenue generating activities. Reaching out to customers with timely reminders increases collections, resulting in higher revenues and profitability. They also shape the type and amount of inbound contacts. Contact Center includes an Email editor that delivers the following capabilities: Full style editing e.g. font, size, bold, italics, 216 colors, bulleted and numbered lists, insert tables, images, hyperlinks all the standard capabilities expected from a fully featured editor. Both text-based and HTML formats supported. New auto-suggest capabilities enable agents to quickly pick from a set of responses to provide professional replies. Automatic tracking of the response usage facilitates optimization of responses in the future. Contact Center includes the ability to identify and highlight keywords in incoming IMs. Note: Reference to IM capability in this document applies to implementations on Avaya Communication Server 1000 and Microsoft OCS. Avaya Presence and IM are expected to be available in the next product release. Dynamic keyword
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groups can be defined and then associated with a group of experts. When the agent clicks on a keyword in an incoming IM, it refreshes the visible buddy list with a corresponding list of experts. This capability is supported only in Avaya Communication Server 1000 configuration where the Contact Center is integrated with Microsoft OCS. This ensures that the best experts to consult with will be displayed based on a given matched keyword in the incoming IM and the expert can be consulted with a single click. Apart from identifying experts who can quickly solve customer issues it also provides a better workload distribution for experts based on area of specialty. Supervisor effectiveness Service Creation Environment (SCE): The drag and drop menus in the graphical user interface of the SCE make it easier and more efficient to develop routing scripts with fewer errors, easing the need for specialized resources. More importantly it makes it easier and faster to modify workflows to meet changing business requirements. Simplified administration: Common, Web-based administration for contact center supervisors and managers reduces configuration complexity, eliminates duplication, reduces errors and lowers implementation time and cost. It allows contact center managers to maintain multiple contact center nodes over the Web from a single point. Unified Reporting: On-board reporting with standard or customized, tabular and graphical, historical and real-time displays with dynamic filtering provide easy-toread information on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), contact summaries and consolidated reports. This reduces the time spent analyzing data and allows more time for coaching agents so that both agent and supervisor productivity can be greatly improved.
Architecture, scalability, security and reliability. Standards based solution: The Contact Center SIP-based architecture makes it easy to develop, implement and maintain screen pops reducing time, effort and cost required to launch new capabilities to further enrich the context and information presented to agents. Standards based Web services simplify the integration between the contact center and back office applications allowing enterprises to quickly and easily adapt to changes. Contact Center also facilitates integration with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. The SIP based solution simplifies the architecture, and reduces the need for expensive and time consuming CTI deployments. Small server footprint and large scalability: Contact Center is appropriate for a wide range of deployments from single-server deployments to mid-size and large enterprise deployments of up to 1000 agents for Communication Manager configurations and up to 5,000 agents for Avaya Communication Server 1000. It also supports multi-site, virtual contact center deployment on Communication Server 1000 with up to 30 nodes.
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Security and authentication: Security includes single sign-on and authentication with Microsoft Active Directory reducing repetitive authentication. Reliability: Real-time shadowing and automatic switchover for all core application components: call processing, multimedia, administration and CTI, with zero-touch recovery enables seamless uninterrupted operation. Support for both Microsoft Hyper V and VMware virtualization environments facilitates server consolidation and deployment flexibility saving capital expenditure and operational expenditure. Rich third party developer ecosystem: SIP, SOA and Web services interfaces encourage a rich ecosystem of third party application developers to develop and integrate applications to meet specific needs of enterprises.
Customer satisfaction Increased access options: Intelligent routing of up to six multimedia contacts: five non-voice contacts such as Instant Messaging (on Communication Server 1000 only), Web Chat, SMS text, email, voice mail, fax and scanned documents plus one inbound or outbound voice contact, through an open, universal queue offers customers numerous contact options. The multimedia capability increases customer options and ease of access. Context preservation: Information such as the customers immediate prior activity, historical data and social attributes helps anticipate user needs and facilitates higher rates of First Contact Resolution and enhances contact center efficiency. Avaya uses conferencing to handle all customer contacts. All contacts are held in the SIP Media Application Server and the agents, experts or other resources required to serve the customer are conferenced in. This anchoring of the customer contact on the SIP Media Application Server enables agents, experts and supervisors to have access to information about the customers context. Customer context information will be used by the work assignment engine in the future to fine tune the match between incoming customer interactions or work and available contact center and enterprise resources. Ease of integration with social networks provides options for business managers to nurture, build and promote brand image, and equally important, resolve issues before they grow out of proportion.
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Real-time and historical reporting: An accurate snapshot of complete CC activity
Value Proposition The Avaya vision for next generation customer care is about delivering superior experience management. Increased competition, changing demographics, the growth of new communications media, and more demanding customers, require enterprises to consistently deliver higher-value customer service and effectively manage their customers experience. Context is critical to experience management. Knowledge of the customers immediately prior activity, past history, purchase behavior, and preferences provides a wealth of information and a rich context for the interaction. Enterprises that harness this context to deliver superior experience differentiate themselves from their competitors. Contact Center is a standards-based customer contact solution that allows enterprises to: Offer more customer access options to improve satisfaction and loyalty; Improve agent utilization and productivity through multiple call handling, inbound and outbound capability and agent efficiency features; Facilitates the use of real-time and historical customer data to frame the appropriate context for each and every interaction to improve first contact resolution; Enhance supervisor effectiveness: Simplified administration and unified reporting. Equip managers to administer the contact center, analyze performance through unified reporting, learn and apply best-practices to continuously improve the agility of the contact center;
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Manage the customers experience, both assisted and automated, to quickly solve customer issues and increase profitable revenue opportunities; Begin the evolution from queuing and routing to resource selection and work assignment; Use standards-based interfaces such as SIP, SOA and Web services to flexibly connect and open the enterprise, eliminate cost and complexity and facilitate integration to business processes and social media; Provide migration paths to protect, extend and grow investments, optimize cost and improve performance; and Ease deployment of reliable, resilient contact centers with uninterrupted operation.
Enterprises can achieve these benefits while preserving existing infrastructure investments and enhancing flexibility, tightening security, augmenting service availability and saving capital expenditure and operational expenditure.
Avaya Aura Contact Center 6.0 Requirements at a Glance

Switch Avaya Aura 5.2.1 for Midsize Enterprise; Avaya Aura Communication Manager 5.2 support will be added at a future date Avaya Communication Server 1000 R 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0 Operating system Client Processor Windows Server 2008 R2, 64 bit Standard and Enterprise Editions
Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7.0 Quad Xeon 2.8 GHz with 8Gb of RAM
Virtualization Microsoft Hyper V, VMware vSphere 4.0 Agent / Communication Server 1000 Devices Supervisor 1100 Series IP Deskphones (as Agent or Supervisor) Devices 1150E IP Deskphone 1200 Series IP Deskphones (as Agent or Supervisor) 1230 IP Deskphone recommended IP Phone 2002 (as Agent) IP Phone 2004, 2050 IP Softphone, M2216 7, 3905 Digital Deskphone (as Agent or Supervisor) 3904 Digital Deskphone (as Supervisor)
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Remote Office 9110, 9110, IP Adapter Avaya Aura 5.2.1 for Midsize Enterprise Devices 9600 Series IP Deskphones

Agent Desktop Avaya AuraTM Agent Desktop Multi-channel Fully blended support for voice, email, Instant Messaging (IM) (on Communication Server 1000 only), Web Chat, FAX, SMS and generic user contact types.
Multiple handling
call Up to six simultaneous contacts can be handled by an agent (One inbound or outbound voice call and up to five additional non-voice contacts).
Virtual Contact Supports networked skills based routing for voice and CTI data across up to Center 30 nodes in a single Virtual Contact Center. This capability is supported only on Avaya Communication Server 1000 configuration. Reporting Granular and customizable real-time and historical reporting for voice and multimedia. Built in Graphical Service Creation Environment (SCE). Legacy text-based scripting fully supported and can be imported into the SCE. Avaya Voice Portal integrated via SIP landing pad; Media Processing Server 500 3.0; or Media Processing Server 1000 3.5, 3.5 MR1 / 4.0 Preview and Built-in (requires separate RTU license). Progressive Outbound WFO Avaya NES Contact Recording and Quality Monitoring (CRQM) 7.0 (requires separate RTU license). Avaya Workforce Management (WFM) (requires separate RTU license). (Note this release will not support SIP call recording)
Scripting
Self-Service
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Avaya Call Center Overview and Contact Center Express

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Avaya Call Center Elite

Automatic Call Distribution

Avaya Call Center Elite

Avaya Call Center Elite

Add or Remove Agent Skills

Service Level Maximizer

Variables in Vectors (VIV)

Avaya Call Center Elite

Vector Routing Tables

Forced Agent Logout from After Call Work

Avaya Call Center Elite

Service (Office) Hours Table Routing

Location Preference Distribution

Best Service Routing

Avaya Call Center Elite

Avaya Call Center Elite

Forced Agent Logout by Clock Time

Route Calls to Agent by Skill Level

Percent Allocation Routing

Interruptible Auxiliary Work

Avaya Call Center Elite

New Call Center R6.0 Features

Two Additional Thresholds for Interruptible Auxiliary Work

Retain Active VDN Context

Forced Agent Logout by Location or Skill

Avaya Call Center Elite

Forced Agent into Auxiliary Work Mode by Location or Skill

Local Persistent Variables

Call Center Features

Call Center Features

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

Auto Available Split/Skill

Call Center Features

Most Idle Agent (MIA) Across Skills or Splits Option

Most Idle Agent Treatment for After Call Work

Multiple Call Handling

Call Center Features

Multiple Call Handling On Request

Call Center Features

Multiple Call Handling One Forced

Multiple Call Handling One Per Skill

Multiple Call Handling Many Forced

Call Center Features

Move Agents / Change Skills or Splits While Agent Staffed

Multiple Announcement Boards

Redirection On No Answer (RONA)

Remote Logout of Agents

Service Observing Basic

Call Center Features

Listen Only Service Observing using a Facility Access Code (FAC)

Call Center Features

Service Observing Logical Agent IDs

Service Observing by Vector Directory Number (VDN)

Service Observing by Class of Restriction (COR)

Call Center Features

Use the following guidelines for vector-initiated observing:

Service Observing Remote

Call Center Features

Timed After Call Work / Agent Pause Between Calls