Avaya 3.1 - Manual

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 11 ● Reports for Avaya Communication Manager - Provides detailed descriptions of the measurement, status, security, and recent change history reports available in the system and is intended for administrators who validate traffic reports and evaluate ...

12 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Availability Copies of this document are available from one or both of the following sources: Note: Note: Although there is no charge to download documents through the Avaya Web site, documents ordered from the Avaya Publications Center must be pur...

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 13 Overview of Business Advocate This section provides an overview of how Business Advocate can be used to help meet the goals of your contact center. This section includes the following topics: ● Overview on page 14 ● Introduction to Business Advocat...

Overview of Business Advocate 14 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Overview This section includes the following topics: ● The importance of contact centers on page 14 ● Why Avaya Business Advocate? on page 14 ● Traditional contact centers versus Business Advocate contact centers on pa...

Overview Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 15 Traditional contact centers versus Business Advocate contact centers Traditional contact centers often lack flexible methods for meeting their goals. Business Advocate, on the other hand, allows the contact center's goals to be incorporate...

Introduction to Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 17 Introduction to Business Advocate This section includes the following topics: ● What is Business Advocate? on page 17 ● Business Advocate agent licensing on page 18 ● Business Advocate methods versus traditional me...

Overview of Business Advocate 18 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Business Advocate agent licensing Expert Agent ACD agents that use Business Advocate features and capabilities must be given a right-to-use license using a maximum logged-in advocate RFA license material code. The RFA ...

Introduction to Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 19 Combining methods to achieve wanted results Based on the needs and challenges of your contact center, you determine which combination of call and agent selection will give you the best results and administer those ...

Overview of Business Advocate 20 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Automated agent staffing adjustments Business Advocate provides you with options that automate staffing during contact center operation. These methods simplify contact center management and eliminate the need for movin...

Selecting calls Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 21 Selecting calls This section explains how Business Advocate selects calls for an agent and provides examples of call selection methods. This section includes the following topics: ● How call selection works on page 21 ● Call selecti...

Overview of Business Advocate 22 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 How calls are selected for an agent When calls are in queue and an agent becomes available, the switch quickly reviews pertinent information to determine which skill to select for the agent. When the skill is selected,...

Selecting calls Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 23 Predicted Wait Time Predicted Wait Time (PWT) calculates how long a call waits if the currently available agent does not take the call. This method is recommended because it results in fewer calls with exceedingly long wait times an...

Overview of Business Advocate 24 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Percent Allocation Percent Allocation allows you to assign a percentage of an agent’s time to each of that agent’s assigned skills, to total 100% of the agent’s staffed time. Using this method, calls are selected accor...

Selecting calls Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 25 You can also use Service Objective to create the same level of service for all skills if you set all of the service objectives the same and set all agents to use Service Objective in call selection. Later, if you want to make adjust...

Overview of Business Advocate 26 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Call Selection Override example The table below shows that calls are waiting in three of an agent’s assigned skills. All calls have been queued at the same priority. With Call Selection Override turned on, which call d...

Selecting calls Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 27 Note: Note: This information also applies for skills that are in an overload condition. Direct Agent Calls are sent to an agent first, before any calls from an over-threshold skill. Dynamic Queue Position This section includes the f...

Overview of Business Advocate 28 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 How does Dynamic Queue Position work? The following figure shows how different service objectives can be used for various VDNs and queued to a single skill, which simplifies staffing and forecasting. Dynamic Queue Posi...

Selecting calls Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 29 Call selection examples The following examples show how the various types of call selection work. For these examples, assume that calls are in queue for three skills that an agent is eligible to serve. Each scenario is based on the ...

Overview of Business Advocate 30 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Greatest Need with Service Objective In the following example, service objectives were added to call selection for each skill by administering Service Objective. All calls are queued at the same priority. Which call is...

Selecting calls Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 31 Skill Level with Service Objective In the following example, Service Objective is administered with Skill Level. All calls are queued at the same priority. Which call is selected for the agent? In this situation, the agent receives ...

Overview of Business Advocate 32 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Selecting agents This section includes the following topics: ● Agent selection methods on page 32 ● Agent selection examples on page 35 ● Call selection during call surplus on page 38 ● Agent selection during agent sur...

Selecting agents Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 33 Agent selection options Business Advocate offers the following agent selection methods: ● Most Idle Agent (MIA) selects an agent based on the time since completion of the last ACD call. ● Least Occupied Agent (LOA) selects an agent...

Overview of Business Advocate 34 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Note: Note: Occupancy levels are more equal under UCD-LOA distribution. EAD-LOA results may vary depending on how skills and the related skill levels are assigned to the agents. LOA and extension calls The following ta...

Selecting agents Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 35 Use this agent selection method only with the Percent Allocation call selection method, which uses an agent’s target allocations when determining which skill to select under agent surplus conditions. For best results, when using PA...

Selecting agents Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 37 Agent B receives the next arriving call for the Sales skill because Agent Bis the highest skill level agent who has been idle longest in this skill. Notice that while Agent C has been idle the longest, Agent C cannot be selected du...

Overview of Business Advocate 38 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Call selection during call surplus The following table shows what happens during call surplus conditions, according to the call selection methods that are administered on the switch. Agent selection during agent surplu...

Automated agent staffing adjustments Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 39 Automated agent staffing adjustments Business Advocate offers several ways to automate staffing adjustments and enhance your contact center operation under changing conditions. This section provides details on t...

Overview of Business Advocate 40 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 For information about how SLS works with Location Preference Distribution, see Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution on page 111. What happens when a skill goes over threshold A skill goes over threshold ...

Automated agent staffing adjustments Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 41 Overload thresholds When using reserve agents, you need to assign overload thresholds that determine when contingency operations go into effect for a skill. Overload thresholds determine the point at which reser...

Overview of Business Advocate 42 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 For example, with Dynamic Percentage Adjustment, an agent who has a 70% target for Sales and a 30% target for Service may have his plan adjusted to 76% Sales and 24% Service in the morning, when Sales is very busy. Lat...

Developing your strategy Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 43 Developing your strategy Business Advocate offers many features and feature combinations that can help you to meet your business goals. This section provides you with information about which features work best together and ...

Overview of Business Advocate 44 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Different needs within a contact center You may find that one Business Advocate solution does not fit for your entire organization. Your contact center may have different needs within particular areas or departments; B...

Developing your strategy Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 45 Avaya support for Business Advocate Avaya offers a subscription service for Business Advocate customers that provides access to skilled consultants with expertise in understanding how Business Advocate helps to solve busine...

Overview of Business Advocate 46 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Call selection methods (call handling preferences) The following table shows the features that work effectively with the various Business Advocate call selection methods. Agent selection methods (hunt group types) The ...

Developing your strategy Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 47 Feature combinations to avoid The PAD agent selection method should not be used with Greatest Need or Skill Level call selection methods. EAD-LOA ● Skill Level ● Predicted Wait Time ● Service Objective ● Service Level Super...

Business Advocate solution examples 50 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Maintaining service levels - one scenario Service levels are critical for many contact centers. In some cases, for example, outsourcing companies are required to maintain specific service levels to meet contractu...

Business Advocate solution examples 52 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Overload thresholds and service level targets The following table shows how overload thresholds and service level targets are set on the Hunt Group form. Where administered? The following table shows where each o...

Maintaining service levels - one scenario Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 53 Results Service levels are maintained with this solution because Dynamic Threshold Adjustment automatically adjusts thresholds as needed to activate agents sooner or later to meet a skill’s service level ta...

Business Advocate solution examples 54 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Measuring results The following table shows some of the reports or commands that you can use to determine the effectiveness of this solution. If you want to check . . . And determine . . . Use this report or comm...

Adding customer segments Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 55 Adding customer segments Contact centers often need to differentiate service for their various markets as a result of varying customer needs, their company’s strategy for sales or service, or even customer value. The exampl...

Business Advocate solution examples 56 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 The customer segments are as follows: ● Region 1 - New customer market requiring the most aggressive service objectives ● Region 2 - Existing customer market with customers who will abandon quickly ● Region 3 - E...

Adding customer segments Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 57 Service objectives The following table shows how service objectives are administered for each of the VDNs on the Vector Directory Number form: Where administered? The following table shows where each of these features is ad...

Business Advocate solution examples 60 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Increasing revenue Many contact centers are responsible for a significant amount of their company’s revenue, and most are seeking ways to increase that revenue. The following retail-based example shows one of the...

Increasing revenue Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 61 The goal is to focus each agent’s time as much as possible on a targeted set of customers. Dedicating each agent to a customer segment will accomplish this goal, but it will also leave the contact center vulnerable to maintaining...

Business Advocate solution examples 66 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Automating agent moves to back up calls Contact centers are often faced with the need to handle unexpected peaks in call volumes using existing staff. Whether this condition is a result of special promotions, sea...

Controlling agent time in a skill Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 73 Controlling agent time in a skill Some contact centers place special emphasis on providing a balanced mix of calls to each agent to develop agent abilities in new areas without overwhelming them, or to align agent ...

Controlling agent time in a skill Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 75 Automated agent staffing Dynamic Percentage Adjustment is administered to adjust target allocations as necessary to meet the company’s service levels for each skill. If call volume is higher than expected on one sk...

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 79 Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager This section provides details on administering Business Advocate through the switch software. This section following topics: ● Requirements for setting up Business Advocate on page 79 ● Admin...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 80 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 System requirements The following are the minimum system requirements for using Business Advocate features: ● G3V6 for Business Advocate ● G3V9 for Dynamic Advocate ● Expert Agent Selection (...

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 81 Business Advocate decisions at a glance You need to make several decisions about how to implement Business Advocate. Some of these decisions affect your contact center system wide, while others affect p...

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 83 System-level decisions System-level decisions are made on the Feature-Related System Parameters form. These high-level decisions, unlike the skill-level or agent-level decisions you make, affect the ove...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 84 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Call Selection Measurement Call Selection Measurement: predicted-wait-time or current-wait-time - The Call Selection Measurement : field applies only if you are using Greatest Need or Skill L...

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 85 Service Objective: (sec) - The Service Objective(sec): field on page 1 of the VDN form is used for setting service objectives by VDN. The entry for this field is the service level, in seconds, that you ...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 86 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Group Type (Agent Selection method) Group Type: EAD-MIA, EAD-LOA, UCD-MIA, UCD-LOA, PAD - The Group Type: field is displayed on page 1 of the Hunt Group form. This field is used to determine ...

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 87 Activate on Oldest Call Waiting Activate on Oldest Call Waiting? y (yes) or n (no) - The Activate on Oldest Call Waiting? field on page 2 of the Hunt Group form provides the option to use time in queue ...

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 89 Agent-level decisions Agent-level decisions are those that are determined on the Agent LoginID form. These include call handling preferences for an individual agent, the determination of whether Service...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 90 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Reserve Levels RL (Reserve Level) - The RL (Reserve Level) fields on the Agent LoginID form are used to administer an agent as a reserve agent for a skill or group of skills. Two entries are ...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 91 Administration procedures This section contains procedures for administering Call Selection, Agent Selection, Automated Agent Staffing, And Dynamic Advocate features. See Overview of Business Advocate on page 13 for detail...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 92 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 How to administer LOA To administer LOA as an agent selection method: 1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter: change hunt-group xxx where xxx is the number of t...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 93 3. In the Group Type: field of the Hunt Group form, enter one of the following agent selection options: ● ucd-mia ● ead-mia 4. Press Enter to save your changes. Administering Greatest Need Greatest Need is a call selection...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 94 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Note: Note: Optional: If you will use Service Objective with Greatest Need, enter y in the Service Objective? field to activate Service Objective for this agent. See Administering Service Obj...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 95 3. In the Call Handling Preference field, enter: skill-level Note: Note: Optional: If you will use Service Objective with Skill Level, enter y in the Service Objective? field to activate Service Objective for this agent’s ...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 96 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 If you administer Percent Allocation for an agent, it is recommended that you administer PAD for all of that agent’s skills. Additionally, when using PAD as an agent selection method for a sk...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 98 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 How to administer Auto Reserve Agents at the system level To administer Auto Reserve Agents and make related decisions at the system level: 1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or termin...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 99 Before you start When administering Service Objective for a skill, use the Agent LoginID form to activate the feature for each agent, the Hunt Group form to administer the service objective for each skill, and the Feature-...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 100 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 4. In the Service Objective(sec): field, enter your service objective target in seconds. 5. Press Enter to save your changes. Note: Note: Before Release 9, Service Objectives were entered in...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 101 The following figure shows how Dynamic Queue Position can be used to queue calls from three VDNs with different service objectives, into the Sales skill: The Service Objective (sec): field is used to control call selectio...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 102 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 How does Dynamic Queue Position work? Calls from any number of VDNs can be queued to a single skill based on the assigned objective of the originating VDN and the estimated wait time of new ...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 103 How to administer Dynamic Queue Position To administer Dynamic Queue Position: 1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter: change hunt-group xxx where xxx is the number of the skill to which cal...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 104 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Where is Service Level Supervisor administered? Service Level Supervisor, Dynamic Threshold Adjustment, and Call Selection Override are administered on page 2 of the Hunt Group form. Reserve...

Administration procedures Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 105 Note: Note: If you are activating Dynamic Threshold Adjustment, it is recommended that you use only one threshold. If you are not activating Dynamic Threshold Adjustment, you can enter a second threshold level in the Leve...

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager 106 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 How to administer Call Selection Override system wide To administer Call Selection Override at the system level: Note: Note: If you administer this feature and later decide that you want to ...

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 107 Feature interactions This section provides important information about how various Business Advocate and Communication Manager features interact, and the effect that these interactions can have on administration, call handling, and reporting. This...

Feature interactions 108 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 BCMS and VuStats This section includes the following topics: ● Acceptable Service Level (sec): field on page 108 ● Service Level Supervisor on page 108 Acceptable Service Level (sec): field The Service Objective (sec): field i...

Feature interactions 110 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Agents receive Direct Agent Calls in their standard skills in the same way regardless of whether the skill is above or below its thresholds. That is, if the agent is administered to receive direct agent calls before other ACD ...

Location Preference Distribution Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 111 Location Preference Distribution Location Preference Distribution tries to route incoming Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) calls to agents located in the same location as the incoming trunk on which the call origi...

Feature interactions 112 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Percent Allocation This section includes the following topics: ● Add or remove skills via Feature Access Code on page 112 ● Agent log in and log out on page 112 ● Auto Reserve Agents on page 113 ● Location Preference Distribut...

Percent Allocation Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 113 Auto Reserve Agents The Percent Allocation Auto Reserve Agents feature is used to intentionally leave an agent idle in a skill if her target allocation for that skill has been exceeded. This can result in available agents with c...

Feature interactions 114 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Percent Allocation Distribution The Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) method is designed to work with the Percent Allocation call selection method. Note: Note: When using PAD as an agent selection method for a skill, it is...

Service Level Supervisor and reserve agents Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 115 Service Level Supervisor and reserve agents This section includes the following topics: ● Abandoned calls on page 115 ● Agent work states on page 115 ● Audix on page 115 ● Auto available skills on page 1...

Feature interactions 116 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Auto available skills An EAS auto available agent cannot be administered with a reserve skill. Location Preference Distribution For information about how Service Level Supervisor interacts with Location Preference Distribution...

Feature interactions 118 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Work time and occupancy This section includes the following topics: ● Agent hold on page 118 ● Agent log in and log out on page 118 ● Call Coverage on page 119 ● Call Forwarding on page 119 ● Call Park on page 119 ● Call Picku...

Work time and occupancy Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 119 Call Coverage All time with one or more ACD calls ringing is included in the calculation of an agent’s work time and occupancy. This includes calls that are later redirected as a result of the Call Coverage feature. Call Fo...

Feature interactions 120 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Extension calls and LOA The following table shows how LOA tracks extension calls (since agent AUX time is not included in the calculation of agent occupancy). Non-ACD calls Time for non-ACD calls ringing, active, or on hold is...

Work time and occupancy Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 121 Timed After Call Work (ACW) If the ACW Agents Considered Idle option is not set, Timed ACW time is included in the calculation of an agent’s work time and occupancy. VDN of Origin Announcement All of the time spent listenin...

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 123 Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor This section provides administration procedures for tasks that you can complete for existing agent login IDs using CMS Supervisor after initial administration is completed on the switch. It al...

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor 124 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Using the Change Agent Skills dialog box The Change Agents Skills dialog box can be used to perform the following tasks for existing agent login IDs: ● Review agent skills ● Add skills per age...

Agent administration Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 125 Reviewing agent skills To review an agent’s skill assignments: 1. In the Change Agent Skills dialog box, choose one of the following actions: ● Click OK to accept the skill assignments. ● Click Add Skills or Delete Skills and ...

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor 126 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 Administering call handling preferences Agent call handling preferences, also known as call selection methods, can be administered through the Change Agent Skills dialog box. Three call handli...

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor 128 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 To administer reserve skills for an agent: 1. In the Change Agents Skills dialog box, select one of the following from the Call Handling Preference check box: ● Greatest Need ● Skill Level ● P...

Agent administration Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 129 Accessing the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box The Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box is used in CMS Supervisor to move groups of agents between skills or to add agents to or remove agents from a skill. This dialog box can...

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor 130 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 5. In the To Skill: box, enter or select the skill. 6. In the Level: box, type or select the skill level that you want to assign to the added agents (1 to 16, r1 or r2). 7. Choose one of the f...

Agent administration Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 131 Note: Note: Option: After the agent list is open for a skill, you can remove agents from the skill. To do so, click an agent or agents from the list, click the right mouse button, and click Remove Agents from Skill . The syste...

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor 132 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 4. In the Agent List window, click the names of agents that you want to move to this skill. 5. Hold down Ctrl and use the drag-and-drop method to move the agents to the open skill. Using the M...

Administering acceptable service levels Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 133 Administering acceptable service levels Acceptable service levels can be established for CMS reporting on an existing hunt group through CMS Supervisor using the Split/Skill Call Profile Setup dialog box. Th...

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 135 Appendix A: Business Advocate database items and calculations This section lists the CMS Call Management System (CMS) database tables, database items in the tables, and the standard Dictionary calculations that use the database items. Note: Note: ...

Dictionary calculations Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 137 Agent Login/Logout database items The following table lists the Agent Login/Logout database items that support Business Advocate. Dictionary calculations This section explains the standard Avaya CMS Dictionary calculations ...

Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 159 Index A Acceptable Service Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 administering through CMS Supervisor . . . . . . 133 field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 access permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 ACD . . . . . . . . . . . ...