Contact Expert v7.6

Contact Records and Contact Lists

Managing Contact Records

Contact Expert has a component called Contact Manager Service dedicated to govern all aspects of the contact objects including, but not limited to the creation, modification, deletion, as well as the import and export of these objects. These chapters describe each contact related feature in detail.

System administrators can use the Operations → Customers menu to manage contact records.

Contact Records

Users with sufficient permissions (administrators or supervisors) can add or remove contact records. They can also change the contents of existing records including campaign specific information (CRDS).

Searching for Contacts

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Contact Records menu.

2. Use the General Contact Properties tab to build a search criteria and specify the following details:

   • Affected campaign
   • The name, phone number and email address of the contact(s)

   Use the Contact Record Content tab to refine the search criteria by specifying data in the campaign specific contact fields (CRDS).

3. Click Search to load the contact records meeting the above criteria.

4. Use +New Contact button to add a new item to the campaign or queue.

5. Click Submit to save the modifications to the database.

Note

When using partial search criteria for phone numbers, and a contact has multiple phone numbers all matching the partial criteria, the search result list will contain multiple copies of that same contact (as many as the number of phone numbers matching in there).

Modifying a Contact

After finding the preferred contact record you have the possibility to alter the details of the entry.

1. Perform steps 1-3 described in the section above.

2. Click Edit of the desired contact entry in the list.

3. Modify the record as needed.

4. Click Submit to save changes.

When editing a contact, you can review its history as well as additional details such as creation time, the last agent working with it, etc.

General Properties	Basic contact details, such as name, email address, contact priority classification and the link of the contact photo.
Phone Numbers	If a contact has several different phone numbers in use, like landline and mobile numbers, you can edit them here. Editing phone numbers will automatically change the State to Available (and the Retry Count to 0). Would you like the number to be Inactive or Excluded, you need to set this when finished editing.
Record Content	Contact related data fields can be modified on this tab.
Contact History	This tab displays the latest 50 contact activity including event outcome, business tags and comments besides the basic contact details.
Additional Details	The current status of the contact record and its specifications, like scheduling details and create time.

Creating a New Contact

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Contact Records menu.

2. Select a campaign on the General Contact Properties tab the new contact should be associated to. The New Contact button to shows up.

3. Click New Contact button. The (new) Contact record form shows up.

4. Fill out the necessary details (see more information of the available tabs and fields in the Modifying a Contact section above and click Submit to save the new record for this campaign.

Contact List Processes

Contact Expert Portal offers a view on active and past scheduled import, export and delete processes.

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Contact List Processes to check the status of the above mentioned processes.

2. The table displays the following information:

   • Process ID
   • Scheduled time of the process
   • Type: Import, Export or Delete
   • Campaign: name of the campaign for which it was issued
   • User: Issuer user
   • Status: status of the process: pending, running, finished, cancelled
   • Progress: progress of the process in percentage
   • Start time
   • End time
   • File: File that contains the records that have been processed (import file, export file, deleted contacts), the file can be downloaded from here
   • Details: brief overview of the process
   • Number of contacts imported and records that have failed from the import file
   • Number of contacts matched the export criteria and exported
   • Number of contacts match the deletion criteria and deleted
   • Action: Processes in pending and running mode can be cancelled

3. The export files can be downloaded by clicking the download button at the end of the files.

Note

Downloading the exported contact list in a Highly Available CE can only be performed on the CE server used to initiate the export process!

Contact Status Change

Contact records go through a number of states during their life cycle participating in the work performed by the affected campaigns. Often times contacts in the system are put into a dormant state and need to be re-activated manually. This can happen, because the called phone number from an outbound campaign was busy/unavailable at the time, for example. Contact Expert provides this reactivation ability via the Status Change option.

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Contact Status Change.

2. Use the General Contact Properties tab to build a search criteria and specify the following details:

   • Affected campaign
   • State (e.g. Closed, Inactive, Postponed, etc.)
   • Major Reason Code assigned by the system (e.g. Call Disconnected, Routing failed, Agent cannot serve the request, Suspended, etc.)
   • Minor Reason Code assigned by the system (e.g. Abandoned in queue, Callback in queue, Queue size limit, etc.)
   • The name, phone number and email address of the contact(s)

3. Use the Contact Record Content tab to refine the search criteria by specifying data in the campaign specific contact fields (CRDS).

4. Click Search to load the contact records meeting the above criteria.

5. When satisfied with the list of contact records, use the following controls available in the top part of the Search Results pane to alter certain parameters of every contact found:

   • New Record Status and/or the New Contact Priority drop-downs to update these values
   • Set the Clear Retry Count checkbox to reset the retry count of every phone number in all contacts found.
   • Set the Activate phone numbers checkbox to set the state of phone numbers in the designated states to Active in all contacts found.

6. Click Update Contact Status to perform the changes.

Contact Expert can assign the following states to contact records: Remaining or Inactive.

The status change operation can be performed on campaigns in Running status.

Contact Master Data Fields

The default database structure of the contact records are collectively referred to as Master Data. These contain straightforward, common fields such as Name, Phone number(s), Email address, etc. Contact Expert provides the ability to add custom database fields to this default Contact Master Data schema and will create these custom fields in the contact database of every new campaign created from that moment onwards. Contact Master Data Fields are available for campaigns of the same tenant.

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Contact Master Data Fields.

2. Use the +New master data button to create new CRDS fields.

3. Specify the properties detailed below.

4. Click the Submit button to save the modifications to the database.

Custom field properties:

Field Name	Database column name.
Display Name	Display name of the field.
Type	Data type.
Size	Maximum data size.
Valid Values	Only available for Choice data type. Separate valid entries by semicolon.
Required	Specifies whether the agent must fill this value before going to the next script page.
Unique	Specifies whether the column should store unique values.
Multi-line	Specifies whether to display the data in multi-line textbox.

Note

Master data fields are added to queues / campaigns during their creation. In other words creating a new master data field does not have any effect on existing campaigns or queues, they will not be added to those.

The system does not allow the creation of more than one master data field with the same name in a tenant. However, the same field name can be used in different tenants.

Blacklists

It is possible to forbid specific customers to reach your call center by adding their numbers or other contact details to a Blacklist. Each tenant has its own separate list.

To add new items to the blacklist:

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Blacklists to manage the list of forbidden customers.

2. Use the +New blacklist entry button to create new items in the list.

3. Specify the properties described below.

4. Click the Submit button to save the modifications to the database.

Note

The Blacklist is applied for the automatically distributed outbound calls only. It is ignored in any other cases, like when the agent handles rescheduled or inbound tasks.

Blacklist properties:

Name	Name of the person to blacklist.
Media	Media type which you would like to lock the user out from.
URI	Phone number or email address of the person to be blacklisted.
Tenant	Choose the tenant associated with the Blacklist. Might not be visible for administrators with access to a single tenant only.

To search through existing blacklist entries:

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Blacklists to manage the list of forbidden customers.

2. Specify the search criteria or leave all the search fields blank in order to list all blacklist contacts.

3. Click Search.

Scheduled Tasks

It is possible to list tasks that are waiting for automatic reactivation at a given schedule (e.g. callbacks or email tasks rescheduled).

1. Navigate to Operations → Tasks → Scheduled Tasks menu with a user account granted with the sufficient permissions.

2. You can specify a number of parameters to focus the search for the designated task(s) only. See the description on the search filters below.

3. Click the Search button to retrieve records meeting the provided criteria.

4. Click Show to list all the items found.

5. Click Edit on any of the contact records to review or edit its parameters.

The scheduled states are differentiated with certain colors in case a record reaches or passes the predefined Scheduled Task Delivery Time threshold or the end date of the scheduled time.

The states are the following:

Scheduled State	If a record is rescheduled and has not passed any thresholds or end date, it would be in Scheduled state. There are no highlight color for these records.
Due State	If a record is about to reach the start date of its schedule time, it would be in Due state. The record will be highlighted with green.
Delayed State	If a record has passed the predefined threshold, but has not been processed yet, it would be transitioned into Delayed state. The record will be highlighted with yellow.
Expired State	If a record has passed the end date of its rescheduled time, it would be transitioned into Expired state. The record will be highlighted with red.
Closed	The scheduled task is closed. Either the agent closed it in agreement with the customer, or it is closed by the system automatically after its expiration. This state is not visible on the CE Portal.

Scheduled Tasks Search Filters

There are a number of different filtering options to narrow down your search results.

Tip

The query lists 1000 results at a time. If the result is greater, click Load More at the bottom of the page to add another batch of items to the list.

If you are dealing with a large number of records, it is highly recommended to apply as many filters as possible to reduce the volume of the results. Searching for and then loading many 1000s of records strains both the CE servers, the database, the network, your web browser and computer.

Build the search filter criteria by specifying items such as:

Tenants	Select the related tenant from the drop-down list.
Campaign	Select the related campaign from the drop-down list.
Contact Name	Enter the name of the contact associated with the scheduled task.
Last Handling Agent	Select the agent who dealt with this contact previously.
Next Targeted Agent	Select the agent scheduled to deal with the contact next.
Schedule State	Status of the scheduled task.
Schedule Type	Type of the scheduled task.
Scheduled Task Start Date	Start date of the scheduled task.
Start Time	Start time of the scheduled task. Enter the exact time or a later interval in order to find the scheduled task in question.
Preference Type	Choose the distribution that has been selected for the scheduled task.

List of Schedule Types

Unspecified	Schedule type not specified.
Requested from Agent	Schedule is requested by the customer while talking to an agent. It is scheduled by the agent manually. Scheduling details are partially specified by the customer.
Requested in Queue	Schedule is requested by the customer while waiting in a queue. It is scheduled by the system automatically. Scheduling details are specified by system administrators.
Requested on Web	Schedule is requested by the customer over the webchat site or any other integration using the CE ManagementService API. It is scheduled by the system automatically. Scheduling details are specified by system administrators.
Scheduled by Agent	Schedule is requested by the agent without interacting with the customer. It is scheduled by the agent manually. Scheduling details are specified by the agent.
Scheduled by User	Already existing scheduled task is modified by a user using the CE Portal (or other bespoke interface in the name of an API user using the Management Services). Scheduling details are specified by the API user.
Scheduled by Import Process	Loaded from an external source. It is scheduled by the system automatically. Scheduling details are specified by the import process.
Lost Request	Generated for a request lost in a queue (for example a hot call). It is scheduled by the system automatically. Scheduling details are specified by system administrators.
Requested in IVR	Requested by the customer while interacting with the IVR. It is scheduled by the IVR manually. Scheduling details are partially specified by the customer.

List of Schedule States

Scheduled	This state indicates that a callback request is planned to be processed at a certain time in the future, which time has not come yet.
Due	This state indicates that a planned callback task is expected to be processed. It has passed the schedule time, but it has not passed value specified as the maximum average delay of scheduled tasks within the thresholds.
Delayed	This state indicates that a planned callback task is behind its schedule time. It has passed the value specified as the maximum average delay of scheduled tasks within the thresholds.
Expired	Delivery of the scheduled task was unsuccessful, and it cannot be delivered again.
Closed	The scheduled task is closed. Either the agent closed it in agreement with the customer, or it is closed by the system automatically after its expiration. This state is not visible on the CE Portal.

List of Preference Types

Anyone	If selected, the task can be delivered to any of the agents available at that time.
Prefer me	If selected, the task can be delivered to any of the agents available at that time, but you are the preferred one. This means if you are available at the scheduled time, you will get the task, otherwise another agent will get it.
Only me	If selected, the task can be delivered only to you. If the task cannot be delivered until it expires, it will not be delivered at all.
Other	If selected, the task will be delivered to another agent you specify.

Modification of Assignment

Scheduled tasks associated to a specific agent can be reassigned to another agent.

1. Navigate to Operations → Tasks → Scheduled Tasks menu.

2. Build the search criteria by specifying the filter parameters to list the designated task(s) only.

3. Select Next targeted agent from the drop-down list.

4. Click the Search button to see the list of records meeting the criteria.

5. Choose an operator from the Assign to Agent section and click Assign.

6. After a successful assignment, the task will disappear automatically from the list.

Close Callback Sessions

You can delete all scheduled tasks pertaining to a queue / campaign.

1. Navigate to Operations → Customers → Scheduled Tasks.

2. Specify a campaign.

3. Click the Close callback sessions button that appears if the search produced any result.

Managing Contact Lists

System administrators can set up automated contact list operations - importing and exporting - for individual campaigns using an external FTP service set up and maintained by the customer's IT department.

Refer to the Designing Queues & Campaigns article for more information on these configuration options.

Contact Management Service Configuration File

The background activities performed by the Contact Manager Service are controlled by a local configuration file which only Deployment Administrators can access: [CE Root Folder]\Service\ContactManager\ContactManagerService.ini

The following table contains the name and description of the configuration parameters:

Category	Parameter	Description
Database	QueryTimeout	SQL query timeout in seconds. This value is relevant when trying to remove large contacts lists from database.
Preference	CreateFooter	0/1 value which specifies whether insert footers (with data field names) to export files or not.
Preference	UploadStatistics	0/1 value specifying whether to upload a log file (with statistical information for each activity performed) to the FTP server.
Export	BriefFieldCollection	A comma separated list specifying which data fields to add when a brief (partial) export is performed.
General	FileEncoding	The text encoding method to be used for generating export files. E.g. UTF8, UTF16_LE, ASCII, etc.

Specific Settings of the Contact Manager Service

The service is launched at the configured schedule and performs the following activities.

Scheduled Contact List Export

A file is created with all existing contact records and a name conforming to the following structure:

[campaign id].export.[yyyymmddHHMMSS]

The encoding, format and data separation conforms to the configuration settings in the INI file.

The system connects to the FTP server, authenticates using the specified credentials and uploads the file to the specified export directory together with a log file with information about the export activity performed (start and finish time, number of exported contact records, etc).

Scheduled Contact List Import

The service connects to the FTP server, authenticates using the specified credentials and looks for the file with the name specified and downloads it for processing. If the import file name includes the $rdatetime$ tag, then CE will look for the file having the most recent time-stamp in the format of yyyymmddhhMMss.

The system will attempt to recognize the encoding of the file and will proceed importing if it succeeds. The file encoding parameter in the configuration INI file relates to the export procedure only.

During the import process, the system deletes all contacts from the campaign before importing if so configured. When done, a log file containing statistical information (start and finish time, number of contact records imported, number of problematic contact records, etc.) is uploaded to the FTP server.

Whilst this service is executing, the campaign is placed to a special state that disables changes.

Contact List Folders on the CE Core Host

The following folders located under the ManagementSvc folder on the CE Core Host can contain contact lists, or list specific information at various stages of the Contact Manager Service operation:

ContactListFileCache	This is a temporary storage of contact list files appearing here for short periods of time, e.g. when a user wishes to download a list exported from a campaign via the CE Portal.
Upload	This is a default target location for scheduled contact list export operations when no Export Directory was set on the FTP server. Exported contact lists will not appear here if a target FTP path is set and is accessible.

Manual Importing of Contact Records

The CE portal allows supervisors to load multiple contacts into the campaign from external data files. This operation differs from the scheduled import process in that it is triggered manually and over the portal website - no FTP service is required.

1. Navigate to Operations → Workflows → Queues & Campaigns menu.

2. Select Edit for the particular campaign.

3. Click MORE ACTIONS → Import Contact Records to import data files.

4. Specify the properties described below.

5. Click Submit to save the modifications to the database.

Specify the following on the Scheduling Parameters tab:

Scheduled Time	Date and time when the import should be scheduled for.
Comment	Any comment associated with the import process.
Field Separator	Field separator used in the external data file. The following field separators are supported: colon (:), comma (,) semi-colon (;), space, tabulator
Import File has Header	Specify if the text import file contains any headers.
Import File	Select import file, as this is rarely generated manually. Contact Expert supports both ANSI and UNICODE encoded files. Import file needs to follow the format and type of the fields defined for the campaign.
Import Rule	It specifies what to do with contacts which exists in the import file only. Options: Do nothing, Append .
Update Rule	It specifies what to do with contacts which exists in the database only. Options: Do nothing, Activate (contact), Activate (contact, phone), Inactivate, Delete.
Merge Rule	It specifies what to do with contacts which exists both in the import file and the database. Options: Do nothing, Activate (contact), Activate (contact, phone), Inactivate, Delete, Append, Replace.

The options for the Import, Update and Merge Rules are:

Do nothing : It does nothing with the contact in the database.

Append: It adds the contact from the import file in Remaining status to the database.

Activate (contact): It changes the contact status to Remaining in the database.

Activate (contact, phone): It changes the contact status to Remaining, phone number status to Active and clears the phone number retry counts in the database.

Inactivate: It changes the contact status to Remaining, phone number status to Active and clears the phone number retry counts in the database.

Delete: It deletes the contact from the database.

Replace: It deletes the contact from the database then adds the contact from the import file in Remaining status to the database.

Note

Delete option deletes the contact from the database regardless of its current status.

Activate (contact) and Active (contact, phone) change the contact status to Remaining, only if the contact is in any other status than Remaining, Processing, Callback.

Inactivate changes the contact status to Inactive, only if the contact is in any other status than Inactive, Processing, Callback.

Active (contact, phone) changes the phone number status to Active, only if the phone number is in any other status than Blocked, Excluded.

The Expected Import File Format tab provides an overview of how the system expects the external data file format to be shown.

The Pending Import Processes tab shows any import process in progress or scheduled for the given campaign.

Import processes already finished can be tracked in the Operations → Customers → Contact List Processes menu.

Export Contact Records

The CE portal allows supervisors to export multiple contacts from a campaign to external data files. This operation differs from the scheduled export process in that it is triggered manually and over the portal – no FTP service is required.

1. Navigate to Operations → Workflows → Queues & Campaigns.

2. Click Edit for the particular campaign.

3. Click MORE ACTIONS → Export Contact Records to export data files.

4. Specify the properties described below.

5. Click Submit to save the modifications to the database.

Specify the following on the Scheduling Parameters tab:

Scheduling Time	Date and time when the export should be scheduled for.
Comment	Any comment associated with the export process.
Field Separator	Field separator used in the external data file. The following field separators are supported: colon (:), comma (,), semi-colon (;), space, tabulator
Create Header	Whether headers should be added to the file.

The export file is generated using the text encoding method specified in the configuration file.

The Data To Be Exported tab allows you to decide which CRDS fields are included in the export.

The Pending Export Process tab shows any export process in progress or scheduled for the given campaign.

Export processes already finished can be tracked in the Operations → Customers → Contact List Processes menu, from where the export file can be downloaded.

Delete Contact Records

The CE portal allows supervisors to bulk delete contacts from a campaign.

1. Navigate to Operations → Workflows → Queues & Campaigns menu.

2. Select Edit for the particular campaign.

3. Click MORE ACTIONS → Delete Contact Records to delete data files.

4. Specify the properties described below.

5. Click Submit to save the modifications to the database.

Specify the following on the Scheduling Parameters tab:

Scheduled Time	Date and time when the delete process should be scheduled for.
Comment	Any comment associated with the deletion process.

The Filtering on Record Status tab allows further filtering options:

Record Status	Select the state of records to be deleted. (e.g. Closed, Inactive, Postponed, etc.)
Major Reason Code	Major Reason Code assigned by the system (e.g. Call Disconnected, Routing failed, Agent cannot serve the request, Suspended, etc.)
Minor Reason Code	Minor Reason Code assigned by the system (e.g. Abandoned in queue, Callback in queue, Queue size limit, etc.)

The Filtering on Record Content tab allows additional filters to the target contact records using CRDS field contents associated to the campaign.

The Pending Delete Process tab shows any delete process in progress or scheduled for the given campaign.

Delete processes already finished can be tracked in the Operations → Customers → Contact List Processes menu.

Edit Contact Record Structure

Read more about editing Contact Record Structure.