Overview
This document serves to orient call center supervisors to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Connect platform.
This software assumes you have a call center (or need one) with staff dedicated to answering the phone during open hours. It also assumes you have an advertised main number for any call-back.
- For example, the software is used by UO Admissions, and Advising. The software cannot be used by individuals.
- For example, agents in AWS Connect do not have a phone number. They can only reached by the main number and via the automated call distribution.
Table of Contents
Adding Agents and Change Password
Adding Agents
Go to the User management tab from the Users menu on the dashboard. This will bring you to the User management menu.
To begin adding a new user, click the Add new users button.
The first screen will ask you if you want to create or upload a new user. This article will cover creating users manually, but note that it is possible to import (batch create) users from a file. This will bring you to a dialog screen. Here you can enter in all the relevant information for creating a new user.
- For the login name, we recommend you set their login name to cc-DuckID. For example, you could use cc-johnd if the user's email address is johnd@uoregon.edu. It is recommended to set the password to something unique to Amazon Connect. At a future state of this system, we hope to permit single-sign-on which will allow users to login using their Duck ID and password as they do on other UO systems.
- For the routing profile option, please select the profile labeled with your group’s name. For the security profile, please only select UO-Agent or UO-Supervisor. Next, set the After call work (ACW) option to 5 unless informed otherwise. This is the default time in seconds an agent will be automatically prevented from receiving a new call after finishing a previous call. Leave all the options in the Phone Type and Agent Hierarchy unchanged. Do not select auto-accept calls.
- Click the Save button on the bottom of the screen when finished. This will then bring you to a confirmation screen where you can verify everything is entered correctly. After verifying their details, click the Create users button to create the user. Note that you must select both Save and Create Users for these changes to save.
Change Password
Users can change their own passwords without a supervisor's help. Please see Changing a Password from our AWS Connect Agent Guide. This forgot my password method is the best practice; the supervisor doesn't need to know the agent's password, or be responsible to communicate it to them.
From here, you can create new users and edit existing users.
The reset password option exists when you edit an existing user (see picture below):
Hours of Operation
To view pre-existing hours of operation, go to the Hours of operation tab within the routing menu. From here you will see all the currently available hours of operation.
For a typical call center, just change Open Hours. Note that while it is possible to create sets of hours, Telecom staff would need to enable or disable for each change of hour set. For this reason, we recommend you just edit the active set of hours, typically Open Hours and don't create new Hours settings. Depending on when your contact center was created, we may of called your hours Eight to Five but just know it is whichever option that is not Basic Hours.
To view the Open Hours in detail, simply click its name, and it will bring you do the edit menu for it. Click Cancel when you are done viewing it to go back to the main menu.
- If you would like to remove a day entirely, click on the checkbox next to that day and then click the remove button.
- If you would like to add a break into a day, click the add new button. This will add another entry to the hours.
- For example, if you wanted to split Monday for example, the first Monday entry could be 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., and the second could be 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. This will mean your call center will be unavailable during 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. on Monday. And yes, this would mean you have two Monday entries in your hours.
Recording Messages
AWS Connect refers to recorded messages or announcements as prompts. To record or edit a prompt, click on the prompts button within the routing section of the main dashboard. This will bring up the prompts control panel. Here you can see all the prompts available on the system.
Edit an existing prompt
Typically a supervisor will edit an existing prompt.
- For example, one can re-record the holiday prompt directly inside the web browser to be:
- Please note that Admissions will be closed on May 25th, 2020 in observance of Memorial day or similar.
If you want to edit an existing prompt:
- Go to Routing, then Prompts
- Click on the prompt you would like to edit from the list and press the Edit button.
- When you are finished editing the prompt, it will become live immediately after pressing save.
- If you rename an existing prompt, the system will not play the new prompt automatically.
Renaming a prompt, like creating an entirely new one requires coordination with Voice Services Support staff.
Some groups like to have a normally blank EmergencyPrompt which will play nothing under normal conditions. Then, when some unforeseen event occurs like inclement weather, the supervisor can record the prompt on demand, for example:
- Due to inclement weather, our phones will not be open until 10:00 a.m. today.
Record a new prompt
While supervisors can record their own new prompts, they need to contact Voice Services Support to add them to their call flows. So, if you want a new prompt that isn't currently in the system it does require some coordination with our staff.
To record a new prompt, click the Create new prompt button from the control panel.
- From this screen you can choose whether to upload a WAV file, or record a message from the app.
- If you choose to record a new message, click on the Record tab, and then press the red button to start recording.
- When you are finished, press the red button on again to stop the recording.
- Once you have done this, you will be able to listen to the recording or crop it to your liking.
- To crop it, simply drag the mouse cursor over the desired region of the audio clip within the editor, and click the Crop button.
- If you want to try again at the recording, press the red button again to overwrite it.
- For new prompts, once you are happy with the result, enter in a name, and click the Create button.
- Prompts cannot be deleted from the system, only edited or disabled. Try to avoid creating unneccesary prompts when it is instead possible to edit an existing one.
- It is also recommended to name the file related to how the prompt will be used, rather than something related the content of the prompt itself.
- For example, it is much better to name a new prompt something generic like admissions_closed_handling rather than admissions_is_currently_closed.
- After choosing a name, click the Create button to save the prompt.
To add this new prompt somewhere into the system, please create a ticket with Voice Services Support and ask to have the contact flow modified to add in the new prompt.
Viewing Metrics
Since AWS Connect is inherently an Internet PC application, and our supervisors often are not in the same room, often, the only way one knows if missed calls are ocurring is if they're monitoring the realtime metrics for queues and agents. We recommend both supervisors the agents themselves leave this screen open during open hours.
AWS offers a variety of metrics options for supervisors. There are two different categories:
Real-time metrics
Real-time metrics are useful both for the supervisors and for the agents in a call center. These metrics offer information about when other agents are available. They answer who is in and who is out which can help one to plan breaks and to know if an agent is available for a call transfer.
Real-time metrics update every 15 seconds and allow you to see information about other agents. This function is useful when it comes to taking breaks to make sure other agents are available to take calls if you step away.
To view real-time metrics:
- Select the graph icon under the dashboard on the left.
- Select real-time metrics from the drop-down menu.
- The screen shown has three different options; queues, agents, and routing profiles.
- When clicked, these tabs make a table visible with different information.
- First, there is the queues table. This table gives real-time information about the agents who are in each queue. This a great tool to see who is available to take calls or receive a transferred call. It also tracks how many calls are queued at a given time. The Agents queues table is similar, but it gives queue metrics for specific agents.
- The next table is routing profiles. Every agent is assigned to a routing profile and more than one agent can be assigned to the same routing profile. This table provides information about the agents in different routing profiles.
- The last table is the agents table. This table gives specific information about each agent. The table shows you the status of other agents, the amount of time they have been logged in, what routing profile agents are in, and other agent metrics.
Historical metrics
Historical metrics are a useful for supervisors. The data for metrics is laid out in tables. By clicking on the gear icon in the top-right corner of the table you can change the time interval that the metrics are from (e.g., a day, a week, or a month).
The first historical table is the Queues table. This table has specific information about each queue and tells the viewer average hold times, average call lengths, and the number of contacts handled.
- Pay special attention to call abandons which indicate that a caller hung up before reaching an agent.
- Working to minimize call abandons improves service. Note that a small number of call abandons can be normal. It may mean the caller simply hung up before reaching an agent, especially if the abandon time is small.
The second historical table is called Agents. This table gives details about each agent. It tells you how much time each agent has been handling contacts and also how much time they have been idle. This table provides the average after contact work time, this is the time an agent spends between before they are ready to take another call.
- It tells you how long the average contact hold time is, which is useful when considering how many agents are needed in a queue or call center to efficiently handle the number of daily calls and tells you how many contacts are handled per agent.
- As you scroll to the right, at the end of the table there are several more useful columns.
- It tells you how many contacts are transferred and what type of transfer they were.
- The table tells you how many contacts have been put on hold during a call.
- Lastly, it tells you the agent answer rate and the agent non-response column tells you how many calls each agent has missed.
The final historical table is Phone Numbers
- The first column is the average queue abandon time gives you the average time that contacts wait in a queue before being abandoned.
- Next is the average after contact work time, this column gives the average amount of time that agents spend on after call work for a contact. Average queue answer time is the average time a contact is waiting in a queue before being answered.
- Average handle time is the average total time that a contact is with an agent. This includes talk time, hold time, and after call work.
- Average customer hold time is the average time that a contact has been on hold with an agent.
- Average agent interaction time is the average time that agents interacted with customers during contact.
- Contacts abandoned is the number of contacts disconnected by the customer while waiting in a queue.
- Contacts handled is the number contacts that are connected to an agent, no matter how they are connected to the agent.
- Contacts handled incoming is the number of incoming contacts handled by an agent.
- Contacts handled outbound is the number of outbound contacts an agent has handled.
- Contacts queued is the number of contacts placed in the queue.
- Maximum queued time is the longest time a contact spent waiting in the queue.
- Service level X seconds is the percentage of contacts removed from the queue between 0 and X seconds.
Quick Connects
Quick connects on AWS Connect are similar to a speed-dial button. These simple buttons allow agents to quickly call or transfer clients to another number or queue. They are required for agents to be able to transfer clients to another agent.
To create a quick connect, click on the Quick connects tab of the Routing menu and then click Add new. This will add a new entry to the table of quick connects. The Name field is what the agent will see in their list of quick connects from their softphone.
- For agent-to-agent transfers, select Agent as the type field, and select the desired username of the agent.
- For the Contact flow field, choose Default Agent Transfer. The description field is optional.
- For transfers to an external number or another UO department, select External as the type. The number for the destination must be entered in E.164 format.
- This means you must enter in the following format: +1 541-000-0000.
- The country code for the United States is 1. In effect, you must add +1 to each domestic ten-digit number.
Once you have entered all the information you would like for the new quick connect, press the save button to save it to the list. Just because a quick connect is added does not mean it is available yet. To make it available, you must click go to the Queues tab on the routing menu from the dashboard:
- Select the desired queue
- Scroll down to the quick connects box
- Select the white space within the box to get a list of quick connects to add to the queue.
- Simply click on any of the available quick connects to activate it for all agents in that queue.
Setting a custom status
In AWS Connect, any status other than Available, and Offline are used purely for statistical reasons. Any custom status will behave as Offline in that agents will not receive any calls while on them. However, any time they spend on a custom status will be recorded and viewable in the system metrics.
To add a new status:
- Select the Agent status tab of the Users menu on the dashboard. This menu will show you all the created statuses.
- Select the Add new agent status button.
- Simply enter a status name and description.
- Then press the Save button.
The Enabled for use in CCP box is what controls whether the status is disabled or not. If you would like to disable a certain status from being used, uncheck the box and press Save.
Important information about our AWS Connect configuration
1. PCI Compliance / Credit Card processing – We do not currently know if our system has PCI compliance. If this is a feature your call center needs or you work with credit card information, please create a new ticket via the service portal (see contacting help below).
2. What happens to calls if all agents are offline? – If a call is received and all agents are busy, the call will be sent to voicemail.
Troubleshooting
Clearing Browser Cache
Amazon Connect is a browser based system. As such, it requires common troubleshooting steps found with all browser-based applications. If you have problems that are either unusual to you, or unheard of by us, the first step will be to clear your browser cache.
- In Chrome, one selects the three vertical dots (top-right) >Settings... > Clear Browsing Data > Cached Images and Files > select the third check-box. After clearing the cache, it's a good idea to close the browser, then re-open and try again. This step solves many problems, and is a good first thing to try.
Viewing Metrics
In many troubleshooting scenarios, the real-time metrics section of your dashboard is your friend. When things don’t seem correct, try looking through the metrics to see if anything looks off.
For example, if all calls are currently being sent straight to voicemail, it is possible that some of your agents could have a misconfigured status or some other related issue. The real-time metrics section is useful because it compiles everything currently going on with your call center into one place.
- In the example above, you can see that agent1 has their status set to lunch which would prevent them from accepting any calls, and therefore, all incoming calls will go straight to voicemail.
I get a browser, and likely permissions, error and cannot login or continue. What do I do?
If you see something like Error 403, or a permissions error, this likely means the browser lost the correct URL.
This can happen for a variety of reasons so we recommend that you bookmark the login URL. This is the easiest way to correct this condition.
How to contact help
If you are lost, the easiest way to get help is to create a help request with the Voice Services Support service page.