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Avaya Business Advocate
Release 3.1
User Guide

07-300653
Release 3.1
February 2006
Issue 1

© 2006 Avaya Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Notice
While reasonable efforts were made to ensure that the information in this
document was complete and accurate at the time of printing, Avaya Inc. can
assume no liability for any errors. Changes and corrections to the information
in this document may be incorporated in future releases.
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agree to indemnify and hold harmless Avaya, Avaya's agents, servants and
employees against all claims, lawsuits, demands and judgments arising out of,
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we have no control over the availability of the linked pages.
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Avaya Business Advocate
User Guide
Contents
Preface

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Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reasons for reissue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Related documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Communication Manager administration documents
Call Center documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Documentation Web sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Overview of Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The importance of contact centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Why Avaya Business Advocate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Traditional contact centers versus Business Advocate contact centers.
Matching your needs with Business Advocate solutions . . . . . . . .

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Introduction to Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . .
What is Business Advocate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Business Advocate agent licensing . . . . . . . . . . .
Business Advocate methods versus traditional methods
Combining methods to achieve wanted results . . . . .
Call and agent selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Automated agent staffing adjustments . . . . . . . . .

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Selecting calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How call selection works . . . . . . . . . . .
Considerations for call selection . . . . . .
How calls are selected for an agent . . . .
Call selection measurement. . . . . . . . . .
Current Wait Time . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Predicted Wait Time . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection methods . . . . . . . . . . . .
Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Skill Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . .
What is Call Selection Override? . . . . . .
How does Call Selection Override work? .
Call Selection Override example . . . . . .
Sending Direct Agent Calls first . . . . . . .
Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . .
What is Dynamic Queue Position? . . . . .
How does Dynamic Queue Position work?.
Dynamic Queue Position example . . . . .
Call selection examples . . . . . . . . . . . .
Greatest Need without Service Objective .

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Business Advocate User Guide

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February 2006

Greatest Need with Service Objective
Skill Level without Service Objective .
Skill Level with Service Objective . .
Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . .

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Selecting agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent selection methods . . . . . . . . .
How agents are selected for calls . . .
Agent selection options. . . . . . . . .
Most Idle Agent (MIA) . . . . . . . . .
Least Occupied Agent (LOA). . . . . .
LOA and extension calls . . . . . . . .
Agent occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . .
Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) .
Agent selection when a new call arrives
Agent selection examples . . . . . . . . .
EAD-LOA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
UCD-LOA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EAD-MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
UCD-MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection during call surplus . . . . .
Agent selection during agent surplus . . .

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Automated agent staffing adjustments . . . . . . . .
Reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What happens when a skill goes over threshold .
Assigning reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . .
Activation of reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . .
Considerations for reserve skills . . . . . . . . .
Overload thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . . . . . . .
Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Developing your strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Combining agent and call selection methods . . . . .
Different needs within a contact center . . . . . . . .
Avaya support for Business Advocate . . . . . . . .
Feature compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection methods (call handling preferences)
Agent selection methods (hunt group types) . . . .
Feature combinations to avoid . . . . . . . . . . .

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Business Advocate solution examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Maintaining service levels - one scenario. . . .
Background information . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . . .
Overload thresholds and service level targets

Business Advocate User Guide

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February 2006

Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adding customer segments.
Background information . .
Agent assignments . . . .
Agent selection . . . . . .
Call selection . . . . . . .
Service objectives . . . . .
Where administered? . . .
Results . . . . . . . . . .
Measuring results . . . . .

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Increasing revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Background information . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . .
Overload thresholds and service objectives.
Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Automating agent moves to back up calls . . .
Background information . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . . .
Overload thresholds and service level targets
Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Overload thresholds and service level targets
Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Controlling agent time in a skill .
Background information . . . .
Agent assignments . . . . . .
Agent selection . . . . . . . .
Call selection . . . . . . . . .
Automated agent staffing . . .
Service level target . . . . . .
Expected call handling time . .
Where administered? . . . . .
Results . . . . . . . . . . . .
Measuring results . . . . . . .

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Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager . . . . . . . . . . .
Requirements for setting up Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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February 2006

Communication Manager or CMS Supervisor? . . .
Business Advocate decisions at a glance . . . . . .
System-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MIA Across Splits or Skills . . . . . . . . . . . .
After Call Work Considered idle?. . . . . . . . .
Call Selection Measurement . . . . . . . . . . .
Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override
Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VDN-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Skill-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Group Type (Agent Selection method) . . . . . .
Expected Call Handling Time. . . . . . . . . . .
Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Activate on Oldest Call Waiting. . . . . . . . . .
Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Overload thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . . . . .
Service level target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Handling Preference (call selection method)
Service Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Direct Agent Calls First . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reserve Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Administration procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Least Occupied Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Where is LOA administered?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer LOA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Most Idle Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Where is MIA administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Where is Greatest Need administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Where is Skill Level administered?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer Skill Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection. . . . . . . .
Getting the best results with Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Where is Percent Allocation administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer Percent Allocation for an agent. . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer PAD and Dynamic Percentage Adjustment for a skill
How to administer Auto Reserve Agents at the system level . . . . . .
Administering Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Before you start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer Service Objective for an agent . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer Service Objective for a skill. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Administering Predicted Wait Time or Current Wait Time . .
Administering Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . .
Who is Dynamic Queue Position designed for? . . . . .
How does Dynamic Queue Position work?. . . . . . . .
How does the Service Objective field work? . . . . . . .
Where is Dynamic Queue Position administered? . . . .
How to administer Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . .
How to administer a Service Objective for a VDN . . . .
Administering Service Level Supervisor. . . . . . . . . . .
Where is Service Level Supervisor administered? . . . .
How to administer Service Level Supervisor for a skill . .
How to administer a Reserve Agent . . . . . . . . . . .
How to administer Call Selection Override system wide .

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Feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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BCMS and VuStats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acceptable Service Level (sec): field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Direct Agent Calls . . . .
Skill Level . . . . . . . .
Percent Allocation . . . .
Service Level Supervisor
Least Occupied Agent. .

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Least Occupied Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Add or remove skills via Feature Access Code .
Agent log in and log out . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . .
Multiple call handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Percent Allocation Distribution . . . . . . . . .
Predicted Wait Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Service Level Supervisor and reserve agents
Abandoned calls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent work states . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Audix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Auto available skills . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Location Preference Distribution . . . . . .
Multiple call handling . . . . . . . . . . . .
Multiple skill queuing . . . . . . . . . . . .
Redirect on no answer (RONA) . . . . . . .

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Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Service Objective (sec): field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Work time and occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Agent hold . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent log in and log out . . . . .
Call Coverage . . . . . . . . . .
Call Forwarding . . . . . . . . .
Call Park. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Pickup . . . . . . . . . . .
Conference or transfer . . . . .
Extension calls and LOA . . . .
Non-ACD calls. . . . . . . . . .
Redirect on no Answer (RONA) .
Timed After Call Work (ACW) . .
VDN of Origin Announcement. .

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using the Change Agent Skills dialog box . . . . . .
Accessing the Change Agent Skills dialog box . . . .
Working with agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reviewing agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adding skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Deleting skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering call handling preferences . . . . . . .
Administering Greatest Need. . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administering Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . .
Administering reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . .
Using an agent template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Accessing the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box . .
Adding agents to a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Removing agents from a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moving agents between skills . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box. . .
Using the Move Agents Between Skills dialog box .

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

118
118
119
119
119
119
119
120
120
120
121
121

123
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

123
124
124
124
125
125
125
126
126
127
127
127
128
129
129
130
131
131
132

Administering acceptable service levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133

Appendix A: Business Advocate database items and calculations . . . . . . . . . .
Database items . . . . . . . . . . . .
Split/Skill items . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent database items . . . . . . . .
Agent Login/Logout database items.

.
.
.
.

135
.
.
.
.

135
135
136
137

Dictionary calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Standard Dictionary calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Report-specific calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

137
137
138

Glossary

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

139

Index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

159

Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Preface
This section contains the following topics:
●

Purpose on page 9

●

Audience on page 9

●

Reasons for reissue on page 9

●

Related documents on page 10

●

Availability on page 12

Purpose
The purpose of this document is to provide a general understanding of how Avaya Business
Advocate (BA) can be used for call and agent selection.

Audience
This document is written for:
●

Contact center managers

●

Contact center administrators

●

Contact center supervisors

Reasons for reissue
This document has been reissued because the maximum range for Dynamic Threshold was
incorrect in the previous issue. The range should be 0% to 200% of the administered value.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Related documents
You might find the following Avaya documentation useful. This section includes the following
topics:
●

Communication Manager administration documents on page 10

●

Call Center documents on page 11

●

Documentation Web sites on page 11

Communication Manager administration documents
The primary audience for these documents consists of Communication Manager administrators
who work for external customers and for Avaya’s dealers. The satisfaction and needs of our
external customers is the primary focus for the documentation.

●

Administrator Guide for Avaya Communication Manager - Provides complete step-by-step
procedures for administering the communication server, plus feature descriptions and
reference information for administration screens and commands.

●

Avaya Communication Manager ASAI Technical Reference - Provides detailed information
regarding the Adjunct/Switch Application Interface (ASAI). Written for application
designers responsible for building and programming custom applications and features.

●

Avaya Communication Manager Basic Administration Quick Reference - Provides
step-by-step procedures for performing basic communication server administration tasks.
Includes managing phones, managing features, and routing outgoing calls.

●

Avaya Communication Manager Advanced Administration Quick Reference - Provides
step-by-step procedures for adding trunks, adding hunt groups, writing vectors and
recording announcements.

●

Avaya Communication Manager Basic Diagnostics Quick Reference - Provides
step-by-step procedures for baselining your system, solving common problems, reading
alarms and errors, using features to troubleshoot your system, and contacting Avaya.

●

Feature Description and Implementation for Avaya Communication Manager- Provides
feature descriptions and some implementation guidance for Avaya Communication
Manager.

●

Hardware Description and Reference for Avaya Communication Manager - Provides
hardware descriptions, system parameters, lists of hardware required to use features,
system configurations, and environmental requirements.

●

Overview for Avaya Communication Manager - Provides a brief description of Avaya
communication server features.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

●

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 system
performance. Includes corrective actions for potential problems.

Call Center documents
These documents are issued for Avaya Call Center applications. The intended audience is Call
Center administrators.
●

Avaya Call Center Change Description - Provides a high-level overview of the new
features available for the most current release.

●

Avaya Call Center Call Vectoring and EAS Guide - Provides information on how to write,
use, and troubleshoot vectors, which are command sequences that process telephone
calls in an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) environment.

●

Avaya Call Center Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Guide - Provides feature descriptions
and some implementation guidance for call center features.

●

Avaya Communication Manager Call Center Software - Basic Call Management System
(BCMS) Operations - Provides information on the use of the BCMS feature for ACD
reporting.

Documentation Web sites
For product documentation for all Avaya products and related documentation, go to http://
www.avayadocs.com. Additional information about new software or hardware updates will be
contained in future issues of this book. New issues of this book will be placed on the Web site
when available.
Use the following Web sites to view related support documentation:
●

Information about Avaya products and service
http://www.avaya.com

●

Sun hardware documentation
http://docs.sun.com

●

Okidata printer documentation
http://www.okidata.com

●

Informix documentation
http://www.informix.com

●

Tivoli Storage Manager documentation
http://www.tivoli.com

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Availability
Copies of this document are available from one or both of the following sources:
Note:
Although there is no charge to download documents through the Avaya Web site,
documents ordered from the Avaya Publications Center must be purchased.

Note:

●

The Avaya online support Web site, http://support.avaya.com

●

The Avaya Publications Center, which you can contact by:
Voice:
+1-207-866-6701
+1-800-457-1764 (Toll-free, U.S. and Canada only)
Fax:
+1-207-626-7269
+1-800-457-1764 (Toll-free, U.S. and Canada only)
Mail:
GlobalWare Solutions
200 Ward Hill Avenue
Haverhill, MA 01835 USA
Attention: Avaya Account Manager
E-mail:
totalware@gwsmail.com

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

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 Advocate on page 17

●

Selecting calls on page 21

●

Selecting agents on page 32

●

Automated agent staffing adjustments on page 39

●

Developing your strategy on page 43

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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 page 15

●

Matching your needs with Business Advocate solutions on page 15

The importance of contact centers
Contact centers have long been recognized as the front line in sales and customer service, and
have more recently been acknowledged in customer relationship management. Without contact
centers, businesses would reach fewer customers and fewer markets, resulting in lower sales
and loss of customer loyalty. Lost opportunities would go instead to companies that cater to
customer demand for information, convenience, and choice.
As contact centers have become more strategic to business success, more demands have
been placed them. Often these demands require the center to segment callers to handle some
calls differently from others. This allows the business to meet different caller expectations,
entitlements, needs, or opportunities. The ability to effectively meet these differences can result
in greater customer acquisition, higher sales, better customer retention, and higher profitability.
While customer segmentation can provide a greater opportunity for effectiveness, it also creates
challenges in a traditional contact center that make it difficult for contact center managers to
manage costs effectively while meeting the goals of the business.

Why Avaya Business Advocate?
Business Advocate has predictive components that determine how long customers will wait
based on the call-handling decisions for any available agent. Business Advocate considers
such questions as:

●

If one call is taken, how long will the other call wait until another agent is available to take it?

●

Which call benefits the most by being served now, and which suffers the most by being
forced to wait?

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview

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 incorporated into every
decision to help keep service at the right level for each type of call. For example, a traditional
contact center can prioritize its “Premier” customers over its “Good” customers through the use
of queue priorities. If, however, a Good customer has waited several minutes, should a newly
arriving Premier call be given priority over the waiting call? In this example, Business Advocate
could provide Premier customers with a better level of service than Good customers, without
creating the problems that lower-priority calls often experience.
A traditional contact center often multiqueues or overflows calls to back-up groups to try to meet
service level goals. This often results in groups exchanging work and agents spending more
time in their back-up roles than in their primary roles. Customer satisfaction, revenue, and even
productivity can be affected. Business Advocate not only detects when a skill needs the extra
help of back-up agents, it also detects the need before customer wait time has risen too high.
Business Advocate automates the activation of back-up agents and returns them to their
primary roles when problems are resolved. As a result, centers using Business Advocate no
longer need to dedicate managers to monitoring performance and intervening by moving calls
or rearranging agents. By spending less time on manual intervention, managers can turn their
attention to coaching, planning, or other meaningful management work.
Business Advocate also provides benefits for agents. Business Advocate can distribute calls in
a way that promotes fairness among agents. It also provides the ability to deliver a specific
mixture of calls to agents to provide a more equitable opportunity for compensation.
If your contact center is facing operational challenges that are keeping it from becoming the
strategic asset that your business needs, Business Advocate can help you break through the
barriers.

Matching your needs with Business Advocate solutions
Here are just a few ways that you can use Business Advocate to meet your business needs:
●

Use the Service Objective feature to give the right level of service to each skill. This feature
will help you to align service with customer expectations and maximize revenue
opportunities.

●

Activate the Dynamic Queue Position option to segment customers according to customer
value, entitlement, or expectations, without increasing the number of skills in the contact
center. This feature allows you to define service levels at the Vector Directory Number (VDN)
level and route the calls from several VDNs to a single skill.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

●

Maintain percent in service level targets for skills by activating reserve agents earlier or later.
The Dynamic Threshhold Adjustment feature automatically adjusts the thresholds that
control the activation of reserve agents.

●

Establish allocation targets for how much time each agent should spend in each skill. Use the
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment option to automatically shift allocations as needed to meet
percent in service level targets as contact center conditions change.

●

Use the Auto Reserve Agents feature to intentionally leave an agent idle, even if a call is
waiting, if her time in that skill is over target. This allows you to make agent resources
available for other skills.

●

Eliminate “hot seats” and distribute calls more fairly across the agents in a center by using:
- The familiar Least Occupied Agent (LOA) method for call selection. This will make total
workloads as fair as possible.
- The familiar Reserve agents capability of Service Level Supervisor to move very busy
agents out of some skills full-time and into reserve capacity, generally reducing their work
loads.
- The enhanced Percent Allocation methods to give each agent a fair portion of each type
of skill, in cases where agent compensation or rewards are tied to contribution at the skill
level.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Introduction to Business Advocate

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 methods on page 18

●

Combining methods to achieve wanted results on page 19

●

Call and agent selection on page 19

●

Automated agent staffing adjustments on page 20

What is Business Advocate?
Business Advocate addresses these questions:
What should this agent do next? - Business Advocate answers this question each time an
agent becomes available and calls are waiting in queue. The term “should” is used deliberately
because it implies a consideration of trade-offs in the decision. With Business Advocate, the
answer to this question does not come from executing a set of preprogrammed directives such
as "take the highest priority, oldest waiting call." Such a fixed plan does not consider
consequences. Business Advocate, on the other hand, understands the consequences of the
decisions it makes and the business objectives for each type of call.
Which agent should take this call? - Business Advocate answers this question when a call
arrives and there are available agents waiting for calls. Business Advocate can make this
decision so that workloads are distributed fairly across agents, to eliminate hot seats. Business
Advocate can also promote fairer opportunities for compensation by delivering a certain
predetermined mix of calls to agents.
Does the center need to adjust its operations to bring performance back to the wanted
level? - Business Advocate continuously evaluates the contact center's performance to
determine what the center needs to adjust to bring performance back to the wanted level.
Business Advocate responds, down to the levels of an individual caller, when it detects that
agent resources should be used differently to prevent a caller's wait times from being too high or
to accomplish service level goals more consistently.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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
license material code defines how many Business Advocate agents can be logged into the
Avaya Communication Manager Contact Center at the same time. The number of Business
Advocate agents who can log in is a subset of the total number of ACD agents. A Business
Advocate agent is counted as both an ACD agent, or Logged-In ACD Agent, and as a Business
Advocate agent, or Logged-In Advocate Agent. Therefore, the license for the maximum number
of Logged-in Advocate Agents must be less than or equal to the license for the maximum
number of Logged-in ACD Agents.
When an agent logs in, the Logged-In Advocate Agents license setting is counted only if any of
the following fields are set as described in the table.
Form

Field

Set to

Service Objective

Call Handling Preference

percent-allocation

Reserve Level

1 or 2

Service Level Supervisor

Group Type

pad

Dynamic Queue Position

hunt group for the skill the
agent logs into

The Service Objective field setting on the hunt group form is not used for Business Advocate
agent counting. Only agents whose Login ID form have the Service Objective field set to y are
counted. Skills with Least Occupied Agent assignments of type ucd-loa or ead-loa are not
counted as Business Advocate agent types starting with Communication Manager Release 9.

Business Advocate methods versus traditional methods
Business Advocate generally discards many traditional contact center practices. For instance,
queue priorities are discarded in favor of the more adaptive service objectives. The simple
time-in-queue measurement is discarded in favor of the more consequential view of wait time,
known as Predicted Wait Time. Multi-queuing, overflowing, and manual movement of agents
and calls are replaced with the use of reserve agents when the need is detected.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Introduction to Business Advocate

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 methods on the
switch. See Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for
information about these decisions and procedures for administration.

Note:

Note:
Business Advocate requires Expert Agent Selection (EAS) on the DEFINITY
Enterprise Communications (ECS) Server Release 6 and later switch.

Call and agent selection
This section includes the following topics:
●

Call selection on page 19

●

Agent selection on page 19

Call selection
Call selection methods are used when calls are in queue and an agent becomes available. This
is known as a call surplus condition. During such conditions, the switch considers the call
selection method that is administered for the agent on the Agent LoginID Form to determine
which skill to serve. Once a skill is identified, the call at the head of that queue is selected and
delivered to the agent. Call selection is based on such things as call handling preference, call
selection measurement, and the use of service objectives. See Selecting calls on page 21 for
more information on how call selection works.

Agent selection
Agent selection methods are used when there are one or more available agents for an incoming
call. This is known as an agent surplus condition. Agent selection methods are administered as
a hunt group type for the skill. Business Advocate allows you to select agents according to
occupancy, idleness, individual skill level, and the percentage of time that you want the agent to
spend serving each skill. See Selecting agents on page 32 for more information on how agent
selection works.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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
moving agents from skill to skill to ensure coverage as call conditions change.
Business Advocate offers you the ability to assign reserve agents and set overload thresholds
to determine when those reserve agents will be engaged. The Dynamic Advocate feature,
known as Dynamic Threshold Adjustment, takes this a step further by automatically adjusting
the thresholds as needed to help maintain the service levels you defined.
The Dynamic Percentage Adjustment feature, gives you the ability to automate adjustments to
predefined allocations for your agents’ time to maintain defined service levels. The Auto
Reserve Agents feature allows you to intentionally leave an agent idle in a skill when the agent’s
adjusted work time has exceeded the percentage that you administered for that skill.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Selecting calls

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 selection measurement on page 22

●

Call selection methods on page 23

●

Service Objective on page 24

●

Call Selection Override on page 25

●

Sending Direct Agent Calls first on page 26

●

Dynamic Queue Position on page 27

●

Call selection examples on page 29

How call selection works
When calls are in queue and an agent becomes available, the switch considers the call
selection method that is administered for the agent to determine which skill to serve. These
methods are administered as call handling preferences on the Agent LoginID form and they
include Greatest Need, Skill Level, and Percent Allocation. Each of these methods is discussed
later in this chapter. Once a skill is identified, the call at the head of that queue is selected and
delivered to the agent.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Considerations for call selection on page 21

●

How calls are selected for an agent on page 22

Considerations for call selection
Business Advocate call selection methods take into account more than just traditional issues
such as wait time and queue priority. They include:
●

Eventual caller wait time

●

Your service goals

●

Using each agent for maximum benefit

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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, the call
from the head of the queue is delivered to the agent. The information reviewed by the switch
includes:
●

What call selection method is administered?

●

Is Service Objective activated for call selection?

●

What are the eligible skill levels or reserve levels of the agent?

●

Is the skill in an overload threshold state? If so, which threshold is exceeded, Level 1 or Level
2?

●

Is Current Wait Time or Predicted Wait Time selected as the call selection measurement?

●

What is the administered queue priority for the calls in queue?

●

Is Call Selection Override activated?

Related topics
For more information, see:
●

Call selection methods on page 23

●

Service Objective on page 24

●

Call Selection Override on page 25

●

Reserve agents on page 39

Call selection measurement
When implementing your Business Advocate solution, you must choose a call selection
measurement that applies across all skills. See Administering Business Advocate on
Communication Manager on page 79 for administration procedures.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Current Wait Time on page 22

●

Predicted Wait Time on page 23

Current Wait Time
Current Wait Time (CWT) is the length of time a call has been in queue. This is commonly
known as the Oldest Call Waiting or time in queue.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Selecting calls

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 and it can optimize critical agent resources. For example:
A call is queued for a specialized skill for which only a few agents are staffed. Although this call
has been waiting in queue for only 10 seconds, PWT estimates that the call will wait an
additional 40 seconds because of the small number of agents who are assigned to the skill.
Another call is queued for a general skill that is staffed by many agents. This call has been
waiting for 20 seconds, but PWT estimates that it will wait in queue for only 5 more seconds.
The agent who becomes available is able to serve both the specialized and the general skill.
PWT selects the call for the specialized skill first, because its overall predicted wait time is 50
seconds. The other call continues to wait in queue because its total PWT is only 25 seconds.

Call selection methods
This section includes the following topics:
●

Greatest Need on page 23

●

Skill Level on page 23

●

Percent Allocation on page 24

Greatest Need
Greatest Need is a call selection method that selects a skill for an agent to serve based on the
call at the highest priority whose Predicted Wait Time (PWT) or Current Wait Time (CWT) for a
skill is the longest or whose PWT or CWT is the highest relative to the administered service
objective. This method allows you to improve efficiency by lowering the average speed of
answer for calls and lowering the maximum delay. See Administering Greatest Need on
page 93 for procedures on setting up Greatest Need as a call selection method.

Skill Level
Skill Level is a call selection method that selects calls according to the expertise of an agent in
one or more skills. Skill Level selects a call for an agent based first on highest skill level, then
highest priority, and finally on CWT or PWT. You assign a preference level of 1 to 16 to each of
an agent’s skills to determine how you want each agent’s time to be spent serving your
customers. Level 1 is the highest preference. You may determine, for example, that an agent
who is especially good at generating sales should be at a level 1 for the Sales skill, but at a level
4 for handling calls on the Complaints skill. This method can help you to improve your customer
service by delivering calls to the most qualified agents.
See Administering Skill Level on page 94 for procedures on setting up Skill Level as a call
selection method.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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
according to the preassigned percentage allocation plan of the agent. Percentage Allocation
may assist with agent scheduling so that a percentage of an agent’s time can be dedicated to
each of the agent’s skills. If you have an agent who is equally qualified to serve two skills, for
example, you could allocate 50% of that agent’s time for each skill. Or, if you have an agent who
is most proficient at sales, you might allocate 75% of his time to the sales skill and 25% to the
service skill.
The Percent Allocation call selection method is intended to be used with the Percent Allocation
Distribution (PAD) agent selection method. Using both helps you to control agents’ time in skills
under both agent surplus and call surplus conditions. Percent Allocation for call selection is
most effective when used with PAD, but can also be used with Universal Call Distribution - Least
Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) or Expert Agent Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA).
For best results, if you administer Percent Allocation for an agent, you should administer PAD
for all of that agent’s skills. Conversely, if you administer PAD for an agent’s skills, you should
administer Percent Allocation as the call selection method.
For more information, see:
●

Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection on page 95 for procedures on
administering Percent Allocation

●

Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution on page 111 for information about how
Percent Allocation works with Local Preference Distribution.

●

Percent Allocation on page 112 for information about other feature interactions.

Service Objective
Service Objective can be used in conjunction with the Greatest Need and Skill Level call
handling preferences. It allows you to assign different levels of service to different skills. With
this feature, you can assign a more aggressive service objective for a skill that is more
important to your contact center. For example, you could assign a service objective of 20
seconds for a premier customer skill and 45 seconds for a regular customer skill. This ensures
that premier callers receive a higher level of service. When Service Objective is administered on
the Hunt Group form and on the Agent LoginID form, the switch selects calls for agents
according to the ratio of Predicted Wait Time (PWT) or Current Wait Time (CWT) and the
administered service objective for the skill. The ratio used is either Current Wait Time/Service
Objective (CWT/SO) or Predicted Wait Time/Service Objective (PWT/SO).

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Selecting calls

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 adjustments for faster or slower service, you can easily change the
service objective for the one skill. See Administering Service Objective on page 98 for
procedures on activating Service Objective.

Note:

Note:
Service Objective cannot be used with Percent Allocation.

Call Selection Override
This section includes the following topics:
●

What is Call Selection Override? on page 25

●

How does Call Selection Override work? on page 25

●

Call Selection Override example on page 26

What is Call Selection Override?
Call Selection Override is an option with Service Level Supervisor that alters how calls are
selected when overload thresholds are exceeded for one or more of an agent’s skills. Calls are
selected from skills that are over threshold to the exclusion of calls from skills that are under
threshold. This feature, when activated, is helpful for contact centers that have one or more
skills that are critical in nature, for example, those involving emergency-related calls.
Call Selection Override is activated (set to y) at the system level and must also be
administered individually for each skill for which you want to use the feature. See Administering
Service Level Supervisor on page 103 for procedures on administering this feature.

How does Call Selection Override work?
If Call Selection Override is activated, call selection is limited to only those skills that are over
the highest level threshold. If Call Selection Override is off, normal call selection applies. If two
or more calls exceed the same threshold, for example, in a level 2 threshold, the call is selected
according to the ratio of PWT or CWT and the threshold for the skill. See What happens when a
skill goes over threshold on page 40 for more information about thresholds.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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 does he
receive?
Skill

Skill level

Overload
threshold

Predicted wait
time

5 seconds

10 seconds

40 seconds

The agent receives the call from skill C because skill C is in an over-threshold state and Call
Selection Override selects calls from over-threshold skills first. If Call Selection Override is not
turned on, the agent receives the call from skill B, for which he has the highest assigned skill
level and which has the longest predicted wait time.

Note:

Note:
If Percent Allocation is used, the only way a call is selected based on the
threshold is if Call Selection Override is on. If Call Selection Override is off, the
threshold is ignored.

Sending Direct Agent Calls first
Although the Direct Agent Calls feature is not a call selection method, it is important to note that
you have the ability to send Direct Agent Calls to an agent first, before other ACD calls. This is
helpful when you want to be sure that the same agent is available to serve a follow-up call or a
repeat customer. You can choose to select Direct Agent Calls first, regardless of the call
handling preference that is administered.
The following table shows how Direct Agent Calls work with the different call handling
preferences.

If the call handling preference is . . .

Then Direct Agent Calls are sent
first . . .

Greatest Need

to an agent.

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February 2006

Selecting calls

Note:

If the call handling preference is . . .

Then Direct Agent Calls are sent
first . . .

Skill Level

to an agent if the Direct Agent skill has
the highest assigned skill level.

Percent Allocation

to an agent if y was entered in the
Direct Agent Calls First? field
on the Agent LoginID form (or if the
yes checkbox was selected using the
Change Agent Skills form in CMS
Supervisor)

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 following topics:
●

What is Dynamic Queue Position? on page 27

●

How does Dynamic Queue Position work? on page 28

●

Dynamic Queue Position example on page 28

What is Dynamic Queue Position?
A feature called Dynamic Queue Position gives you the ability to queue calls from multiple
Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs) to a single skill, while maintaining different service objectives
for those VDNs. Newly arriving calls are inserted in queue based on a comparison of ratios of
estimated times in queue for new calls and for calls already in queue, the administered service
objectives for the originating VDNs.

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Overview of Business Advocate

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 Position example
Dynamic Queue Position is valuable for businesses that want to support customer
segmentation. Consider, for example, a business that receives customer service calls from a
wide range of customers and wants to differentiate in how it handles calls from customers
depending upon their service policy. Since each agent is already handling all types of
customers, a single skill can suffice. A differentiation is needed, however, in terms of how
quickly calls are handled. This is accomplished by assigning a different service objective to the
VDNs that correspond to the varying sets of customers. The service objective for the customers
with a high-range policy is assigned a service objective of 10 seconds. The service objective for
customers with mid-range policies are set at 20 and 25 seconds. Customers without a policy are
handled through a VDN with a service objective of 40 seconds.
As calls arrive they are placed in queue so that the average speed with which calls from each
VDN are answered is roughly proportional to the service objectives of the VDN. Customers with
a high-range policy will tend to be placed in front of some of the other calls, but will not
necessarily be placed in front of all of them. This arrangement allows the contact center to
continue to operate with a single skill defined, forecasted, and staffed. This also prevents
problems that result from just queuing calls at different priority levels within the same queue. For
example, calls queued at low priority will be ignored if there is a significant volume of
higher-priority calls.
This feature is administered on the VDN form and the Hunt Group form. See Administering
Dynamic Queue Position on page 100 for administration procedures.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Selecting calls

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 same skills and call wait times so that you can more easily see the effects of call
selection methods. The examples include the use of Greatest Need with and without Service
Objective, Skill Level with and without Service Objective, and Percent Allocation, which is not
used with Service Objective.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Greatest Need without Service Objective on page 29

●

Greatest Need with Service Objective on page 30

●

Skill Level without Service Objective on page 30

●

Skill Level with Service Objective on page 31

●

Percent Allocation on page 31

Greatest Need without Service Objective
In the following example, Greatest Need is administered for each of the available agent’s skills.
Service Objective is not activated for this agent, and Predicted Wait Time (PWT) is set at the
system level. All calls are queued at the same priority. Which call is selected first when the
agent becomes available?
Skill number

PWT

45 seconds

90 seconds

50 seconds

Using Greatest Need without Service Objective, the call in skill 2 is selected. This is because
Greatest Need is administered in this situation, and calls are selected according to the highest
Predicted Wait Time (PWT).

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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 selected
first if calls are queued for an agent who is eligible to serve all three skills?
Skill number

Service objective

PWT

20 seconds

45 seconds

90 seconds

20 seconds

50 seconds

In this situation, the call in skill 3 is selected because it is at the highest percentage (250%) of
the 20-second service objective for that skill. Remember that the ratio used with Service
Objective is PWT/SO. The 90-second call, in this case, with a service level of 45 seconds, is
only at 200% of the service objective and therefore is not selected.

Skill Level without Service Objective
In the following example, the Skill Level call handling preference is set for the agent’s three
skills. Service Objective is not set for this agent. All calls are queued at the same priority. Which
call does the agent receive in this situation?
Skill number

Skill level

PWT

45 seconds

90 seconds

50 seconds

In this situation, the 90-second call in skill 2 is selected because it is the oldest call in the
agent’s highest level skill.

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Selecting calls

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?
Skill number

Skill level

Service objective

PWT

45 seconds

90 seconds

50 seconds

In this situation, the agent receives the call waiting in skill 1. Business Advocate identifies two
level-1 calls in queue and selects the call that has the highest ratio of PWT to administered
Service Objective (PWT/SO).

Percent Allocation
In the following example, Percent Allocation is administered for each of the agent’s three skills.
If the agent has already spent 45% of his time serving skill 1, 35% of his time serving skill 2, and
10% of his time serving skill 3, which of the queued calls is selected for him?
Skill
number

Target
allocations

Actual work
time

Adjusted work
time

PWT

60%

45%

49%

45
seconds

30%

35%

40%

90
seconds

10%

17%

50
seconds

The agent has spent more time on skills 2 and 3 than the plan calls for. Therefore, he receives
the call in skill 1, since selecting this call minimizes the deviation between actual work time and
the target allocation.

Note:

Note:
Neither PWT nor CWT is used in the call selection process when Percent
Allocation is administered for an agent.

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February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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 surplus on page 38

Agent selection methods
Agent selection methods are activated when there are one or more agents available to handle
an incoming call (this is known as an agent surplus condition). Business Advocate allows you to
select agents by idleness in a skill (Most Idle Agent), occupancy across all skills (Least
Occupied Agent), or a predetermined percentage of work time for a skill (Percent Allocation
Distribution). These methods are administered on the Hunt Group form and are also known as
hunt group types.
This section includes the following topics:
●

How agents are selected for calls on page 32

●

Agent selection options on page 33

●

Most Idle Agent (MIA) on page 33

●

Least Occupied Agent (LOA) on page 33

●

LOA and extension calls on page 34

●

Agent occupancy on page 34

●

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) on page 34

●

Agent selection when a new call arrives on page 35

How agents are selected for calls
When more than one agent is eligible to serve a call, Communication Manager determines
which of the eligible agents should be selected based on the agent selection method that you
administered. This process includes consideration of the following:

●

Which agents are eligible to serve a call from that skill?

●

What agent selection method is administered for the skill?

●

Which of the eligible agents is most appropriate to serve the call based on the administered
agent selection method?

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Selecting agents

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 based on the agent’s occupancy across all
skills.

●

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) selects an agent based on a predefined allocation for a
skill and the adjusted work time for the skill.

Most Idle Agent (MIA)
MIA selects the most idle agent with the assigned skill for the incoming call. With this method,
the call is delivered to the agent who has been idle the longest.
There are two types of MIA selection:
●

Expert Agent Distribution - Most Idle Agent (EAD-MIA):
Selects the most idle agent who is at the highest skill level for the skill. Note that
Communication Manager considers skill level first. If there is only one agent at the highest
skill level, that agent is selected. If there is more than one agent available at that skill level,
idle time in queue is used to determine which agent is selected.

●

Uniform Call Distribution - Most Idle Agent (UCD-MIA):
Selects the most idle agent in a skill, regardless of the agent’s skill level.

Least Occupied Agent (LOA)
LOA selects agents based upon their occupancy across skills rather than their position in an idle
agent queue. The occupancy includes the agent’s time with ACD calls ringing, ACD calls active,
ACD calls on hold, and after call work (ACW) time if ACW time is considered work time. It is
designed to spread calls more evenly among agents and reduce the number of “hot seats,” that
is, a situation in which some agents receive more calls than others.
There are two types of LOA selection:
●

Expert Agent Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA):
Takes the skill level of agents into consideration before distributing a call. It selects the least
occupied agent who is at the highest skill level for the skill to take the incoming call. Note
that the switch considers skill level first. If there is only one agent at the highest skill level,
that agent is selected. If there is more than one agent available at that skill level, occupancy
is used to determine which agent is selected.

●

Uniform Call Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA):
Selects the least occupied agent when more than one agent is available to take a call.
UCD-LOA does not consider the agent’s skill level when distributing the call.

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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 table shows how LOA tracks extension calls:
If the extension call . . .

Then LOA . . .

is in AUX

ignores this time

is in Auto-In/Manual-In with no
ACD call on hold

tracks this as idle time

is in Auto-In/Manual-In with an
ACD call on hold

tracks this as work time

is in ACW

tracks this as idle time if ACW
Considered Idle? is set to y
on System-Parameters Form
tracks this as work time if ACW
Considered Idle? is set to n
on the System-Parameters form

Agent occupancy
It is important to note that occupancy is reinitialized when an agent exits the AUX work mode.
The agent’s occupancy, when reinitialized, is based on the current occupancy of other agents
who are administered with similar skills (peer agents.)

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD)
PAD uses an agent’s target percentage allocations and the adjusted work time for the agent’s
assigned skills to determine whether the agent is selected to serve a call under an agent
surplus condition. Using the Agent LoginID form, you assign a percentage to each of the agent’s
assigned skills (for a total of 100%).
During the agent selection process, the switch uses the agent’s current work time and target
allocation for that skill. It is important to note that the selection process favors agents with higher
target allocations over agents with lower allocations. For example, if agent A is assigned a
target allocation of 80% and her work time for the skill is at 85%, the agent may be selected
over agent B, who is assigned 20% and is currently at 15% for the skill.

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February 2006

Selecting agents

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 PAD as an agent selection method for a skill, it is
recommended that you administer Percent Allocation as the call handling preference for all
agents in the skill. See Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection on page 95
for administration procedures.

Agent selection when a new call arrives
The following table shows how the various agent selection methods work when agents are
available and a new call arrives:
If the hunt group
type is . . .

When agents are available and a new call
arrives, the next agent selected is the . . .

EAD-LOA

available agent with the highest skill level and the
lowest occupancy (compared to other available
agents with the same skill level)

UCD-LOA

available agent with the lowest occupancy.

EAD-MIA

available agent with the highest skill level who
has been idle the longest since his last ACD call
(compared to other available agents with the
same skill level)

UCD-MIA

available agent who has been idle the longest
since his last ACD call

PAD

agent whose adjusted work time is the lowest
percentage of the target allocation

Agent selection examples
The following examples each use the same agents and profiles to demonstrate how agent
selection works. All of these examples assume that agents are available, no calls are waiting,
and a new call has just arrived.
This section includes the following topics:
●

EAD-LOA on page 36

●

UCD-LOA on page 36

●

EAD-MIA on page 36

●

UCD-MIA on page 37

●

PAD on page 37

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EAD-LOA
Using Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA), if the following three agents
are available to serve the arriving Sales skill call, which agent receives the next call?
Agent

Skill level

Occupancy

90%

95%

64%

Agent A receives the next arriving call from the Sales skill because Agent A is the highest level,
least occupied agent.

UCD-LOA
With the same agents available for the arriving Sales skill call, but with Uniform Call
Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) administered instead of EAD-LOA, which agent
receives the next call?
Agent

Skill level

Occupancy

90%

95%

64%

Agent C receives the next arriving call for the Sales skill. With UCD, skill levels are not
considered during agent selection, and Agent C has the lowest percentage of work time, that is,
time working in this skill divided by staffed time.

EAD-MIA
In the following example, the same three agents are available to serve the next arriving Sales
skill call, but Expert Agent Distribution-Most Idle Agent (EAD-MIA) is administered. Which agent
is selected for the call?

Agent

Skill Level

Time since last Sales call

5 seconds

10 seconds

30 seconds

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Selecting agents

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 due to the EAD component of the decision; in other words,
Agent C has been assigned a lower skill level.

UCD-MIA
Using the same agents and conditions, but administering Uniform Call Distribution (UCD-MIA),
which agent is selected to receive the next arriving Sales skill call?
Agent

Skill Level

Time since last Sales call

5 seconds

10 seconds

30 seconds

Agent C receives the next arriving call for the Sales skill because with UCD-MIA; calls are
distributed evenly across agents according to idle time in queue without regard to skill level.

PAD
Using the same agents, but administering Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD), which agent is
selected to receive the next arriving Sales skill call?
Agent

Target
allocation

Current work
time

Adjusted work
time

Percentage of
target

25%

30%

35%

140%

50%

45%

49%

98%

75%

76%

78%

103%

Agent B is selected for the next call for the Sales skill because his adjusted work time is the
lowest percentage of the target allocation.

Note:

Note:
Adjusted work time is an intermediate calculation that Business Advocate makes
for each of these three agents. The percentage of target is a comparison of the
adjusted work time and the target allocation.

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February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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.
If calls are waiting when an agent
becomes available and the agent’s
selection method is . . .

Then the switch takes the highest priority
call . . .

Skill Level without Service Objective

with the highest skill level and the longest CWT or
PWT

Skill Level with Service Objective

with the highest skill level and the highest ratio of
CWT/SO or PWT/SO

Greatest Need without Service
Objective

with the longest CWT or PWT

Greatest Need with Service Objective

with the highest ratio of CWT/SO or PWT/SO

Percent Allocation

that is the oldest call waiting that best maintains
the administered target allocations for all skills

Agent selection during agent surplus
The following table shows what happens during agent surplus conditions, according to the
agent selection method that is administered.

When agents are available, a call
arrives, and the agent selection
method is . . .

Then the switch selects the . . .

EAD-MIA

highest skill level, most idle agent

UCD-MIA

most idle agent, without regard to
skill level

EAD-LOA

highest skill level agent with the
lowest occupancy

UCD-LOA

least occupied agent, without regard
to skill level

PAD

agent with the lowest ratio of
adjusted work time and target
allocation for the skill

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Automated agent staffing adjustments

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 the many
options that are available to help automate your staffing.
With Business Advocate, you can automatically activate reserve agents when the skills exceed
overload thresholds you set. Additionally, you can use Dynamic Threshold Adjustment to
automatically adjust thresholds as needed. If you are using Percent Allocation, you can
automatically adjust target allocations for agents’ work time as needed to meet service level
targets, or you can choose to activate Auto Reserve Agents to leave an agent idle in a skill if the
agent’s work time exceeds that agent’s preassigned allocation for that skill.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Reserve agents on page 39

●

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment on page 41

●

Auto Reserve Agents on page 42

Reserve agents
This section includes the following topics:
●

Service Level Supervisor on page 39

●

What happens when a skill goes over threshold on page 40

●

Assigning reserve agents on page 40

●

Activation of reserve agents on page 40

●

Considerations for reserve skills on page 40

●

Overload thresholds on page 41

●

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment on page 41

Service Level Supervisor
Using Service Level Supervisor, you can administer one or two overload thresholds for a skill
that is supported by reserve agents. When the Expected Wait Time (EWT) for an arriving call (or
optionally, the time in queue of a currently queued call) exceeds the threshold, the skill goes into
an overload state. When the appropriate overload state exists, agents who are preassigned to
assist during overload periods are eligible to receive subsequent calls from the overloaded skill.
Service Level Supervisor alleviates the need to move agents from skill to skill during
emergencies or unanticipated peaks in call volume.

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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 when either the EWT or the time in queue (Oldest Call Waiting)
exceeds a preadministered threshold. When a skill goes over threshold, reserve agents are
activated or call selection override is activated, according to which of these options you
administered.

Assigning reserve agents
You can assign reserve agents to assist with skills that become overloaded during peak times.
You can assign reserve skills in addition to an agent’s standard skills or you can assign reserve
skills to an agent who would not handle calls unless contingency operations are in effect.
Reserve skills are not mandatory, but they are a convenient method for automatically triggering
contingency operations for your contact center.
You can administer two reserve levels:
●

Reserve Level 1 - Agents are eligible to receive calls from the overloaded skill when the first
or second administered threshold is exceeded

●

Reserve Level 2 - Agents are eligible to receive calls from the overloaded skill when the
second administered threshold is exceeded.

See Administering Service Level Supervisor on page 103 for procedures on assigning reserve
skills for agents.

Activation of reserve agents
Reserve agents can be activated at each overload threshold. These reserve agents are eligible
to take calls from a reserve skill only when that skill is in an overload state. When the skill
returns to a normal state, calls from that skill are no longer sent to reserve agents.

Considerations for reserve skills
If you determine that you want to administer reserve skills, consider the following questions for
each skill:

●

Which agents are able to back up that skill?

●

Are you willing to have agents occasionally shift from their accustomed work in order to serve
as reserve agents for the skill? Remember that agents are often less effective or more costly
when handling calls from skills that are not their primary assignments.

●

Which reserve levels will you assign for selected agents?

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Automated agent staffing adjustments

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 reserve agents become eligible for work on the over-threshold skill. You can set one or
two overload thresholds that determine how long callers wait in queue before reserve agents
are activated. These thresholds are set individually on the Hunt Group form for each skill that
uses reserve agents.
See Administering Service Level Supervisor on page 103 for procedures on assigning overload
thresholds for skills.

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment is a Service Level Supervisor feature that provides you with an
increased level of automation for your staffing. With this feature, you administer one or two
overload thresholds and a service level target. The switch uses this information to determine
when to automatically adjust overload thresholds to help meet the administered service level.
This feature activates reserve agents a bit sooner or a bit later, as needed to maintain your
organization’s service levels. Dynamic Threshold Adjustment is administered individually for
each skill for which you want to use the feature. If you prefer not to use Dynamic Threshold
Adjustment, you can still use Service Level Supervisor; however, automatic adjustments will not
be made to the overload thresholds you set.

Note:

Note:
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment is most effective when you administer only one
overload threshold and set it at the service objective. If you elect not to activate
this feature but still want to use Service Level Supervisor, you can choose to set
one or two overload thresholds to activate reserve agents.

It is important to note that there is a minimum and maximum range for Dynamic Threshold
Adjustments. The adjustments are made as needed, from 0% to 200% of the administered
value. If you set the threshold at 20 seconds, for example, the adjusted thresholds can vary
from 5 to 80 seconds as required to meet your service level targets.
See the Administering Service Level Supervisor on page 103 for procedures on setting up
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment.

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment
If service levels are particularly important to you and you want to have more control over the
amount of time that an agent spends serving a skill, you might consider the Dynamic
Percentage Adjustment feature. With this feature you establish service level targets for each
skill on the Hunt Group form, and the switch makes automatic adjustments to agents’ target
allocations as needed to ensure that your percent in service level goals are met.

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February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

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. Later in the day, the plan may be adjusted to 66% Sales calls
and 34% Service calls, as the volume of Service calls increases. Without Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment, the level of service for Sales would have been adversely affected in the morning
and the level of service for Service would have been adversely affected in the afternoon.
See Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection on page 95 for procedures on
setting up Dynamic Percentage Adjustment.

Auto Reserve Agents
The Auto Reserve Agents feature intentionally leaves an agent idle in a skill when the agent’s
work time for that skill exceeds her assigned target allocation. You can use this feature when it
is particularly important to control an agent’s time in a skill. You might activate this feature to
ensure that a particularly proficient agent is available for your highest priority customers, or to
more closely control where the agent spends his time to better meet your organization’s sales or
service goals.
When an agent is in Auto Reserve and a call is in queue, one of three things typically happens:
●

Another agent becomes available and takes the call in queue.

●

A call arrives in a skill for which the agent is not auto reserved and the agent takes that call.

●

The agent’s work time in the skill drops below her allocation. Now that she is no longer auto
reserved, she takes the waiting call.

This feature is activated on the System-Parameters Features form. Using the Agent LoginID
form and skill levels for each of an agent’s skills, you can determine in which (if any) skills you
want to leave the agent idle when his work time exceeds his target allocation. You can activate
the feature for all of an agent’s skills by entering all in the Auto Reserve Agents field or only for
their nonprimary (level 2 to 16) skills by entering secondary-only. If secondary-only is selected,
the agent never goes into auto reserve if a level 1 call is waiting.
See Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection on page 95 for procedures to
activate Auto Reserve Agents.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Developing your strategy

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 which combinations you might consider for your operation.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Combining agent and call selection methods on page 43

●

Different needs within a contact center on page 44

●

Avaya support for Business Advocate on page 45

●

Feature compatibility on page 45

Combining agent and call selection methods
Business Advocate provides a variety of features to help meet your business goals and to help
you manage your agent resources. The following table shows some of the ways that you can
combine call and agent selection methods to meet your company’s specific needs. See
Business Advocate solution examples on page 49 for sample scenarios that use some of these
combinations.
If your goal is to . . .
Maintain service levels while controlling the
time agents spend serving each of their skills

Then consider . . .
●
●
●

Maintain service levels using more or less
time from reserve resources to supplement
staffing as needed

●
●
●
●

Add customer segmentation with
differentiated levels of service while routing
all segments to the same skill to simplify
staffing

●

Increase revenue by assigning agents their
best skills as primary skills and limiting the
use of reserve skills to eliminate long call
wait times

●

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

●
●

●
●
●

Percent Allocation
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment
PAD
Greatest Need
Service Level Supervisor
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment
UCD-LOA
Greatest Need
Dynamic Queue Position
UCD-LOA
Greatest Need
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor
UCD-LOA

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

If your goal is to . . .
Ensure that critical skills are covered,
regardless of caller wait time in other skills

Then consider . . .
●
●
●
●
●

Control the time your agents spend serving
their assigned skills while maintaining
flexibility in order to meet service level
requirements for the contact center

●
●
●
●
●

Automate agent staffing to activate back up
agents a little sooner or a little later to meet
service level goals

●
●
●
●

Minimize the complexity of differentiating
service levels for different types of calls that
require similar agent abilities

●

Maximize the amount of time that agents
spend in high contribution roles while limiting
the amount of time using lesser skills in order
to address wait time problems

●

Spread calls more evenly among agents
while delivering the right level of service to
each skill

●

Use agents in their most proficient skills
while minimizing the hot seat problem

●

●
●

●

Greatest Need
Service Level Supervisor
Call Selection Override
Activate on Oldest Call Waiting
UCD-LOA
Percent Allocation
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment
Call Selection Override
Service Level Supervisor
PAD
Greatest Need or Skill Level
Service Level Supervisor
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment
UCD-LOA or EAD-LOA
Greatest Need or Skill Level
Dynamic Queue Position
UCD-LOA or EAD-LOA
Greatest Need
Service Objective
UCD-LOA
Greatest Need
Service Objective
UCD-LOA
Skill Level
EAD-LOA

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; Business
Advocate may help you meet varying needs. A sales department, for example, may choose to
use Dynamic Queue Position to create differentiation among various types of customers without
creating a different skill for each type of sales call. A service department, on the other hand,
may be more interested in working toward similar goals for each technical support skill, while
eliminating the “hot seats” often experienced by well trained, multi-skilled agents.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Developing your strategy

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
business problems and meet business objectives.
The subscription provides:
●

Proactive monitoring of certain performance metrics consistent with business objectives

●

Web-based information and tips

●

Multi-media contact support, available through voice and e-mail, for questions and
consultation

Additional specialized services, such as simulation and performance analysis, can also be
conducted.
For more information, please contact your Avaya Account Executive or CRM Opportunity
Management at 1-877-9-CRM OMC.

Feature compatibility
It is important to choose the right combination of features to meet your organization’s needs and
ensure that Business Advocate is set up to work most effectively. This section summarizes the
features that provide the best results when used together, and it also lists those that are not
designed to work together. See Administering Business Advocate on Communication
Manager on page 79 for procedures to set up these features.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Call selection methods (call handling preferences) on page 46

●

Agent selection methods (hunt group types) on page 46

●

Feature combinations to avoid on page 47

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

Call selection methods (call handling preferences)
The following table shows the features that work effectively with the various Business Advocate
call selection methods.
Call selection method
Greatest Need

Recommended to work with
●
●
●
●
●

Skill Level

●
●
●
●
●

Percent Allocation

●
●
●
●

Predicted Wait Time
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor
UCD-MIA
UCD-LOA
Predicted Wait Time
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor
EAD-MIA
EAD-LOA
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment
Auto Reserve Agents
Service Level Supervisor
PAD

Agent selection methods (hunt group types)
The following table shows which features work with the various agent selection methods.
Agent selection Method
UCD-MIA

Recommended to work with
●
●
●
●

EAD-MIA

●
●
●
●

UCD-LOA

●
●
●
●

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

Greatest Need
Predicted Wait Time
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor
Skill Level
Predicted Wait Time
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor
Greatest Need
Predicted Wait Time
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor3

February 2006

Developing your strategy

Agent selection Method
EAD-LOA

Recommended to work with
●
●
●
●

PAD

●
●
●
●

Skill Level
Predicted Wait Time
Service Objective
Service Level Supervisor
Percent Allocation
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment
Auto Reserve Agents
Service Level Supervisor

Feature combinations to avoid
The PAD agent selection method should not be used with Greatest Need or Skill Level call
selection methods.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Overview of Business Advocate

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples
This section provides examples of how Business Advocate can be used to help meet your
contact center’s goals. While the example situations may sound a bit different from yours, the
scenarios should give you some ideas about how you can best use Business Advocate to help
your business. Remember that these are not the only ways in which Business Advocate
features can be used. See Overview of Business Advocate on page 13 for details about how
each feature works and which feature combinations are most effective. Contact your Avaya
Professional Services representatives for help with implementing your specific solution.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Maintaining service levels - one scenario on page 50

●

Adding customer segments on page 55

●

Increasing revenue on page 60

●

Automating agent moves to back up calls on page 66

●

Controlling agent time in a skill on page 73

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

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 contractual obligations to
their customers. Other contact centers, however, might be required to maintain service levels to
serve their internal customers, such as various lines of business within their company. The
solution outlined in this scenario is one of many that could help a contact center that is focused
primarily on maintaining service levels.
This particular solution involves the following Business Advocate features:
●

Predicted Wait Time

●

Greatest Need as the call selection method

●

Universal Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) for agent selection

●

Service Level Supervisor

●

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

This section includes the following topics:
●

Background information on page 50

●

Agent selection on page 51

●

Call selection on page 51

●

Automated agent staffing on page 51

●

Overload thresholds and service level targets on page 52

●

Where administered? on page 52

●

Results on page 53

●

Measuring results on page 54

Background information
An outsourcing company has contracts with several businesses, each one of which requires a
different service level for their sales or service calls:
●

Business A requires a service level of 90% in 15 seconds

●

Business B requires a service level of 80% in 20 seconds

●

Business C requires a service level of 75% in 45 seconds

Daily call volumes vary widely for each business as a result of promotions and other events.
This makes it difficult for the contact center managers to forecast staffing needs and routinely
maintain service levels. However, the contact center must be responsive to changing conditions

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Maintaining service levels - one scenario

while ensuring that service levels are maintained to avoid financial penalties. Three skills are
used, one for each business. Agents are trained to serve all three skills, but have varying levels
of experience and proficiency. To keep efficiency as high as possible, the business wants to use
agents in their primary areas of expertise.
Agent assignments are as follows:
●

The most experienced agents are assigned businesses A and B as their primary skills. They
are not assigned reserve skills.

●

The next most proficient agents serve business B as their primary skill. These agents also
serve as reserve agents for businesses A (R1) and C (R1).

●

Newer agents and trainees are assigned business C as their primary skill and they serve as
reserve agents for business B. Some agents serve as R1 and some serve as R2, depending
upon their abilities. These agents do not serve business A.

Agent selection
UCD-LOA is used for agent selection so that the least occupied agent is selected for the call.
This method spreads work time evenly among agents, and eliminates any “hot seats.” After Call
Work (ACW) is considered as work time in the calculation of agent occupancy.

Note:

Note:
The decision to include ACW as work time is not critical to implementing this
example. This example works whether ACW time is considered as idle time or
work time.

Call selection
Predicted Wait Time (PWT) is administered as the call selection measurement to predict how
long a call will wait in queue if the currently available agent does not take the call.
Greatest Need is administered for call selection. In this situation, Greatest Need selects a skill
for an agent to serve based on the call at the highest priority with the longest PWT.

Automated agent staffing
Service Level Supervisor is used to activate reserve agents when overload thresholds for a skill
are exceeded. Dynamic Threshold Adjustment, with service level targets, is administered for
each skill to adjust thresholds as needed to help meet service level targets under changing
conditions. Call Selection Override is off.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

Overload thresholds and service level targets
The following table shows how overload thresholds and service level targets are set on the Hunt
Group form.
Business

Overload thresholds

Service level targets

Level 1: 10

90% in 15

Level 1: 15

80% in 20

Level 1: 35

75% in 40

Where administered?
The following table shows where each of these features is administered through the switch. See
Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for procedures on
how to administer the feature.
If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

After Call Work
Considered Idle?

n in the ACW

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Predicted Wait
Time

predicted-wait-time in

UCD-LOA

ucd-loa in the Group

Considered Idle? field
the Call Selection
Measurement field

Feature-Related System
Parameters form
Hunt Group form (page 1)

Type field for each skill

Service Level
Supervisor

y in the Service Level

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Overload
Thresholds

seconds in the Level 1
Threshold field for each
skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Dynamic
Threshold
Adjustment

y in the Dynamic

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Supervisor field for each
skill

Threshold Adjustment
field for each skill

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Maintaining service levels - one scenario

If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

Service Level
Target

% in seconds in the
Service Level Target
field for each skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Greatest Need

greatest-need in the
Call Handling
Preference field for each
agent

Agent LoginID form

Reserve Agents

1 or 2 in the Reserve

Agent LoginID form

Level (RL) field for
each skill an agent will
serve as a reserve agent

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 targets. A sudden increase in call volume does not result in an increase in
abandoned calls or the need for supervisors to move agents between skills to meet changing
demands.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

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
command

% Within Service Level

Whether your service levels
are being met for each skill

Real-Time Split/Skill
Graphical Status report or
Historical Split/Skill
Graphical Service Level
Report

●
●
●

Normal time
Overload 1 time
Overload 2 time

●

Overload thresholds

●
●

●

Activation of Reserve
Agents
Average ACD Time

Whether Dynamic
Threshold Adjustment is
making adjustments to
thresholds as wanted.
Note that you can also use
the displayed threshold
information (adjusted
thresholds) to readminister
your thresholds if you
decide not to use Dynamic
Threshold Adjustment
●

●

Staffing
●
●
●

Normal time
Overload 1 time
Overload 2 time

How much time was
spent in normal time and
in each overload state
What percentage of the
time standard agents are
capable of keeping the
skill on track

The number of calls
handled by reserve l and
reserve 2 agents
What the average talk
time is when reserve
agents are handling the
calls

Graphical Skill Overload
Report

list skill-status

command (SAT command
that the system
administrator can use)

Custom Report

How your skill is staffed and
what the agents are doing

Graphical Staffing Profile
Report

How much time skills have
spent in the various states

Graphical Skill Overload
Report

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Adding customer segments

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 example in this section uses the Dynamic Queue Position feature to allow this company to
queue calls from multiple Vector Directory Numbers (VDNs ) to a single skill, while maintaining
service differentiation through the different service objectives for those VDNs. This solution
simplifies administration and contact center management because it does not require the
addition of skills for agents. It simplifies staffing and forecasting because only a single skill,
rather than a set of skills, needs to be forecasted for the new, segmented customer base.
This solution also includes:
●

Predicted Wait Time

●

After Call Work (ACW) as work time

●

Skill Level as the call selection method

●

Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA) for agent selection

This section includes the following topics:
●

Background information on page 55

●

Agent assignments on page 56

●

Agent selection on page 56

●

Call selection on page 56

●

Service objectives on page 57

●

Where administered? on page 57

●

Results on page 58

●

Measuring results on page 59

Background information
A company that sells home security systems is entering a new market and as a result of fierce
competition must make a very favorable first impression on its new customers. The contact
center takes both Sales and Service calls and each type is considered equally important. In
addition to impressing new customers, it must continue to serve its existing customers, some of
whom are willing to wait to be served and others who will abandon if forced to wait longer than a
minute.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

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 - Existing customer market with customers who are more tolerant about waiting to
be served

Agent assignments
All agents in the Sales skill serve customers from all three regions because calls from all three
regions are directed toward the single Sales skill. All agents in the Service skill serve customers
from all three regions because calls from all three regions are directed toward the single Service
skill. All agents are assigned skill levels of 1, 2, or 3 on the Agent LoginID form, depending upon
their proficiency and experience.

Agent selection
Expert Agent Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA) is used for agent selection to
ensure that the highest skilled, least occupied agent is selected for a call when one or more
agents are available to serve a call.

Call selection
Call selection uses Predicted Wait Time (PWT) and the Skill Level call handling preference.
Agents’ proficiencies in Sales and Service are mapped into skill levels for the Sales skill and for
the Service skill. For example, an agent who has top proficiency in Service, but only good
proficiency in Sales will take a Service call over a Sales call if both are in queue when the agent
became available. Service objectives are not in use; that is, Service Objective is not activated
on the Agent LoginID Form.
●

Top proficiency in Sales or Service - Level 1

●

Good proficiency in Sales or Service - Level 2

●

Fair proficiency in Sales or Service - Level 3

In general, PWT will come into use when calls are in queue for both the Sales and Service skills
and the agent holds both skills at equal skill levels. In this situation, the call with the highest
PWT is selected.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Adding customer segments

Service objectives
The following table shows how service objectives are administered for each of the VDNs on the
Vector Directory Number form:
VDN

Service
objective

11 - Sales VDN for new market

10 seconds

12 - Sales VDN for markets with high
abandonment rates

15 seconds

13 - Sales VDN for markets with average or
better abandonment rates

20 seconds

21 - Service VDN for new market

10 seconds

22 - Service VDN for markets with high
abandonment rates

15 seconds

23 - Service VDN for markets with average or
better abandonment rates

20 seconds

Where administered?
The following table shows where each of these features is administered through the switch. See
Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for procedures for
administering the feature.
If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

ACW
Considered Idle?

n in the ACW

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Predicted Wait
Time

predicted-wait-time in

Service
Objective
assigned to VDN

seconds in the Service
Objective field for each
VDN

Vector Directory Number
form

EAD-LOA

ead-loa in the Group

Hunt Group form (page 1)

Considered Idle? field
the Call Selection
Measurement field

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Type field

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

Dynamic Queue
Position

y in the Dynamic Queue

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Skill Level call
handling
preference

skill-level in the Call
Handling Preference
field

Agent LoginID form

Service
Objective

n in the Service

Agent LoginID form

Skill Levels

1, 2, or 3 in the Skill

Position field

Objective field
Agent LoginID form

Level (SL) fields for the
Sales and Service skills for
each agent, according to
the agent’s proficiency

Results
EAD-LOA for the hunt group method and Skill Level for call handling preference work together
to ensure that during agent or call surplus conditions, the most skilled agent takes the call.
Dynamic Queue Position uses the service objectives that are administered for each VDN to
determine where to place the call in either the Sales queue or in the Service queue. As calls
arrive, they are placed in queue so that the average speed of answer (ASA) of the calls from
each VDN is proportional to the service objectives of the VDN. This means, for example, that
new market customers will tend to be placed in queue ahead of some of the other calls, but not
necessarily in front of all of them. If you recall, the service objectives are 10 seconds for new
markets (VDNs 11 and 21), 15 seconds for markets with high abandon rates (VDNs 12 and 22),
and 20 seconds for other markets (VDNs 13 and 23).

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Adding customer segments

Measuring results
The following table shows some of the reports that you can review to determine the
effectiveness of this solution.
If you want to check . . .
●
●
●

●
●
●
●

And determine . . .

Use this report

Average Speed of
Answer
% Abandoned Calls
% Within Service Level

How the Sales skill and
Service skill are performing
overall

Real-Time Split/Skill
Graphical Status Report or
Historical Split/Skill
Graphical Service Level
Report (through CMS
Supervisor)

Average Speed of
Answer
% Abandoned Calls
Maximum Delays
% Within Service Level

How each VDN (Region) is
performing, particularly
against each other, and how
well the ratios of the ASAs
follow the ratios of the
administered service
objectives

VDN Call Profile Report,
VDN Graphical Call Profile
Report, or VDN Service
Level Report

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

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 many ways that Business Advocate can help increase a contact center’s revenue.
This solution includes:
●

Predicted Wait Time (PWT)

●

Service Level Supervisor

●

Service Objective

●

Greatest Need as the call selection method

●

Universal Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) for agent selection

This section includes the following topics:
●

Background information on page 60

●

Agent assignment on page 61

●

Agent selection on page 62

●

Call selection on page 62

●

Automated agent staffing on page 62

●

Overload thresholds and service objectives on page 62

●

Where administered? on page 63

●

Results on page 64

●

Measuring results on page 65

Background information
A catalog company that sells home furnishings and accessories is looking for ways to increase
sales by taking full advantage of every selling opportunity and making the best use of their
agent resources. The top agents are at a significantly higher pay rate than the new hires, so it is
important to make sure that the most experienced agents help those customers who spend a lot
and expect excellent service. The least experienced agents, on the other hand, take clearance
orders from customers who typically spend the least. As a result of their sales data and past
experience with customers, the company has identified most of their customers as one of four
types. Platinum customers spend the most and are most likely to purchase add-on merchandise
suggested by agents. Gold customers spend a fair amount, but typically purchase just the items
they called to order. Silver customers are known for purchasing only merchandise that has been
marked down for clearance. New and unknown customers form a fourth customer segment.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Increasing revenue

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 good overall service levels if call volumes for any of the
customer segments are higher than expected. To solve this problem, each agent is assigned to
another customer segment when needed.

Agent assignment
Agents are grouped into four tiers, according to their abilities.
●

Tier 1 agents are the most proficient agents. They are top at sales and are particularly
effective at upselling. These agents serve the Platinum skill as their primary or “focus” skill.
They serve the Gold (R1) skill as reserve agents.

●

Tier 2 agents are good at selling standard merchandise, but are not as effective with add-on
sales. They are very effective at introducing new customers to the company’s catalog. They
serve the Gold and New/Unknown skills as their primary skills. These agents serve the
Platinum (R1) and Silver (R2) skills as reserve agents.

●

Tier 3 agents have nearly the same ability as Tier 2, but they should spend less time with
Platinum customers and more with Silver customers as the need arises. These agents serve
the Gold and New/Unknown skills as primary skills. They serve the Platinum (R2) and Silver
(R1) skills as reserve agents.

●

Tier 4 agents are less experienced and many are still in training. Their primary skill is Silver.
These agents serve the Gold (R2) and New/Unknown (R1) skills as reserve agents.

The following table shows the skill assignments that are described above. By making the less
optimal agent-customer pairings reserve skills, the time each agent spends in his focus or
primary skill is maximized. This results in revenue benefits and operational cost benefits for the
company.
Agent group

Platinum

Gold

Tier 1

Primary

Reserve 1

Tier 2

Reserve 1

Primary

Reserve 2

Primary

Tier 3

Reserve 2

Primary

Reserve 1

Primary

Reserve 2

Primary

Reserve 1

Tier 4

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

Silver

New/unknown
Reserve 2

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

Agent selection
UCD-LOA is used for agent selection so that the least occupied agent is selected for the call.
This spreads work time evenly among the primary or focus agents for each customer segment
and eliminates any hot seats, that is, a situation in which some agents receive more calls than
others. Since agents are encouraged to process each order completely during the call, After
Call Work (ACW) is not considered as work time in the calculation of agent occupancy.

Call selection
Greatest Need is administered for call selection and Predicted Wait Time (PWT) is activated for
call selection measurement. Greatest Need, when used with Service Objective, selects a call for
an agent according to the ratio of PWT and the administered service objective (PWT/SO) for the
agent’s assigned skills. The highest priority call with the highest PWT/SO is selected. The use
of PWT and Service Objective is important for the agents who have focus assignments in two or
more skills.

Automated agent staffing
Service Level Supervisor is used to activate reserve agents when overload thresholds for a skill
are exceeded. Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override is off, because call selection
should never ignore calls that are waiting for an agent’s focus skill. Dynamic Threshold
Adjustment is not activated because the company prefers to set and monitor its thresholds. If
thresholds drop merely to help the center make its percentage in service level numbers, the
number of focus calls each agent takes also drops. This results in loss of revenue and
transaction costs that are higher than necessary.

Overload thresholds and service objectives
Given the way skill assignments are set, service objectives play a role when either Tier 2 or Tier
3 agents become available, because these types of agents have two primary skills. Service
objectives are implemented for all skills, however, and Service Objective is activated for call
handling on each agent’s Agent LoginID form. Therefore, if any of an agent’s reserve skills go
into overload, the agent’s call selection is properly governed. Since each skill has two levels of
reserves, two overload thresholds are administered for each skill and the settings reflect the
business interest to back up higher-revenue calls more readily.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Increasing revenue

The following table shows the values for the current settings:
Customers

Overload
thresholds

Service
objectives

Platinum

Level 1: 20
Level 2: 30

Gold

Level 1: 45
Level 2: 60

Silver

Level 1: 60
Level 2: 75

New/unknown

Level 1: 45
Level 2: 60

Where administered?
The following table shows where each of these features is administered through the switch. See
Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for procedures for
administering the feature.
If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

After Call
Considered Idle?

y in the ACW

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Predicted Wait
Time

predicted-wait-time in

UCD-LOA

ucd-loa in the Group

Considered Idle? field
the Call Selection
Measurement field

Feature-Related System
Parameters form
Hunt Group form (page 1)

Type field
Service
Objective

number of seconds in the
Service Objective
field for each skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Service Level
Supervisor

y in the Service Level

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Overload
Thresholds

number of seconds in the
Level 1 and Level 2
Threshold fields for each
skill

Supervisor field

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

Hunt Group form (page 2)

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

Greatest Need
call handling
preference

greatest-need in the
Call Handling
Preference field

Agent LoginID form

Service
Objective

y in the Service

Agent LoginID form

Reserve Agents

1 or 2 in the Reserve
Level (RL) fields as
appropriate, according to
agent’s tier profile

Objective field for each
agent
Agent LoginID form

Results
Service objectives and Predicted Wait Time govern call selection for agents with two primary
skills or for an agent with reserve skills when the reserve skill is in overload. When the contact
center experiences sudden increases in call volume for a skill, the overload thresholds activate
reserve agents. By assigning hunt groups and reserve agents based on agent proficiency, the
company is keeping agents serving calls for which they are most qualified. This means that
sales should remain high and calls should be handled efficiently.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Increasing revenue

Measuring results
The following table shows some of the reports and some of the database items that you can
review to determine the effectiveness of this solution.
If you want to check . . .
●
●
●
●

Average Speed of
Answer
Average Abandon Time
Average ACD Time
Maximum delay

Percent of time a skill was
in each overload condition

Activation of reserve agents

And determine . . .

Use this report

How each skill is
performing:
● How quickly calls are
being answered
● When customers are
abandoning
● Average talk time

Real-Time Split/Skill
Graphical Status report

How often overload
thresholds are being
exceeded. If skills spend
too much time in overload,
it is generally a good
indication that more primary
agents are needed for the
skill.

Historical Graphical Skill
Overload report

●

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

How many calls are
being answered by
reserve 1 and reserve 2
agents. The more often
calls are served by
reserve agents, the less
often the optimal or focus
agent is taking the call.
Whether average talk
time increases
significantly when
reserve agents serve
calls.

Custom Report

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

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, seasonal conditions, or
unexpected acts of nature, the challenge is to serve as many calls as possible to meet the
customer’s needs and maintain the company’s requirements for service levels. Because utility
companies frequently face this situation, the following example shows how a utility company
uses Business Advocate to ensure that critical calls are given priority, standard calls are served,
and reserve agents are in place as backups.
This example includes:
●

Predicted Wait Time (PWT)

●

Service Level Supervisor

●

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

●

Greatest Need as a call selection method

●

Universal Call Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) for agent selection

Call Selection Override is on or off by skill, depending on the skill.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Background information on page 66

●

Agent assignments on page 67

●

Agent selection on page 67

●

Call selection on page 68

●

Automated agent staffing on page 68

●

Overload thresholds and service level targets on page 68

●

Where administered? on page 69

●

Overload thresholds and service level targets on page 70

●

Results on page 71

●

Measuring results on page 72

Background information
A gas and electric utility company has many different types of calls to handle, some of which are
of an urgent nature and require immediate assistance. Typical calls include requests to connect
and disconnect service for residential and commercial accounts, reports of power outages or
gas leaks, billing or collection calls, and calls from the police or fire departments. The company

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Automating agent moves to back up calls

uses an interactive voice response (IVR) system to help determine how the calls should be
routed and to prompt customers for account numbers. The IVR prompting helps customers
report gas leaks or downed electric lines so that these calls can reach agents as quickly as
possible. Additionally, the company has implemented a technology solution that enables the
switch to differentiate calls from police and fire departments from routine calls and route them
for immediate attention.
In terms of priority, calls from police and fire departments and calls from customers who are
reporting gas leaks or downed electric lines are considered most important. These calls are
queued at high priority and are backed up very quickly. Less important calls are queued at
medium priority. These calls include reports of power outages, requests to connect or
disconnect service from business accounts and residential accounts, and arrangements for
payment.

Agent assignments
All agents are trained to handle residential accounts, including setting up new service, restoring
service, disconnecting service, or reporting power outages. The company’s most experienced
agents are used for emergency skills, business accounts, and payment arrangements.
The following table shows agent assignments.
Agents

Emergency

Payment
arrangements

Business
accounts

Group 1

Primary

Reserve 1

Group 2

Reserve 1

Primary

Reserve 2

Group 3

Reserve 2

Group 4

Reserve 2

Primary

Residential
accounts

Reserve 1
Primary

Agent selection
Expert Agent Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA) is used as an agent selection
method for the business and payment arrangements skills. After Call Work (ACW) is considered
work time.
Universal Call Distribution - Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA), which selects the least
occupied agent for a call, is used for the emergency skills and for the residential skills that are
handled by newer agents.

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February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

Call selection
Queuing the emergency skill calls at top priority and other types of calls at medium priority
results in any agent with emergency skills as primary to take the emergency call over the other
type of call. Greatest Need is used for the call handling preference for agents, without Service
Objective, so that calls are selected according to PWT. Call Selection Override is active for the
emergency skill but not for the other skills. When the emergency skill is in overload, its need
causes an override of typical call selection. This means that an agent who has the emergency
skill as a reserve skill takes the emergency call rather than a primary call, such as a payment
arrangement call.

Automated agent staffing
Service Level Supervisor is used to activate reserve agents when overload thresholds for a skill
are exceeded. Activate on Oldest Call Waiting is administered to ensure that calls in the smaller,
emergency skill receive the attention they need. Call Selection override is on for the emergency
skill to ensure that the emergency calls are given priority over routine calls when the emergency
skill is in overload.

Overload thresholds and service level targets
The following table shows the values for the current settings:

Skill

Overload thresholds

Service level targets

Emergency

Level 1: 5 seconds
Level 2: 10 seconds

Not administered

Business accounts

Level 1: 20 seconds
Level 2: 30 seconds

85% in 20

Residential
accounts

Level 1: 40 seconds
Level 2: 50 seconds

85% in 40

Payment
arrangements

Not administered

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Automating agent moves to back up calls

Where administered?
The following table shows where each of these features is administered through the switch. See
Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for procedures for
administering the feature.
If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

ACW
Considered Idle?

n in the ACW Considered

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Predicted Wait
Time

predicted-wait-time in the

Call Selection
Override

y in the Call Selection

Idle? field
Call Selection
Measurement field

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Override field

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

y in the Call Selection

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Override field for the
Emergency skill
n in the Call Selection
Override field for the
nonemergency skills
Service Level
Supervisor

y in the Service Level

Activate on
Oldest Call
Waiting

y in the Activate on

EAD-LOA and
UCD-LOA

ead-loa in the Group Type
field for the Business and
Payment Arrangement skills,
ucd-loa for the Emergency and
Residential skills

Hunt Group form (page 1)

Overload
Thresholds

Number of seconds in the Level
1 and Level 2 Threshold
fields for each skill, except for the
Payment Arrangements skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Dynamic
Threshold
Adjustment

y in the Dynamic Threshold
Adjustment field for
nonemergency skills, except for
the Payment Arrangements skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Supervisor field, except for
the Payment Arrangements skill
Hunt Group form (page 2)

Oldest Call Waiting field
for the emergency skill

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February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

If you want to
activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

Service Level
Target

% in seconds in the Service
Level Target field for
nonemergency skills, except for
the Payment Arrangements skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Greatest Need

greatest-need in the Call

Agent LoginID form

Handling Preference field
Skill Levels for
Agents

skill levels in the Skill Level
(SL) field for each agent’s
primary skill

Agent LoginID form

Reserve Agents

1 or 2 in the Reserve Level

Agent LoginID form

(RL) fields for each agent’s
reserve skills, according to
agent’s profile

Overload thresholds and service level targets
The following table shows how the overload thresholds and service level targets are set.

Skill

Overload thresholds

Service level targets

Emergency

Level 1: 5 seconds
Level 2: 10 seconds

Not administered

Business
accounts

Level 1: 20 seconds
Level 2: 30 seconds

85% in 20

Residential
accounts

Level 1: 40 seconds
Level 2: 50 seconds

85% in 40

Payment
arrangements

Not administered

80% in 60

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Automating agent moves to back up calls

Results
Call selection override, which is active for the emergency hunt group, helps to ensure that calls
in this skill are answered quickly. When this skill exceeds its thresholds, agents are diverted
from their primary skills to assist. Additionally, Activate on Oldest Call Waiting causes the wait
time of the oldest call in queue for the emergency skill to be monitored every 5 seconds. If the
wait time of the oldest call exceeds either the overload 1 or overload 2 levels, reserve agents
become eligible. Since the call volumes of emergency skills tend to be fairly unpredictable, the
normal Expected Wait Time trigger for reserves is less accurate and therefore less effective in
activating reserves at the right times. With low thresholds and a check of the oldest call every 5
seconds, the activation of reserves is more reliable in this critical, but very unpredictable
situation.
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment automatically adjusts thresholds to help maintain service levels
for nonemergency skills. If, for example, there is an unusually high number of power outages
being reported as a result of a storm, the thresholds for Residential Accounts may be lowered to
engage reserves more quickly. Dynamic Threshold Adjustment will be off for emergency skills
because these overloads should never be adjusted upward.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

Measuring results
The following table shows some of the reports that you can review to determine the
effectiveness of this solution.
If you want to check . . .

And determine . . .

Use this report

Whether your service
levels are being met for
each skill.
● How quickly calls are
answered.
● What the average talk
time is for the skill.
Note that if the Maximum
Delay far exceeds the
Overload 2 threshold for
emergency skills, it is an
indication that primary and
reserve staffing is
insufficient.

Real-Time Split/Skill
Graphical Status report or
Historical Split/Skill
Graphical Service Level
Report

Average Abandon Time

Whether your thresholds
are set low enough to
activate reserve agents
before the call is
abandoned.

Real-Time Split/Skill
Graphical Status report

Overload Thresholds

Whether Dynamic
Threshold Adjustment is
making adjustments to
thresholds as wanted.

list skill-status
command (SAT command
that the system
administrator can use)

●
●
●
●

% Within Service Level
Average Speed of
Answer
Average ACD Time
Maximum delay

●

Note that you can also use
the displayed threshold
information (adjusted
thresholds) to readminister
your thresholds if you
decide not to use Dynamic
Threshold Adjustment.
Activation of Reserve
Agents

The number of calls being
taken by reserve 1 or
reserve 2 agents.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

Custom Report

February 2006

Controlling agent time in a skill

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
contribution with their compensation or reward plan. For example, a business might choose to
allot a percentage of an agent’s time to serve skills for which he can earn commission, and a
percentage for the time he spends serving noncommission skills. Percent Allocation, when used
for agent and call selection, is designed to meet this need.
This solution includes:
●

Auto Reserve Agents

●

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment

●

Percent Allocation as a call selection method

●

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) for agent selection

This section includes the following topics:
●

Background information on page 73

●

Agent assignments on page 74

●

Agent selection on page 74

●

Call selection on page 74

●

Automated agent staffing on page 75

●

Service level target on page 75

●

Expected call handling time on page 75

●

Where administered? on page 75

●

Results on page 76

●

Measuring results on page 77

Background information
A company that sells and services fax machines uses a Sales skill and a Service skill. Agents
are trained to serve both skills, although five agents are particularly effective at closing sales. It
is important to the company that customers are served well and also that agents have an
equitable chance at serving commission and noncommission skills.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

Agent assignments
The following table shows agent assignments.
Agents

Sales

Service

Top sales

Skill level 1
50%

Skill level 2
50%

All others

Skill level 1
50%

Notice that the high-performing sales agents have the Service skill at skill level 2, which works
in conjunction with Auto Reserve for “secondary only”. Since the other agents hold both the
Sales and Service skills at skill level 1, they are not subject to Auto Reserving.

Agent selection
PAD is administered as the hunt group method for agent selection so that during conditions of
agent surplus, agents are selected for calls using their administered target allocations. Agents
are encouraged to complete all call-related work during the call, so After Call Work (ACW) is not
considered work time.

Call selection
Percent Allocation is administered as the call selection method to ensure that during conditions
of call surplus, calls are selected that meet the available agent’s administered allocation plan.
Auto Reserve Agents is set to secondary-only so that top-performing sales agents are left idle
if their target allocation has been exceeded for the Service skill. This allows the top-performing
agents to be available to serve additional incoming Sales calls, resulting in more revenue for the
company. All other agents are not affected by the Auto Reserve Agents feature because they
hold both the sales skill and the service skill at level 1.

Note:

Note:
When Auto Reserve Agents is set to secondary-only, the skill level that is
assigned on the Agent LoginID form determines in which skills the agent is left
idle.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Controlling agent time in a skill

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
skill or another, target allocations are adjusted so that service levels can be met for the skills.

Service level target
Service level targets are set as follows:
●

Sales - 85% in 25 seconds

●

Service - 80% in 40 seconds

Expected call handling time
Expected Call Handling Time, including talk time and ACW is set to 300 seconds for each skill.

Where administered?
The following table shows where each of these features is administered through the switch. See
Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for procedures for
administering the feature.
If you want to activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

ACW Considered Idle?

y in the ACW

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Considered Idle? field
Auto Reserve Agents

secondary-only in the
Auto Reserve Agents
field

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

PAD

pad in the Group Type

Hunt Group form (page 1)

field
Expected Call Handling
Time

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

300 seconds in the

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Expected Call
Handling Time field for
each skill

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

If you want to activate . . .

Then enter . . .

On the . . .

Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment

y in the Dynamic

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Service Level Target

% in seconds in the
Service Level Target
fields for each skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Percent Allocation

percent-allocation in

Agent LoginID form

Percentage
Adjustment field for each
skill

the Call Handling
Preference field
Percentages for skills

% to be allocated for each
skill in the Percent
Allocation (PA) field,
according to the agent’s
profile

Agent LoginID form

Skill Levels for Agents

1 or 2 in the Skill
Level (SL) field,
according to the agent’s
profile

Agent LoginID form

Results
Percentage Allocation and PAD work together to control agent time in skills during conditions of
call or agent surplus. Both methods make their selections for calls or agents by comparing an
agent’s work time and target allocation for a skill. In this example, all agents are given the same
target allocations: 50% for Sales and 50% percent for Service. To ensure that the
top-performing agents will not be serving too many Service calls, Auto Reserve Agents is
activated as secondary-only. By administering the feature in this way, the system
temporarily leaves a top-performing agent idle when only a Service call is waiting and the
available top performing agent has exceeded the adjusted work time for Service calls.
Allocations for all agents, however, are still adjusted as needed to maintain service levels. As a
result of administering this combination of Percentage Allocation features, the company should
see service levels that are close to their defined targets as well as actual agent work time that is
near the target allocations because the company maintaining closer control over where agents
spend their work time.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Controlling agent time in a skill

Measuring results
The following table shows some of the reports that you can review to determine the
effectiveness of this solution.
If you want to check
...
●
●
●

% Within Service
Level
Average speed of
answer
Average ACD
Time

Staffing

And determine . . .
●
●
●

Whether your service levels
are being met for each skill.
How quickly calls are being
answered.
What the average talk time is
for the skill.

Whether the skill is staffed
appropriately.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

Use this report
Real-Time Split/Skill
Graphical Status report or
Historical Split/Skill
Graphical Service Level
Report
Split/Skill Graphical
Average Position Staffed
Report

February 2006

Business Advocate solution examples

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

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

●

Administration procedures on page 91

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate
This section is designed to introduce you to the requirements for administering Business
Advocate features.
This section includes the following topics:
●

System requirements on page 80

●

Communication Manager or CMS Supervisor? on page 80

●

Business Advocate decisions at a glance on page 81

●

System-level decisions on page 83

●

VDN-level decisions on page 84

●

Skill-level decisions on page 85

●

Agent-level decisions on page 89

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager

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 (EAS)

●

Avaya Call Management System (CMS) R3V6 or higher (if you are using CMS for reporting)

Communication Manager or CMS Supervisor?
Business Advocate administration can be performed through Communication Manager, or
through CMS Supervisor or Avaya CMS. There are some tasks that can only be performed only
through the switch. It is important to note that CMS Supervisor administration can be performed
only for existing agent login IDs.
The following table shows which tasks must be completed through the switch and which can be
completed through CMS Supervisor or Avaya CMS. This section includes only those
procedures for the tasks that are performed through the switch. See Administering Business
Advocate through CMS Supervisor on page 123 for procedures to administer through CMS
Supervisor, or see the appropriate version of the Avaya CMS Administration, document for
administering through CMS.

Task

Communication
Manager

Create hunt groups

Create login IDs

Administer call selection measurement (Current
Wait Time and Predicted Wait Time)

Administer group types (agent selection methods:
EAD-MIA, UCD-MIA, UCD-LOA, EAD-LOA, PAD)

Administer call handling preferences (call selection
methods: Greatest Need, Skill Level, Percent
Allocation)

X (existing login
IDs)

Activate Service Objective by agent

X (existing login
IDs)

Administer Service Objective value by skill

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

CMS Supervisor
or CMS

February 2006

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Task

Communication
Manager

CMS Supervisor
or CMS

Administer Dynamic Queue Position (Service
Objective by VDN, including Service Level Targets)

Administer Service Level Supervisor (including
thresholds, Call Selection Override, Activate on
Oldest Call Waiting, Dynamic Threshold Adjustment,
and Service Level Targets)

Determine whether to use After Call Work (ACW) in
LOA calculation

Review or change agent skills

X (existing login
IDs)

Add or delete skills per agent

X (existing login
IDs)

Assign reserve agents

X (existing login
IDs)

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 particular Vector
Directory Numbers (VDNs), skills, or agents. The following table lists the features that are
available with Business Advocate and Dynamic Advocate, the level of impact for implementing
those features, and where the features are administered on the switch.
Feature

Decision
level

Where administered

Least Occupied Agent:
●

LOA (Group Type)

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

ACW Considered Idle?

System

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Percent Allocation:
●

Percent Allocation (call handling
preference)

Agent

Agent LoginID form

●

PAD (group type)

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Expected Call Handling Time

Skill

Hunt Group form

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager

Feature

Decision
level

Where administered

●

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Service Level Target

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

ACW Considered Idle?

System

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

●

Auto Reserve Agents

System

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Dynamic Queue Position:
●

Dynamic Queue Position

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Service Objective

VDN

Vector Directory Number form

Service Objective:
●

Service Objective (activate for
agent)

Agent

Agent LoginID form

●

Service Objective (set target
objective)

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Call Selection Measurement (CWT
or PWT)

System

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Service Level Supervisor:
●

Service Level Supervisor
(administer for skill)

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Activate on Oldest Call Waiting

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Call Selection Override

System
Skill

Feature-Related System
Parameters form
Hunt Group form

●

Overload Thresholds

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Service Level Target

Skill

Hunt Group form

●

Reserve Agents

Agent

Agent LoginID form

System

Feature-Related System
Parameters form

Predicted Wait Time (PWT)

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Feature

Decision
level

Where administered

Call Handling Preference (call
selection method: Greatest Need, Skill
Level, Percent Allocation)

Agent

Agent LoginID form

Group Type (agent selection method:
UCD-MIA, EAD-MIA, UCD-LOA,
EAD-LOA, PAD)

Skill

Hunt Group form

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 overall
operation of your contact center.
This section includes the following topics:
●

MIA Across Splits or Skills on page 83

●

After Call Work Considered idle? on page 83

●

Call Selection Measurement on page 84

●

Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override on page 84

●

Auto Reserve Agents on page 84

MIA Across Splits or Skills
MIA Across Splits or Skills? y (yes) or n (no) - All Business Advocate and Dynamic
Advocate features apply across skills. This is true for Universal Call Distribution-Least Occupied
Agent (UCD-LOA), Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA), and Percent
Allocation Distribution (PAD). Changes to the field affect only pre-Advocate agent selection
features, which include Universal Call Distribution-Most Idle Agent (UCD-MIA) and Expert
Agent Distribution - Most Idle Agent (EAD-MIA).

After Call Work Considered idle?
After Call Work (ACW) Considered Idle? y (yes) or n (no) - The After Call Work? field
determines whether the switch includes after call work in work time when deciding which agent
will receive the next call. You enter n if you want to include the agent’s ACW in work time. You
enter y if you do not want to include the agent’s ACW in work time.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

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Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager

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 Level (not
Percent Allocation) as a call selection method. Predicted-wait-time is the recommended
entry because it results in fewer calls with exceedingly long wait times and optimizes critical
agent skill resources. It predicts how long a call will have to wait if the currently available agent
does not answer the call. An entry of current-wait-time selects calls based on their
current wait time in queue.

Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override
Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override? y (yes) or n (no) - Call Selection
Override works in conjunction with Service Level Supervisor to determine how calls are
selected for agents when overload thresholds are exceeded. When this feature is administered,
calls are selected from skills that are over threshold to the exclusion of skills that are under
threshold. Additionally, calls that have exceeded the level 2 threshold are selected to the
exclusion of calls that have exceeded the level 1 threshold.
This feature is administered at both the system level and skill level. While it must be activated
separately for each skill (using the Hunt Group form), it can be turned on and off system wide
through the Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override? field on the
System-Parameters Features form. This eliminates the need to turn it off for each individual
skill. The default for this field on the Feature-Related System Parameters form is y, which
enables the feature.

Auto Reserve Agents
Auto Reserve Agents: none, all, or secondary-only - The Auto Reserve Agents
enhancement provides the ability to leave an agent idle even when one or more calls are in
queue for one or more of the agent’s assigned skills. This decision is made using a comparison
of the agent’s work time in the skill and the agent’s target allocation for the skill.
The default for this field is none. If all is entered, the agent is left idle if the agent’s work time
in that skill exceeds the agent’s target allocation for that skill. If secondary-only is entered,
this feature applies only to the agent’s nonprimary skills (skill levels 2 to 16).

VDN-level decisions
Dynamic Queue Position allows you to queue calls from multiple Vector Directory Numbers
(VDNs) to a single skill, while maintaining different service objectives for those VDNs. The
decision to administer this enhancement is made using the VDN form and the Hunt Group form.

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

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 want to achieve for the VDN. The default value for this field is 20 seconds.

Note:

Note:
The Service Objective (sec): field is displayed only if the Dynamic
Advocate customer option has been activated using the System-Parameters
Customer-Options form.

Skill-level decisions
Skill-level decisions are those that you make for individual skills within an organization, using
the Hunt Group form. When making these decisions, you determine how agents will be selected
for calls in agent surplus situations, set any service objectives for skills, and administer specific
overload thresholds if you are using Service Level Supervisor. If you are using Service Level
Supervisor, you also determine whether Business Advocate will automate threshold
adjustments through the Dynamic Threshold Adjustment feature. If you are using Percent
Allocation as a call selection method, you also decide whether to activate Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment, and you set related service level targets.

Note:

Note:
The fields and features are presented in the order in which they are displayed on
the Hunt Group form.

This section includes the following topics:
●

Group Type (Agent Selection method) on page 86

●

Expected Call Handling Time on page 86

●

Service Objective on page 86

●

Service Level Supervisor on page 86

●

Activate on Oldest Call Waiting on page 87

●

Call Selection Override on page 87

●

Overload thresholds on page 87

●

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment on page 87

●

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment on page 88

●

Service level target on page 88

●

Dynamic Queue Position on page 88

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide

February 2006

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager

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 the type of selection
method that you want to use in an agent surplus condition for the skill. Selection methods (and
acceptable field entries) include ead-mia, ead-loa, ucd-mia, ucd-loa, and pad. The
default for this field is ucd-mia.

Expected Call Handling Time
Expected Call Handling Time (sec) - The Expected Call Handling Time(sec): field
on page 2 of the Hunt Group form is used to initialize the calculations for Expected Wait Time
(EWT) and Percent Allocation. This setting, which you must administer for each skill when
Business Advocate is first set up, is the average call handling time for this skill. This includes
talk time and after call work (ACW), if ACW is being counted as work time.

Note:

Note:
If your average call handling time changes significantly over a period of time, you
will want to adjust this field to more closely match the actual call handling time.
Such adjustments will allow the Percent Allocation feature to work most
effectively.

Service Objective
Service Objective: (sec) - The Service Objective(sec): field (on page 2 of the Hunt
Group form) is used to administer a specific service objective for a skill (and is used in place of
the original Acceptable Service Level(sec): field, which is now used only for BCMS
and VuStats). The entry for this field is the number of seconds in which you want the call to be
answered. The default value is 20.

Note:

Note:
This field is displayed only if the Business Advocate customer option is set on the
System-Parameters Customer-Options form.

Service Level Supervisor
Service Level Supervisor? y (yes) or n (no) - The Service Level Supervisor? field
on page 2 of the Hunt Group form determines whether you use reserve agents or call selection
override when a skill goes over a predetermined threshold. If y is entered, reserve agents
may be engaged to help the skill and call selection may (optionally) include call selection
override. If n is entered, reserve agents will not be engaged and call selection override cannot
be administered. The default for this field is n.

Note:

Note:
The overload thresholds for Service Level Supervisor are set using the Level 1
Threshold(sec): and Level 2 Threshold(sec): fields on the Hunt
Group form.

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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 in
addition to Expected Wait Time (EWT) for activating reserve agents with Service Level
Supervisor. Service Level Supervisor uses only EWT unless you enter y in this field. If you
decide to activate reserves using time in queue, you must administer it for each skill that uses
Service Level Supervisor.

Call Selection Override
Call Selection Override requires activation at both the system level and hunt group level:
●

Administration at the system level involves entering a y or n in the Service Level
Supervisor Call Selection Override? field on the System-Parameters Features
form.

●

Administration at the skill level involves entering a y or n in the Call Selection
Override? field on page 2 of the Hunt Group form.

The feature must be administered separately for each skill for which you want to use the
feature.

Overload thresholds
Level 1 Threshold (sec), Level 2 Threshold (sec) - The Level 1 Threshold (sec):
and Level 2 Threshold (sec): fields are used with Service Level Supervisor to
determine when reserve agents are activated or when call selection override occurs (if Call
Selection Override has been turned on).
You can set one or two levels:
●

Agents who are reserve level 1 are activated when the skill reaches the level 1 threshold.

●

Agents who are reserve level 2 are activated when the skill reaches the level 2 threshold.

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment? y (yes) or n (no) - The Dynamic Threshold
Adjustment? field on the Hunt Group form is used to enable the automatic adjustment of
overload thresholds to meet predefined service levels. An entry of y enables the feature to
work with Service Level Supervisor. The default value for this field is n.
The predefined service level targets are set using the Service Level Target: field, which
is described separately.

Note:

Note:
The Dynamic Threshold Adjustment? field is displayed only if you enter y
in the Service Level Supervisor? field and the Dynamic Advocate
customer option is set on the System-Parameters Customer-Options form.

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Dynamic Percentage Adjustment
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment? y (yes) or n (no) - The Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment? field on the Hunt Group form is used to enable the Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment enhancement. If set to y, Advocate automatically adjusts an agent’s target
allocations according to the level of service that is being achieved for the agent’s assigned skills
and the predefined service levels for those skills. This field is only used only if you are using
Percentage Allocation Distribution (PAD), Universal Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent
(UCD-LOA), or Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA) as an agent
selection method. The default value for this field is n.
The predefined service level targets are administered using the Service Level Target
field of the Hunt Group form, which is described separately.

Note:

Note:
The Dynamic Percentage Adjustment? field is displayed only if you enter
pad, ucd-loa, or ead-loa in the Group Type field on the Hunt Group form
and if the Dynamic Advocate option is set on the System-Parameters
Customer-Options form.

Service level target
Service Level Target: x (%) in y (secs) - The Service Level Target: field on page 2 of
the Hunt Group form is used to set a specific service level target, that is, to a percentage of calls
that are answered in a specific number of seconds for a skill. The defaults are 80 (percent) in
20 (seconds).
This field is used with Dynamic Threshold Adjustment if you are using Service Level Supervisor
or Dynamic Percentage Adjustment if you are using Percent Allocation. When Dynamic
Threshold Adjustment is in use, the actual performance for a skill is compared to the service
level target to determine if the overload thresholds should be adjusted up or down. When
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment is in use, the performance for a skill is compared to the
service level target to determine if the target allocations should be adjusted up or down.

Note:

Note:
The Service Level Target: field is displayed only if you enter y in the
Dynamic Adjustment Threshold? or Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment? field on the Hunt Group form and the Dynamic Advocate
customer option is set on the System-Parameters Customer-Options form.

Dynamic Queue Position
Dynamic Queue Position? y (yes) or n (no) - The Dynamic Queue Position? field on
page 2 of the Hunt Group form is used to activate this feature. Enter y to allow calls to queue
from various VDNs, each with separate service objectives, to a single skill. The default value for
this field is n.

Note:

Note:
The Dynamic Queue Position? field is displayed only if the Dynamic
Advocate customer option is set on the System-Parameters Customer-Options
form.

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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
Objective is in use for the agent’s skills, and the administration of any reserve skills for the
agent.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Call Handling Preference (call selection method) on page 89

●

Service Objective on page 89

●

Direct Agent Calls First on page 89

●

Reserve Levels on page 90

●

Percent Allocation on page 90

Call Handling Preference (call selection method)
Call Handling Preference: greatest-need, skill-level, or percent-allocation - The Call
Handling Preference: field is used to determine the call selection method that is used to
select a call during a call surplus condition. Options include greatest-need,
skill-level, or percent-allocation. Skill levels (1 to 16) or reserve levels (1 or 2) must
be entered for each of an agent’s assigned skills. If you select percent-allocation, you
must also enter a target allocation (as a percent) for each of the agent’s non-reserve skills.

Service Objective
Service Objective? y (yes) or n (no) - The Service Objective? field is used to activate
the Service Objective feature for an agent. This means that when the agent becomes available
in a call surplus situation, service objectives are part of the call selection process. This feature
works only with Greatest Need or Skill Level; it cannot be administered if the call handling
preference is Percent Allocation. You enter y to activate the feature. See Service Objective on
page 86 for information about administering this feature at the skill level.

Direct Agent Calls First
Direct Agent Calls First? y (yes) or n (no) - The Direct Agent Calls First? field is
used to select calls from a Direct Agent skill first. When set to y, calls from a Direct Agent skill
are selected before calls from any other skills, including skills that are over threshold.

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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 possible
for this field, each of which indicates the threshold at which the agent is activated as a reserve
agent. An entry of 1 indicates that the agent is activated at the level 1 threshold for that skill.
An entry of 2 indicates that the agent is activated at the level 2 threshold for the skill.

Note:

Note:
If a reserve level is entered for a skill, no skill level (SL) entry is allowed for that
skill on the Agent LoginID form.

Percent Allocation
When you use percent-allocation as a call handling preference, you must enter a target
percentage for each of the agent’s assigned nonreserve skills in the PA field. The total of all
target percentages must equal 100%. Target allocations are not allowed for reserve skills.

Note:

Note:
The PA field is displayed only when percent-allocation is entered in the
Call Handling Preference: field. Additionally, the Direct Agent
Calls First? field replaces the Service Objective? field when this
preference is set.

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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 detailed information on how these features work.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Administering Least Occupied Agent on page 91

●

Administering Most Idle Agent on page 92

●

Administering Greatest Need on page 93

●

Administering Skill Level on page 94

●

Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection on page 95

●

Administering Service Objective on page 98

●

Administering Predicted Wait Time or Current Wait Time on page 100

●

Administering Dynamic Queue Position on page 100

●

Administering Service Level Supervisor on page 103

Administering Least Occupied Agent
Least Occupied Agent (LOA) is an agent selection method that bases agent selection on the
agent’s occupancy rather than idle time in queue. There are two options for administering this
feature: Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA) or Universal Call
Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA). EAD-LOA selects the highest skill level, least
occupied agent in the skill to take the incoming call. UCD-LOA selects the least occupied agent
in the skill, regardless of skill level, to take the call. For more details about how these methods
work, see Selecting agents on page 32.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Where is LOA administered? on page 91

●

How to administer LOA on page 92

Where is LOA administered?
Agent selection is administered on page 1 of the Hunt Group form.

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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 the skill you want to change.
2. Press Return.
3. In the Group Type: field of the Hunt Group form, enter one of the following agent
selection options:
●

ucd-loa

●

ead-loa

4. Press Enter to save your changes.

Administering Most Idle Agent
Most Idle Agent (MIA) is an agent selection method that bases agent selection on the agent’s
idle time in queue. There are two options for administering this feature: Expert Agent
Distribution-Most Idle Agent (EAD-MIA) or Universal Call Distribution-Most Idle Agent
(UCD-MIA). EAD-MIA selects the highest skill level, most idle agent in the skill to take the
incoming call. UCD-MIA selects the most idle agent in the skill, regardless of skill level, to take
the call. For more details about how these methods work, see Selecting agents on page 32.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Where is MIA administered? on page 92

●

How to administer MIA on page 92

Where is MIA administered?
Agent selection is administered on page 1 of the Hunt Group form.

How to administer MIA
To administer MIA 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 the skill you want to change.
2. Press Return.

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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 method that selects a skill for an agent to serve based on the
call at the highest priority whose Predicted Wait Time (PWT) or Current Wait Time (CWT) for a
skill is the longest, or whose PWT or CWT is the highest relative to the administered service
objective. See Selecting calls on page 21 for more information about how Greatest Need works.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Where is Greatest Need administered? on page 93

●

How to administer Greatest Need on page 93

Where is Greatest Need administered?
Initial administration for Greatest Need is completed on the Agent LoginID form. Changes
involving existing agent login IDs can be made through CMS Supervisor or Avaya Call
Management System (CMS). See Administering Business Advocate through CMS
Supervisor on page 123 or the appropriate version of the Avaya CMS Administration document,
for more information about agent administration for existing login IDs.

How to administer Greatest Need
To administer Greatest Need as a call handling preference for an agent:
1. At the command line prompt, enter:
change agent-loginID xxxxx
where xxxxx is the loginID for the agent whose assignment you want to administer.
2. Press Return.
3. In the Call Handling Preference field, enter:
greatest-need

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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 Objective on page 98 for additional administrative tasks
that are required for using Service Objective.
4. Enter a skill number in the SN field for each of the agent’s assigned skills.
5. In the SL field for each of an agent’s assigned skills, enter a skill level of 1 to 16, or enter a
reserve level of 1 or 2 in the RL field.
See Administering Service Level Supervisor on page 103 for details on assigning reserve
agents.
6. Press Enter to save your changes.

Administering Skill Level
Skill Level is a call selection method that selects calls based on the agent’s expertise in one or
more areas. Skill Level selects a call for an agent based on highest skill level, highest priority,
and time in queue. Up to 16 skill levels can be used; however, Business Advocate’s predictive
value is greater if multiple skills are assigned at similar levels. See Selecting calls on page 21
for more details about how Skill Level works.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Where is Skill Level administered? on page 94

●

How to administer Skill Level on page 94

Where is Skill Level administered?
Initial administration for Skill Level is completed using the Agent LoginID form. Changes
involving existing agent login IDs can be made through CMS Supervisor or Avaya Call
Management System (CMS). See Administering Business Advocate through CMS
Supervisor on page 123 or the appropriate version of the Avaya CMS Administration document,
for more information about agent administration for existing login IDs.

How to administer Skill Level
To administer Skill Level as a call handling preference for an agent:
1. At the command line prompt, enter:
change agent-loginID xxxxx
where xxxxx is the loginID for the agent whose assignment you want to administer.
2. Press Return.

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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
assigned skills.
See Administering Service Objective on page 98 for additional administrative tasks
that are required for using Service Objective
4. Enter a skill number in the SN field for each of the agent’s assigned skills.
5. In the SL field for each of an agent’s assigned skills, enter a skill level of 1 to16, or type a
reserve level of 1 or 2 in the RL field.
See Administering Service Level Supervisor on page 103 for details on assigning reserve
agents.
6. Press Enter to save your changes.

Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection
This feature allows you to administer Percent Allocation for agent selection, and call selection.
The feature also includes the ability to automatically adjust agents’ target allocations to help
meet predefined service level targets (Dynamic Percentage Adjustment) and the ability to leave
an agent idle in a skill when the agent’s work time in that skill exceeds the agent’s target
allocations (Auto Reserve Agents).
This section includes the following topics:
●

Getting the best results with Percent Allocation on page 95

●

Where is Percent Allocation administered? on page 96

●

How to administer Percent Allocation for an agent on page 96

●

How to administer PAD and Dynamic Percentage Adjustment for a skill on page 97

●

How to administer Auto Reserve Agents at the system level on page 98

Getting the best results with Percent Allocation
To take full advantage of the Percent Allocation features, it is recommended that you use all
related features together. These include Percent Allocation as a call selection method, PAD as
an agent selection method, Auto Reserve Agents, and Dynamic Percentage Adjustment. When
used together, these features provide Advocate with the greatest degree of flexibility in using
agents to meet your contact center’s service level goals.

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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 skill,
you should administer Percent Allocation as the call handling preference for all agents in the
skill to meet your contact center’s service level goals.

Where is Percent Allocation administered?
The administration tasks for the Percent Allocation features require the use of the Agent
LoginID form, the Hunt Group form, and the System-Parameters Features form. For ease of
reference, the procedures are presented from the lowest to highest levels of administration.
They begin at the agent level, where call selection is administered. From there, they move on to
the skill level, where the agent selection method and Dynamic Percentage Adjustment are
activated. They finish at the system level, where Auto Reserve Agents is activated. Related
decisions are presented at each level.

How to administer Percent Allocation for an agent
To administer Percent Allocation as a call selection method:
1. At the command line prompt, enter:
change agent-loginID xxxxx
where xxxxx is the loginID for the agent whose assignment you want to administer.
2. Press Return.
3. In the Call Handling Preference: field, enter:
percent-allocation

Note:

Note:
When you type percent-allocation as the agent’s call handling
preference, the Direct Agent Calls First? field replaces the Service
Objective? field.
4. In the Direct Agent Calls First? field, take one of the following actions:
●

Enter y if you want the agent to receive Direct Agent calls before all other ACD calls.
Direct Agent calls now override the call selection method.

●

Enter n if you want to treat Direct Agent calls just like other calls and answer them only
when there is a best percentage match. Percent Allocation now controls the selection of
Direct Agent calls just as it controls the selection of other ACD calls.

5. Enter a skill number in the SN field for each of the agent’s assigned skills.
6. Enter a skill level of 1 to 16 in the SL field for each of the agent’s assigned skills.
7. Enter a reserve level of 1 or 2 in the RL field for each of the agent’s assigned reserve skills.
8. Enter a percentage from 1 to 100 in the PA field for the agent’s first standard skill.

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9. Repeat Step 6 for each of the agent’s remaining skills.

Note:

Note:
Do not enter target percentages for an agent’s reserve skills.
10. Check that assigned percentages total 100%.
11. Press Enter to save your changes.

How to administer PAD and Dynamic Percentage Adjustment for a skill
To administer PAD and Dynamic Percentage Adjustment for a skill:
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 you want to change.
2. Press Return.
3. In the Group Type field of the Hunt Group form, enter:
pad

Note:

Note:
If you want to use Least Occupied Agent (LOA) as the agent selection method in
the Group Type field, choose one of the following actions:
●

Enter ucd-loa to administer Universal Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent

●

Enter ead-loa to administer Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent

4. Go to page 2 of the Hunt Group form.
5. In the Expected Call Handling Time(sec): field, enter the average call handling
time in seconds that you expect for this skill. Include talk time and after call work (ACW), if
you plan to administer ACW as work time on the System-Parameters Features form.
6. Enter y in the Dynamic Percentage Adjustment? field.

Note:

Note:
This field is displayed only if you entered pad, ucd-loa, or ead-loa in the
Group Type: field on page 1 of the Hunt Group form.
7. In the Service Level Target: field, enter the service level you want to achieve for this
skill by typing a percentage in the first field and a number of seconds in the next field.
8. Press Enter to save your changes.

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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 terminal emulator, enter:
change system-parameters features
2. Press Return.
3. Go to page 9 of the System-Parameters Features form.
4. In the ACW Agents Considered Idle? field, choose one of the following actions:

Note:

●

If you do not want ACW to be included in the agent’s work time in a skill, enter: y

●

If you do want ACW to be included in the agent’s work time in a skill, enter: n

Note:
When administering other Business Advocate features, the Call Selection
Measurement: field is used to determine whether Current Wait Time or
Predicted Wait Time is used for call selection. This field does not apply for
Percent Allocation, so you can leave this field at the default value.
5. In the Auto Reserve Agents field, choose one of the following actions:
●

Type all so that an agent will be left idle in a skill if her work time in that skill has
exceeded her target allocation.

●

Type secondary-only to activate this feature only for the agent’s nonprimary skills
(skill levels 2 to 16)

6. Press Enter to save your changes.

Administering Service Objective
Service Objective is a feature that can be used with either the Greatest Need or Skill Level call
handling preferences. When Service Objective is enabled, Communication Manager selects
calls for agents according to the ratio of Predicted Wait Time (PWT) or Current Wait Time
(CWT) and the administered service objective for each of an agent’s assigned skills. Setting a
more aggressive service objective for more important skills allows you to improve the average
speed of answer (ASA) for those skills as compared to less important skills that are served by
the same agents.

Note:

Note:
Service Objective does not work with Percent Allocation.

This section includes the following topics:

●

Before you start on page 99

●

How to administer Service Objective for an agent on page 99

●

How to administer Service Objective for a skill on page 99

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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-Related System Parameters Features form to select the call selection
measurement (CWT or PWT). This section includes procedures for each of those tasks. See
Administering Dynamic Queue Position on page 100 for the steps required to administer service
objectives for VDNs.

How to administer Service Objective for an agent
To administer Service Objective for an agent so that service objectives are incorporated into the
call selection process for the agent:
1. At the command line prompt, enter:
change agent-loginID xxxxx
where xxxxx is the loginID for the agent whose assignment you want to administer.
2. Press Return.
3. Enter greatest-need or skill-level in the Call Handling Preference:
field.
4. Enter y in the Service Objective? field to activate Service Objective for this agent.

Note:

Note:
The Service Objective? field is displayed only if Greatest Need or Skill
Level is entered as the agent’s call selection method.
5. Enter a skill number in the SN field for each of an agent’s assigned skills.
6. Enter a skill level of 1 to 16 in the SL field for each of the agent’s assigned skills.
7. Enter a reserve level of 1 or 2 in the RL field for each of the agents’s assigned reserve
skills.
8. Press Enter to save your changes.

How to administer Service Objective for a skill
To administer Service Objective for a skill:
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 for which you want to activate Service Objective.
2. Press Return.
3. Go to page 2 of the Hunt Group form.

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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 the Acceptable
Service Level(sec): field of this form.

Administering Predicted Wait Time or Current Wait Time
Call selection uses Predicted Wait Time (PWT) or Current Wait Time (CWT) to select calls or
uses a ratio of PWT to Service Objective or CWT to Service Objective, depending on the call
selection measurement that is being used and whether Service Objective is activated for the
available agent.
To administer PWT or CWT to help determine how calls are selected:
1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter:
change system-parameters features
2. Press Return.
3. Go to page 9 of the System-Parameters Features form.
4. In the Call Selection Measurement: field, enter:
predicted-wait-time
current-wait-time

Administering Dynamic Queue Position
The Dynamic Queue Position feature allows you to queue calls from multiple Vector Directory
Numbers (VDNs) to a single skill, while maintaining different service objectives for those VDNs.
Dynamic Queue Position makes it simpler to serve a segmented customer base without adding
additional skills.

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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 selection while the
Acceptable Service Level(sec): field is used only for measuring percent in service
level.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Who is Dynamic Queue Position designed for? on page 101

●

How does Dynamic Queue Position work? on page 102

●

How does the Service Objective field work? on page 102

●

Where is Dynamic Queue Position administered? on page 102

●

How to administer Dynamic Queue Position on page 103

●

How to administer a Service Objective for a VDN on page 103

Who is Dynamic Queue Position designed for?
Dynamic Queue Position is valuable for customers who want to support customer
segmentation.
If your contact center uses VuStats or BCMS for contact center reporting, you will benefit from
the Service Objective field.

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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 calls and queued calls.
Consider, for example, a business that receives customer service calls from a wide range of
customers and wants to support differentiation in how it handles calls from customers with
different service policies. Since each agent is handling all types of customers now, a single skill
can suffice. However, differentiation is needed in terms of how quickly calls are handled. This is
accomplished by assigning a different service objective to the VDNs that correspond to the
varying sets of customers:
●

The service objective for customers with the most valuable policies is assigned a service
objective of 10 seconds.

●

The service objective for customers with midrange policies are set at 20 and 25 seconds.

●

The service objective for customers without policies is set at 40 seconds.

The result is that the Average Speed of Answer (ASA) for the calls from each VDN is roughly
proportional to the service objectives of the VDNs. Customers with the most valuable policies
will tend to be placed in front of some of the other calls, but will not necessarily be placed in
front of all of them. This arrangement lets the center continue to operate with a single skill
defined, forecasted, and staffed. This arrangement also prevents the problems that result from
queuing calls at different priority levels within the same queue.
See Administering Dynamic Queue Position on page 100 for information about setting up this
feature.

How does the Service Objective field work?
The separate Service Objective (sec): field is used to control call selection by service
objective. This frees up the Acceptable Service Level(sec): field for measuring only
percent of service level. See Administering Service Objective on page 98 for information about
using this field.

Where is Dynamic Queue Position administered?
Dynamic Queue Position is activated per skill on page 2 of the Hunt Group form. Service
objectives are set for VDNs using the Vector Directory Number form of the switch. Note that the
Service Objective fields on the Hunt Group form and the Agent LoginID form are not used
when administering Dynamic Queue Position.

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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 calls will be queued.
2. Press Return.
3. Go to page 2 of the Hunt Group form.
4. Enter y in the Dynamic Queue Position? field.
5. Press Enter to save your changes.

How to administer a Service Objective for a VDN
To administer a service objective for a VDN:
1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter:
change vdn xxxx
where xxxx is the number of the VDN for which you want to activate Dynamic Queue
Position.
2. Press Return.
3. In the Service Objective(sec): field, enter your target objective in seconds.
4. Press Enter to save your changes.

Administering Service Level Supervisor
Service Level Supervisor automatically manages agents during periods of peak loads by
activating reserve agents or activating Call Selection Override when predefined thresholds are
exceeded. Dynamic Threshold Adjustment works with Service Level Supervisor to automatically
adjust your thresholds as needed to activate reserve agents to help meet your administered
service level goals. See Service Level Supervisor on page 86 for more information about how
this feature works.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Where is Service Level Supervisor administered? on page 104

●

How to administer Service Level Supervisor for a skill on page 104

●

How to administer a Reserve Agent on page 105

●

How to administer Call Selection Override system wide on page 106

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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 agents are set up using the Agent
LoginID form. (You can set or change reserve skills for existing agents using the Change Agent
Skills Dialog Box in CMS Supervisor.) Call Selection Override must also be activated at the
system level using the Feature-Related System Parameters form. Note that the Call Selection
Override feature can be turned off at the system level using this form, eliminating the need to
turn it off for each individual skill.

How to administer Service Level Supervisor for a skill
To administer Service Level Supervisor for a skill:
1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter:
change hunt-group xxx
where xxx is the number of the hunt group for which you want to activate Service Level
Supervisor.
2. Press Return.
3. Go to page 2 of the Hunt Group form.
4. Enter y in the Service Level Supervisor? field.
5. In the Activate on Oldest Call Waiting? field, choose one of the following
actions:
●

Enter y if you want to use time in queue in addition to Expected Wait Time to activate
reserve agents

●

Enter n if you want to use Expected Wait Time only to activate reserve agents

6. In the Call Selection Override? field, take one of the following actions:

Note:

●

Type y if you want to override the normal call selection method for a skill’s assigned
agents when the skill exceeds its thresholds

●

Type n if you do not want to override the normal call selection method of a skill’s
assigned agents when the skill exceeds its thresholds

Note:
Call Selection Override must also be activated system wide, using the
Feature-Related System Parameters form.
7. In the Level 1 Threshold(sec): field, type the number of seconds at which you want
reserve agents or call selection override to be activated if call selection override is used. A
suggested guideline is to set the Level 1 threshold 5 seconds lower than your target speed
of answer.

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Administration procedures

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 Level 2 Threshold(sec):
field.
8. In the Dynamic Threshold Adjustment? field, take one of the following actions:
●

Enter y if you want Advocate to automatically adjust thresholds

●

Enter n if you do not want Advocate to adjust thresholds

9. Enter a target service level in the Service Level Target: field, by entering a
percentage in the first field and a time in seconds in the next field.
10. Press Enter to save your changes.

How to administer a Reserve Agent
To administer a reserve agent for a skill or group of skills:
1. At the command line prompt, enter:
change agent-loginID xxxxx
where xxxxx is the loginID for the agent whose assignment you want to administer.
2. Press Return.
The system displays the following message:
WARNING:

Agent must log in again before skill changes take effect

3. Assign this agent to the skill as a reserve agent by doing the following:
a. In the SN (Skill Number) field, enter the number of the skill for which this agent will
reserved.
b. In the RL (Reserve Level) field for that skill number, choose one of the following actions:

Note:

●

Enter 1 if this agent will be activated at the Level 1 Threshold

●

Enter 2 if this agent will be activated at the Level 2 Threshold

Note:
Leave the SL (Skill Level) fields blank for an agent’s reserve skills.
4. Repeat Step 3 for any other skills that this agent will serve as a reserve agent.
5. Press Enter to save your changes.

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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 turn it off, enter n
in the Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override? field
on the System-Parameters Features form and it will be disabled for all skills.
1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter:
change system-parameters features
2. Press Return.
3. Go to page 9 of the System-Parameters Features form.
4. In the Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override? field, choose one
of the following actions:
●

Enter y if you want to override the normal call selection method of a skill’s assigned
agents when the skill exceeds its thresholds

●

Enter n if you do not want to override the normal call selection method of a skill’s
assigned agents when the skill exceeds it thresholds

5. Press Enter to save your changes.

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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 section includes the following topics:
●

BCMS and VuStats on page 108

●

Direct Agent Calls on page 109

●

Least Occupied Agent on page 110

●

Location Preference Distribution on page 111

●

Percent Allocation on page 112

●

Service Level Supervisor and reserve agents on page 115

●

Service Objective on page 117

●

Work time and occupancy on page 118

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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 is located on the Hunt Group form. Service
objective targets are entered in this field, which leaves the Acceptable Service
Level(sec): field free for showing service level measurements through BCMS or VuStats.

Service Level Supervisor
Reserve agents for skills that are not in an over-threshold state are counted as “Other” on the
MONITOR BCMS SKILL Report. Reserve agents for skills that are over threshold are counted
as “ACD,” “ACW,” “AUX,” or “Other” depending on the work mode and state of the agent.

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Direct Agent Calls

Direct Agent Calls
This section includes the following topics:
●

Skill Level on page 109

●

Percent Allocation on page 109

●

Service Level Supervisor on page 109

●

Least Occupied Agent on page 110

Skill Level
Agents receive Direct Agent Calls before other ACD calls in most situations. However, Direct
Agent Calls are not received first if:
●

An agent’s call handling preference is Skill Level, a skill is administered for Direct Agent
Calls, and this skill is assigned a lower-level skill than any other skill

●

An agent’s call handling preference is Percent Allocation and the Direct Agent Calls
First? option is not set

Percent Allocation
The Percent Allocation call selection method affects the handling of direct agent calls. If the
Direct Agent Calls First? option is set, an agent receives Direct Agent Calls before
any other ACD calls. If the Direct Agent Calls First? option is not set, an agent
receives Direct Agent Calls only when the direct agent skill is the best percentage match. Time
on direct agent calls counts as work time for the direct agent skill.

Service Level Supervisor
Agents who have only reserve skills cannot receive Direct Agent Calls. Callers hear an intercept
tone when the call is received. If you have agents who are only assigned reserve skills and you
want them to be able to receive direct agent calls, you must assign them to a direct agent skill
as standard agents.

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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 calls, this happens regardless of whether a standard skill is over
its thresholds. If the agent does not normally receive Direct Agent Calls first, this preference is
maintained when the agent’s standard skills are over threshold.
It is recommended that you do not use the Service Level Supervisor feature with a direct agent
skill.

Least Occupied Agent
All of an agent’s time on a Direct Agent Call is included in the agent’s work time and occupancy.

Least Occupied Agent
The following table shows how Least Occupied Agent (LOA) tracks extension calls since agent
AUX time is not included in the calculation of agent occupancy.
If the extension call . . .

Then LOA . . .

is in AUX

ignores this time

is in Auto-In/Manual-In with no
ACD call on hold

tracks this as idle time

is in Auto-In/Manual-In with an
ACD call on hold

tracks this as work time

is in ACW

●

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tracks this as idle time if ACW
Considered Idle? is set to
y on the Communication
Manager System Parameters
form
tracks this as work time if ACW
Considered Idle? is set to
n on the Communication
Manager System Parameters
form

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Location Preference Distribution

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 originated
whenever possible. If there is a choice, calls are routed to agents at a different location only if a
locally-routed call cannot meet the administered objectives for speed of answer, service level,
and so on.
When there is more than one choice for call delivery, Local Preference Distribution matches the
trunk and the agent location numbers. The Multiple Locations feature defines the location
number. Delivery preference is given to the agent whose location number matches the incoming
trunk location number.
Local Preference Distribution takes precedence over any Avaya Business Advocate call
handling preferences.
For more information about Location Preference Distribution, see Avaya Call Center Automatic
Call Distribution (ACD) Guide.

Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution
In most cases, the selection of an agent or a call based on Location Preference Distribution
takes precedence over Service Level Supervisor or Percent Allocation selection. Nevertheless,
Service Level Supervisor and Percent Allocation take precedence when the system chooses a
reserve agent for the following reasons:
●

The skill is above the Estimated Wait Time (EWT) threshold with Service Level Supervisor

●

The service level is below the threshold with Percent Allocation.

Note:

Note:
If more than one reserve agent is eligible for the call, Location Preference
Distribution is used to choose the agent.

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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 Distribution on page 113

●

Multiple call handling on page 113

●

Percent Allocation Distribution on page 114

●

Predicted Wait Time on page 114

Related topic
For an overview of Percent Allocation, see Percent Allocation on page 31.

Add or remove skills via Feature Access Code
If percent-allocation is entered in the Call Handling Preference: field on the
Agent LoginID Form, the Add Skill and Remove Skill features cannot be used. If you attempt to
use the Add Skill or Remove Skill features when Percent Allocation is enabled, the attempt is
denied and you hear an intercept tone.

Agent log in and log out
The agent work time measurement used by Percent Allocation and Least Occupied Agent is
initialized when an agent logs in. If an agent logs out during a shift, then logs back in, the
agent’s measurements for work time and occupancy reinitializes.

Note:

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Note:
Logging in and out reduces the effectiveness of Percent Allocation, particularly
the Dynamic Percentage Adjustment feature.

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Percent Allocation

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 calls in queue. This is a normal and expected condition when Auto Reserve Agents
is enabled. Additionally, this feature may result in lower occupancy for multi-skilled agents.
Agents can be auto-reserved for Percent Allocation when the Dynamic Advocate customer
option is active. Use the Feature-Related System-Parameters form to define Percent Allocation
for auto-reserve agents on a system-wide basis. The available values are all or
secondary-only.
Agents are assigned a level 1 or level 2 reserve skill level on the Agent Login ID form. Agents
become reserved for a skill when the work time in the skill exceeds their Percent Allocation
target. The Percent Allocation target is assigned on the Agent Login ID form as a %. Only level
2 agents for that skill become auto-reserved if the secondary-only system assignment is used.
An auto-reserve agent does not receive calls for skills whose EWT for Percent Allocation is
below the assigned threshold targets. These reserved agents only receive calls from those skills
when the EWT for Percent Allocation is above the threshold.

Location Preference Distribution
For information about how Percent Allocation interacts with Location Preference Distribution,
see Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution on page 111.

Multiple call handling
All time with one or more ACD calls ringing, active, or on hold for two or more skills is included
in the calculation of an agent’s work time for each of the skills. In effect, this is “double counting”
the agent’s work time. This double counting affects call selection using the Percent Allocation
feature.

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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 recommended that
you administer Percent Allocation as the call handling preference for all agents in
the skill.

Predicted Wait Time
Predicted Wait Time (PWT) is not used with Percent Allocation because Percent Allocation
does not consider time in queue in the selection process.

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Service Level Supervisor and reserve agents

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 116

●

Location Preference Distribution on page 116

●

Multiple call handling on page 116

●

Multiple skill queuing on page 116

●

Redirect on no answer (RONA) on page 116

Related topic
For an overview of Service Level Supervisor, see Service Level Supervisor on page 39.

Abandoned calls
An abandoned call can change the state of a skill that is over threshold. That is, an abandoned
call might cause a skill to drop from level 2 to level 1 or from level 1 to normal.

Agent work states
When an agent logs in, the agent’s state is AUX in a standard skill and in a reserve skill,
whether the skill is under threshold or over threshold.
When an agent becomes available, the agent’s state is AVAILABLE in a standard skill and in an
over-threshold reserve skill. In an under-threshold reserve skill, the agent’s state is OTHER.

Audix
An EAS AUDIX agent cannot be administered with a reserve skill.

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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, see Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution on page 111.

Multiple call handling
When a reserve agent in an Multiple Call Handling (MCH) skill becomes available and the skill
is over threshold, the agent is eligible to receive calls for that skill, and all existing MCH rules
apply. When a reserve agent in an MCH skill becomes available and the skill is not over
threshold, the agent is not eligible to receive calls for that skill regardless of the MCH type. The
administered MCH type for a skill does not change when the skill is over threshold.

Multiple skill queuing
When Service Level Supervisor is used, a call that is queued as a result of the Multiple Skill
Queuing feature can change the state of a skill from normal to level 1 or from level 1 to level 2.
Similarly, dequeuing a call that is queued as a result of the Multiple Skill Queuing feature can
change the state of a skill from level 2 to level 1 or from level 1 to normal.

Redirect on no answer (RONA)
A call that is queued after being redirected can change the state of a skill from normal to level 1
or from level 1 to level 2, and such calls can be routed to reserve agents.

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Service Objective

Service Objective
This section includes the following topics:
●

Service Objective (sec): field on page 117

●

Dynamic Queue Position on page 117

Service Objective (sec): field
The Service Objective (sec): field is available on the Hunt Group form. Service
objective targets are entered in this field, which leaves the Acceptable Service
Level(sec): field free for showing service level measurements through BCMS or VuStats.
See Administering Service Objective on page 98 for details about using this field.

Dynamic Queue Position
The Dynamic Queue Position feature allows you to set service objectives for various VDNs and
to queue calls for those VDNs to a single skill.

Note:

Note:
For best results, do not use Dynamic Queue Position with Multiple Priority
Queuing, which overrides the feature.

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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 Pickup on page 119

●

Conference or transfer on page 119

●

Extension calls and LOA on page 120

●

Non-ACD calls on page 120

●

Redirect on no Answer (RONA) on page 120

●

Timed After Call Work (ACW) on page 121

●

VDN of Origin Announcement on page 121

Agent hold
All time with one or more ACD calls on hold is included in the calculation of an agent’s work time
and occupancy regardless of whether MCH is activated. With Multiple Call Handling (MCH),
agents can accrue work time in multiple skills simultaneously.

Agent log in and log out
The agent work time measurement used by Least Occupied Agent (LOA) and Percent
Allocation is initialized when an agent logs in. If an agent logs out during a shift, then logs back
in, the agent’s measurements for work time and occupancy reinitialize.

Note:

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Note:
Logging in and out reduces the effectiveness of Percent Allocation.

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Work time and occupancy

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 Forwarding
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 Forwarding
feature.

Call Park
After a call is parked by an agent, the call does not affect that agent’s work time or occupancy.

Call Pickup
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 Pickup
feature.

Conference or transfer
All time with one or more ACD calls on hold as a result of initiating a conference or transfer is
included in the calculation of an agent’s work time and occupancy.

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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).
If the extension call . . .

Then LOA . . .

is in AUX

ignores this time

is in Auto-In/Manual-In with no
ACD call on hold

tracks this as idle time

is in Auto-In/Manual-In with an
ACD call on hold

tracks this as work time

is in ACW

●

tracks this as idle time if ACW
Considered Idle? is set to
y on the Communication
Manager System Parameters
form.
tracks this as work time if ACW
Considered Idle? is set to
n on the Communication
Manager System Parameters
form.

Non-ACD calls
Time for non-ACD calls ringing, active, or on hold is not included in the calculation of an agent’s
work time and occupancy.

Redirect on no Answer (RONA)
All time with one or more ACD calls ringing is included in the calculation of an agent’s work time
and occupancy. This time includes calls that are ultimately redirected by RONA.

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Work time and occupancy

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 listening to a VDN of Origin Announcement is included in the calculation of
an agent’s work time and occupancy.

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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
also includes information about setting Acceptable Service Levels for Call Management System
(CMS) reporting.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Agent administration on page 123

●

Administering acceptable service levels on page 133

Agent administration
This section provides instructions on how to perform agent administration for existing agent
login IDs. New agent login IDs must be initially administered on the switch, and the agent must
log in for the changes to take effect. Agents can be administered using the Change Agent Skills
dialog box or the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box. This section includes procedures for
using each dialog box.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Using the Change Agent Skills dialog box on page 124

●

Accessing the Change Agent Skills dialog box on page 124

●

Working with agent skills on page 124

●

Administering call handling preferences on page 126

●

Using an agent template on page 128

●

Accessing the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box on page 129

●

Adding agents to a skill on page 129

●

Removing agents from a skill on page 130

●

Moving agents between skills on page 131

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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 agent

●

Delete skills per agent

●

Administer call handling preferences

●

Assign reserve agents

Accessing the Change Agent Skills dialog box
To access the Change Agent Skills dialog box:
1. Click Commands on the CMS Supervisor Controller.
2. Click Agent Administration.
3. Select the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) by entering the ACD in the text box or selecting
an ACD from the drop-down history list.
4. Click Change Agent Skills on the Operations tab.

Note:

Note:
You can also access the Change Agent Skills dialog box from the Multi-Agent
Skill Change dialog box.
5. Click OK.
The system displays the Select Agent/Template dialog box.
6. Enter or select an agent or agent template.
7. Click OK.
The system displays the Change Agent Skills dialog box.

Working with agent skills
This section includes the following topics:

124

●

Reviewing agent skills on page 125

●

Adding skills per agent on page 125

●

Deleting skills per agent on page 125

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Agent administration

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 follow the steps provided in this section to add or
delete skills.

Adding skills per agent
Individual agent login IDs can be added to a skill through either individual administration or by
copying the definition from one agent login ID to another.
To assign an agent to a skill:
1. In the Change Agent Skills dialog box, click Add Skills.
2. Add skills for the agent.
The Add Agent Skills dialog box opens.
3. Select a skill for the agent and administer the agent’s skill level or percent allocation for that
skill.
See Call selection methods on page 23 for details about using Skill Level or Percent
Allocation.
4. Click OK to accept the skill assignments.

Deleting skills per agent
To remove an agent from a skill:
1. In the Change Agents Skills dialog box, click the skill from which you want to remove the
agent.
2. Click Delete Skills.
The Delete Agent Skills dialog box opens.
3. Click OK to delete the skill or skills.

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Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor

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 handling preferences are available with Business Advocate:
●

Greatest Need

●

Skill Level

●

Percent Allocation

See Call selection methods on page 23 for information about how the call handling preferences
work.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Administering Greatest Need on page 126

●

Administering Skill Level on page 127

●

Administering Percent Allocation on page 127

●

Administering reserve agents on page 127

Administering Greatest Need
To administer Greatest Need:
1. In the Change Agent Skills dialog box, select the Greatest Need Call Handling Preference
check box.

Note:

Note:
Optional: To administer Service Objective, select Service Objective. Click Add
Skills.
2. Add the Agent’s Skills.
The system displays the Assigned Skills grid.
3. Set the agent’s skill level for each assigned skill.
4. To make a skill the agent’s top skill (skill level 1), select the skill in the grid and click Make
Top Skill.
5. Click OK to accept the assignment.

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Administering Skill Level
To administer Skill Level as the call handling preference for an agent:
1. In the Change Agent Skills dialog box, select Skill Level from the Call Handling
Preference check box.

Note:

Note:
Optional: To administer Service Objective, select Service Objective. Click Add
Skills.
2. Add the agent skills.
The system displays the Assigned Skills grid.
3. Set the agent’s skill level for each assigned skill.
4. To make a skill the agent’s top skill (skill level 1), click the skill in the grid and click Make
Top Skill.
5. Click OK to accept the assignment.

Administering Percent Allocation
To set an agent’s call handling preference to Percent Allocation:
1. In the Change Agent Skills dialog box, select Percent Allocation from the Call Handling
Preference checkbox.

Note:

Note:
Optional: Select Direct Agent Calls First if you want the agent to receive Direct
Agent calls before all other ACD calls. If you activate this feature, Direct Agent
calls will override the Percent Allocation call selection method when direct agent
calls are received.
2. Set the agent’s percentage for each assigned skill. The total must equal 100% across all
skills.

Note:

Note:
Optional: To make a skill the agent’s top skill (skill level 1), select the skill in the
grid and click Make Top Skill.
3. Click OK to accept the assignment.

Administering reserve agents
Reserve agents are agents who are assigned a skill level of Reserve 1 or Reserve 2 for the
skills that they are backing up. Reserve 1 agents are engaged when their reserve skill exceeds
its level 1 threshold. Reserve 2 agents are engaged when their reserve skill exceeds its level 2
threshold.

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Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor

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:

Note:

●

Greatest Need

●

Skill Level

●

Percent Allocation

Note:
Optional: To administer Service Objective, select Service Objective.
2. Click Add Skills.
3. Add skills for the agent based on the agent’s expertise.
The Assigned Skills grid opens.
4. Set the agent’s skill level to Reserve 1 (R1) or Reserve 2 (R2) for each assigned reserve
skill.
5. Click OK to accept the assignment.

Using an agent template
If you have several agents who need to have the same assigned skills and skill levels, use the
Agent Template option on the Change Agent Skills Form to use the same information for
another agent.
To use an agent template:
1. From the Select Agent/Template dialog box, enter or select the name of the agent or
template in the Agent field.
The system displays the Change Agent Skills dialog box with the skill profiles for that
template.
2. Select the Agent Name(s)/Login ID(s) check box and enter up to 50 agents in the agent
field or select up to 50 agents using the Available Agents list or Browse dialog box.
3. Click OK.
CMS Supervisor buffers the change agent skills requests and sends them to the switch one
at a time.
The system displays a status dialog box with the status of each agent request.

Note:

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Note:
You can assign a script to change agent skills for up to 50 agents by clicking the
Script button. For more information, see Avaya Call Management System
Administration.

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Agent administration

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 only be
used with active agents with existing login IDs. Note that new agent login IDs must be
administered on the switch.

Note:

Note:
If a change is requested for an agent or agents who are active on calls or
unavailable, that is, agents who are on non-ACD calls, on hold, or have Direct
Agent Calls waiting in queue, a pending flag is displayed next to the agent login
ID. The pending flag is not displayed until the move can be completed. Update
the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box by pressing F5 or by double-clicking the
skill in the skill list to see a list of agents who are assigned to that skill.

To access the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box:
1. From the CMS Supervisor Controller, click Commands.
2. Click Agent Administration.
3. Enter or select the name of the ACD.
4. Click Multi-Agent Skill Change on the Operations tab.
5. Select OK.
The Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box opens.

Adding agents to a skill
Agents are added to a skill by using the Add Agents to Skill dialog box. This box is accessed
from the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box.
CAUTION:

Do not use this procedure to add multiple agents to a skill if those agents have a
call handling preference of Percent Allocation. Doing so removes the
administered percentages.

To add agents to a skill using the Add Agents to Skill dialog box.
1. On the Skills menu, click Skill List.
The Skill List dialog box opens.
2. Click the skill that contains the agents you want to assign to another skill.
3. Click the names of the agents you want to assign to another skill.
4. Click Agents, then click Add Agents to Skill.
The Add Agents To Skill dialog box opens.

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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 following actions:

Note:

●

Click OK to accept the skill assignment

●

Click Script to save the procedure as a script

Note:
Optional: Once the agent list is open for a skill, you can add or reassign agents
using one of the following methods:
●

From the agents list, click an agent or agents from the list. Click the right mouse button
and select Add Agents to Skill.
The system displays the Add Agents to Skill dialog box. Repeat Step 5.

●

Open an agent list for the skill to which you want to add agents. Click an agent or agents
from the original skill’s agent list and use the drag-and-drop method to add the agents to
the new skill.

Removing agents from a skill
Agents can be removed from a skill by using the Remove Agents from Skill dialog box. This
box is accessed from the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box.
Do not use this procedure to remove multiple agents from a skill if those agents
have a call handling preference of Percent Allocation. Doing so removes the
administered percentages.

CAUTION:

To remove an agent using the Remove Agents from Skill dialog box:
1. On the Skills menu, click Skill List.
The system displays the Skill List dialog box.
2. Select a skill by double clicking on that skill.
3. Click on the names of the agents you want to remove from the skill.
4. Click Agents, then click Remove Agents from Skill.
The Remove Agents From Skill dialog box opens.
5. Choose one of the following actions:

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●

Click OK to remove the agents from the skill

●

Click Script to save the procedure as a script

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Agent administration

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 system displays the Remove Agents From Skill dialog box.
6. Repeat Step 5.

Moving agents between skills
The Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box and the Move Agents Between Skills dialog box
can be used to move agents between skills. Both methods are explained in this section.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Using the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box on page 131

●

Using the Move Agents Between Skills dialog box on page 132

Using the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box
The Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box may be used to move a group of agents between
skills.
To move a group of agents between skills:
1. On the Skills menu, click Skill List.
The system displays a list of administered skills.
2. Click Agents and then click List All Staffed Agents.
The system displays a list of active, logged-in agents.
3. In the Skill List, select a skill by double clicking on that skill.
The system displays a list of active agents who are assigned to that skill.

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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 Move Agents Between Skills dialog box
Agents can also be moved between skills by using the Move Agents Between Skills dialog
box, which is accessed from the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box.
To move a group of agents between skills using this box:
1. In the Agent List, click on the names of the agents that you want to move to another skill.
2. Click Agents and then click Move Agent to Another Skill.
The Move Agents Between Skills dialog box opens.
3. In the To Skill: field, enter or select the skill.
4. Take one of the following actions:
●

If you want to preserve the agents’ original levels for this skill, select the Preserve
Original Levels check box.

●

If you want to assign new skill levels (the same level will be chosen for all agents moved),
click Level, and set the skill level that the added agents will have for the skill (1 to 16, r1
or r2).

5. Click OK to accept the skill assignment, or click Script to save the procedure as a script.

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Administering acceptable service levels

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. This section
explains how to administer acceptable service levels for reporting purposes.
The procedure provided in this section are for setting acceptable service levels for a skill for
CMS reporting purposes only. Initial administration for implementing service levels or service
objectives must be done through the switch.
To set Acceptable Service Levels for a skill:
1. Click Commands on the CMS Supervisor Controller.
2. Click Contact Center Administration.
The Split/Skill Call Profile Setup dialog box opens.
3. Enter or select the skill for which you want to set the service level (this must have been
previously assigned in the Dictionary).
4. In the Acceptable Service Level: field, enter the service level that you want to
achieve for this skill. If you are routing based on percent within service level, and you want
to verify how well your process works, this value must match the level that is administered
on the Communications Manager forms.
5. In the service level increments fields, enter a progressively greater number of seconds in
each increment. For example, entries in the first three fields of 5, 10, and 25 would mean a
first increment of 0 to 5 seconds, a second increment of 6 to 10 seconds, and a third
increment of 11 to 25 seconds.

Note:

Note:
It is not necessary that each contain the same number of seconds. Remember
that each increment represents a longer wait time for the call and is used for both
answered and abandoned calls.

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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:
See Avaya Call Management System Database Items and Calculations, for full
definitions of database terminology.

This section includes the following topics:
●

Database items on page 135

●

Dictionary calculations on page 137

Database items
This section includes the following topics:
●

Split/Skill items on page 135

●

Agent database items on page 136

●

Agent Login/Logout database items on page 137

Split/Skill items
The following table lists the Split/Skill database items that support Business Advocate.
Split/Skill database items
ACDCALLS_R1

GNONACDAUXOUT

R1INACW

ACDCALLS_R2

GNONACDOUT

R1INAUX

FAGINRING

GNONACWIN

R1ONACD

FAVAILABLE

GNONACWOUT

R1OTHER

FINACW

GNONAUXIN

R1STAFFED

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Split/Skill database items (continued)
FINAUX

GNONAUXOUT

R2AGINRING

FONACD

GNDA_INACW

R2AVAILABLE

FOTHER

GNDA_ONACD

R2INACW

FSTAFFED

GNOTHER

R2INAUX

GNAGINRING

GNSTAFFED

R2ONACD

GNAVAILABLE

I_NORMTIME

R2OTHER

GNINACW

I_OL1TIME

R2STAFFED

GNINAUX

I_OL2TIME

SKSTATE

GNINAUX0

MAX_TOT_PERCENTS

TOT_PERCENTS

GNINAUX1-99

R1AGINRING

GNONACD

R1AVAILABLE

Agent database items
The following table lists the agent database items that support Business Advocate.
Agent database items

136

DACALLS_FIRST

SKLEVEL2-20

GNSKILL

SKPERCENT

LEVEL

SKPERCENT2-20

PERCENT

TOPSKILL

PREFERENCE

USE_SVC_OBJ

ROLE

WORKSKLEVEL

SKLEVEL

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Dictionary calculations

Agent Login/Logout database items
The following table lists the Agent Login/Logout database items that support Business
Advocate.
Agent Login/Logout database items
PREFERENCE

SKPERCENT

SKLEVEL

SKPERCENT2-20

SKLEVEL2-20

Dictionary calculations
This section explains the standard Avaya CMS Dictionary calculations and report-specific
calculations that support Business Advocate.
This section includes the following topics:
●

Standard Dictionary calculations on page 137

●

Report-specific calculations on page 138

Standard Dictionary calculations
The following table lists the standard Avaya CMS Dictionary reports that support Business
Advocate.
CAUTION:

Do not modify any of the standard Avaya CMS Dictionary calculations. If you
modify the standard calculations, the meaning of the data will be changed.
Standard calculations
AVG_EQV_AGENTS_STFD

MAX_DEDICATED_AGT

DEDICATED_AGT

MAX_FTE_AGENTS

FACTIVE_AG

R1ACTIVE_AGT

FTE_AGENTS

R2ACTIVE_AGT

TEA_AVAUX

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Business Advocate database items and calculations

Report-specific calculations
The following calculations were added to CMS Supervisor reports to support Business
Advocate. They are not stored in the database, but are stored with the reports. The report
names listed in the table below indicate where the calculations are used.
The following table lists the report-specific calculations that support Business Advocate.
Report-specific calculations
% Aban
% Busy
% Disconnect
% Aban
% Busy
% Flow Out
% Agent Occup (Group) w/ACW
% Agent Occup (Group) w/o ACW

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Glossary
Abandoned call

A call in which a caller hangs up before receiving an answer from an agent.
The call could be queued to a skill, be in a vector, or be in vector processing
before it is abandoned.

Acceptable service
level

The time within which a contact center determines that calls for a particular
skill should be answered.

Access permissions

Permissions assigned to a Call Management system (CMS) user so that the
user can access different subsystems in CMS or administer specific
elements (skills, trunks, vectors, and so on) of the ACD. Access permissions
are specified as read or write permission. Read permission means that the
CMS user can access and view data, for example, run reports or view the
Dictionary subsystem. Write permission means that the CMS user can add,
modify, or delete data and execute processes.

ACD

See Automatic Call Distribution (ACD).

ACD call

A call that was queued to a skill and was answered by an agent in that skill,
or a call that queued as a Direct Agent Call and was answered by the agent
for whom it was queued.

Acknowledgment

A window that requires you to confirm an action or to acknowledge a system
message, for example, the system going down, warning, or fatal error for the
user window. This window cannot be moved, sized, or scrolled and
disappears only when you confirm the message.

Active agents

Agents who are in ACD, RINGING, and/or after call work (ACW) work states.

Activate Agent Trace

Window from which you can start CMS tracing of agent activities. These
activities include all agent state changes until the trace is turned off. You
must activate an agent trace to obtain an Agent Trace report.

Active VDN calls

The number of calls currently active in a VDN. The G3V4 vector
enhancement “VDN Calls Routing” refers to the ability to program a vector
step according to the number of active VDN calls. The number of active calls
is referred to as “counted-calls” in the vector step.

ACW

See After Call Work (ACW).

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Adjunct/Switch Applications Interface (ASAI)

Adjunct/Switch
Applications Interface
(ASAI)

An Avaya recommendation for interfacing adjuncts and communications
systems, based on the CCITT Q.932 specification for layer 3. ASAI supports
activities such as event notification and call control.

Adjusted work time

An agent’s total work time with one or more ACD calls ringing, active, or on
hold for any of an agent’s skills expressed as a percentage of staffed time
and adjusted by a one call lookahead.

After Call Work (ACW)

An agent state that generally represents work related to the preceding ACD
call. Going on-hook after an ACD call during MANUAL-IN operation places
the call in ACW. With Generic 1 and Generic 3, ACW is accessible by a key
on the agent's set and may not be related to an ACD call.

Agent

A person who answers calls to an extension in an ACD skill. The agent is
known to CMS by a login identification keyed into a telephone.

Agent Login ID

A number entered into a telephone by an ACD to activate the agent position.
Agent logins are required for all CMS-measured ACD agents.

Agent occupancy

The total time with one or more ACD calls ringing, active, or on hold for any
of an agent’s assigned skills. Agent occupancy can also refer to the total call
related and non-call-related ACW time for any of an agent’s assigned skills
divided by the total time staffed in any assigned skill expressed as a
percentage.
The calculation for agent occupancy is: 100 * (sum(I_RINGTIME +
I_ACDTIME + I_ACDOTHERTIME + I_ACDAUX_OUTTIME +
I_ACDAUXINTIME + I_ACWTIME) / sum(TI_STAFFTIME - TI_AUXTIME +
I_ACDAUX_OUTTIME + I_ACDAUXINTIME)) where I_ACWTIME is an
optional component. This calculation can be used when creating a new
report with Avaya Report Designer or Avaya Report Wizard. AUX time is not
included in the calculation of agent occupancy.

Agent position

The combination of agent login ID and the skills the agent is assigned. Data
is collected for the agent by skill, so the total work for the agent must be
summed over all skills in which the agent worked.

Agent role

Agent role is used in the agent table to describe how an agent participates in
a skill. This role is based on skill level and call handling preference.

Agent selection

Selection of an agent when a call arrives for a skill that is in an agent surplus
condition.

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ASA

Agent state

A feature of agent call handling that indicates the agent’s current state. Agent
states include ACD, ACW, AVAIL, AUX, UNSTAFF, DACD, DACW, OTHER,
UNKNOWN, and RING.
Data about these states is displayed in real-time and historical reports. See
the definition of each state for additional information.

Agent surplus
condition

The condition that exists when one or more agents are available to handle a
call for a specific skill.

Agent terminal

The voice terminal used by a contact center agent.

Agent Trace

A report that can be helpful when evaluating how well individual agents are
using their time. You must start an agent trace before you can obtain an
Agent Trace report.
You can activate traces for a maximum of 25 agents at any one time. You can
select the dates in which the trace will receive information. This report lists
each agent activity and the time it occurred.

Agent work time

The total time with one or more ACD calls ringing, active, or on hold for any
of an agent’s assigned skills and optionally, the total call-related and
non-call-related ACW time divided by the total time staffed in this skill
expressed as a percentage.

See Auto-In (AI).

Algorithm

A prescribed set of well-defined rules or instructions for the solution of a
problem, for example, the performance of a calculation, in a finite number of
steps.

Allocated agents

Agents with an assigned role of Allocated; that is, they have Percent
Allocation assigned as a call handling preference through Business
Advocate.

ANI

See Automatic Number Identification (ANI).

Announcement

A recorded message that normally tells the caller what destination the call
has reached. The announcement also often tries to persuade the caller to
stay on the line.
With Call Vectoring, announcements can be part of a vector's call
processing. An announcement is assigned to a vector by entering an
announcement number.

ASA

See Average Speed of Answer (ASA).

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ASAI

See Adjunct/Switch Applications Interface (ASAI).

Auto-In (AI)

An ACD work mode that makes the agent available to receive calls and
allows the agent to receive a new ACD call immediately after disconnecting
from the previous call.

Automatic Call
Distribution (ACD)

A switch feature. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is software that channels
high-volume incoming call traffic to agent groups (splits or skills). Also an
agent state where the agent is engaged in an ACD call (with the agent either
talking to the caller or the call waiting on hold). See also Redirect On No
Answer (RONA).

Automatic Number
Identification (ANI)

A general industry term referring to knowledge of the calling party number
(CPN).

Auto Reserve Agents

A feature of Percent Allocation that provides the ability to leave an agent idle
even when one or more calls are in queue for one or more of the agent’s
assigned skills.
This decision is made using a comparison of the agent’s work time in the skill
and the agent’s target allocation for the skill.

Auxiliary work (AUX)

An agent work mode. For example, the agent is engaged in non-ACD work,
is on break, in a meeting, or at lunch. An agent can reach this work mode by
pressing the AUX WORK button or dialing the proper access code from the
voice terminal.

Available (AVAIL)

An agent state. The extension is able to accept an ACD call.

Available agent

A logged-in agent in Auto-In (AI) or Manual-In (MI) with no ringing, active, or
held call appearances. See also Multiple Call Handling (MCH) for alternative
definitions of an available agent.

Available work state

An agent work state in which the agent is in either the AI or MI work mode
and is available to receive ACD calls. In general, agents in either the AI or MI
work mode are not available to receive calls if they are currently on a call or
have placed a call on hold.

Average agent service
time

The average time you are expecting or targeting for each agent to spend on
an ACD call, including talk time and after call work (ACW) time.

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Call Selection Override

Average Speed of
Answer (ASA)

The average amount of time a caller waits in queue before connecting to an
agent. ASA is usually an objective set by your contact center's management.
The ASA for a skill includes the time spent in queue and the time ringing an
agent. ASA for a VDN includes the time spent in vector processing, including
the time spent in queue and the time ringing an agent.

Best Service Routing
(BSR)

A feature that routes ACD calls to the resource best able to service each call.
BSR allows the switch to compare local and remote skills, identify the skill
that will provide the best service, and deliver the call to that resource. BSR is
part of the Avaya Virtual Routing product suite.

Calculation

A menu selection in the CMS Dictionary subsystem that gives the
abbreviated name (calculation name) for the calculation that generates the
data for a field in a report.

Call-based items

The category of database items in CMS that are committed to the database
after the call completes. If a call starts and ends in different intrahour
intervals, all of the call-based data is recorded in the interval in which the call
completed. Most database items are call based.

Call handling
preference

Business Advocate agent call handling preference. Also known as a call
selection method. Preferences include Skill Level, Greatest Need, and
Percent Allocation.

Call Management
System (CMS)

An integrated analysis and reporting program that provides real-time and
historical reports.

Call queue

An ordered list of calls per skill. The order can be based on queue priority
followed by time in queue; that is, a higher priority call is serviced before a
lower priority call regardless of time in queue.

Call selection

Selection of a call when an agent becomes available and one or more of the
agent’s assigned skills is in a call surplus condition.

Call selection
measurement

The measurement that is used in the call selection process if an agent’s call
handling preference is administered as either Skill Level or Greatest Need.
There are currently two call selection measurements, Current Wait Time and
Predicted Wait Time.

Call Selection
Override

An option with Service Level Supervisor that alters how calls are selected
when overload thresholds are exceeded for one or more of an agent’s skills.
If activated, when the threshold is exceeded calls are selected from skills that
are over threshold to the exclusion of calls that are under threshold.

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Call surplus condition

The condition that exists when one or more calls are queued for a specific
skill.

Call vectoring

A switch feature that provides a highly flexible method for processing ACD
calls using VDNs and vectors as processing points between trunk groups
and skills. Call vectoring permits treatment of calls that is independent of
skills.
Similar to a computer program, a call vector is a set of instructions that
control the routing of incoming calls based on conditions that occur in a
contact center environment. Examples of call vector conditions include time
of day and the number of calls in queue.

Call Work Code (CWC)

An ACD capability that makes sure that during or after the call, the agent can
enter a string of digits and send these digits to the switch Call Management
System for management reporting.

Caller needs

The reason or reasons that a customer calls your contact center (used with
the Expert Agent Selection feature).

Calls carried

Trunk data. The number of inbound and outbound calls carried.

Business Advocate

A collection of ECS features that provide new flexibility in the way a call is
selected for an agent in a call surplus situation and in the way that an agent
is selected for a call in an agent surplus condition.
Advocate also includes methods for automating staffing adjustments.

CMS Supervisor

The Call Management System (CMS) application for the Microsoft Windows
operating environment.

Change Agent Skills

An agent’s skills can be changed from CMS by using the Change Agent
Skills window.
The Change Agent Skills dialog box allows the user to change the skill
assignments for one agent. On this window a user can quickly see what skills
are currently assigned to an agent and the user can easily change the
agent’s skill assignments.

CMS

See Call Management System (CMS).

Connected (CONN)

A trunk state. A caller and an agent are connected on an ACD call.

Current

A CMS action that displays data from the current interval.

Current Interval

Represents the current intrahour interval, which can be 15, 30, or 60
minutes. The current interval is part of the real-time database.

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Database tables

Current Wait Time
(CWT)

The time that a call has already waited for service in a call queue.

CWC

See Call Work Code (CWC).

Daily Data

Interval data that has been converted to a 1-day summary.

Data Collection Off

In this state, CMS is not collecting ACD data. If you turn off data collection,
CMS will not void data on current call activity.

Data Collection On

In this state, CMS is collecting ACD data.

Data Points

Points of historical data. A data point should include data for each interval of
the working day.

Database

A group of tables that store ACD data according to a specific time frame:
current and previous intrahour real-time data and intrahour, daily, weekly,
and monthly historical data.

Database item

A name for a specific type of data that is stored in one of the CMS
databases.
A database item may store ACD identifiers (skill numbers or names, login
IDs, VDNs, and so on) or statistical data on ACD performance (number of
ACD calls, wait time for calls in queue, current states of individual agents,
and so on).

Database tables

CMS uses these tables to collect, store, and retrieve ACD data. Standard
CMS items (database items) are names of columns in the CMS database
tables.

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Date format

The standard format for entering dates on CMS reports. Acceptable formats
are:
Month/day/year (for example, 3/21/93)
A “-” offset based on today's date (for example, -1 for yesterday). You can
also enter a range of numbers (for example, 0 through -7)
Separating individual data entry items using a semicolon (for example, 3/21/
93;3/23/93;3/25/93)
Entering ranges by placing a hyphen between entries (for example, 3/21/
93-3/25/93)
When you specify a date for a weekly report, that date or range of dates must
correspond to the week start day selected in the System Setup-Storage
Intervals window. If the date and day do not match, the message “No records
found” is displayed in the status line.
The month start date must be the first day of the month.

Delete

A CMS action that removes the entry on the window from the database.

Designer Reports

Customized reports that can be created using CMS Supervisor’s Report
Designer feature, and which are run from CMS Supervisor.

Dialed Number
Identification Service
(DNIS)

An ACD capability that enables calls to be routed based on the number
dialed by the caller, for example, a specific 800 number set up for a
promotion.

Dictionary

A CMS subsystem that can be used to assign names to various contact
center elements such as login IDs, splits or skills, trunk groups, VDNs and
vectors. These names are displayed on reports and make them easier to
interpret.

Direct Agent calling

An EAS capability that makes it possible for a caller to reach the same agent
every time and still include the call in the management tracking of the contact
center. This is ideal for claims processing, for example, where a client needs
to speak with the agent handling the claim. This flexibility ensures a high
level of customer service without reducing management control.

Direct Agent Calls
First

In Business Advocate, the Direct Agent Calls First? option is associated
with Percent Allocation. With this option selected, even though an agent is
percent allocated to a skill or skills, calls to the agent’s Direct Agent skill take
precedence over calls to the allocated percentages. In addition, if an agent
has Direct Agent Calls First? assigned, those calls also take precedence
over other calls, even in an over-threshold situation.

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Expected Wait Time (EWT)

Dynamic Percentage
Adjustment

A Release 9 Percent Allocation feature that, when activated, automatically
adjusts agents’ target allocations to help meet predefined service level
targets.

Dynamic Queue
Position

A Release 9 feature that, when activated, allows you to queue calls from
multiple VDNs to a single skill, while maintaining different service objectives
for those VDNs.

Dynamic Threshold
Adjustment

A Release 9 feature that, when activated, works with Service Level
Supervisor to automatically adjust overload thresholds to meet predefined
service level targets.

EAD

See Expert Agent Distribution (EAD).

EAS

See Expert Agent Selection (EAS).

Entity

A generic term that refers to one of the following: Agent, Agent Group, Split
or Skill, Trunk, Trunk Group, VDN, Vector, or Call Work Code.

Error message

A response from a program that indicates a problem has occurred or that
something unexpected has happened on the system that requires your
attention.

EWT

See Expected Wait Time (EWT)

Exception

A type of activity on the ACD that falls outside of the limits you have defined.
An exceptional condition is defined in the CMS Exceptions subsystem, and
usually indicates abnormal or unacceptable performance on the ACD by
agents, splits or skills, VDNs, vectors, trunks, or trunk groups.

Exception reports

Reports that display occurrences of unusual call-handling events.

Expected Wait Time
(EWT)

An estimate of how long a caller will have to wait to be served by a contact
center while in queue, considering the current and past traffic, handling time,
and staffing conditions.
Time spent in vector processing before being queued and the time spent
ringing an agent with manual answering operation is not included in the EWT
prediction. Beginning with the G3V5 and R3V5 CMS, the EWT is a
switch-based calculation.

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Expert Agent Distribution (EAD)

Expert Agent
Distribution (EAD)

An agent selection method, available only in an Expert Agent Selection
(EAS) environment, in which idle agents are grouped by skill level (1 through
16, if the EAS-PHD customer option is set; 1 or 2 if the EAS-PHD customer
option is not set).
The least occupied (EAD-LOA) or most idle (EAD-MIA) skill level 1 agent is
selected or, if no skill level 1 agent is available, the least occupied or most
idle skill level 2 agent, and so on.

Expert Agent
Selection (EAS)

An optional switch feature that builds on the power of the Call Vectoring and
ACD features of the switch to match the skills required to handle a particular
call to an agent who has at least one of the skills that a caller requires.
The ACD queuing and the vector commands Queue-to and Check are used
to route a call to an agent with the appropriate skill to handle that call. With
EAS, call distribution is based on skill. You can match the skills required to
handle a particular call to an agent who has at least one of the skills that a
caller requires.
CMS collects data on skills in the same manner as it collects data on splits.
Real-Time agent reports generally indicate which skills the agents have, and
in which skill they are currently working.
Skill reports show the performance of the skill overall, displaying such items
as the ASA, the number of calls, and the percentage of calls answered within
the target service level for the skill.
CMS also reports VDN data by VDN skill preference, so that customers can
assess the contact center performance relative to calls requiring particular
skills. CMS reports how many calls were handled, how long these calls
waited for service, and the average talk time for calls queued to a particular
skill preference in a particular VDN.

Extension call

Extension calls are any calls that are originated by agents and non-ACD calls
received by agents. For the Generic 3 switches, these include calls an agent
makes to set up a conference or transfer.

FBUSY

See Forced Busy (FBUSY).

FDISC

See Forced Disconnect (FDISC).

Flex Agents

Flex agents are agents who have a role of roving, backup, or allocated
through Business Advocate. Top and reserve agents are not flex agents.

FMCH

See Forced Multiple Call Handling (FMCH).

Forced Busy (FBUSY)

A trunk state. The caller receives a forced busy signal.

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Interval-based items

Forced Disconnect
(FDISC)

A trunk state. The caller receives a forced disconnect.

Forced Multiple Call
Handling (FMCH)

A feature available with G3V4 or later switches that, when activated for a
split or skill, allows calls to be automatically delivered to an idle line
appearance, if the agent is in the Auto-In/Manual-In work mode and an
unrestricted line appearance is available on the voice terminal.

Greatest Need

Agents with a call handling preference of Greatest Need receive calls based
on the queue priority and wait time (Current Wait Time or Predicted Wait
Time).

Historical Database

Contains intrahour records for up to 62 days, daily records for up to 5 years,
and weekly and monthly records for up to 10 years for each CMS-measured
agent, split or skill, trunk, trunk group, vector, and VDN.

Historical Reports

Display past ACD data for various agent, split or skill, trunk, trunk group,
vector, or VDN activities. A report summary of call data into daily, weekly, or
monthly totals.

HOLD

A trunk state. The agent has put the call on this trunk on hold.

IDLE

A trunk state. The trunk is not is use and waiting for a call.

See Information Indicator (II).

Idle agent queue

An ordered list of agents that may be available to take the next incoming call.

Information Indicator
(II)

A two-digit code that identifies the type of originating line, for example, hotel
or pay telephone, for incoming ISDN PRI calls.

Integrated Services
Digital Network (ISDN)

A digital standard for telephony that enables, among other things, telephone,
television, and computer signals on the same lines.

Interval-based items

A category of database items. These items represent the amount of time
during a collection interval spent doing a particular activity. Interval-based
items are updated throughout the collection interval and timing is restarted at
the end of the interval.
Interval-based items should only be used to show amount of time in an
interval for an activity or to calculate percentages of time spent in an interval.
Interval-based items should not be used to calculate averages, such as
average hold time.

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Intrahour interval

A segment of time starting on the hour and consisting of either 15, 30, or 60
minutes. An intrahour interval is the basic unit of CMS report time.

Least Occupied Agent
(LOA)

An agent selection method that uses agent occupancy rather than position in
an idle agent queue to determine which agent to select when a call arrives.
LOA can be used with either Uniform Call Distribution (UCD-LOA) or Expert
Agent Distribution (EAD-LOA). This agent selection method is specific to
Business Advocate.

List Trace Advocate

A function used to trace the activities of Advocate agents. These activities
include all agent state changes until the trace is turned off. You must activate
an agent trace to obtain List Trace Advocate information.

Location

A location, or site, refers to a physical location. This can be a building, a
section of a building, or it can be what was once a separate ACD before the
ATM WAN capability was used to merge separate ACDs with other ACDs
into one large contact center. A location will typically be assigned one (or
more) location IDs.
A location, despite being part of a larger contact center, may continue to
have sole responsibility for handling certain 800 numbers. A location may
also share responsibility for handling an 800 number by having some of its
agents be part of a larger split or skill that includes agents from other
locations.

Location ID for agents

An agent location ID is the ID of the agent terminal the agent is logged in to.
It is associated with the DEFINTY port network ID to which the agent
terminal is attached.
An agent cannot be assigned a location ID for reporting purposes until he or
she logs into the ACD. Available on the DEFINITY ECS R7.1 with ATM and
later.

Location ID for Trunks

The switch network location ID (1 to 44) that is associated with a trunk. A
Location ID is not directly assigned to a trunk. Instead, it is assigned to a port
network (this is done using the chcabinetx form).
Therefore, each trunk whose equipment location belongs to that port network
is associated with that port network’s location ID.
When running CMS reports that include location IDs (LOC_ID), those IDs
defined on Communication Manager that are greater than 44 will return a
default location ID of 0 to CMS. Support for location IDs above 44 is
expected in a future release of CMS.

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MIA

Logical Agent

An EAS feature that associates the agent’s login ID with the physical
extension when the agent logs in. Properties such as the assigned skills,
class of restriction, and coverage path are associated with the login ID rather
than with the physical extension. This allows agents to log in at any available
set.
Agents are assigned a single set of work mode buttons, rather than one set
per skill. This simplifies the agent’s interface to the work mode buttons.
When the “MI” or “AI” button is lit, the agent is available to take a call in any
assigned skill.
The Logical Agent capability allows calling agents to connect by dialing in to
their login IDs. Calls to login IDs may be treated as Direct Agent ACD calls,
given the proper class of restriction, or may be treated as extension
(personal) calls.
Treating the calls as Direct Agent Calls can be used to help distinguish
business-related calls from personal calls.

LOGOFF

An agent trace work mode. An agent is logged out and is not available to
take ACD calls.

LOGON

An agent trace work mode. An agent is logged in and is available to take
ACD calls.

Maintenance

A CMS subsystem that is used for doing routine maintenance of the CMS,
such as backing up data, checking on the status of the connection to the
switch, and scanning the error log.

Maintenance Busy
(MBUSY)

A trunk state. The trunk is maintenance busy; that is, it is out of service for
maintenance purposes.

Manual In (MI)

An ACD work mode. MI makes the agent available to receive an ACD call
and automatically places the agent into the ACW state upon release from the
call.

MBUSY

See Maintenance Busy (MBUSY).

MCH

See Multiple Call Handling (MCH).

Measured

A term that means an ACD element (that is, an agent, split or skill, trunk,
trunk group, vector, or VDN) has been identified to CMS for collection of
data. If the ACD element is not measured, no data is collected.

See Manual In (MI).

MIA

See Most Idle Agent (MIA).

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Modify

A CMS action that changes the database entry to reflect the new values that
are entered in the current primary window.

Monthly data

Daily data that has been converted to a monthly summary.

Most Idle Agent (MIA)

An ACD distribution method that maintains a queue of idle agents. An agent
is put at the end of the list for a particular skill when the agent completes an
ACD call for that skill.

Multi-Agent Skill
Change dialog box

This dialog box allows the user to perform the following administration
actions: add one or more agents to a skill, move one or more agents from
one skill to another, remove one or more agents from a skill, and change the
skill level for one or more agents’ skills.

Multiple Call Handling
(MCH)

A feature that allows a single agent to handle multiple ACD and/or non-ACD
calls simultaneously. All but one of the calls must be on hold and only one
call can be ringing. There are four types of Multiple Call Handling, each of
which provides an alternative definition of an available agent as follows:
On-request: An agent is considered available if all calls are on hold, an
unrestricted call appearance is available, and the agent requests an ACD call
by pressing the AI or MI button.
Many-forced: An agent is considered available if an unrestricted call
appearance is available and the agent is in the AI or MI work mode.
One-forced: An agent is considered available if no ACD calls are ringing,
active, or on hold, an unrestricted call appearance is available, and the agent
is in the AI or MI work mode.
One-per-skill: An agent is considered available for a skill if an unrestricted
call appearance is available and the agent is in the AI or MI work mode and
is not currently handling a call for the skill.

Multiple skill queuing

With Call Vectoring, a call can be queued in up to three skills at the same
time.

Multiuser mode

Any administered CMS user can log in to CMS. Data continues to be
collected if data collection is “on.”

Name (synonym)
fields

Fields in which you may enter a name (synonym) that has been entered in
the Dictionary subsystem, for example, names of agents, splits or skills,
agent groups, trunk groups, vectors, or VDNs.

Non-primary skill

When a call is queued to multiple skills, the second and third skills to which
the call queues in a VDN are called non-primary skills. They are also referred
to as secondary and tertiary skills, respectively.

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QUEUED

OTHER

An agent state. The agent is working on a Direct Agent Call, working on a call
for another skill, or has put a call on hold and has not chosen another work
mode.

Overthreshold state

A skill goes into an overthreshold state when either the EWT or the time in
queue (if Activate on Oldest Call Waiting has been enabled) exceeds an
administered threshold.
This state exists until the EWT (and the time in queue, if the Activate on
Oldest Call Waiting option has been enabled) are less than the administered
thresholds for the skill.

PAD

See Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD).

Percent Allocation

Percent Allocation is a call handling preference used only with Business
Advocate. This preference specifies that calls are to be selected for the
agent based on a comparison of the time spent on calls for each skill and the
percentage of time allocated for that skill for the agent.
Optionally, after call work (ACW) can be included in the work time.

Percent Allocation
Distribution (PAD)

A Release 9 agent selection method that selects agents for calls based on a
comparison of adjusted work time for each skill and the percentage of time
allocated for each skill.

Percent (%) within
service level

A measurement of the percentage of calls that were answered within a
specific number of seconds.

Phantom Abandon
Call Timer

A CMS capability that tracks information about abandoned calls. When the
capability is enabled, calls with a duration that is shorter than the
administered value (zero to ten seconds) are counted as phantom abandon
calls. Setting the timer to zero disables it.

Predicted Wait Time
(PWT)

An estimation of the time that a call will wait for service in a call queue if the
currently available agent does not answer the call.

Previous interval

Represents one intrahour interval and is part of the real-time database. At
the end of each intrahour interval, the contents of the current intrahour
interval are copied to the previous intrahour interval portion of the real-time
database.

PWT

See Predicted Wait Time (PWT).

QUEUED

A trunk state. An ACD call has seized the trunk and is queued to a split or
skill waiting for an agent to answer.

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Read permission

The CMS user can access and view data, for example, run reports or view
the Dictionary subsystem. Read permission is granted from the User
Permissions subsystem.

Real-time database

Consists of the current and previous intrahour data on each CMS-measured
agent, split, trunk, trunk group, vector, and Vector Directory Number (VDN).

Real-time reports

Display current ACD call activity on agents, splits or skills, trunks, trunk
groups, vectors, and VDNs for the current or previous intrahour interval.
Current intrahour interval real-time reports are constantly updated as data
changes during the interval. Previous intrahour interval real-time reports
show data totals for activity that occurred in the previous intrahour interval.

Redirect On No
Answer (RONA)

An ACD capability that assists the user if a call is not answered in a specified
number of rings as preset by the contact center manager. The terminal
extension, including a VRU port, is busied out and the call goes back into the
queue at a higher priority.

Refresh rate

The number of seconds CMS waits for each update of the real-time report
data. A user's fastest allowable refresh rate is defined in the User
Permissions - User Data window as a minimum refresh rate. The default
refresh rate when a user brings up the report input window is the
administered minimum refresh rate plus 15 seconds.

Reserve agent

A reserve agent in Business Advocate is an agent who is eligible to receive a
call only when a skill is in an over-threshold state. Reserve agents can be
reserve 1 or reserve 2. Reserve 1 agents serve a skill that has exceeded its
assigned overload 1 or overload 2 threshold. Reserve 2 agents only serve a
skill that has exceeded its assigned overload 2 threshold.

Reserve level

A reserve level is a parameter of agent administration that specifies a certain
skill as being handled by an agent only when an administered Business
Advocate Service Level Supervisor threshold has been exceeded. There are
two reserve levels, which correspond to the two thresholds that can be
administered for a skill.

RINGING

An agent state. The time a call rings at an agent's voice terminal after leaving
the queue and before the agent answers the call.
A trunk state. A call is ringing at the agent's voice terminal.

Rolling ASA

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See Average Speed of Answer (ASA).

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Staffed agent

Roving agents

Agents with Greatest Need call handling preference have a role of Roving for
that skill. That is, they receive calls based on a call’s priority and time in
queue, rather than on an assigned skill level.

Scripting

The CMS Scripting feature lets you create a script to run a specified report or
run a report and export the data on schedule. The scripts require a
customer-provided scheduler to be run at a later time.

SEIZED

A trunk state. A call is using the trunk either incoming or outgoing.

Service Level

A time specified in seconds within which all calls should be answered.
Normally set as an objective by management. Usually referred to as
Acceptable Service Level.

Service Level
Supervisor

A feature that allows you to administer one or two overload thresholds for a
skill that will be supported by reserve agents. When the Expected Wait Time
(EWT) for an arriving call exceeds the threshold (or optionally, the time in
queue of a currently queued call), the skill goes into an overload state.
When the appropriate overload state exists, agents who are preassigned to
assist during overload periods are eligible to receive subsequent calls from
the overloaded skill.

Service Objective

Service Objective works in conjunction with the Greatest Need and Skill
Level call handling preferences to assign calls to agents as the agents
become available. This feature is designed to give different levels of service
to different skills.
Service Objective allows you to administer an acceptable service level per
skill. DEFINITY ECS R6 or later determines which skill has a call with the
highest percentage of time accrued toward the administered service
objective time.

Single-user mode

Only one person can log into CMS. Data continues to be collected if data
collection is “on.” This mode is required to change some CMS administration.

Site

See Location.

Skill

Also known as an EAS hunt group. Calls are queued to skills and agents log
into skills to become eligible to receive incoming calls.

Staffed agent

An agent who is currently logged in to the switch.

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Standard agents

Standard agents are agents in a skill who are assigned a skill level from 1 to
16, rather than being reserve agents. Standard agents are also known as
nonreserve agents. Standard agents can have roles of top, roving, backup,
or allocated.

Standard reports

The set of reports that are delivered with the CMS or CMS Supervisor
software.

Station

An unmeasured extension. An extension that is not currently staffed by an
agent or that is a member of an unmeasured split or skill or hunt group.

Subsystem

Each CMS main menu selection (for example, Reports, Dictionary, System
Setup, Exceptions, on so on) along with Timetable and Shortcut is referred to
as a subsystem of the Call Management System.

Switch

A private switching system that provides voice-only or voice and data
communications services including access to public and private networks for
a group of telephones within a customer's premises.

System AUX

The switches use the reason code 0 as the default code for situations in
which the switch places the agent in the AUX mode automatically (for
example, when the agent logs in, when agent makes or receives extension
calls from AI/MI mode, when the agent is taken out of service due to failure to
answer a ringing call) or logs the agent out (for example, during a Move
Agent While Staffed operation).
ASAI applications that change the agent’s work mode to AUX or log the
agent out without specifying a reason code result in a change to AUX or
logout with the default reason code.

Tertiary Split/Skill

When a call is queued to multiple splits or skills, the third split or skill the call
queued to in a VDN is called the tertiary split or skill.

Time Format

The standard format for entering times on CMS reports. Acceptable formats
are:
AM/PM format (for example, 7:30AM-5:00PM)
Military time format (for example, 7:30-17:00)

Timetable

156

An activity task or group of activity tasks (like reports) that you can schedule
for completion at a time that is convenient and nondisruptive for your contact
center's operation.

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Vector

Top Agents

Top agents are agents who have Skill Level call handling preference and
have the lowest level number (and highest skill level) administered for that
skill. These agents have also been designated as Top Agents for that skill
(first administered, highest level). An agent can only be Top Agent on one
skill at a time, but may have many skills with a level of 1, based on expertise.
Also, an agent can have an assigned skill level lower than 1 for a skill, but
can still be Top Agent for that skill if there are no other higher skill levels
assigned on that skill.

Trunk

A telephone circuit that carries calls between two switches, for example,
between a Central Office (CO) and a switch.

Uniform Call
Distribution (UCD)

The most idle or least occupied available agent for the skill, without regard to
skill level. Can be used with Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) or Most Idle
Agent (UCD-MIA).

UNKNOWN

An agent state. CMS does not recognize the current state.
A trunk state. CMS does not recognize the state of the trunk.

Upgrade

The process of moving an existing CMS customer from one release or load
to another, to give the customer the additional functionality provided in the
new release. Depending on which release the customer is upgrading from,
and to, the upgrade may involve upgrading the software only, or may involve
upgrading software and hardware.
When an upgrade involves a major release, data migration may also be a
necessary part of the upgrade process.

User ID

The login ID for a CMS user.

User permissions

A CMS subsystem that allows the CSM administrator to define user access
permissions.

User window

A window you can move, size, or scroll. It may contain input fields, reports, or
help information.

Vector

A list of steps that process calls in a user-defined manner. The steps in a
vector can send calls to skills, play announcements and music, disconnect
calls, give calls a busy signal, or route calls to other destinations.
Calls enter vector processing via VDNs, which may have received calls from
assigned trunk groups, from other vectors, or from extensions that are
connected to the switch.

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Vector Directory Number (VDN)

Vector Directory
Number (VDN)

An extension number that enables calls to access a vector for processing. A
VDN is not assigned an equipment location. A vector is assigned to a VDN. A
VDN can route calls to a vector when the calls arrive over an assigned
automatic-in trunk group or when calls arrive over a dial-repeating (DID)
trunk group and the final digits match the VDN.
The VDN by itself may be dialed to access the vector from any extensions
that are connected to the switch.

VDN Calls-Counted

Also known as counted-calls to VDN and active VDN calls. A Call Vectoring
capability available with G3V4 or later switches. Counted-calls to VDN is a
parameter of the “go to step” and “go to vector” commands that provides
conditional branching to a different step in the same vector or to a different
vector based on the number of incoming trunk calls a VDN is currently
processing.

VDN skill preference

Up to three skills can be assigned to a VDN. Calls use VDN skills for routing
based on the preference that you administer in the vector. VDN skill
preferences are referred to in the vector as “1st,” “2nd,” or “3rd.”

Weekly data

Daily data that is converted to a weekly summary.

Window count

The number of primary windows that can be open at any one time.

Write permission

The CMS user can add, modify, or delete data and execute processes. Write
permission is granted from the User Permissions subsystem.

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Index

A
Acceptable Service Level . . . . . . . . . .
administering through CMS Supervisor . .
field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
access permissions . . . . . . . . . . . .
ACD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ACD call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
acknowledgment window . . . . . . . . . .
Activate Agent Trace window . . . . . . . .
Activate on Oldest Call Waiting . . . . . . .
activation of reserve agents. . . . . . . . .
active agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Active VDN Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Add Agents to Skill dialog box . . . . . . .
adding customer segments . . . . . . . . .
adding skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . .
Adjunct/Switch Applications Interface (ASAI) .
administering
adding agents to a skill . . . . . . . . .
adding skills per agent . . . . . . . . .
Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . .
call handling preference, CMS Supervisor
Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . .
CMS Business Advocate through
CMS Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . .
deleting skills per agent . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . .
Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . .
Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Greatest Need using CMS Supervisor . .
moving agents between skills . . . . . .
Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . .
Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) . .
Percent Allocation using CMS Supervisor
removing agents from a skill . . . . . . .
reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . .
reviewing agent skills . . . . . . . . . .
Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . .
Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Skill Level using CMS Supervisor . . . .
using agent template . . . . . . . . . .
using Change Agent Skills Dialog Box . .
where features are administered . . . . .
After Call Work (ACW) . . . . . . . . . . .
agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Business Advocate User Guide

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. 139
. 133
. 108
. 139
. 139
. 139
. 139
. 139
. 87
. 40
. 139
. 139
. 129
. 55
. 125
. 140

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. 129
. 125
. 98
. 126
. 106

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. 123
. 125
. 97
. 100
. 93
. 126
. 131
. 95
. 97
. 127
. 130
105, 127
. . . 125
. . . 103
. . . 94
. . . 127
. . . 128
. . . 124
. . . 81
. . . 140
. . . 140

agent database items . . . . . . . .
agent hold . . . . . . . . . . . . .
agent level decisions . . . . . . . .
agent log in/log out . . . . . . . . .
feature interactions . . . . . . .
agent login/logout database items . .
agent occupancy . . . . . . . . . .
agent position . . . . . . . . . . .
agent role . . . . . . . . . . . . .
agent selection . . . . . . . . . . .
agent selection methods . . . . . .
agent selection at a glance . . . .
features that work together . . . .
agent skill . . . . . . . . . . . . .
agent state . . . . . . . . . . . . .
agent surplus . . . . . . . . . . . .
agent template . . . . . . . . . . .
agent terminal . . . . . . . . . . .
Agent Trace . . . . . . . . . . . .
agent work states . . . . . . . . . .
agent work time . . . . . . . . . .
algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
allocated agents . . . . . . . . . .
announcement . . . . . . . . . . .
auto available splits/skills . . . . . .
Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . .
administering . . . . . . . . . .
Auto-In (AI). . . . . . . . . . . . .
automated agent staffing adjustments
Service Level Supervisor. . . . .
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) . .
automating agent moves . . . . . .
Auxiliary Work (AUX) . . . . . . . .
available (AVAIL) . . . . . . . . . .
available agent . . . . . . . . . . .
available work state . . . . . . . . .
Avaya Business Advocate
minimum requirements . . . . .
average agent service time . . . . .
Average Speed of Answer (ASA) . .

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. . 136
. . . 118
. . . 89
. . . 112
. . . 118
. . 137
. 34, 140
. . 140
. . 140
. 38, 140
19, 32, 86
. . . . 35
. . . . 46
. . . 141
. . . 141
. . . 141
. . . 128
. . . 141
. . . 141
. . . . 115
. . . 141
. . . 141
. . . 141
. . . 141
. . . . 116
41, 113, 142
. . . . . 98
. . . . 142
. . . 20, 39
. . . . 155
. . . . 142
. . . . . 66
. . . . 142
. . . . 142
. . . . 142
. . . . 142

. . . . . . . . 80
. . . . . . . 142
. . . . . . . 143

B
Best Service Routing (BSR) . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Business Advocate overview . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

February 2006

159

C
calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call handling preferences . . . . . . . . . . . .
features that work together . . . . . . . . .
call park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call pickup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,
call selection measurement . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Selection Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call selection methods . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . 25,
call surplus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
call vectoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Work Code (CWC) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
caller needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
calls carried . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Change Agent Skills Dialog Box . . . . . . . .
Change Agent Skills dialog box . . . . . . . . .
accessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
reviewing agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . .
CMS Advocate
feature combinations to avoid . . . . . . . .
feature compatibility. . . . . . . . . . . . .
CMS Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . .
CMS Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
administering Greatest Need . . . . . . . .
administering Percent Allocation . . . . . . .
administering Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . .
assigning agent call handling preferences . .
assigning reserve agents . . . . . . . . . .
using the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box
combining agent and call selection methods . . .
conference/transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
connected (CONN). . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
controlling agent time in skill . . . . . . . . . .
current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
current interval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Current Wait Time (CWT) . . . . . . . . . . .

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21, 143
. . 46
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38, 143
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87, 143
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17, 144
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22, 145

D
Data Collection Off . . .
Data Collection On . . .
data points . . . . . .
database . . . . . . .
database items . . . .
database tables . . . .
date format . . . . . .
Delete . . . . . . . . .
deleting skills per agent

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Designer Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS)
Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dictionary calculations . . . . . . . . . .
Direct Agent calling . . . . . . . . . . . .
Direct Agent Calls . . . . . . . . . . . .
feature interactions . . . . . . . . . .
first . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . .
Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . .
feature interactions . . . . . . . . . .
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . .

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. . . . . 26
. . . . 109
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. . . 41, 147
. . . 27, 147
. . . . . 117
. 41, 87, 147

E
EAD-LOA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
EAD-MIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
error message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
EWT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Exception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Exception Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Expected Call Handling Time . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Expected Wait Time (EWT) . . . . . . . . . . 147, 155
Expert Agent Distribution - Least Occupied Agent. . . 33
Expert Agent Distribution - Most Idle Agent . . . . . . 33
Expert Agent Distribution (EAD) . . . . . . . . . . 148
Expert Agent Selection (EAS) . . . . . . . . . . . 148
extension call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

F
feature interactions . . . . . . .
abandoned calls . . . . . . .
agent log in/log out . . . . .
agent work states . . . . . .
Audix . . . . . . . . . . . .
BCMS and VuStats . . . . .
call coverage . . . . . . . .
call forwarding . . . . . . .
call park . . . . . . . . . .
call pickup . . . . . . . . .
conference/transfer . . . . .
Direct Agent Calls . . . . . .
Dynamic Queue Position . . .
extension calls and LOA . . .
Least Occupied Agent . . . .
multiple call handling . . . .
multiple skill queuing . . . .
Percent Allocation . . . . . .
Percent Allocation Distribution
Redirect on no Answer. . . .
Service Level Supervisor. . .
Service Objective . . . . . .
VDN of Origin Announcement

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flex agents . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Forced Busy (FBUSY) . . . . . . . .
Forced Disconnect (FDISC) . . . . .
Forced Multiple Call Handling (FMCH)

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Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23, 149

Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box
adding agents to a skill . . . .
Multiple Call Handling (MCH) . . .
feature interactions . . . . . .
multiple skill queuing
feature interactions . . . . . .
Multi-Skill Change dialog box . . .
multiuser mode . . . . . . . . . .

historical database . . . . . . .
historical reports . . . . . . . .
HOLD . . . . . . . . . . . . .
how agents are selected for calls

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I
IDLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
idle agent queue . . . . . . . . . . . . .
increasing revenues . . . . . . . . . . .
Information Indicator (II) . . . . . . . . .
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
interval-based items . . . . . . . . . . .
intrahour interval . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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L
Least Occupied Agent (LOA) . .
administering . . . . . . . .
extension calls . . . . . . .
feature interactions . . . . .
separate customer option . .
licensing . . . . . . . . . . .
List Trace Advocate . . . . . .
location . . . . . . . . . . . .
Location ID for Agents . . . . .
Location ID for Trunks . . . . .
Location Preference Distribution
Logical Agent . . . . . . . . .
LOGOFF . . . . . . . . . . .
LOGON . . . . . . . . . . . .

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M
maintaining service levels .
Maintenance. . . . . . . .
Maintenance Busy (MBUSY)
Manual In (MI) . . . . . . .
measured . . . . . . . . .
Modify. . . . . . . . . . .
monthly data. . . . . . . .
Most Idle Agent (MIA . . . .
Most Idle Agent (MIA) . . .

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113, 116

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Name (Synonym) fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
nonprimary split/skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

O
OTHER . . . . . .
over threshold state .
overload thresholds .
assigning . . . .

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40, 87
. . 41

Percent (%) Within Service Level . .
Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . .
Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . .
feature interactions . . . . . . .
Local Preference Distribution . . .
remove skills via FAC . . . . . .
Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD)
feature interactions . . . . . . .
Phantom Abandon Call Timer . . . .
Predicted Wait Time
feature interactions . . . . . . .
Predicted Wait Time (PWT) . . . . .
primary skill . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Q
QUEUED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

R
read permission . . . . . . . . . .
real-time database . . . . . . . . .
real-time reports . . . . . . . . . .
Redirect On No Answer (RONA) . . .
feature interactions . . . . . . .
refresh rate. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Remove Agents from Skill dialog box
reserve agent . . . . . . . . . . .
reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . .
activating . . . . . . . . . . . .
reserve level . . . . . . . . . . . .

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reserve levels
reserve skills
RINGING . .
Rolling ASA .
roving agents

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S
Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
secondary skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
SEIZED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
selecting calls for an agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
service level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . 86, 155
Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . . . . . 41
feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . 108, 109, 115
Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . 111
Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override . . 84
Service Level Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 89, 155
administering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
by VDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Service Observing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
single-user mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
skill level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
staffed agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
standard agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
standard reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
station. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
subsystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
system AUX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
system requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

U
UCD-MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Uniform Call Distribution - Least Occupied Agent
Uniform Call Distribution - Most Idle Agent . . .
Uniform Call Distribution (UCD) . . . . . . . .
Universal Call Identifier (UCID) . . . . . . . .
UNKNOWN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
user ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
User Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
user window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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V
VDN Calls-Counted . . . . . .
VDN level decisions . . . . .
VDN of Origin Announcement .
VDN skill preference . . . . .
vector . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vector Directory Number (VDN)
voice terminal . . . . . . . .

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158

W
weekly data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
window count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
write permission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

T
tertiary split/skill
thresholds . . .
time format . .
Timetable . . .
top agents . . .
trunk . . . . .

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