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Avaya Business Advocate Release 3.1 User Guide
Contents
Preface
Overview of Business Advocate
Business Advocate solution examples
Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager
- Requirements for setting up Business Advocate
- Administration procedures
Feature interactions
Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor
- Agent administration
- Administering acceptable service levels
Appendix A: Business Advocate database items and calculations
- Database items
- Dictionary calculations
  - Standard Dictionary calculations
  - Report-specific calculations
Glossary
Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W

Avaya Business Advocate

Release 3.1

User Guide

07-300653

Release 3.1

February 2006

Issue 1

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.

Documentation disclaimer

Avaya Inc. is not responsible for any modifications, additions, or deletions to

the original published version of this documentation unless such modifications,

additions, or deletions were performed by Avaya. Customer and/or End User

agree to indemnify and hold harmless Avaya, Avaya's agents, servants and

employees against all claims, lawsuits, demands and judgments arising out of,

or in connection with, subsequent modifications, additions or deletions to this

documentation to the extent made by the Customer or End User.

Link disclaimer

Avaya Inc. is not responsible for the contents or reliability of any linked Web

sites referenced elsewhere within this documentation, and Avaya does not

necessarily endorse the products, services, or information described or offered

within them. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and

we have no control over the availability of the linked pages.

Warranty

Avaya Inc. provides a limited warranty on this product. Refer to your sales

agreement to establish the terms of the limited warranty. In addition, Avaya’s

standard warranty language, as well as information regarding support for this

product, while under warranty, is available through the Avaya Support Web

site:

http://www.avaya.com/support

License

USE OR INSTALLATION OF THE PRODUCT INDICATES THE END USER'S

ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS SET FORTH HEREIN AND THE GENERAL

LICENSE TERMS AVAILABLE ON THE AVAYA WEB SITE

http://support.avaya.com/LicenseInfo/ ("GENERAL LICENSE TERMS"). IF

YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS, YOU MUST

RETURN THE PRODUCT(S) TO THE POINT OF PURCHASE WITHIN TEN

(10) DAYS OF DELIVERY FOR A REFUND OR CREDIT.

Avaya grants End User a license within the scope of the license types

described below. The applicable number of licenses and units of capacity for

which the license is granted will be one (1), unless a different number of

licenses or units of capacity is specified in the Documentation or other

materials available to End User. "Designated Processor" means a single

stand-alone computing device. "Server" means a Designated Processor that

hosts a software application to be accessed by multiple users. "Software"

means the computer programs in object code, originally licensed by Avaya and

ultimately utilized by End User, whether as stand-alone Products or

pre-installed on Hardware. "Hardware" means the standard hardware

Products, originally sold by Avaya and ultimately utilized by End User.

License Type(s)

Concurrent User License (CU). End User may install and use the Software on

multiple Designated Processors or one or more Servers, so long as only the

licensed number of Units are accessing and using the Software at any given

time. A "Unit" means the unit on which Avaya, at its sole discretion, bases the

pricing of its licenses and can be, without limitation, an agent, port or user, an

e-mail or voice mail account in the name of a person or corporate function

(e.g., webmaster or helpdesk), or a directory entry in the administrative

database utilized by the Product that permits one user to interface with the

Software. Units may be linked to a specific, identified Server.

Except where expressly stated otherwise, the Product is protected by copyright

and other laws respecting proprietary rights. Unauthorized reproduction,

transfer, and or use can be a criminal, as well as a civil, offense under the

applicable law.

Third-party Components

Certain software programs or portions thereof included in the Product may

contain software distributed under third party agreements ("Third Party

Components"), which may contain terms that expand or limit rights to use

certain portions of the Product ("Third Party Terms"). Information identifying

Third Party Components and the Third Party Terms that apply to them is

available on the Avaya Support Web site:

http://support.avaya.com/ThirdPartyLicense/

Avaya fraud intervention

If you suspect that you are being victimized by toll fraud and you need technical

assistance or support, call Technical Service Center Toll Fraud Intervention

Hotline at +1-800-643-2353 for the United States and Canada. For additional

support telephone numbers, see the Avaya Support Web site:

http://www.avaya.com/support

Trademarks

Avaya is a registered trademark of Avaya Inc.

All non-Avaya trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

COMPAS

This document is also available from the COMPAS database. The COMPAS ID

for this document is 115274.

Avaya support

Avaya provides a telephone number for you to use to report problems or to ask

questions about your product. The support telephone number

is 1-800-242-2121 in the United States. For additional support telephone

numbers, see the Avaya Support Web site:

http://www.avaya.com/support

Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 3

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Purpose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Reasons for reissue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Related documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Communication Manager administration documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Call Center documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Documentation Web sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Overview of Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The importance of contact centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Why Avaya Business Advocate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Traditional contact centers versus Business Advocate contact centers. . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Matching your needs with Business Advocate solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Introduction to Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

What is Business Advocate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Business Advocate agent licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Business Advocate methods versus traditional methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Combining methods to achieve wanted results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Call and agent selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Automated agent staffing adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Selecting calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

How call selection works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Considerations for call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

How calls are selected for an agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Call selection measurement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Current Wait Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Predicted Wait Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Call selection methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Skill Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

What is Call Selection Override?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

How does Call Selection Override work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Call Selection Override example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Sending Direct Agent Calls first . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

What is Dynamic Queue Position? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

How does Dynamic Queue Position work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Dynamic Queue Position example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Call selection examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Greatest Need without Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Avaya Business Advocate

User Guide

Contents

4Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Greatest Need with Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Skill Level without Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Skill Level with Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Selecting agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Agent selection methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

How agents are selected for calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Agent selection options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Most Idle Agent (MIA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Least Occupied Agent (LOA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

LOA and extension calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Agent occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Agent selection when a new call arrives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Agent selection examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

EAD-LOA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

UCD-LOA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

EAD-MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

UCD-MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

PAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Call selection during call surplus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Agent selection during agent surplus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Automated agent staffing adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

What happens when a skill goes over threshold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Assigning reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Activation of reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Considerations for reserve skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Overload thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

Developing your strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Combining agent and call selection methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Different needs within a contact center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Avaya support for Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Feature compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Call selection methods (call handling preferences) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Agent selection methods (hunt group types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Feature combinations to avoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Business Advocate solution examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Maintaining service levels - one scenario. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Background information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Overload thresholds and service level targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 5

Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Adding customer segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Background information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Agent assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Service objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Increasing revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Background information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Agent assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

Overload thresholds and service objectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Automating agent moves to back up calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Background information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Agent assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68

Overload thresholds and service level targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Overload thresholds and service level targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Controlling agent time in a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Background information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

Agent assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Call selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Automated agent staffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Service level target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Expected call handling time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Where administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Measuring results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80

6Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Communication Manager or CMS Supervisor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Business Advocate decisions at a glance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

System-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

MIA Across Splits or Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

After Call Work Considered idle?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Call Selection Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Service Level Supervisor Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Auto Reserve Agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

VDN-level decisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Skill-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Group Type (Agent Selection method) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Expected Call Handling Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86

Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Activate on Oldest Call Waiting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Overload thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Service level target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88

Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Agent-level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Call Handling Preference (call selection method) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Service Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Direct Agent Calls First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Reserve Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90

Administration procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

Administering Least Occupied Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Where is LOA administered?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

How to administer LOA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Administering Most Idle Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Where is MIA administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

How to administer MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Administering Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Where is Greatest Need administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

How to administer Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Administering Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Where is Skill Level administered?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

How to administer Skill Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Administering Percent Allocation for call and agent selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Getting the best results with Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Where is Percent Allocation administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

How to administer Percent Allocation for an agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

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

How to administer Auto Reserve Agents at the system level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Administering Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Before you start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

How to administer Service Objective for an agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

How to administer Service Objective for a skill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 7

Administering Predicted Wait Time or Current Wait Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Administering Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Who is Dynamic Queue Position designed for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

How does Dynamic Queue Position work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

How does the Service Objective field work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Where is Dynamic Queue Position administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

How to administer Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

How to administer a Service Objective for a VDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Administering Service Level Supervisor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Where is Service Level Supervisor administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

How to administer Service Level Supervisor for a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

How to administer a Reserve Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

How to administer Call Selection Override system wide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

BCMS and VuStats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Acceptable Service Level (sec): field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108

Direct Agent Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109

Least Occupied Agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110

Least Occupied Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Reserve agents and Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Add or remove skills via Feature Access Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Agent log in and log out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Multiple call handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Percent Allocation Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Predicted Wait Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Service Level Supervisor and reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Abandoned calls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Agent work states . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Audix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Auto available skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Multiple call handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Multiple skill queuing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Redirect on no answer (RONA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Service Objective (sec): field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117

Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Work time and occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118

8Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Agent hold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Agent log in and log out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Call Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Call Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Call Park. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Call Pickup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Conference or transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Extension calls and LOA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120

Non-ACD calls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Redirect on no Answer (RONA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Timed After Call Work (ACW) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

VDN of Origin Announcement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Administering Business Advocate through CMS Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Agent administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Using the Change Agent Skills dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Accessing the Change Agent Skills dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Working with agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Reviewing agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Adding skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Deleting skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Administering call handling preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Administering Greatest Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Administering Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Administering Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Administering reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Using an agent template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128

Accessing the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Adding agents to a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Removing agents from a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Moving agents between skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Using the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Using the Move Agents Between Skills dialog box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Administering acceptable service levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Appendix A: Business Advocate database items and calculations . . . . . . . . . . 135

Database items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Split/Skill items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Agent database items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136

Agent Login/Logout database items. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Dictionary calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Standard Dictionary calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Report-specific calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 9

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.

10 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Selecting calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 23

Predicted Wait Time

Predicted Wait Time (PWT) calculates how long a call waits if the currently available agent does

not take the call. This method is recommended because it results in fewer calls with exceedingly

long wait times 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.

Overview of Business Advocate

24 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Percent Allocation

Percent Allocation allows you to assign a percentage of an agent’s time to each of that agent’s

assigned skills, to total 100% of the agent’s staffed time. Using this method, calls are selected

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).

Selecting calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 25

You can also use Service Objective to create the same level of service for all skills if you set all

of the service objectives the same and set all agents to use Service Objective in call selection.

Later, if you want to make 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.

Overview of Business Advocate

26 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Call Selection Override example

The table below shows that calls are waiting in three of an agent’s assigned skills. All calls have

been queued at the same priority. With Call Selection Override turned on, which call does he

receive?

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.

Skill Skill level Overload

threshold Predicted wait

time

A 1 20 5 seconds

B 1 20 10 seconds

C 2 20 40 seconds

If the call handling preference is . . . Then Direct Agent Calls are sent

first . . .

Greatest Need to an agent.

Selecting calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 27

Note:

Note: This information also applies for skills that are in an overload condition. Direct

Agent Calls are sent to an agent first, before any calls from an over-threshold

skill.

Dynamic Queue Position

This section includes the 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.

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)

If the call handling preference is . . . Then Direct Agent Calls are sent

first . . .

Overview of Business Advocate

28 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

How does Dynamic Queue Position work?

The following figure shows how different service objectives can be used for various VDNs and

queued to a single skill, which simplifies staffing and forecasting.

Dynamic Queue 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.

Selecting calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 29

Call selection examples

The following examples show how the various types of call selection work. For these examples,

assume that calls are in queue for three skills that an agent is eligible to serve. Each scenario is

based on the 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?

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).

Skill number PWT

1 45 seconds

2 90 seconds

3 50 seconds

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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?

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?

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.

Skill number Service objective PWT

1 20 seconds 45 seconds

2 45 seconds 90 seconds

3 20 seconds 50 seconds

Skill number Skill level PWT

1 1 45 seconds

2 1 90 seconds

3 4 50 seconds

Selecting calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 31

Skill Level with Service Objective

In the following example, Service Objective is administered with Skill Level. All calls are queued

at the same priority. Which call is selected for the agent?

In this situation, the agent receives 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?

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.

Skill number Skill level Service objective PWT

1 1 20 45 seconds

2 1 45 90 seconds

3 2 20 50 seconds

Skill

number Target

allocations Actual work

time Adjusted work

time PWT

1 60% 45% 49% 45

seconds

2 30% 35% 40% 90

seconds

3 10% 10% 17% 50

seconds

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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?

Selecting agents

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 33

Agent selection options

Business Advocate offers the following agent selection methods:

●Most Idle Agent (MIA) selects an agent based on the time since completion of the last ACD

call.

●Least Occupied Agent (LOA) selects an agent 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:

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.

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

Selecting agents

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 35

Use this agent selection method only with the Percent Allocation call selection method, which

uses an agent’s target allocations when determining which skill to select under agent surplus

conditions. For best results, when using 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:

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

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

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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 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 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 Occupancy

A 1 90%

B 1 95%

C 2 64%

Agent Skill level Occupancy

A 1 90%

B 1 95%

C 2 64%

Agent Skill Level Time since last Sales call

A 1 5 seconds

B 1 10 seconds

C 2 30 seconds

Selecting agents

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 37

Agent B receives the next arriving call for the Sales skill because Agent Bis the highest skill

level agent who has been idle longest in this skill. Notice that while Agent C has been idle the

longest, Agent C cannot be selected 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 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 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.

Agent Skill Level Time since last Sales call

A 1 5 seconds

B 1 10 seconds

C 2 30 seconds

Agent Target

allocation Current work

time Adjusted work

time Percentage of

target

A 25% 30% 35% 140%

B 50% 45% 49% 98%

C 75% 76% 78% 103%

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Call selection during call surplus

The following table shows what happens during call surplus conditions, according to the call

selection methods that are administered on the switch.

Agent selection during agent surplus

The following table shows what happens during agent surplus conditions, according to the

agent selection method that is administered.

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

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

Automated agent staffing adjustments

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 39

Automated agent staffing adjustments

Business Advocate offers several ways to automate staffing adjustments and enhance your

contact center operation under changing conditions. This section provides details on 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?

Automated agent staffing adjustments

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 41

Overload thresholds

When using reserve agents, you need to assign overload thresholds that determine when

contingency operations go into effect for a skill. Overload thresholds determine the point at

which 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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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.

Developing your strategy

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 43

Developing your strategy

Business Advocate offers many features and feature combinations that can help you to meet

your business goals. This section provides you with information about which features work best

together and 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 . . . Then consider . . .

Maintain service levels while controlling the

time agents spend serving each of their skills

●Percent Allocation

●Dynamic Percentage Adjustment

●PAD

Maintain service levels using more or less

time from reserve resources to supplement

staffing as needed

●Greatest Need

●Service Level Supervisor

●Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

●UCD-LOA

Add customer segmentation with

differentiated levels of service while routing

all segments to the same skill to simplify

staffing

●Greatest Need

●Dynamic Queue Position

●UCD-LOA

Increase revenue by assigning agents their

best skills as primary skills and limiting the

use of reserve skills to eliminate long call

wait times

●Greatest Need

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor

●UCD-LOA

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44 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Different needs within a contact center

You may find that one Business Advocate solution does not fit for your entire organization. Your

contact center may have different needs within particular areas or departments; 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.

Ensure that critical skills are covered,

regardless of caller wait time in other skills

●Greatest Need

●Service Level Supervisor

●Call Selection Override

●Activate on Oldest Call Waiting

●UCD-LOA

Control the time your agents spend serving

their assigned skills while maintaining

flexibility in order to meet service level

requirements for the contact center

●Percent Allocation

●Dynamic Percentage Adjustment

●Call Selection Override

●Service Level Supervisor

●PAD

Automate agent staffing to activate back up

agents a little sooner or a little later to meet

service level goals

●Greatest Need or Skill Level

●Service Level Supervisor

●Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

●UCD-LOA or EAD-LOA

Minimize the complexity of differentiating

service levels for different types of calls that

require similar agent abilities

●Greatest Need or Skill Level

●Dynamic Queue Position

●UCD-LOA or EAD-LOA

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

●Greatest Need

●Service Objective

●UCD-LOA

Spread calls more evenly among agents

while delivering the right level of service to

each skill

●Greatest Need

●Service Objective

●UCD-LOA

Use agents in their most proficient skills

while minimizing the hot seat problem

●Skill Level

●EAD-LOA

If your goal is to . . . Then consider . . .

Developing your strategy

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 45

Avaya support for Business Advocate

Avaya offers a subscription service for Business Advocate customers that provides access to

skilled consultants with expertise in understanding how Business Advocate helps to solve

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

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46 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Call selection methods (call handling preferences)

The following table shows the features that work effectively with the various Business Advocate

call selection methods.

Agent selection methods (hunt group types)

The following table shows which features work with the various agent selection methods.

Call selection method Recommended to work with

Greatest Need ●Predicted Wait Time

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor

●UCD-MIA

●UCD-LOA

Skill Level ●Predicted Wait Time

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor

●EAD-MIA

●EAD-LOA

Percent Allocation ●Dynamic Percentage Adjustment

●Auto Reserve Agents

●Service Level Supervisor

●PAD

Agent selection Method Recommended to work with

UCD-MIA ●Greatest Need

●Predicted Wait Time

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor

EAD-MIA ●Skill Level

●Predicted Wait Time

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor

UCD-LOA ●Greatest Need

●Predicted Wait Time

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor3

Developing your strategy

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 47

Feature combinations to avoid

The PAD agent selection method should not be used with Greatest Need or Skill Level call

selection methods.

EAD-LOA ●Skill Level

●Predicted Wait Time

●Service Objective

●Service Level Supervisor

PAD ●Percent Allocation

●Dynamic Percentage Adjustment

●Auto Reserve Agents

●Service Level Supervisor

Agent selection Method Recommended to work with

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48 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 49

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

Business Advocate solution examples

50 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Maintaining service levels - one scenario

Service levels are critical for many contact centers. In some cases, for example, outsourcing

companies are required to maintain specific service levels to meet 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

Maintaining service levels - one scenario

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 51

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.

Business Advocate solution examples

52 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Overload thresholds and service level targets

The following table shows how overload thresholds and service level targets are set on the Hunt

Group form.

Where administered?

The following table shows where each 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.

Business Overload thresholds Service level targets

A Level 1: 10 90% in 15

B Level 1: 15 80% in 20

C Level 1: 35 75% in 40

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

After Call Work

Considered Idle? n in the ACW

Considered Idle? field Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Predicted Wait

Time predicted-wait-time in

the Call Selection

Measurement field

Feature-Related System

Parameters form

UCD-LOA ucd-loa in the Group

Type field for each skill Hunt Group form (page 1)

Service Level

Supervisor y in the Service Level

Supervisor field for each

skill

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

Threshold Adjustment

field for each skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Maintaining service levels - one scenario

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 53

Results

Service levels are maintained with this solution because Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

automatically adjusts thresholds as needed to activate agents sooner or later to meet a skill’s

service level 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.

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

Level (RL) field for

each skill an agent will

serve as a reserve agent

Agent LoginID form

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

Business Advocate solution examples

54 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Measuring results

The following table shows some of the reports or commands that you can use to determine the

effectiveness of this solution.

If you want to check . . . And determine . . . Use this report or

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

●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

Graphical Skill Overload

Report

Overload thresholds 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

list skill-status

command (SAT command

that the system

administrator can use)

●Activation of Reserve

Agents

●Average ACD Time

●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

Custom Report

Staffing How your skill is staffed and

what the agents are doing Graphical Staffing Profile

Report

●Normal time

●Overload 1 time

●Overload 2 time

How much time skills have

spent in the various states Graphical Skill Overload

Report

Adding customer segments

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 55

Adding customer segments

Contact centers often need to differentiate service for their various markets as a result of

varying customer needs, their company’s strategy for sales or service, or even customer value.

The 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.

Business Advocate solution examples

56 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

The customer segments are as follows:

●Region 1 - New customer market requiring the most aggressive service objectives

●Region 2 - Existing customer market with customers who will abandon quickly

●Region 3 - 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.

Adding customer segments

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 57

Service objectives

The following table shows how service objectives are administered for each of the VDNs on the

Vector Directory Number form:

Where administered?

The following table shows where each of these features is administered through the switch. See

Administering Business Advocate on Communication Manager on page 79 for procedures for

administering the feature.

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

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

ACW

Considered Idle? n in the ACW

Considered Idle? field Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Predicted Wait

Time predicted-wait-time in

the Call Selection

Measurement field

Feature-Related System

Parameters form

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

Type field Hunt Group form (page 1)

Business Advocate solution examples

58 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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).

Dynamic Queue

Position y in the Dynamic Queue

Position field 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

Objective field Agent LoginID form

Skill Levels 1, 2, or 3 in the Skill

Level (SL) fields for the

Sales and Service skills for

each agent, according to

the agent’s proficiency

Agent LoginID form

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

Adding customer segments

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 59

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

Business Advocate solution examples

60 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Increasing revenue

Many contact centers are responsible for a significant amount of their company’s revenue, and

most are seeking ways to increase that revenue. The following retail-based example shows one

of the 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.

Increasing revenue

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 61

The goal is to focus each agent’s time as much as possible on a targeted set of customers.

Dedicating each agent to a customer segment will accomplish this goal, but it will also leave the

contact center vulnerable to maintaining 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 Silver New/unknown

Tier 1 Primary Reserve 1 Reserve 2

Tier 2 Reserve 1 Primary Reserve 2 Primary

Tier 3 Reserve 2 Primary Reserve 1 Primary

Tier 4 Reserve 2 Primary Reserve 1

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62 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Increasing revenue

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 63

The following table shows the values for the current settings:

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.

Customers Overload

thresholds Service

objectives

Platinum Level 1: 20

Level 2: 30 20

Gold Level 1: 45

Level 2: 60 45

Silver Level 1: 60

Level 2: 75 60

New/unknown Level 1: 45

Level 2: 60 45

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

After Call

Considered Idle? y in the ACW

Considered Idle? field Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Predicted Wait

Time predicted-wait-time in

the Call Selection

Measurement field

Feature-Related System

Parameters form

UCD-LOA ucd-loa in the Group

Type field Hunt Group form (page 1)

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

Supervisor field Hunt Group form (page 2)

Overload

Thresholds number of seconds in the

Level 1 and Level 2

Threshold fields for each

skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Business Advocate solution examples

64 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Greatest Need

call handling

preference

greatest-need in the

Call Handling

Preference field

Agent LoginID form

Service

Objective y in the Service

Objective field for each

agent

Agent LoginID form

Reserve Agents 1 or 2 in the Reserve

Level (RL) fields as

appropriate, according to

agent’s tier profile

Agent LoginID form

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

Increasing revenue

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 65

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 . . . And determine . . . Use this report

●Average Speed of

Answer

●Average Abandon Time

●Average ACD Time

●Maximum delay

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

Percent of time a skill was

in each overload condition 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

Activation of reserve agents ●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

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66 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Automating agent moves to back up calls

Contact centers are often faced with the need to handle unexpected peaks in call volumes using

existing staff. Whether this condition is a result of special promotions, 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

Automating agent moves to back up calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 67

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.

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.

Agents Emergency Payment

arrangements Business

accounts Residential

accounts

Group 1 Primary Primary Reserve 1

Group 2 Reserve 1 Primary Reserve 2

Group 3 Reserve 2 Primary Reserve 1

Group 4 Reserve 2 Primary

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68 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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 Not administered

Automating agent moves to back up calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 69

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

Idle? field Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Predicted Wait

Time predicted-wait-time in the

Call Selection

Measurement field

Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Call Selection

Override y in the Call Selection

Override field

y in the Call Selection

Override field for the

Emergency skill

n in the Call Selection

Override field for the

nonemergency skills

Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Service Level

Supervisor y in the Service Level

Supervisor field, except for

the Payment Arrangements skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Activate on

Oldest Call

Waiting

y in the Activate on

Oldest Call Waiting field

for the emergency skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

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)

Business Advocate solution examples

70 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Overload thresholds and service level targets

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

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

Handling Preference field Agent LoginID form

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

(RL) fields for each agent’s

reserve skills, according to

agent’s profile

Agent LoginID form

If you want to

activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

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

Automating agent moves to back up calls

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 71

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.

Business Advocate solution examples

72 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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

●% Within Service Level

●Average Speed of

Answer

●Average ACD Time

●Maximum delay

●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.

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.

list skill-status

command (SAT command

that the system

administrator can use)

Activation of Reserve

Agents The number of calls being

taken by reserve 1 or

reserve 2 agents.

Custom Report

Controlling agent time in a skill

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 73

Controlling agent time in a skill

Some contact centers place special emphasis on providing a balanced mix of calls to each

agent to develop agent abilities in new areas without overwhelming them, or to align agent

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.

Business Advocate solution examples

74 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Agent assignments

The following table shows agent assignments.

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.

Agents Sales Service

Top sales Skill level 1

50% Skill level 2

50%

All others Skill level 1

50% Skill level 1

50%

Controlling agent time in a skill

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 75

Automated agent staffing

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment is administered to adjust target allocations as necessary to

meet the company’s service levels for each skill. If call volume is higher than expected on one

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

Considered Idle? field Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Auto Reserve Agents secondary-only in the

Auto Reserve Agents

field

Feature-Related System

Parameters form

PAD pad in the Group Type

field Hunt Group form (page 1)

Expected Call Handling

Time 300 seconds in the

Expected Call

Handling Time field for

each skill

Hunt Group form (page 2)

Business Advocate solution examples

76 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Dynamic Percentage

Adjustment y in the Dynamic

Percentage

Adjustment field for each

skill

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

the Call Handling

Preference field

Agent LoginID form

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

If you want to activate . . . Then enter . . . On the . . .

Controlling agent time in a skill

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 77

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

●% Within Service

Level

●Average speed of

answer

●Average ACD

Time

●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.

Real-Time Split/Skill

Graphical Status report or

Historical Split/Skill

Graphical Service Level

Report

Staffing Whether the skill is staffed

appropriately. Split/Skill Graphical

Average Position Staffed

Report

Business Advocate solution examples

78 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 79

Administering Business Advocate on

Communication Manager

This section provides details on administering Business Advocate through the switch software.

This section following topics:

●Requirements for setting up Business Advocate on page 79

●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

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80 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

System requirements

The following are the minimum system requirements for using Business Advocate features:

●G3V6 for Business Advocate

●G3V9 for Dynamic Advocate

●Expert Agent Selection (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 CMS Supervisor

or CMS

Create hunt groups X

Create login IDs X

Administer call selection measurement (Current

Wait Time and Predicted Wait Time) X

Administer group types (agent selection methods:

EAD-MIA, UCD-MIA, UCD-LOA, EAD-LOA, PAD) X

Administer call handling preferences (call selection

methods: Greatest Need, Skill Level, Percent

Allocation)

X X (existing login

IDs)

Activate Service Objective by agent X X (existing login

IDs)

Administer Service Objective value by skill X

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 81

Business Advocate decisions at a glance

You need to make several decisions about how to implement Business Advocate. Some of

these decisions affect your contact center system wide, while others affect 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.

Administer Dynamic Queue Position (Service

Objective by VDN, including Service Level Targets) X

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 X

Review or change agent skills X X (existing login

IDs)

Add or delete skills per agent X X (existing login

IDs)

Assign reserve agents X X (existing login

IDs)

Task Communication

Manager CMS Supervisor

or CMS

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

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82 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

●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

Predicted Wait Time (PWT) System Feature-Related System

Parameters form

Feature Decision

level Where administered

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 83

System-level decisions

System-level decisions are made on the Feature-Related System Parameters form. These

high-level decisions, unlike the skill-level or agent-level decisions you make, affect the 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.

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

Feature Decision

level Where administered

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84 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Call Selection Measurement

Call Selection Measurement: predicted-wait-time or current-wait-time - The Call

Selection Measurement: field applies only if you are using Greatest Need or Skill 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.

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 85

Service Objective: (sec) - The Service Objective(sec): field on page 1 of the VDN

form is used for setting service objectives by VDN. The entry for this field is the service level, in

seconds, that you 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

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86 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Group Type (Agent Selection method)

Group Type: EAD-MIA, EAD-LOA, UCD-MIA, UCD-LOA, PAD - The Group Type: field is

displayed on page 1 of the Hunt Group form. This field is used to determine 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.

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 87

Activate on Oldest Call Waiting

Activate on Oldest Call Waiting? y (yes) or n (no) - The Activate on Oldest Call

Waiting? field on page 2 of the Hunt Group form provides the option to use time in queue 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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88 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Requirements for setting up Business Advocate

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 89

Agent-level decisions

Agent-level decisions are those that are determined on the Agent LoginID form. These include

call handling preferences for an individual agent, the determination of whether Service

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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90 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Reserve Levels

RL (Reserve Level) - The RL (Reserve Level) fields on the Agent LoginID form are used

to administer an agent as a reserve agent for a skill or group of skills. Two entries are 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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 93

3. In the Group Type: field of the Hunt Group form, enter one of the following agent

selection options:

●ucd-mia

●ead-mia

4. Press Enter to save your changes.

Administering Greatest Need

Greatest Need is a call selection 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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 95

3. In the Call Handling Preference field, enter:

skill-level

Note:

Note: Optional: If you will use Service Objective with Skill Level, enter y in the

Service Objective? field to activate Service Objective for this agent’s

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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 97

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:

●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:

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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 99

Before you start

When administering Service Objective for a skill, use the Agent LoginID form to activate the

feature for each agent, the Hunt Group form to administer the service objective for each skill,

and the Feature-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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 101

The following figure shows how Dynamic Queue Position can be used to queue calls from three

VDNs with different service objectives, into the Sales skill:

The Service Objective (sec): field is used to control call 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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 103

How to administer Dynamic Queue Position

To administer Dynamic Queue Position:

1. At the command line prompt of your SAT or terminal emulator, enter:

change hunt-group xxx

where xxx is the number of the skill to which 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:

●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:

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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Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 105

Note:

Note: If you are activating Dynamic Threshold Adjustment, it is recommended that you

use only one threshold. If you are not activating Dynamic Threshold Adjustment,

you can enter a second threshold level in the 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:

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:

●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:

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.

WARNING: Agent must log in again before skill changes take effect

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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.

Direct Agent Calls

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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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110 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Agents receive Direct Agent Calls in their standard skills in the same way regardless of whether

the skill is above or below its thresholds. That is, if the agent is administered to receive direct

agent calls before other ACD 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 ●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

Location Preference Distribution

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 111

Location Preference Distribution

Location Preference Distribution tries to route incoming Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) calls

to agents located in the same location as the incoming trunk on which the call 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.

Feature interactions

112 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Percent Allocation

This section includes the following topics:

●Add or remove skills via Feature Access Code on page 112

●Agent log in and log out on page 112

●Auto Reserve Agents on page 113

●Location Preference 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 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.

Feature interactions

116 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Auto available skills

An EAS auto available agent cannot be administered with a reserve skill.

Location Preference Distribution

For information about how Service Level Supervisor interacts with Location Preference

Distribution, 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.

Service Objective

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 117

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.

Feature interactions

118 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Work time and occupancy

This section includes the following topics:

●Agent hold on page 118

●Agent log in and log out on page 118

●Call Coverage on page 119

●Call Forwarding on page 119

●Call Park on page 119

●Call 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:

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

Work time and occupancy

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 119

Call Coverage

All time with one or more ACD calls ringing is included in the calculation of an agent’s work time

and occupancy. This includes calls that are later redirected as a result of the Call Coverage

feature.

Call 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.

Feature interactions

120 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Extension calls and LOA

The following table shows how LOA tracks extension calls (since agent AUX time is not

included in the calculation of agent occupancy).

Non-ACD calls

Time for non-ACD calls ringing, active, or on hold is 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.

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.

Work time and occupancy

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 121

Timed After Call Work (ACW)

If the ACW Agents Considered Idle option is not set, Timed ACW time is included in the

calculation of an agent’s work time and occupancy.

VDN of Origin Announcement

All of the time spent listening to a VDN of Origin Announcement is included in the calculation of

an agent’s work time and occupancy.

Feature interactions

122 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 123

Administering Business Advocate through

CMS Supervisor

This section provides administration procedures for tasks that you can complete for existing

agent login IDs using CMS Supervisor after initial administration is completed on the switch. It

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

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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124 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Using the Change Agent Skills dialog box

The Change Agents Skills dialog box can be used to perform the following tasks for existing

agent login IDs:

●Review agent skills

●Add skills per 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:

●Reviewing agent skills on page 125

●Adding skills per agent on page 125

●Deleting skills per agent on page 125

Agent administration

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 125

Reviewing agent skills

To review an agent’s skill assignments:

1. In the Change Agent Skills dialog box, choose one of the following actions:

●Click OK to accept the skill assignments.

●Click Add Skills or Delete Skills and 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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126 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Administering call handling preferences

Agent call handling preferences, also known as call selection methods, can be administered

through the Change Agent Skills dialog box.

Three call 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.

Agent administration

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 127

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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128 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

To administer reserve skills for an agent:

1. In the Change Agents Skills dialog box, select one of the following from the Call Handling

Preference check box:

●Greatest Need

●Skill Level

●Percent Allocation

Note:

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:

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.

Agent administration

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 129

Accessing the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box

The Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box is used in CMS Supervisor to move groups of agents

between skills or to add agents to or remove agents from a skill. This dialog box can 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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130 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

5. In the To Skill: box, enter or select the skill.

6. In the Level: box, type or select the skill level that you want to assign to the added agents (1

to 16, r1 or r2).

7. Choose one of the following actions:

●Click OK to accept the skill assignment

●Click Script to save the procedure as a script

Note:

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.

CAUTION: 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.

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:

●Click OK to remove the agents from the skill

●Click Script to save the procedure as a script

Agent administration

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 131

Note:

Note: Option: After the agent list is open for a skill, you can remove agents from the

skill. To do so, click an agent or agents from the list, click the right mouse button,

and click Remove Agents from Skill.

The 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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132 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

4. In the Agent List window, click the names of agents that you want to move to this skill.

5. Hold down Ctrl and use the drag-and-drop method to move the agents to the open skill.

Using the 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.

Administering acceptable service levels

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 133

Administering acceptable service levels

Acceptable service levels can be established for CMS reporting on an existing hunt group

through CMS Supervisor using the Split/Skill Call Profile Setup dialog box. 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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134 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 135

Appendix A: Business Advocate database

items and calculations

This section lists the CMS Call Management System (CMS) database tables, database items in

the tables, and the standard Dictionary calculations that use the database items.

Note:

Note: 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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136 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

Agent database items

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

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

Split/Skill database items (continued)

Agent database items

DACALLS_FIRST SKLEVEL2-20

GNSKILL SKPERCENT

LEVEL SKPERCENT2-20

PERCENT TOPSKILL

PREFERENCE USE_SVC_OBJ

ROLE WORKSKLEVEL

SKLEVEL -

Dictionary calculations

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 137

Agent Login/Logout database items

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

Advocate.

Dictionary calculations

This section explains the standard Avaya CMS Dictionary calculations 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.

Agent Login/Logout database items

PREFERENCE SKPERCENT

SKLEVEL SKPERCENT2-20

SKLEVEL2-20 -

Standard calculations

AVG_EQV_AGENTS_STFD MAX_DEDICATED_AGT

DEDICATED_AGT MAX_FTE_AGENTS

FACTIVE_AG R1ACTIVE_AGT

FTE_AGENTS R2ACTIVE_AGT

TEA_AVAUX -

Business Advocate database items and calculations

138 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 139

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).

Adjunct/Switch Applications Interface (ASAI)

140 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

ASA

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 141

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.

AI 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).

ASAI

142 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Call Selection Override

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 143

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.

Call surplus condition

144 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Database tables

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 145

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.

Date format

146 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Expected Wait Time (EWT)

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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.

Expert Agent Distribution (EAD)

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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.

Interval-based items

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 149

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.

II 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.

Intrahour interval

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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.

MIA

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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.

MI See Manual In (MI).

MIA See Most Idle Agent (MIA).

Modify

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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.

QUEUED

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 153

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.

Read permission

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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 See Average Speed of Answer (ASA).

Staffed agent

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 155

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.

Standard agents

156 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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 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.

Vector

Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 157

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.

Vector Directory Number (VDN)

158 Avaya Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

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.

Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 159

Index

Acceptable Service Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

administering through CMS Supervisor. . . . . . 133

field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

access permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

ACD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

ACD call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

acknowledgment window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Activate Agent Trace window . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Activate on Oldest Call Waiting . . . . . . . . . . . 87

activation of reserve agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

active agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Active VDN Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Add Agents to Skill dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . 129

adding customer segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

adding skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Adjunct/Switch Applications Interface (ASAI). . . . . 140

administering

adding agents to a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

adding skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

call handling preference, CMS Supervisor . . . . 126

Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

CMS Business Advocate through

CMS Supervisor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

deleting skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . . . . . 97

Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Greatest Need using CMS Supervisor . . . . . . 126

moving agents between skills . . . . . . . . . . 131

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) . . . . . . 97

Percent Allocation using CMS Supervisor . . . . 127

removing agents from a skill . . . . . . . . . . . 130

reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105, 127

reviewing agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Service Level Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Skill Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Skill Level using CMS Supervisor . . . . . . . . 127

using agent template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

using Change Agent Skills Dialog Box . . . . . . 124

where features are administered. . . . . . . . . 81

After Call Work (ACW) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

agent database items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

agent hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118

agent level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

agent log in/log out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118

agent login/logout database items . . . . . . . . . 137

agent occupancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34, 140

agent position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

agent role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

agent selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38, 140

agent selection methods . . . . . . . . . . 19, 32, 86

agent selection at a glance. . . . . . . . . . . . 35

features that work together. . . . . . . . . . . . 46

agent skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

agent state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

agent surplus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

agent template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

agent terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Agent Trace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

agent work states. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

agent work time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

algorithm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

allocated agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

announcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

auto available splits/skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 113, 142

administering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Auto-In (AI). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

automated agent staffing adjustments . . . . . . 20, 39

Service Level Supervisor. . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) . . . . . . . . . 142

automating agent moves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Auxiliary Work (AUX) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

available (AVAIL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

available agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

available work state. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Avaya Business Advocate

minimum requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

average agent service time . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Average Speed of Answer (ASA) . . . . . . . . . 143

Best Service Routing (BSR) . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Business Advocate overview . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

160 Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

calculation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

call coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

call forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

call handling preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 143

features that work together . . . . . . . . . . . 46

call park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

call pickup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

call queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

call selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 38, 143

call selection measurement. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Call Selection Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

call selection methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Call Selection Override . . . . . . . . . . . 25, 87, 143

call surplus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

call vectoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Call Work Code (CWC). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

caller needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

calls carried . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Change Agent Skills Dialog Box . . . . . . . . . . 124

Change Agent Skills dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . 144

accessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

reviewing agent skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

CMS Advocate

feature combinations to avoid . . . . . . . . . . 47

feature compatibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

CMS Business Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 144

CMS Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

administering Greatest Need . . . . . . . . . . 126

administering Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . 127

administering Skill Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

assigning agent call handling preferences . . . . 126

assigning reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

using the Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box . . 129

combining agent and call selection methods . . . . . 43

conference/transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

connected (CONN). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

controlling agent time in skill . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

current interval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Current Wait Time (CWT) . . . . . . . . . . . 22, 145

Data Collection Off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Data Collection On. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

data points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

database items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

database tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

date format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Delete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

deleting skills per agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Designer Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) . . . . 146

Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Dictionary calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Direct Agent calling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Direct Agent Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

first . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Dynamic Percentage Adjustment . . . . . . . .41, 147

Dynamic Queue Position . . . . . . . . . . . .27, 147

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment . . . . . . . 41, 87, 147

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

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

abandoned calls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

agent log in/log out . . . . . . . . . . . . 112, 118

agent work states . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

Audix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

BCMS and VuStats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

call coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

call forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

call park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

call pickup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

conference/transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Direct Agent Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Dynamic Queue Position. . . . . . . . . . . . .117

extension calls and LOA . . . . . . . . . . . . .110

Least Occupied Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110

multiple call handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

multiple skill queuing . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Percent Allocation Distribution . . . . . . . . . .114

Redirect on no Answer. . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

Service Level Supervisor. . . . . . . . . . 108, 109

Service Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117

VDN of Origin Announcement . . . . . . . . . 121

Business Advocate User Guide February 2006 161

flex agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Forced Busy (FBUSY) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Forced Disconnect (FDISC) . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Forced Multiple Call Handling (FMCH) . . . . . . . 149

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

historical database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

historical reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

HOLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

how agents are selected for calls . . . . . . . . . . 32

IDLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

idle agent queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

increasing revenues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Information Indicator (II) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) . . . . . 149

interval-based items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

intrahour interval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Least Occupied Agent (LOA) . . . . . . . . . . 33, 150

administering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

extension calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

separate customer option . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

List Trace Advocate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Location ID for Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Location ID for Trunks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Location Preference Distribution . . . . . . . . . . 111

Logical Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

LOGOFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

LOGON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

maintaining service levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Maintenance Busy (MBUSY) . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Manual In (MI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

measured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Modify. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

monthly data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Most Idle Agent (MIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Most Idle Agent (MIA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 152

Multi-Agent Skill Change dialog box . . . . . . . . 152

adding agents to a skill . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Multiple Call Handling (MCH) . . . . . . . . . . . 152

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 116

multiple skill queuing

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

Multi-Skill Change dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . 129

multiuser mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Name (Synonym) fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

nonprimary split/skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

OTHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

over threshold state. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

overload thresholds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40, 87

assigning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Percent (%) Within Service Level . . . . . . . . . 153

Percent Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24, 153

Auto Reserve Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Local Preference Distribution. . . . . . . . . . .111

remove skills via FAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112

Percent Allocation Distribution (PAD) . . . . . . . 153

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Phantom Abandon Call Timer . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Predicted Wait Time

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Predicted Wait Time (PWT) . . . . . . . . . . .23, 153

primary skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

QUEUED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

read permission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

real-time database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

real-time reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Redirect On No Answer (RONA). . . . . . . . . . 154

feature interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

refresh rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Remove Agents from Skill dialog box . . . . . . . 130

reserve agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

reserve agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 40

activating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

reserve level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

162 Business Advocate User Guide February 2006

reserve levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

reserve skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

RINGING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Rolling ASA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

roving agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

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

tertiary split/skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

time format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Timetable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

top agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

trunk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

UCD-MIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Uniform Call Distribution - Least Occupied Agent . . . 33

Uniform Call Distribution - Most Idle Agent . . . . . . 33

Uniform Call Distribution (UCD) . . . . . . . . . . 157

Universal Call Identifier (UCID) . . . . . . . . . . 157

UNKNOWN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

user ID. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

User Permissions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

user window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

VDN Calls-Counted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

VDN level decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

VDN of Origin Announcement . . . . . . . . . . . 121

VDN skill preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Vector Directory Number (VDN) . . . . . . . . . . 158

voice terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

weekly data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

window count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

write permission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Audiovox 3.1 Avaya Business Advocate Release User Guide Manual To The F72edcc5 C438 44e1 81f0 Dfaa23c665ec

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