UCCE 12.x Courtesy Callback Auto-Answer Configuration

[Vaden Green]

I am working on implementing Courtesy Callback for my organization. The basic configuration was built by someone who is no longer working with us when they were helping on UCCE a contact center upgrade.

I have everything working but the callbacks always start with an auto-answer by the agent and then the call to the customer is kicked off. We do not have auto-answer turned on for agents. When a call in the queue is sent to an available agent, the agent's phone rings and they answer it. The issue with auto-answering for the specific group is they have a high rate of RONA. I fear that they will not realize a call has been delivered and thus the customer gets dead air as the agent is not engaging with them.

Does anyone know where in UCCE, Call Studio, Finesse, VVB, etc. this might be configured in. Everything I have found online through Google or AI engines has not gotten me to where this might be configured for courtesy callback.

[david.macias]

There's a good bit to unpack here, so let me start with some questions.

- Sounds like you're using some custom courtesy callback mechanism. Can you explain how it work?

- You want these CCB calls to not be out answered, but only for specific agent population, right?

[Vaden Green]

We are using a custom configuration for Courtesy callback. Instead of using EWT we are using Longest Waiting Call to determine if we want to offer courtesy callback. Our contact centers are generally very small in comparison to other large organizations and EWT could be far off the actual time the expected wait is.

If the longest call waiting is higher than the threshold we run an external script for a Call Studio Application that checks the ANI, reads it back to the caller and then prompts for acceptance. Once the callback number is confirmed the call is passed back to the original ICM script and the caller hears 'Goodbye'. The courtesy callback call is held in a Callback ICM script in a waiting node for up to 20,000 seconds. Once an agent is available, the agent phone auto-answers and a call is automatically made to the callback number.

We are using Priority Queueing to handle the queue portion and Business Hours for determining when to offer a courtesy callback option to our callers.

Ideally we could turn on or off courtesy callback for any agent team/contact center. However, we have very few groups using auto-answer so the preference is to to not auto-answer any queued calls.

[bill.king1]

Are you saying this group's non callback calls are not being auto answered, but the ones using callback are?
If so, you'd likely have to give more detail on the Callback ICM script you mentioned. Auto answer is controlled at the UCCE agent desk setting typically, although it can also be set at the UCM phone line level as well. However, in both those cases, if you're truly doing it as inbound calls somehow, then it should be the same behavior from an agent perspective.
If however your callback application is really configured in some other way where the call back isn't like an outbound call (like you're using a dialer or Social miner/task routing, etc.), then that can be a different story.

[Vaden Green]

Correct, standard inbound queued calls where the caller has waited to be answered do not auto-answer.

Our Callback queue however, does auto-answer for the agent before initiating the call to the original calling party.

This configuration is making very little sense to my entire team.

The Callback ICM script is pretty simple but refers to a micro app named CCPCallback. I included a screen print of the ICM script.

[bill.king1]

That looks to be like I said, the normal inbound calls are using the agent's desk setting.
The attachment you did looks to be used as part of a dialer campaign, which can use separate settings to determine when to send the calls to the agent.
If you look in configuration manager and/or if you look at the Script Manager numbers for that script, if you confirm you see that it is a dialer used for these, then you can look to change the behavior.

[Mark Knepper]

Thanks Bill, working greenv1971 on this. I have confirmed that we are using CCP (same as Social Miner?) to create a Callback Campaign. We are not using SIP trunking, so I believe this was why we went the route of using UCCE with Outbound Option. That being said, I can't figure out where the dialer is, as the documentation on Outbound Option says to update the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cisco Systems, Inc.\ICM\<instance_name> \Dialer\AutoAnswerCall. However, I can't find that key on the PGs where I would expect to find the dialer.

[bill.king1]

Look on the servers(s) where you think the dialer is configured under c:\icm\instance_name\dialer, and that's then where you should be able to see the registry settings. If you don't see the dialer folder there, then it isn't installed on that machine. Good luck, please mark helpful posts.

[Vaden Green]

I looked across all eight of our PGs and none of them have a file (or folder) named 'dialer' located within the directory structure.
C:\icm\prod1

[bill.king1]

This may be a basic question, but Social Miner was mentioned a little earlier. Are you sure you in fact are using a dialer vs. say something like Social Miner for callbacks?
If you look in the HDS under a table like Dialer_Detail, do you see activity for instance?
If perhaps you are using Social Miner, this guide may help you (for older version but might help you track it down).
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/socialminer/socialminer_1162/user_guide/Guide/cusm_b_cisco-socialminer-user-guide-release_1162.pdf

[Vaden Green]

The HDS DB has no entries in the Dialer. I'll look into the documentation you shared tomorrow. Thanks for the pointers.

[Vaden Green]

I read through the documentation and cannot find anything in our configs to point to where the auto-answer is setup. All of the places I would expect to see something have nothing configured.

I verified that queued callers who wait to be answered rig the agent phone. Callers that selected the callback option immediately auto-answer for the agent and simultaneously place the callback.

- CUCM is not configured for auto-answer
- Agent Desk Settings are not configured for auto-answer
- There are no 'Dialer' settings in the Registry of any of the PGs
- The UCCE Config Manager > Outbound > Dialer has no entries
- The UCCE Config Manager > Outbound > Campaign has no entries.
- In the CVP web interface the System > Courtesy Callback the following is presented: "There currently are no configured Unified CVP Reporting Servers. In order to successfully deploy the Courtesy Callback configuration, first configure a Unified CVP Reporting Server."

One thought was maybe it was the CCPCallback external script but nothing in it looks to control this behavior.

Any place else I should be looking at?

[bill.king1]

Have you looked in your HDS and see what is the routing client for these calls that your agents are getting/hitting that script? That should at least clarify for you if this is dialer based, some other routing client based, if these are being sent weirdly somehow from UCM, etc., and then hopefully you can go from there.

[Vaden Green]

Updating since I got an answer from Cisco TAC on this issue. I provided call logs and they were able to trace the call through UCCE/CUCM.

Cisco TAC Response:
From the UCCE Features Guide, it is mentioned that the agent has no control on when the call will be placed:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/icm_enterprise/icm_enterprise_12_6_2/configuration/guide/ucce_b_features-guide-1262/ucce_m_agent_request-1261.html#concept_ED0D069F93F9A45F2129374D1404C92A

This is working as designed.

[bill.king1]

Thanks for posting the resolution, so they aren't using outbound dialer, but instead using the Agent Request new feature. 
If your concern is still that the agents will experience this but not be aware, what you might be able to do (since I'm guessing Agent Request won't support things like agent greeting or whisper), is set up a Finesse workflow based on this type of call. I've not done it/tried it, but might be something to look into.