Time of Day

[mymite060708]

My customer wants the ability to change open and close times them selves with out changing the script manually,

any one got any ideas how best to do this?

Thanks

[rnarayana]

Are the calls going to unity or to auto attendant.If they are going to unity you can use standard and closed greeting.If they are just ringing on some phones you can use time of the day routing.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

R

[mymite060708]

sorry this is in ipcc express.

The call centre has standard hours but may need to open early and close later some days

[rnarayana]

If it is IPCC Express you can use day of week and time of the day options in script editor to do this.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

R

[Chris Deren]

Well, if you don't want to alter the script, there is no standard way of doing this. One way I've seen done to accomplish exactly what you are doing is to use SQL stored procedure which reads the open and close times from DB, with had a front end web GUI to change the times. It worked great, but was painful to implement.

Chris

[ra_jeshkalra_2]

Hi Cderen,

I have a similar requirement, the customer may have different timing for office close hours, and he doesn't want to change it from IVR script.

Instead of SQL tables can we store the opening and closing timing in XML file(one file for each day).

We let the Administraor to change timings by calling in to a new IVR script which manipulates the timings in the XML file based on the timings entered by customer(DTMF).

Thanks

[William Bell]

If you are looking for a method to "open" or "close" a call center dynamically, then I think you may find a viable solution by looking at using a custom script that one could use to modify an XML file that is read by your standard call center script to modify an open/closed variable.  I have done this for several customers.  In these instances the requirements was that every once in a while they want to close or open the call center outside of the standard operating hours.  This sounds like what you are looking for.  I guess the general assumption on my part is that "most" of the time the call center would follow the standard open/close and holiday hours.

The idea is that you would have a script that a user could call to allow them to open/close the call center via the TUI.  You can configure CCX to authenticate users using their agent/supervisor telephone number and CUCM PIN.  Your script would have to resolve the agent/supervisor telephone number (IPCCX Extension) to the user ID.  Then you collect the PIN and finally authenticate the user.  This is only if you care to control who can open/close your call center.  Just a thought.

The same script noted above could then be used to allow the user to identify "I want to open" or "close" the call center.  The goal of this script is to eventually create an XML file that has a flag as to whether the call center has been administratively closed or open.

Your standard call center script could then read that same XML file and identify whether the call center should be closed or open.  You would have to work out how to incorporate this admin method with your Time Of Day/Day of Week method and come up with what is checked first and what trumps the other.  You may also want to put in a safe guard time that puts a sanity check on whether someone accidently opened the call center manually and forgot to close it.  Just things to ponder.

I have an example on using XML files to feed parameters to CCX scripts.  In the example I am talking about dynamically playing prompts (i.e. message of the day).  But the logic would be similar.  I may actually add to this example with a separate article at a later date.  Anyway, check it out if you are interested.

http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/blogs/using-xml-files-to-control-a-crs-script.html

HTH.

Regards,
Bill

[ra_jeshkalra_2]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for your excellent ideas.

Few Questions:

1.What is TUI

2.With your method the Administrator can closed office hours on the spot, where the moment he activates the flag, the call centre is closed.

But can we expand this to input the timings via DTMF by the administrator and this gets stored in XML with the day of week (say mondy,tuesday e.t.c) and instead of time of day function in IVR, the IVR reads the timings from XML.

3.As you are suggesting it would be of great help if you can post a script.

Rajesh

[William Bell]

1.  TUI is Telephone User Interface.

2.  I don't see why you wouldn't be able to incorporate the time/date input as you are suggesting.  It may get a little tedious.

3.  I won't be able to post a script in the near term.  I would need to scrub an existing script to remove customer data and that will take a little time.  Though, after reading your inquiry I do plan on doing this "scrub" sooner rather than later.  Maybe this weekend.  I will most likely post it to my blog (see link in previous post) first and then to NetPro.

HTH.

Regards,
Bill

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[ra_jeshkalra_2]

TUI-> Pls give e.g. in CRS. Is it the method of calling from IP Phone, like the way

I am saying?

thanks

[William Bell]

Yes.  TUI is a generic term which implies that the user interfacing with the application in question is using a telephone. Much in the same way that GUI (Graphical User Interface)  implies that the user is interfacing via some graphical application.

I have seen TUI also referred to as Voice User Interface (VUI).

HTH.

Regards,
Bill