Agent Login Process
Logging an agent into a campaign is an asynchronous process. The sequence (from the point of view of the agent layer) is as follows;
- A message is sent to Softdial CallGem™ to request to log in the agent via the Agent Login [AL] message
- Softdial CallGem™ will respond with a Logged In [LI] message, meaning that the agent is now logged into the campaign.
An agent may be logged into only one campaign at any specific time. However, agents may be automatically moved between campaigns e.g. in call blending (See Moving Agents).
- After the agent layer has received confirmation of being logged in, the agent can make ad-hoc calls, i.e. calls initiated by the agent rather than by the campaign layer.
Going ACD Available
When logged in, in order to start receiving calls that have been served to Softdial CallGem™ from the campaign layer, the agent must go ACD Available, as follows.
- The agent sends an Agent Available [AA] request message to Softdial CallGem™
- Softdial CallGem™ responds with a Now Available [NA] message back to the agent layer.
Going ACD Unavailable
An agent may request to go Unavailable on the campaign using the Agent Unavailable [AU] request message. The request to go unavailable must specify a priority which determines how quickly the agent will go unavailable. The priority rules are described in the Changing Agent Status page.
Depending upon the priority of the request, the agent may receive further calls before Softdial CallGem™ sends the Agent Free [AF] message to confirm that the agent is no longer available to receive calls on the campaign.
The priority level of an Agent Unavailable [AU] message should normally be 0, meaning that any predial in progress associated with that agent will still be handled by that agent before the agent is made unavailable. This is a vital part of the mechanism designed to minimise the number of call abandons which in turn maximises the dialing rate on outbound predictive campaigns.
Higher priority levels should only be used when absolutely necessary, as they affect the performance of Softdial CallGem™ as a predictive dialer (due to an increase in abandoned calls).
Logging an agent out
When an agent has gone unavailable, they may then request to logout of the campaign by sending the Log Out [LO] message to Softdial CallGem™.
Softdial CallGem™ will respond with a Now Logged Out [NO] message, at which point the agent is logged out of the campaign.
From V10.6.366 - when a nailed-up agent hangs up during their login session and the agent is talking or wrapping up, the hang up is treated as just dropping the customer call rather than logging the agent out. This enables the agent to disposition the call through their agent desktop UI and prevents session data loss. When the agent has ended the call (by sending a Transaction Complete [TC] message), Softdial CallGem™ immediately tries to nail up the agent extension again, and will seek to avoid transferring calls to the agent until the nailup is re-established.
In some scenarios this can result in customer calls being dropped as a host interrupt. In this case, if the previous behaviour of killing the agent along with the call session is still required, the Softdial CallGem™ registry key AllowHangup, with a value of 0 must be created.
About Virtual Agents
A 'virtual agent' is created by Softdial CallGem™ to simulate a live agent in situations where there is no need to tie up a live agent. For example, in an inbound IVR process, a virtual agent is used to manage the interaction with the caller. Virtual agents may also be used on outbound campaigns where an IVR session is to be initiated on connect.
The process for logging in virtual agents is the same as described above with the exception that the Agent Login [AL] message contains a Virtual Agent (VA) parameter indicating that the agent is a virtual agent. This Virtual Agent (VA) parameter is reflected in the Switch Login [SL] message that Softdial CallGem™ sends to the telephony layer and also in the Agent Connect [AC] message sent by Softdial CallGem™ to the agent layer to advise that the agent has been connected to the calling or called party.
Virtual agents are created by adding them to the Softdial Scheduler configuration file. This can be done directly by editing the file or by using one of the following UI options:
- Using the Administrator campaign in Softdial Scripter™
- Using the Scheduler REST API
- (from V10.6.55) Using the Scheduler Configuration Utility
A virtual agent will be assigned generated Agent Name (AN), Agent Description (AD) and Agent Extension (AE) parameters. A typical virtual agent logon message would look like this:
AL\CNInbound\ANAutoVirtual_b0f61..\ADAutoVirtual_b0f61..\AEAutoVirtual_b0f61..\MSScheduler\VA
The MSScheduler and VA parameters at the end of the message indicate that this is a virtual agent that was provisioned by the Scheduler service.