Lucent Technologies Lucent Call Centers Little Instruction Book For Advanced Administration

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Managing vectors 
59 Redirecting and queuing calls 
Redirecting and queuing 
calls 
Each of the following methods can be used to redirect and queue calls.   The 
selection and administration of these optional features is based on the 
business needs, resources, and call processing requirements of the individual 
call center.  They are presented here in order of functionality.  Multiple Skill 
Queuing is the most basic routing solution, while CentreVu Advocate is the 
most robust.  
nMultiple Skill Queuing: Allows a call to queue to up to three skills 
simultaneously.
nLook-Ahead Interflow (LAI) and Enhanced Look-Ahead 
Interflow (ELAI):  Allows a call to interflow only if a remote 
location is better equipped to handle the call.  (See the Managing 
Multi-site Applications section in this book for more about LAI and 
ELAI.)
nBest Service Routing (BSR):  Allows the DEFINITY ECS to 
compare specified skills, identify the skill that will provide the best 
service to a call, and deliver the call to that resource.  (See the 
Managing Multi-site Applications section in this book for more 
about this feature.)
nAdjunct Routing:  Allows the switch to request a routing 
destination from an adjunct processor via Adjunct-Switch 
Application Interface (ASAI).  The switch sends the ASAI adjunct a 
message with information about the calling party.  The adjunct uses 
this information to determine the best place to send the call and 
passes the routing information back to the switch.  (For details on 
Adjunct Routing, see the “Adjunct Routing” chapter of the 
DEFINITY Enterprise Communications Server Call Vectoring/
Expert Agent Selection (EAS) Guide.) 
						

							Managing vectors 
60 Redirecting and queuing calls 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
nExpert Agent Selection (EAS):  Allows you to match the needs of 
your callers with the talents or abilities of your agents.  You can 
establish skills to which you assign agents based on such criteria as 
language-speaking abilities, product knowledge, selling skills, 
technical expertise, customer service skills, ability to handle irate 
customers, or any other criteria or customer needs.  EAS can help 
you reduce transfers and call-holding time, and can increase 
customer satisfaction because calls are answered by the most highly 
skilled agents for specified caller needs.  (Details on using EAS with 
Call Vectoring can be found in the “Expert Agent Selection” chapter 
of the DEFINITY Enterprise Communications Server Call Vectoring/
Expert Agent Selection (EAS) Guide.) 
nCentreVu Advocate:   Automates call and agent selection and 
simplifies vector design.  With CentreVu Advocate, you define 
business rules to determine for each skill which calls are selected and 
which agents receive them.  You can determine whether to assign 
reserve agents for overload conditions, and you can administer 
service objectives for particular skills to help meet your call center’s 
goals.  (Additional information on CentreVu Advocate can be found 
in the Managing Call and Agent Selection section of this book.) 
Multiple skill queuing 
ACD skills are typically staffed to handle the average amount of call traffic 
expected for a particular period of time. During periods of unexpectedly 
heavy call traffic, callers may have to wait too long for service, causing an 
increase in abandoned calls. One way to overcome this problem is to queue 
calls to one or more additional skills when callers have to wait for service 
from the first skill. Multiple Skill Queuing allows you to queue calls to up to 
three skills simultaneously. The first skill to which the call is queued is 
called the main skill; the second and third skills, if used, are considered 
backup skills. In addition to providing better service to callers, Multiple 
Skill Queuing allows you to achieve better agent utilization by increasing 
the pool of agents who are available to serve a call.  
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Managing vectors 
61 Redirecting and queuing calls 
When Call Vectoring is activated, queued calls can be assigned to one of 
four priority levels, Top (t)
, High (h
), Medium (m
), and Low (l).  These 
prioriy levels allow you to further define how calls are answered.  These are   
Within each priority level, calls are processed sequentially as they arrive 
(essentially a first in/first out approach).  A vector can be administered to 
queue calls at any of the four priority levels.  
The following is an example of a vector that queues calls to another skill if 
calls wait for approximately 30 seconds in the initial skill’s queue.
1. queue-to skill 3 pri m
2. wait-time 12 secs hearing ringback
3. announcement 5400
4. check skill 5 pri m if calls-queued < 3
5. wait-time 998 secs hearing music
In this example, step 4 queues calls to skill 5 if fewer than three calls are in 
skill 5’s queue at the specified priority or higher.  That means that if a call 
waits in skill 3’s queue for approximately 30 seconds (the 12-second wait 
interval plus the announcement play interval) and there are fewer than three 
calls in skill 5’s queue, the call remains queued to skill 3 and is also queued 
to skill 5.  The call remains queued to both skills 3 and 5 until it is answered 
by an agent or the caller hangs up.      
						

							Managing vectors 
62 Redirecting and queuing calls 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Call Prompting
Call Prompting is an optional feature that allows you to route calls according 
to the digits collected from the caller.  These collected digits can be:  
nTreated as a destination for routing to internal extensions (skill/hunt 
group, station, or announcement), VDNs, attendants, remote access 
numbers, or external numbers such as a trunk access code
nUsed to collect branching information, directing a call to another 
step or vector
nUsed to select options from a menu, so customers can select a service 
or information, for example, “press 1 for Sales, press 2 for Customer 
Service”
nDisplayed on an agent’s display to save them time serving the 
customer, for example, indicating a customer-entered account 
number
nPassed to an adjunct, via ASAI, for further processing. 
For more detailed information on Call Prompting, see the “Call Prompting” 
chapter of the DEFINITY Enterprise Communications Server Call 
Vectoring/Expert Agent Selection (EAS) Guide. 
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Managing vectors 
63 Administering Call Vectoring 
Administering Call Vectoring
After you develop your call vectoring strategy, you need to administer your 
solution so that the DEFINITY ECS can implement it.  The basic steps to 
administering a call center with Call Vectoring are outlined below.  The 
steps vary slightly, depending upon whether EAS is enabled for your system.    
Non-EAS  
To administer call vectoring for systems without EAS:
1. Assign a Hunt Group number and Call Distribution method 
to each caller need. 
2. Assign DNIS (Dialed Number Identification Service) as a 
VDN.
3.Assign extensions to agents’ physical terminal locations.
4. Assign each agent a unique login ID.
5. Assign agent extensions to splits.
6. Assign a vector to each VDN.
7. Write vectors to match your call center objectives.
For more detailed information on administering Call Vectoring for systems 
without EAS, please refer to the DEFINITY System’s Little Instruction 
Books for Basic and Advanced Administration. 
						

							Managing vectors 
64 Administering Call Vectoring 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
EAS
To administer call vectoring for systems with EAS:
1. Assign Hunt Groups.
2. Assign VDN/Skill Preferences.
3. Assign agent skills.
4.Write vectors to meet your call center’s objectives.
For specific procedures on administering Call Vectoring with EAS, please 
refer to the “Expert Agent Selection” chapter of the DEFINITY Enterprise 
Communications Server Call Vectoring/Expert Agent Selection (EAS) 
Guide. 
Writing vectors
There are two basic principles to remember when writing vectors: 
nMinimize the amount of call processing, in other words, limit the 
number of vector steps.
nAvoid vector steps with calls made outside of business hours or 
queues to groups with less than desirable resources or characteristics.
Vectors can be created, modified, or deleted through the following three 
methods:  
nDEFINITY ECS Basic Screen Administration (Call Vector form)
nCentreVu Visual Vectors software (Vector Editor) 
nCentreVu CMS (Call Center Administration: Vector Contents 
window)   
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Managing vectors 
65 Administering Call Vectoring 
Tip:
It is always a good idea to print each vector before modifying it.  It is 
also recommended that you save translations in the switch after 
making changes, and print and file the contents for each vector.
While the administration methods and on-line forms or screens are different 
for each of these methods, they are based on the same programming 
commands, known as vector commands.  As many as 32 steps containing 
vector commands can be used to create a call vector.  
Additional information is available for administering vectors through each 
of these methods.  For DEFINITY ECS, see DEFINITY Enterprise 
Communications Server Call Vectoring/Expert Agent Selection (EAS) 
Guide.  For Visual Vectors, please refer to the Visual  Vectors User Guide. 
For CentreVu CMS, see the CentreVu CMS Administration Guide.
Tip:
With the complexity of call centers, we recommend keeping and 
updating a record for traffic configurations used for your call center.  
This log can be used as a reference to help determine the source of 
calls to a split or skill and what treatment those calls receive. Below is 
a table example to use for logging configuration information.
The following table provides an overview of the primary vector commands 
used with Call Vectoring.   Split/Skill Vector VDN Trunk 
						

							Managing vectors 
66 Administering Call Vectoring 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
    
Table 1: Vector Commands
Command Description
adjunct routingRequests adjunct to route call   
(requires optional CallVisor ASAI 
capabilities)
announcementConnects calls to a recorded 
announcement  
busyConnects caller to a busy tone  
check skillConnects or queues a call to a skill on 
a conditional basis, for instance, check 
skill x if available agents
collect digitsPrompts a caller for digits (requires 
Call Prompting)
consider skill/locationObtains BSR status data from a local 
skill or a remote location (requires 
optional Best Service Routing) 
converse-on skillDelivers a call to a converse skill and 
activates a voice response unit (VRU)
disconnectDisconnects the call with optional 
announcement  
goto stepCauses unconditional/conditional 
branch to another step in the vector
goto vectorCauses unconditional/conditional 
branch to another vector
messaging skillAllows caller to leave a message for a 
call back 
						

							Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Managing vectors 
67 Administering Call Vectoring 
Tip:
Vector design is simplified when CentreVu Advocate is used. Such 
steps as multi-queuing, checking back-ups, and making adjustments 
to queue priorities are generally eliminated.
More detailed information about vector commands can be found in the “Call 
Vectoring Commands” chapter in the DEFINITY Enterprise 
Communications Server Call Vectoring/Expert Agent Selection (EAS) 
Guide.
queue-to skill/bestConnects or queues call to the primary 
skill or to the best resource found by a 
consider series (“best” resource only 
when used with BSR)
reply-bestSends BSR status data to primary 
vector in a multi-site application 
(requires BSR)
route-toConnects call to destination entered 
via collect digits command, or 
connects call to internal/external 
destination  
stopStops further vector processing
wait-timeInitiates feedback to caller, if needed, 
and delays processing of the next step
Table 1: Vector Commands — Continued  
Command Description 
						

							Managing vectors 
68 Performing daily maintenance 
Lucent Call Center’s Little Instruction Book for advanced 
administration  585-210-936  Issue 1
December 1999
Performing daily 
maintenance
The following DEFINITY ECS commands can help you review vector 
performance and determine the cause of problems.  
nTo trace call flow and verify whether your vectoring is working as 
you intended, use the following commands, which display or print a 
real-time list of vector processing events for a single call:
— Use the list trace vdn <
vdn extension> command to start 
a trace with the next call that arrives at the specified VDN.  
This command traces a call through multiple vectors.  
—Use the list trace vec <
vector number> command to 
start a trace with the next call that arrives at the specified 
vector.  This command does not trace a call through multiple 
vectors.    
nTo display information about events that have changed expected wait 
time, use a list trace ewt low/high/top/medium  command.  This command starts a trace with the next call 
that arrives for the specified skill and displays or prints a real-time 
list of processing events for all calls until the command is canceled.
nTo track unexpected vector events (errors resulting from exhausted 
resources or faulty vector programming), use the Display Events 
form and the display events command for the appropriate vectors.  
Vector events identify and indicate the source of common 
malfunctions and administration errors.