by Walt Medak
Q: I’m trying to set up our IT department as a hunt group to answer calls in a round-robin type arrangement. I’m new with the Avaya systems so I’m not sure what I need to change to determine how the calls get distributed to the various people.
A: Well, first off, you are correct in setting up a hunt group to distribute calls around your group. From there, a lot depends on exactly how you want the calls to be distributed, and what options you have turned on in your System-Parameters Customer-Options screen. It sounds like you are looking for something fairly simple, so let’s keep that in mind when we discuss the options. The field called “Group Type” on the first page of the hunt group form is what determines how calls are sent to the members of the group. The two most basic types of distribution are called “circ” and “ddc“. Circ (Circular) looks at the order in which you enter the members into the hunt group, and presents calls to the people in that order. It keeps track of the last person to have an active call, and sends the next call to the next person in the list. This would be like you mentioned, a “round-robin” arrangement. The next type, “ddc” (Direct Department Calling) will always attempt to send the call to the first person in the list, and work down from there. This is also known as “hot seat” distribution.
If you have ACD turned on, we can start talking about “agents” logging in to the group to be available to take calls and have more options. The next-most common type of distribution is called “ucd-mia“, or Uniform Call Distribution-Most Idle Agent. This type will look for the available agent that has been idle for the longest time since their last call. Another option is “ucd-loa“, or Uniform Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent. This type looks for the agent who has the lowest percentage of on-call time since they logged in.
There are two more options which are very similar to those called “ead-mia” and “ead-loa“, which stand for Expert Agent Distribution. This requires the “Expert Agent Selection” option to be enabled. The difference between “ucd” and “ead” is that you have to assign a skill level to the agents with “ead“. The system will then look for the agent with the highest skill level as well as the time factors associated with “mia” and “loa“.
The last two types, “pad” (Percent Allocation Distribution) and “slm” (Service Level Maximizer) are not nearly as common. The both try to distribute calls based on targets you have programmed for the skill.
Q: I have been tasked with setting up some kind of system to capture the CDR data from a Prologix system we have in a small office. The location is a couple hour drive for me, and I want to make sure I have all of the equipment I might need to hook up to the system to get the data. What kind of connectivity options do I have?
A: You could have a couple options, depending on whether or not your Prologix system has a C-LAN circuit pack installed. At the very least, there will be a DB25F serial connection coming off of the processor cable labeled “J2″. If your system has a C-LAN board, you can send the CDR data out over an IP connection. To assign the output for the CDR data, you would use the command “change system-parameters cdr“. To send the output to the “J2″ serial connector, you would select “eia” as the output destination. If you want to send the data out over the C-LAN, you would enter either “CDR1” or “CDR2“. There is a little more programming that has to be done using this method. You would also need to use the command “change node-names ip” and assign a name and IP address to the device that will be receiving the data. Then use the command “change ip-services” to assign the output from “CDR1” or “CDR2” to the node name you just created.
And as always, if questions please call 800-452-6477.
