Configuring Away Reasons

12.1 What are Away Reasons?

An away reason is an explanation for why an Agent is going offline or becoming unavailable for calls. Agents can be required to select from a predefined list of reasons via their Phone Panel when performing either of these actions. As Contact Center Administrator, you define the list of possible away reasons. The actual list of reasons seen can be customized per Agent, based on their Agent Attributes.

12.2 Away Reasons and Agent Presence State Options

There are three ways to configure away reasons, as shown in Table 12-1:

You can allow Agents to go offline without specifying an away reason (this is the default configuration for Contact Center). However, if your Contact Center has away reasons configured and your Agents possesses the corresponding Agent Attribute to display them, those Agents are required to select a reason when going offline. If you allow unavailable mode, away reasons are required.

There is only one list of away reasons per Contact Center. Whether a given Agent sees a specific reason depends on the Agent Attribute defining that reason. If visible, whether that reason appears in the Agent Phone Panel as an offline reason or as an unavailable reason depends on the Worktype Unavailable Allowed attribute setting for that Agent. Agents can see an away reason either for going offline or becoming unavailable, but not both at the same time.

12.3 Defining Away Reasons

Figure 12-1: Configuring Away Reasons

To create away reasons:

1.  Select the Configure > Call Center > Edit Call Center menu.
2. Open the Away Reasons tab.

• If you receive a message about an "Unresponsive Script", click Continue.The Edit Call Center page contains a lot of Javascript and your browser may time out before downloading the entire page. Click Continue to tell your browser to wait for the entire page to download.

3. Click the Add Away Reason link

4. (Optional) Enter a Code for this reason.

• Codes are optional and are not displayed to Agents. Codes are provided as a way of integrating with 3^rdparty workforce management tools. You can export away reason records, with codes, using the Report Tool. Codes can also be used to enable viewing certain away reason usage in Live Dashboards

5. Enter a user visible Description for your new away reason.

6. Using the Attribute drop down menu, select the Routing Attribute that will determine who can see your new away reason. Note that the Routing Attribute must already be defined before you can select it here.

We recommended you use a "yes/no" (Boolean) type Routing Attribute. Only Agents who have a "non-zero" value for the specified Routing Attribute will see this away reason. If the Routing Attribute's value is "no" (which equates to zero, or false) or if the value is blank, the Agent won't see this away reason in their Phone Panel. If the value is "yes" (which equates to one, or true), the Agent will see it. If, on the other hand, you use a String type Routing Attribute, you must only use the values "0" (zero) or "1" (one). If you use "yes" and "no" in a String attribute, these will both be treated as non-blank values, which equate to one, or true.

7. Click the Save Changes button

 12.4 Allowing the Agent Unavailable Presence State

For any given Agent, away reasons can be applied to either the offline or unavailable presence state (but not both). The default is to allow away reasons for going offline. To display away reasons for becoming unavailable, set the Agent Attribute: Worktype Unavailable Allowed to yes:

Figure 12-2: Enabling Unavailable Work Type

1. Select the User Accounts > Edit Users menu.
2. Locate the Agent you wish to edit.
3. Click the Administrative tab,
4. Set the Worktype Unavailable Allowed Agent Attribute to Yes.

This attribute can be set for multiple Agents at one time:

Figure 12-3: Enabling Unavailable Work Type for Multiple Users

1. Use the search and/or group functions in the User Accounts > Edit Users page to display and select the Agents you want.
2. Click Edit Attribute.
3. Select the Worktype Unavailable Allowed Agent Attribute.
4. Type 1 in the Attribute Value field.
5. Click Apply Change.

You must only use the values "0" (zero) or "1" (one) when setting logical Attribute values for multiple Agents. That is because the entry field in this dialog only accepts string type values. As mentioned above, if you use "yes" or "no" in a String attribute, these will both be treated as non-blank values, which equate to one, or true, when applied to logical Attribute types.

12.5 Reporting on Away Reasons

You can view away reason usage in historical reports and in Live Dashboards.

Away Reasons in Report Tool

Away reason metrics appear in the Agent Activity Detail and Agent Activity Summary Report Types.

For details on these reports, consult the Report Types Glossary entries for these Report Types. For general information about using Report Tool, see the Report Tool User Guide .

Away Reasons in Live Dashboards

A Live Dashboard can include Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the number of Agents on break, number of Agents at lunch and number of Agents in Training. To enable these KPI, follow the steps outlined in section 12 .3 above to create three away reasons with the following values in the Code field:

• Break
• Lunch
• Training

These Code field values must be typed exactly as shown.

See the Live Dashboard User Guide for more information about Live Dashboards.

(Staff Only) Enabling Away Reason Reports

To enable the Report Types listed above:

1.  Select the Configure > Call Center > Edit Call Center menu.
2. Add the following string to the LTool Callcenter LTools Enabled field:agentdetailactivity:group,agentdetailactivity:detail,agentsummaryactivity:group

• Be sure to include the commas between the report names.

3. Click Save Changes.

 12.6 (Staff Only) Enabling Away Reasons

This information is for Staff Only.

The ability to create and edit away reasons is controlled by several padlocks. To enable a specific group in a target Contact Center to create away reasons:

1. Sign into the Contact Center as a user with permissions to create and edit padlocks as well as to impersonate other users.
2. Impersonate the LiveOps user in the target Contact Center .
3. Select the User Accounts > Edit Users menu.
4. Click the Edit Permissions link for the desired Group (e.g., Admin) and enable the following padlocks:
   • /callcenter/EditPadlock
   • /chat/AwayReasonPadlock
   • /editcallcenter/AdminPadlock
5.  Save Changes.

The Routing Attribute Worktype Unavailable Allowed tells the Agent's Phone Panel that any away reasons seen by that Agent are for the unavailable presence state rather then the offline presence state. This Attribute does not exist by default; it must be created in each Contact Center that allows the unavailable presence state.

To create this Routing Attribute:

1.  Select the Routing > Routing Attributes menu.
2. Click Add New Attribute.
3. Type Worktype Unavailable Allowed in the Attribute Name field.
4. Set the Category to Administrative.
5. Set the Status to Active.
6. Set the Attribute Type to Normal.
7. Set the Data Type to Yes/No.
8. Set the Default Value:
   • If set to Yes, all Agents who see away reasons will see them under the Unavailable menu option in their Phone Panel .
   • If set to No, Agents who see away reasons will see them under the Offline menu option in their Phone Panel unless their individual Attribute setting has been overridden.
9.  Available for Reporting to Yes.
10.  Machine Generated to No.
11.  Save Changes.

The Routing Attribute name, Worktype Unavailable Allowed, must be entered exactly as shown or the system will not recognize it.