Phone Panel Open Line

Phone Panel Open Line

Open Line is designed to increase your effectiveness as an Agent when high call volumes require the minimum amount of time between calls. When you are using the Open Line feature, you will not hang up your phone in between calls. Instead, your telephone line will remain open as Cloud Contact Center Platform sends calls to you.

Your telephone will not ring when you are using Open Line. Instead, you will hear an audio tone announcing an incoming call. When the call ends you will hear another tone letting you know the caller has disconnected. DO NOT HANG UP YOUR PHONE. The next call will arrive momentarily. You will hear a prompt between call reminding you to stay on the line.

Initiating an Open Line Session

There are two ways to initiate an Open Line session, depending on the Line Group for which you will be taking calls in any given My Schedule block. For typical in-bound calls follow the instructions below. For Line Groups using "Presence Pod" technology, such as Political Outbound, see the special instructions for Presence Pod calls:

1. Launch Phone Panel as usual and select your Line Group and Call Types (as needed)
2. Minimize the Phone Panel window so you can see your Cloud Contact Center Platform Home page
3. Reload the Home page (click your browser's Reload or Refresh button). You should now see an orange link in the Links: section (near the bottom of the page) that reads "Click to initiate Open Line". Click this link

Figure 10-1: Open Line Link

4. Your telephone will ring and you will hear a welcome message confirming that Open Line has been initiated
5. A message appears in the Phone Panel header, showing that you are in Open Line mode

Figure 10-1: Open Line Active Message

Instructions for Presence Pod Calls

Some types of Campaigns place higher demands on the Contact Center platform than others. In particular, outbound Campaigns and Campaigns with potentially large or "spiky" call volumes can require dedicated system resources to ensure proper service levels. "Presence Pods" provide this by grouping all of the required platform services into dedicated units, or "pods."

Presence Pods exist "behind the scenes;" Agents generally need not be concerned with whether the calls they take are part of a dedicated pod or part of the general system. Open Line is the one Agent feature affected by Presence Pods.

If you are scheduled to take calls for a Presence Pod block and Open Line is required, you must initiate Open Line using the Phone Panel:

1. Launch Phone Panel as usual and select Go online from the Presence menu
2. You will see a message telling you that Open Line is required. Click the OK button in that message
3. You telephone will ring and you will hear a welcome message confirming that Open Line has been initiated
4. You will see the Open Line is Active message on your Phone Panel header

Figure 10-2: Start Open Line dialog

• When Open Line is required for Podded calls, the Open Line link on the Home page will not appear. You can only initiate Open Line from the Phone Panel.
• You may be required to reinitiate Open Line when transitioning between My Schedule blocks that use different Presence Pods.

Taking Open Line Calls

While you are connected to Open Line, calls will be automatically routed to you, just as if you were handling regular (non-Open Line) calls. The only difference is your phone will not ring and you must not hang up your phone until you are finished with your scheduled block. Again, incoming calls are announced with a tone. A call's end is announced with a second tone. You can hear these tones by clicking on the audio controls in the feature box above.

Hanging Up on an Open Line Call

If for some reason you need to disconnect from a call in progress, but want to keep your Open Line session active, use the Hang Up button in the Phone Panel.

• Physically hanging up your telephone receiver while in Open Line will terminate the Open Line session. It will also abandon the next call being sent to you and you will be Paused

• If you hang up your phone, you can reconnect to Open Line by returning to the Cloud Contact Center Platform Home page and clicking on the "Click to initiate Open Line" link.

Using Last Call: Ending an Open Line Session

Figure 10-3: Last Call Button

When you want to terminate your Open Line session, use the Last Call button in your Phone Panel. Clicking the Last Call button signals Phone Panel that you want the call you are currently on to be your last call. Once the current call is finished, no more calls will be sent to you and you can safely hang up your phone.