Abstract

The LiveOps platform is commonly used for routing inbound calls to call center agents. But the LiveOps  platform can also be used to enable outbound dialing features as well. This Application Note will describe  several creative uses for the OutboundDirect.html URL that can enable “click-to-dial” features to help make a call center agent more productive.

Overview

The LiveOps platform provides a wide array of outbound dialing features including:

• Manual outbound dialing
• Click-to-Dial outbound calling (from CRMs like Salesforce.com)
• Push Preview outbound dialing
• Progressive outbound dialing
• Predictive outbound dialing

In addition to these outbound dialing features, there is a web-based method for generating an agent-initiated outbound call using a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). This HTML page is referred to as the “OutboundDirect.html” page.

This Application Note will describe the use of the OutboundDirect.html page and present several specific deployment scenarios and examples which can increase the efficiency and productivity of an agent who needs to dial outbound numbers while connected to the LiveOps platform.

Note:    The OutboundDirect.html page is a native part of the LiveOps platform and can be used by any agent logged in as a LiveOps Voice Agent. But creating specialized use cases and/or customized dialing techniques that leverage the OutboundDirect.html page is the responsibility of the end customer and their own development teams or consultants.

LiveOps warrants the use of the OutboundDirect.html page only for simple outbound dialing use-cases.  For more complex scenarios or for design consultation and deployment assistance the LiveOps Professional Services team can assist on a time and materials basis.

OutboundDirect.html

The OutboundDirect.html URL page can be navigated to using the following syntax:  https://<<TENANT>>.hostedcc.com/mason/agents/outbounddirect.html

Note:    Replace “<<TENANT>>.hostedcc.com” with your specific LiveOps tenant URL address.

When accessed directly, this page allows you to enter a specific phone number and select a specific campaign to use for outbound calling.

The same URL can be appended with parameters including:

• Phone number (“phonenum”)
• Campaign ID (“campaign_id”)

A complete URL example, including parameters, might look like this:

https://mytenant.hostedcc.com/mason/agents/outbounddirect.html?phonenum=12065551212&campaign_   id=12345

Default Web Browser

If you, as an agent, log into the LiveOps platform using a web browser other than your Operating System’s  default web browser, the OutboundDirect.html page with fail to authenticate and will redirect you to the LiveOps Call Center Login page..

Your OS’s default web browser must match the web browser that you used to log into the LiveOps platform in order to enable “click-to-dial” capabilities from non-browser applications.

Padlock Requirements

In order to enable dialing using the OutboundDirect.html page an access permission needs to be set for the LiveOps User Group associated with your agents.

You must enable padlock 311 “OutboundDirectPadlock” for agents to be able to use the URL.

Note:    This access permission, or “padlock”, can only be set by a LiveOps Staff administrator. Please contact your LiveOps services team to have this feature enabled for your users.

The “phonenum” Parameter

The “phonenum” Parameter can accept any legitimately dialable number that works within your tenant. Numbers listed here will dial in the same fashion as if you dialed them manually from within the Phone Panel or from within LiveOps Engage. To determine whether a specific format is valid you can enter the same dial string in Phone Panel or Engage to verify dial-ability.

Additional Parameters

The “isdialout” parameter and the “makecall” parameter currently have no effect on the behavior of the OutboundDirect.html page.

Outbound Campaigns

The OutboundDirect.html page needs to reference a campaign within the LiveOps platform. This campaign can be either an Outbound Campaign or an Inbound Campaign that has been enabled for outbound dialing.

As with all dial-out calls, the campaign selected for use will determine parameters such as:

• The Caller ID sent on the outbound call (called ANI, or Automatic Number Identification)
• The selection of PSTN Telco carriers to use
• Whether call recording is enabled or disabled
• Agent screen pops
• Associated reporting fields
• Wrap-Up parameters
• Transfer capabilities
• Etc.

Note:    The features, capabilities, settings and parameters differ between Outbound Campaigns and Inbound Campaigns configured to allow outbound dialing.  See the LiveOps manuals for more details.

Create campaigns for use with OutboundDirect.html according to normal design principles for outbound dialing.

Note:    It is strongly advised that you test the campaign to be used for manual dialout calls via an agent using either Phone Panel or LiveOps Engage to ensure the features and parameters are functioning properly before deploying OutboundDirect.html click-to-dial capabilities.

Dialout Calling

Remember: when an agent manually initiates a dialout call to a phone number, the first action that occurs is for the LiveOps platform to place a call to the agent.

When using the OutboundDirect.html page to initiate a dialout call to a destination phone number the first thing that will happen in the agent’s phone will ring and the agent’s LiveOps interface (Phone Panel, LiveOps Engage, Desktop APIs, etc.) will display information about the call.

Once the agent answers the incoming call on their phone, the LiveOps system will immediately place a call to the entered destination phone number.

Scenario #1: Click-to-Call within a Web-Based CRM

The LiveOps platform has pre-built tools for many CRM (Customer Resource Management) packages. At the time of this writing there were pre-made integration capabilities with the following CRMs:

• Salesforce.com
• Microsoft Dynamics
• SugarCRM
• Zendesk
• ZOHO
• Saleslogix

Note:    See the following links for additional information on pre-built CRM solutions:  http://www.liveops.com/product/liveops-crm-integration

In addition to these pre-built integrations, you can embed dialing capabilities directly into any web page that  your organization can access and modify. In this scenario we will discuss the use of the OutboundDirect.html page to enable Click-to-Dial features within a CRM. Specifically in this example, we will implement Click-to-Dial from Salesforce.com while using LiveOps Engage.

Configuration Steps

To embed a click-to-dial link within your Salesforce.com pages we will perform the following three steps:

1. Create a campaign within the LiveOps platform
2. Create a custom Formula Field for each type of number you want to dial in Salesforce.com
3. Embed the new Formula Field into your Salesforce.com pages

Step 1: Create an outbound campaign within the LiveOps platform

The OutboundDirect.html page needs to reference a campaign within the LiveOps platform. This campaign can be either an Outbound Campaign or an Inbound Campaign that has been enabled for outbound dialing.

As with all dial-out calls, the campaign selected for use will determine parameters such as:

• The Caller ID sent on the outbound call (called ANI, or Automatic Number Identification)
• The selection of PSTN Telco carriers to use
• Whether call recording is enabled or disabled
• Agent screen pops
• Associated reporting fields
• Wrap-Up parameters
• Transfer capabilities
• Etc.

Create your campaign according to normal design principles for outbound dialing.

Note:    It is advised that you test the campaign used for dialout calls by an agent using either Phone Panel or LiveOps Engage to ensure the features and parameters are functioning properly before proceeding with click-to-dial capabilities.

Once you have a campaign created and tested, you need to determine the campaigns unique campaign identification number (Campaign ID). To do this, log in to the LiveOps Web Portal as an administrator and navigate to “Routing > Campaigns”. Click “Edit Campaign” to edit your campaign.

Now look at the URL address within your browser. You will see the unique Campaign ID for your campaign as the number at the tail end of the URL address. For example, in the diagram below the Campaign ID is 12345.

Step 2: Create a custom Formula Field for each type of number you want to dial in Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com uses objects to store phone number data. Each type of phone number is referred to by its field name. For example, there are standard field names called PHONE and MOBILEPHONE that can contain dialable numbers. Your Salesforce.com instance may have additional standard or custom fields that contain phone number data.

You will need to create a new custom Formula Field for each phone number field you want to turn into a click-to-dial link. These new fields are specific to each type of object (Contact, Lead, etc.).

To create a custom Contact Formula Field that references the OutboundDirect.html page perform the following steps:

1. Log into your Salesforce.com instance as a Salesforce administrator

2. Navigate to the Salesforce.com “Setup” page

3. Navigate to “Build > Customize > Contacts > Fields”
   1. Scroll down to the “Contact Custom Fields & Relationships” section; click “New”
   2. Select “Formula” as the Field Type; click “Next”
   3. Set the Field Label to an appropriate label (e.g. “Phone”)
   4. Set the Field Name to an appropriate name (e.g. “Phone_C2D”)

5. Set the Formula Return Type to “Text”; click “Next”

4. In the “Home (Text) =” field area enter the specific hyperlink for your Call Center and your Campaign ID

Step 3: Modify your page layouts to position the new field

You will want to edit each layout that your agents use to display this object (e.g. Contacts, Leads) and move the newly added field to an appropriate location. For example, the new “Phone” field that was created and added above will be automatically placed at the bottom of your Contacts Layout.

1. From the Salesforce.com “Setup” screen, navigate to “Build > Customize > Contacts > Page Layouts”.

2. Click “Edit” to edit a layout.

Step 4: Test your new Click-to-Dial link

1. Navigate away from the Salesforce.com “Setup” pages by selecting the Contacts tab.

2. Click to view any contact

3. You should now see the “Dial with LiveOps” Link below the actual number

4. Ensure you are logged into the LiveOps platform using the same browser that you have open for Salesforce. And ensure you have an agent tool such as Phone Panel or LiveOps Engage open and visible.

5. Click on the “Dial with LiveOps” link in Salesforce.com

Step 5: Repeat these steps for additional phone number fields, for additional objects and for additional layouts

Each Salesforce.com object (Contacts, Leads, etc.) can have multiple fields (Phone, MobilePhone, HomePhone, OtherPhone, etc.) and can have multiple layouts and page views.

You will need to create a new custom Formula Field for each phone field within each object and then modify each page view as needed.

Note:    Be sure to reference the Salesforce.com phone number field by its “Field Name” not its “Field Label” when entering the HYPERLINK information.

For example, you may want to add custom Formula Fields for each of the following (or more):

• Contacts: Phone
• Contacts: MobilePhone
• Leads: Phone
• Leads: MobilePhone

Note:    The syntax used to create the HYPERLINK text for the “Phone” field is identical whether created within the Contacts object or within the Leads object.  Each custom formula field will reference the phone number field within the object you created it in – but you must re-create the formula field in each new Salesforce.com object where you desire to use it.

Scenario #2: Click-to-Dial within Microsoft Office Applications

The OutboundDirect.html page can be used almost anywhere that an HTML URL can be placed.

This section will discuss how to craft a URL that can be placed into a spreadsheet of phone numbers to enable click-to-dial within the spreadsheet. This technique can be used to significantly improve the efficiency of an outbound sales agent who is manually dialing dozens of phone numbers each day.

Configuration Steps

To embed a click-to-dial link within MS Excel for Windows we will perform the following five steps:

1. Craft the proper OutboundDirect.html URL
2. Test the URL for accuracy in a Web Browser
3. Modify the URL with cell references within an MS Excel worksheet
4. Test the dialing capabilities
5. Modify the Windows Registry to allow direct launching of URLs
6. Retest the dialing capabilities

Step 1: Craft the proper OutboundDirect.html URL

As described above, the OutboundDirect.html URL must reference the following information: Your specific Call Center, the Campaign ID to use and the phone number to dial.

An example URL for a call center of “mytenant.hostedcc.com” dialing the number 1-206-555-1212 using the campaign ID of 12345 would look like this:

https://mytenant.hostedcc.com/mason/agents/outbounddirect.html?phonenum=12065551212&campaign_   id=12345

Step 2: Test the URL for accuracy in a Web Browser

Start by opening your default web browser, log into the LiveOps platform and open an agent interface (Phone Panel, LiveOps Engage, etc.)

Now open a new tab (or new window) in the same web browser and paste your OutboundDirect.html URL that you created in step 1. Press “Enter”.

Your web browser should display a “Dialing …” page, your phone should ring and your agent interface should reflect the call.

If any of these things do not occur, stop and troubleshoot your URL syntax before you proceed.

Step 3: Modify the URL with cell references within an MS Excel worksheet

Start with a simple MS Excel spreadsheet that contains phone numbers such as the sample below:

Next, add a new column to the right of your Phone column entitled “DIAL”.

Select the cell next to the first phone number and select the “Formulas” menu then click the “Insert Function” button.

Locate the HYPERLINK function (it is found in the “Lookup & Reference” category), select it and click the “OK” button.

• For “Link location” paste your URL from step 2.

• For “Friendly name” enter “Dial with LiveOps”.

This will create a nice clickable link next to the phone number:

Step 4: Test the dialing capabilities – Failure

Click on the new link in the Excel spreadsheet.

Your will get the redirection error and be presented with the LiveOps “Login” page even though you’re already logged in. We will fix that in step 5.

Step 5: Modify the Windows Registry to allow direct launching of URLs

Note:    Read more about the redirection issues with Microsoft Office:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2653626/why-are-cookies-unrecognized-when-  a-link-is-clicked-from-an-external-source-i-e

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899927

Now read about the registry setting that alters the behavior to a “direct launch” of the default web browser:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/218153

The exact location of the new registry can vary depending on your version and type (32-bit vs. 64-bit) of Microsoft Windows and your version and type (32-bit vs. 64-bit) of Microsoft Office.

In our test environment we clicked on the “Fix it for me” tool in the above link (MS KB 218153) and the proper settings were placed in the proper place within our registry.

Step 6: Retest the dialing capabilities – Success

Once the registry has been updated, close and restart MS Excel and click on the link.

This time your web browser should display the dialing page, your phone should ring and your agent interface should reflect the call just as it did in step 2.

Microsoft Office for the Mac

At the time of this writing no solution to alter the behavior of MS Word and MS Excel on the Mac could be found. It is recommended that an agent desiring to use these click-to-dial features use a different word processor and spreadsheet program like Pages and Numbers from Apple.