CIC 4.0 SU2 New Feautures

Service Update 2 for the Interaction Center platform was an important update that included several enhancements and new features. The following are highlights from the update as documented in the SU2 Release Notes from Interactive Intelligence.

Integrations Packages

Interactive Intelligence added support for the following integrations in IC 4.0 SU2:

• Salesforce.com
• WFM (Historical and RTA)
• Remedy
• Sametime
• Heat
• Lync Telephony and Plug-in integration
  

The initial Microsoft Lync integration release brings some of the enterprise features of Lync to the contact center. The initial release consists of two main features. It allows configuration and use of Lync endpoints in IC, and support a Lync client plug-in for Interaction Client .NET Edition.

Auto Off-Hook - The IC plug-in for the integration allows users to perform operations in Interaction Client .NET Edition without requiring input in the Lync user interface. For example, if a user clicks Pickup in Interaction Client, the Lync endpoint automatically goes off-hook, as long as the endpoint is configured as an Interaction SIP station. This makes it convenient if the user is using the Interaction Client as a phone interface.

Enhancements to the Interaction Client .NET Edition

Several improvements have been made to the My Interactions view, specifically for multichannel users. New columns allow agents to access immediately the contextual information for an interaction.

The new columns are:

• Details This column contains context-specific information that is based on the interaction type. For calls, it displays the Remote Address (phone number). For callbacks, it displays the subject of the callback. For emails, it displays the email subject, importance, and whether there are attachments. For chats, it displays the name of the user who last typed, and the text they entered. It also shows a typing indicator (icon) to indicate that someone is typing in the chat.
• Attachments This column displays an icon indicating that an attachment exists on for an email interaction, or is blank if no attachments exist. This information is also available through the Details column, but is included separately to allow sorting.
• Chat Response Time This column displays a counter that indicates how much time has elapsed since the last text was entered in the chat. The system administrator can optionally enable a warning when the specified response timer expires. The warning brings focus to the chat window to alert the agent.
• Importance This column displays an icon that indicates whether an email is of high or low importance, and is blank for an importance level that is neither high nor low. This information is available in the Details column, but is included separately to allow sorting.

Exchange Web Services – Mail Connector

Microsoft Exchange Web Services-based integration is now a supported IC mail system, recommended as an alternative to the Microsoft Exchange MAPI-based integration. The support was originally introduced in 3.0 SU15 and is now also available in IC 4.0.

Scheduled Reports

The Scheduled Reports application from Interactive Intelligence is now available for IC 4.0. This release of Scheduled Reports only allows Historical Reports (legacy reporting tool) to be scheduled. A future release will add support for Interaction Reporter (new reporting interface for 4.0) and Report Assistant.

Media Server Selection Rules

Before SU2, IC used one selection process for standard interactions:

1. The device’s location
2. Other locations in the audio path.
3. The IC server location.
4. Any available Interaction Media Server in any other location.

IC still uses this order in a default selection rule configuration, but SU2 allows customers to create custom selection rule configurations to change how IC selects Interaction Media Servers to service calls.

The new configuration options enable the following:

• Selection of a wildcard (any location) to be added or removed from the list (currently always on).

• A list of excluded locations. You can use this list with <Any>.

• This option is useful when, due to bandwidth constraints or other reasons, you do not want “4) Any available Media Server in any other location” to include certain locations.
• A group of locations with equal priority. This grouping allows all media servers in those locations to be treated as if they were in the same location.
• This option may be useful when there is a high-bandwidth connection between locations and it is preferable to distribute the load rather than increase the number of resources available to service calls at one location.
  
• Keep in mind that Load balancing occurs between media servers in a location, rather than between locations. Treating media servers in more than one location as if they are in the same location could also have an unwanted utilization impact.

Interaction Feedback Inbound IVR (On Demand) Surveys

The post-call survey application from Interactive Intelligence now allows customers to easily configure and deploy agent-less IVR surveys that do not require a contact center interaction. This feature extends Interaction Feedback for fully automated surveys, enterprise or departmental surveys, and employee surveys.

Note: The iSurvey application from Avtex also allows this functionality.