Interaction Desktop DDE API Developer's Guide

This document explains how to automatically launch (pop) an application program when a call arrives on a specific queue, using CIC cooperatively with Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). DDE is an inter-process communication protocol that allows applications to exchange data and commands.  

In the CIC environment, a screen pop action must be defined in Interaction Administrator, and associated (registered) with a queue. Once the IC server is configured, Interaction Client Desktop running on agent PCs will send commands and data to a locally installed application, causing it to pop it whenever a new interaction alerts on the registered queue.

For tutorial purposes, procedures in this section define an action that opens a Microsoft Word document when a call alerts on a user queue.

Requirements

1. Interaction Desktop must be running on the agent's system. It can be minimized, however.

2. The application to pop must conform to Microsoft's Dynamic Data Exchange Management Library (DDEML) specifications, and its path must be defined in the workstation's system path variable.   

3. The application to pop must be defined as an action in Interaction Administrator.  Actions identify the application, commands it recognizes, and data sent to it. For example, an action might open a web browser and command it to display a specific URL.

4. The action must be registered with a user or workgroup queue. Registration configures CIC to notify Interaction Desktop when it should pop the application in response to a communications event.