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Introduction to Zone Sets

Time Zone Blocking controls when calls can be placed based to each contact's time zone. It works by comparing the contact's time zone with Zone Set entries that define when that zone can be called.
Zone Sets define for each time zone, days of week and times of day when dialing is allowed.
Campaigns can share the same Zone Set, or use different Zone Sets.

Feature Overview

A Zone Set is a Dialer building block object that defines when individual time zones can be called. Zone Sets have no effect unless they are assigned to a campaign. This implements the Time Zone Blocking feature.

Time Zone Blocking prevents calls from being placed at inappropriate times. Zone Sets helps the Central Campaign server decide whether to select a record for outbound calling, based upon time of day. Time zone blocking also prevents auto-scheduled calls and agent-owned callbacks from being placed at inappropriate times.

To use Time Zone Blocking, the zone column in the contact list should contain each contact's time zone, or zones for each phone number can be looked up using an time zone mapping data set.

A Zone Set contains multiple zone entries, one of which must match the contact's time zone. For each zone entry in a Zone Set, days of the week and specific times of day are defined. When the contact's time zone matches a Zone Set entry, the server can determine whether or not to select the contact record for dialing.

The Dialer Transaction server applies zone blocking to all calls that are sent to Interaction Dialer. Blocking is applied to campaign calls, auto scheduled calls, and agent-owned callbacks. The Dialer server performs one final check for zone blocking prior to dialing each contact.

How the zone column is used

Each record in a contact list contains a zone column. This column can store a string of alphanumeric characters that identify the time zone of contact. The zone field is an arbitrary user-defined string that can be up to 25 characters in length. Most call centers use time zone abbreviations (like those listed below) to identify the time zone associated with each telephone number in a contact list.

Abbreviation	Time Zone
AST	Atlantic Standard Time
ADT	Atlantic Daylight Time
EST	Eastern Standard Time
EDT	Eastern Daylight Saving Time
CST	Central Standard Time
CDT	Central Daylight Saving Time
MST	Mountain Standard Time
MDT	Mountain Daylight Saving Time
PST	Pacific Standard Time
PDT	Pacific Daylight Saving Time
HST	Hawaiian Standard Time
AKST	Alaska Standard Time
AKDT	Alaska Standard Daylight Saving Time

Time Zone Blocking occurs when a Zone Set is assigned to an active campaign. A single Zone Set can be shared by multiple campaigns. No blocking occurs if the campaign is not associated with a Zone Set.

Important: Interaction Dialer requires that the Outbound Dialer server and the Central Campaign server are in the same time zone in order to use Zone Blocking. Zone blocking is not supported when the ODS and CCS are not in the same time zone, since the ODS uses the ODS CCS time zone when doing zone blocking.

Each entry in a Zone Set matches the name of a zone in the contact list, and also specifies when it is appropriate to contact a particular time zone—relative to the local time (system clock) on the Central Campaign Server.

The name of a zone entry must correspond to the name of a zone in the contact list table, or to the name of a zone returned by time zone mapping.

When the Central Campaign server needs to select records from the contact list, it will create a list of zones that are currently blocked based on the current Central Campaign server time. For each record that the Central Campaign server selects from the database, a check will be performed against the Contact's Zone column and the list of blocked zones.

If the Zone entry is not found in the list, the record is available to be called.

Time Zone Blocking is performed by the DialerTransServer process, which runs on the Central Campaign server. The CampaignServer maintains a list of blocked zones in memory. It derives this information from the Zone Set assigned to the campaign.
When the DialerTransServer selects a record from the contact list, it compares zone values in the call record to its list of blocked zones. If a match is found, the call record is excluded from the selection.

This comparison determines whether or not calls are placed based upon time of day information.

Items to Remember

Each campaign may be assigned a Zone Set that contains zone entries which define when it is appropriate to contact the party.
Zone Sets are optional. If you do not assign a Zone Set to a campaign, no Time Zone Blocking occurs when that campaign is active.
The name of each Zone Set entry must match the name of a zone in the contact list table. If the zone field in a contact list record does not match any of the zone entries in the Zone Set, no call blocking occurs for that record.
Time ranges in the Zone Set are always expressed relative to the Central Campaign server's local time.