Dialer Efficiency

There are often multiple ways to do similar things in Dialer. Using the most efficient method will make Dialer and CIC more efficient and capable of supporting more agents, calls, and other processing. This section highlights some important considerations for Dialer efficiency.

When to use Filters vs. Policies

Filters are applied to the campaign's specified call list on the database server using a SQL WHERE clause. Policies are applied by Dialer per contact retrieved from the call list. As a best practice, use a filter to restrict which records to dial instead of a policy's "Do Not Dial" behavior if at all possible.

To better understand the impact of using a filter vs. a policy for this purpose, consider a 100,000 record call list in which only 40,000 records will be dialed because of restrictions.  If those restrictions are applied by a filter, only 40,000 records will be retrieved from the database for Dialer. If a policy is used instead, all 100,000 records must be retrieved from the database for evaluation by the policy.  By using Filters instead of Policies, you can significantly reduce the load on your Central Campaign Server and the database server.

Examples of using a filter instead of a policy.

Minimize Policy Handler Use

It is possible to call handlers from Dialer policy behaviors. In many cases, this is not recommended since handlers can be expensive in terms of Dialer/CIC processing, especially if the handler does database access or otherwise interacts with outside systems. If possible, consider other ways to deliver the same capability without handlers if possible such as:

• Pre-process the call list prior to loading.

• Add columns to the call list that can be used in policies without handlers.

• Use existing Dialer capabilities such as skills-based dialing.

• When the Bulk Call API is used, pre-call custom handler policies are ignored by Dialer.