Contents

Objects in Interaction Dialer Manager

Dialer Objects

This section introduces Dialer objects—the building blocks of an Interaction Dialer configuration. The most important object in Interaction Dialer is a campaign. A Campaign is an encapsulation of properties that tell Interaction Dialer how to contact a list of people using a prescribed list of rules. Campaigns tie together a contact list, a script, optional objects and required configuration settings.

Objects are the building blocks of campaigns. Before a campaign is configured, other items are configured first for reusability reasons. Once reusable items are set up, configuring a campaign is a simple matter of selecting building blocks and setting a few parameters that are unique to the campaign.

From now on, let's call those preconfigured items objects instead of building blocks, because each building block is an instance of something (a schedule, for example). A campaign is itself an object; it contains other objects and settings that apply only to a campaign.

Campaigns refer to objects by reference. You can create many types of Dialer objects, each with its own set of properties. Later, when a campaign is defined, you select objects for the campaign to use—for example; a schedule tells Dialer when to run the campaign.

The Building Blocks of a Campaign
Object	Purpose
Contact List	Required	Tells Dialer which contact list to dial for the campaign.
Schedule	Optional	Tells Dialer when to run the campaign.
Script	Optional	Tells Agents what to do. Scripts display information to agents and update the information in your contact list. Scripts are optional, since Dialer can conduct agentless campaigns, which do not use scripts. See Screen Pop and Agent Scripts.
Rule Set	Optional	Rules run actions at the campaign level, in response to events. A rule set is a collection of rules. A rule is a set of conditions that, when met, perform some actions. Among other things, these actions might send a notification, or change a campaign property.
Zone Set	Optional	A zone set is a collection of time zone objects, which allow campaigns to respect time zone blocking—a feature that ensures contacts are called during permitted hours. The information in a zone set helps the Central Campaign server decide whether or not to select a record for outbound calling, based upon time of day. For example, most call centers do not want to disturb customers who are sleeping. Time zone blocking can also prevent auto-scheduled calls and agent-owned callbacks from being placed at inappropriate times. See About Time Zone Blocking and Mapping for more information.
Stage Set	Optional	Tells Dialer what the steps of a campaign call are, so it can make better predictions and operate more efficiently. Stages provide details about agent flow through a script. A stage set must be created in Interaction Administrator, but stages are implemented in scripts. Typically, each page of a script will correspond to a different stage. See Stages and Stage Sets for more information about this feature.
Skill Set	Optional	A set of skills can be used to make intelligent decisions when routing calls. Agents have skill proficiencies. The skill set allows skills to be assigned to contacts and dialed according to agent proficiencies, and then routed to an appropriate agent. Assigning a Skill Set to a campaign implements skills-based dialing, a feature that matches skill requirements in contact records with available agent's skills before calls are placed, to dial only those contacts that can be handled by the available agent pool.
Policy Set	Optional	Policies define conditions and behaviors that provide granular control over the processing of individual contact records. Similar to rules, policies define a set of conditions that, when met, perform some actions. The difference lies in the fact that policies apply to individual contact records whereas rules apply to campaigns as a whole. A policy can change the dialing behavior of an individual contact without having any effect on any other contact. It might also send a notification, disposition a call, or assign values to contact record fields.
Filter	Optional	Applies a SQL Filter to the selection of contact list records. Once Filters are defined using the Contact List Filters view, they can be assigned to multiple campaigns.
DNC Source	Optional	A DNC Source is a list of phone numbers that should not be dialed. Assigning a DNC Source to a campaign allows DNC Scrubbing—a feature that prevents matching contact numbers in the call list from being dialed.
Database Connection	Required	All campaigns require a database connection to be functional. The connection object tells Dialer which UDL to use. A UDL file contains the information that a database needs to connect with applications and vice versa. Dialer is unaware of UDL connections until you add them to its list of Database Connections. A database connection is required to configure a contact list. A default database connection is created when Interaction Dialer is installed. In many cases, this connection provides all of the database connectivity that a call center needs to run campaigns.

All of these objects, and the properties of campaigns are configured using Interaction Dialer Manager (IDM), an extension to Interaction Administrator—the application used to manage both the Customer Interaction Center (CIC) and Interaction Dialer.