Time Zone Blocking

• Time Zone Blocking uses the contact's time of day (time zone) to prevent dialing at inappropriate times.

• Zone Sets specify when calls can be placed to particular time zones.

Feature Overview

To create Zone Sets, you need to understand how the Central Campaign server decides whether or not to select a record for outbound calling, based upon time of day. This feature is called Time Zone Blocking.

Time Zone Blocking prevents calls from being placed to particular time zones, during particular times of day.

For example, most contact centers do not want to disturb customers who are sleeping. Time zone blocking also prevents auto-scheduled calls from being placed at inappropriate times. Most importantly, this configuration is essential in keeping your system compliant with legislation regarding approved call times. We will cover compliance in more detail later.

Here's how Time Zone Blocking works: Each record in the contact list table contains a time zone field. This field contains a string of alphanumeric characters that uniquely identify the time zone of the targeted party. 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 for North America listed below) to identify the time zone associated with each telephone number in a contact list.

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

Each entry in a Zone Set 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.

When the Central Campaign server needs to select records from the ContactList, 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 DialerTranServer 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 DialerTranServer selects a record from the contact list, it compares zone values in the contact 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.  Some key items to consider are:

• 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, the Default Zone is used.  

• Time ranges in the Zone Set are always expressed relative to the Central Campaign server's local time.