An ACE installation’s routing is configured in a table. Each row in the routing table should be viewed as a rule. A rule consists of two parts:
- Applicability criterion
A criterion for the rule’s applicability. In practice, a constraint that shows whether the rule should be applied for a particular contact. - Routing destinations
A description of where a contact shall be connected, e.g. to a special queue. A rule can contain several destinations. The first destination is chosen first. In the event of an unsatisfactory waiting situation (e.g. long queue time), the contact is moved to the second destination, etc.
The routing rules’ applicability criteria
The criteria are expressed as constraints to the effect that specific contact data keys should have specific values. Example of criterion: Menu choice=2.
A criterion can encompass requirements for more than one contact data key’s value. In order for the rule to be applicable, all the criterion’s requirements must be satisfied.
Entrance=3
Menu choice=2.
The criteria should be designed in order to jointly cover all imaginable contacts that could possibly be routed. The idea is that only one rule should be applied for a particular contact. Two different rules must therefore not have exactly the same criterion.
The routing rules’ routing destinations
A destination is a place where a contact can be waiting to be served. A calling customer can wait in a queue, for example, to be served by one of the agents, who possess a certain skill. There are different types of destinations to choose from:
-
Queue -
Waiting list -
Personal queue/waiting list -
External telephone number or External Email address -
End route -
Escalation point -
A rule specifying that a contact shall wait at a particular destination can also specify that the contact, under certain circumstances, shall be moved to another destination. This is known as escalation. A contact can be escalated from one queue to another, for example, if the contact has had to wait without being served for 30 seconds in the first queue. This can be utilised, for example, if it is to prefer that a contact shall be served by an agent with a specific skill, but at the same time you rather pass the contact to another agent with generalist skills than let the contact wait for too long.
A rule can contain an arbitrary number of escalations to other destinations.
Through escalation constraints and an escalation point, escalation can take place to another organisation area. When a contact is escalated in this way to a new organisation area, it is this new area’s routing table that defines how the contact shall be further processed.
Escalation is described in greater detail in the sections about the Escalation constraint... and Escalation points... menu choices.
When routing to an external telephone number, the ACE system relinquishes control over the call. A call connected to an external number cannot be escalated. The calling customer will normally hear the ringing tone or the busy tone and any answer which ringing on the external number results in.
A routing row should never end with an agent, as this can cause problems if the agent is not logged in.
Specific rules for contact centers using IVR in cloud service
Calls made with a 0771 or 020 number (in Sweden) to a service based Telia ACE must not be routed to another 020 or 0771 number. If you make such a routing, this call will be blocked in the telephony net. If you want to route to 020 or 0771 numbers in this case, this must be done via a normal
telephony subscription.
In ACE systems using the ACE VCC IVR, contacts that have not been served within reasonable time can be routed back to the IVR. The escalation chain is then ended by the End route destination.
A so-called collaborating callback queue is updated when a contact escalates to, or when a call is placed in, a new IVR queue. If a routing line for the IVR queue is ended with End route this also includes the collaborating callback queue pointed out by the previous IVR queue.
