Dears, We want to change the status of Agents to "On Phone" when they make an outbound call automatically, currently it stays as available. We checked the solution of changing it user Rules, but with that solution the Agent has to manually change his status back to the previous status he had (ex. available). Appreciate the support. Regards, Mohammad

This can be done by modifying the user's status in CustomInitiateCallRequest.

Originally posted by dcurrier;36464
This can be done by modifying the user's status in CustomInitiateCallRequest.

Thanks dcurrier for the reply, can you please advice what changes needs to be made in this custom handler? i am new to Handlers. Your help is highly appreciated. Regards, Mohammad

If you are familiar with programming concepts, custom handlers are pretty much either subroutines that are either directly called or triggered by events. In this case, CustomInitiateCallRequest is a customization point that is called when a call is placed. The Set User Status toolstep can be used to change the user's status to something like "On Outbound Call" or whatever the status name is that you have configured in Interaction Administrator. It gets more complex if you want to automatically revert the user's status at the end of the call or put them in "Follow Up" and then revert. CustomCallDisconnect would be a good place to add this logic.

CPI recently wrote this logic for a customer and I'm sure an account manager would be happy to talk with you about a price for it. :)

I have seen some wonky behavior when trying to set this up for non ACD calls, mainly around transfers. I had a hard time getting the status to change back after different transfer cases so we ended up abandoning this customization, however this was some time ago (I think it was 3.0) so it is possible this limitation has been corrected in 4.0+.

I have implemented this for our center and set it up so that after they disconnect the call it puts them in a "Follow Up" status for 15 seconds and then reverts back to available automatically. PM me if you want to see an example of this done with handlers.

Hi, I don't wish to upset anyone, but can you explain what the use case is for this? What are you trying to do and why? How is the stock functionality not meeting your needs? I often find that if we can get to the underlying requirement, then there are alternative solutions available that require less intrusive customization (which makes the system more maintainable, moving forward!) Also, if you are going to get into Handler customization, I strongly recommend you take the Handlers training class (5 days, available online or in the classroom). Not only will this give you a better understanding of how to approach the topic, but it will also mean that your customizations are more supportable by your Partner and / or Genesys Support (I believe it is still the case that only customization performed by qualified individuals is supported.) Thanks!

Originally posted by Wierdbeard65;36472
Hi, I don't wish to upset anyone, but can you explain what the use case is for this? What are you trying to do and why? How is the stock functionality not meeting your needs? I often find that if we can get to the underlying requirement, then there are alternative solutions available that require less intrusive customization (which makes the system more maintainable, moving forward!) Also, if you are going to get into Handler customization, I strongly recommend you take the Handlers training class (5 days, available online or in the classroom). Not only will this give you a better understanding of how to approach the topic, but it will also mean that your customizations are more supportable by your Partner and / or Genesys Support (I believe it is still the case that only customization performed by qualified individuals is supported.) Thanks!

So basically the Agents handle inbound ACD calls and they might need to initiate outbound calls to certain customers, if they do so their status will stay as Available and their status in the monitoring will show that they have been available for example 40 mins. even though they have been making outbound calls and working not just available for calls. Also such information can be very helpful in the reporting to show the status duration during outbound calls. (user availability report) Regards, Mohammad

Originally posted by Wierdbeard65;36472
Hi, I don't wish to upset anyone, but can you explain what the use case is for this? What are you trying to do and why? How is the stock functionality not meeting your needs? I often find that if we can get to the underlying requirement, then there are alternative solutions available that require less intrusive customization (which makes the system more maintainable, moving forward!) Also, if you are going to get into Handler customization, I strongly recommend you take the Handlers training class (5 days, available online or in the classroom). Not only will this give you a better understanding of how to approach the topic, but it will also mean that your customizations are more supportable by your Partner and / or Genesys Support (I believe it is still the case that only customization performed by qualified individuals is supported.) Thanks!

I get this request from a ton of customers. They don't like that the on a phone icon is independent of the agent status since the agent status will change for ACD calls and dialer calls but if the agent has to perform manual calls you have to look at another location in the system to see that they are actually working. Also as Mohammad points out a lot of customers use the agent activity detail or summary report to "calculate" how much time agents are spending on the phone. I believe you can get this info from other reports but you will see a lot of customers will write custom queries against agent activity log and thus need to see all calls change the agent's status so the custom queries catch the calls.

Originally posted by Wierdbeard65;36472
Hi, I don't wish to upset anyone, but can you explain what the use case is for this? What are you trying to do and why? How is the stock functionality not meeting your needs? I often find that if we can get to the underlying requirement, then there are alternative solutions available that require less intrusive customization (which makes the system more maintainable, moving forward!) Also, if you are going to get into Handler customization, I strongly recommend you take the Handlers training class (5 days, available online or in the classroom). Not only will this give you a better understanding of how to approach the topic, but it will also mean that your customizations are more supportable by your Partner and / or Genesys Support (I believe it is still the case that only customization performed by qualified individuals is supported.) Thanks!

in the centers I've worked in we have hybrid floors of inbound and outbound dialing (and not necessarily on a dialer) and often times the sups will look at agents status to see who is on the phone. This works for inbound calls or during times when they may hop onto a dialer campaign. During times when they are not using the dialer it also makes it tough when other employees may try to transfer a call to them. It may look as "available" but they are on the phone. This applies for non-agents at our company where they may on the phone but their status show available and then they'll hear the message of "user X is on the phone" and they get upset and complain to me saying it shows that they are available. To be honest I have no idea why this isn't a core functionality of the application and I've had this problem for several years now. It would help greatly from a reporting aspect as well

Have you tried adding the on phone status column to the supervisor's displays? This is how the system was designed to indicate if the agent was on the phone independently of what their status actually is.

Originally posted by MarkT;36499
Have you tried adding the on phone status column to the supervisor's displays? This is how the system was designed to indicate if the agent was on the phone independently of what their status actually is.

Yes we have that, but there wont be any indication how long he has been on his outbound call, his status will stay available and if he is not assigned an ACD workgroup and only handles outbound calls for that day, he can have 6 hours of available status even though he has been making calls during that. which is not very informative from a supervisor's monitoring perspective, they need to know the duration of the outbound calls he is having, for example if he was on a call for more than 10 mins to check what is wrong.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t doubting the need, just asking what that need actually was. I often see people asking how to do something pretty specific and, when we get to the root requirement, we find that what they are asking for isn’t actually what they want / need. For example, had you said “because we need to see if someone is in the phone before transferring a call to them”, and that had been the only need, then adding the “On Phone” status column would be much easier and less likely to cause support or compatibility issues. You would be amazed how many people don’t know that column is available! So, my first response in these situations is always to get to the actual requirement so that all possible solutions can be offered (even if some aren’t as sexy as writing a handler to do it...) Thank you for clarifying.

Originally posted by Wierdbeard65;36509
Just to be clear, I wasn’t doubting the need, just asking what that need actually was. I often see people asking how to do something pretty specific and, when we get to the root requirement, we find that what they are asking for isn’t actually what they want / need. For example, had you said “because we need to see if someone is in the phone before transferring a call to them”, and that had been the only need, then adding the “On Phone” status column would be much easier and less likely to cause support or compatibility issues. You would be amazed how many people don’t know that column is available! So, my first response in these situations is always to get to the actual requirement so that all possible solutions can be offered (even if some aren’t as sexy as writing a handler to do it...) Thank you for clarifying.

Thanks Paul, i think this request is being asked by a lot of people, its something that should be considered to be easily modifiable from Genesys, similar to how we can change on phone status for ACD calls. Regards, Mohammad

Originally posted by sbhat;36495
in the centers I've worked in we have hybrid floors of inbound and outbound dialing (and not necessarily on a dialer) and often times the sups will look at agents status to see who is on the phone. This works for inbound calls or during times when they may hop onto a dialer campaign. During times when they are not using the dialer it also makes it tough when other employees may try to transfer a call to them. It may look as "available" but they are on the phone. This applies for non-agents at our company where they may on the phone but their status show available and then they'll hear the message of "user X is on the phone" and they get upset and complain to me saying it shows that they are available. To be honest I have no idea why this isn't a core functionality of the application and I've had this problem for several years now. It would help greatly from a reporting aspect as well

I agree, same here call center supervisor get upset because of that, specially that when they get an ACD call we can change the status to be for example On Phone.

Originally posted by AWooster;36470
I have implemented this for our center and set it up so that after they disconnect the call it puts them in a "Follow Up" status for 15 seconds and then reverts back to available automatically. PM me if you want to see an example of this done with handlers.

Thanks a lot, i sent u a PM :)

Originally posted by AWooster;36470
I have implemented this for our center and set it up so that after they disconnect the call it puts them in a "Follow Up" status for 15 seconds and then reverts back to available automatically. PM me if you want to see an example of this done with handlers.

Hi there, just wanted to check if u received my PM :D Thanks