System Management Guide

Chapter 6. Planning for Coordinated Voice and Data Transfer

With the coordinated voice and data transfer feature, agents in your call center can transfer a client telephone call and the transaction with client information to another agent for additional service.

This works well in a call center that handles different types of client calls. For example, a client might call her stock broker to get information on her account and place an order to buy stock. The account information is given by one agent and the stock order is placed by another agent. With coordinated voice and data transfer, the first agent answers the client's question and then transfers the call and sends the client information panel to the second agent at the same time. The second agent takes the client's stock order without having to ask the client for account information.

Planning for coordinated voice and data transfer in your call center involves two major tasks:

• Evaluating Coordinated Voice and Data Transfer -- Evaluating involves answering some key questions about your call center and the way you want to enable coordinated voice and data transfer.

• Preparing to Enable Coordinated Voice and Data Transfer -- Preparing to enable coordinated voice and data transfer involves a series of tasks that include gathering information and consulting with your application and system programmers.

The sections that follow include detailed information on how to complete these tasks for coordinated voice and data transfer. For more examples of coordinated voice and data transfer, refer to CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS General Information.

Evaluating Coordinated Voice and Data Transfer

To evaluate coordinated voice and data transfer for your call center, answer the following questions:

1. Do you want to display the same application panel or a different application panel on a transferred call?

2. Does your switch support event messages for the transfer feature allowing agents to initiate transfers from the telephone? Check the CallPath Services reference book for your switch for further information.

   If your switch does not support telephone transfer event messages, your application programmer can enable a transfer feature that allows your agents to initiate transfers from the terminal (a host-initiated transfer). This type of transfer is enabled by using the Host-Initiated Telephony     API described in CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS Application Programming Guide. However, some switches do not support host-initiated transfer. The CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS Application Programming Guide provides detailed instructions for your application programmer on using this API.

3. Do you want to use the Coordinated Voice and Data Transfer feature between switches? You may want to enable this feature if you have more than one switch and agents need to transfer voice calls and data to agents on other switches. See Chapter 8, "Planning for Transfer Load Balancing" for information on enabling this feature using the Transfer Load Balancing feature.

Preparing to Enable Coordinated Voice and Data Transfer

After evaluating the transfer feature, you must complete the following tasks to enable the transfer feature in your call center:

1. To display the same application panel on a transferred call, the only requirement is that the person receiving the transferred call is signed on to CallCoordinator. When the telephone call is transferred, the application panel is transferred automatically by CallCoordinator.

2. To display a different application panel on a transferred call, your application programmer must choose and implement one of the following methods:

   • Customizing your application -- Your application programmer uses the Re-initialize     API described in the CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS Application Programming Guide to display the application panel for the initial transaction ID associated with the receiving terminal rather than the application panel for the sending terminal.

   • Customizing screen control -- Your application programmer writes a screen control program (modeled after the CallCoordinator Screen Control Program) that determines which application panel should be displayed for each extension.

3. If your application programs use temporary storage queues (TSQs) with your CICS transaction processing, the Screen Presentation exit must be used. CallCoordinator provides the sample exit interface to rename the TSQ when it is necessary to transfer a transaction environment.

   If your system programmers use the naming convention Transaction ID followed by Terminal ID, they can use the sample Screen Presentation exit as is. If they use a different naming convention, they must write an exit program according to this different naming convention. Refer to CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS Application Programming Guide for more detailed information about modifying this interface.

Refer to the section "Features, Functions, and APIs" in CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS Application Programming Guide for a summary of coordinated voice and data transfer information. Your application programmer can refer to CallPath CallCoordinator/CICS Application Programming Guide for detailed instructions on enabling coordinated voice and data transfer in your call center.