Contents
Reporting in a Multichannel Environment
This chapter provides information about reporting in a multichannel environment.
The ability to support online channels such as
email, web collaboration, and web chat are a major part of customer
interaction. Unified ICM reporting provides data on
task and agent activity for multichannel options, including Cisco Unified E-Mail Interaction
Manager
(Unified EIM) and Cisco Unified Web Interaction
Manager (Unified WIM),
if they are deployed in your Unified ICM system.
To interpret report data correctly, you need to understand how Media
Routing Domains (MRDs) and media classes are used, how agent availability and
routability is determined, and the differences in report data for voice tasks
and non-voice tasks.
Multichannel Options
When Unified EIM and Unified WIM tools are
included in a Unified ICM system, agents can be configured to handle email
messages and online
chat sessions
in addition to voice calls.
Unified EIM enables organizations to
intelligently route and process inbound emails, webform inquiries, faxes, and
letters.
Unified WIM provides agents
with a comprehensive set of tools for serving customers in real time. It
enables call center agents to provide immediate personalized service to
customers through text chat messaging and page-push abilities. Agents can also
use Unified WIM to assist customers while on the phone, by navigating through
web pages that the customer is currently browsing.
When present
in the system, these multichannel options send the
incoming task request to Unified ICM software for agent or skill group
selection through the Media Response PG (MRPG) (which is used for routing) and an Agent PG (which
sends agent status and activity to the Central Controller and places the
selected agent into session with the task).
This is
the flow of events when Unified EIM and Unified WIM receive a
request:
- The multichannel option sends the task
information to the Central Controller for routing purposes.
- The Central Controller returns an agent and skill group.
- The multichannel option pushes the task to the agent.
- If no agent is available, the task queues logically at the
Unified WIM or in the queue of the Unified WIM until the
agent becomes available. Because the task does not involve voice, physical
queuing is not needed.
This architecture is illustrated in the
following diagram. Figure 1. Multichannel Options

Media Classes and Media Routing Domain
A
media class represents
a combination, or a single instance, of media that are to be treated as a
single concept for routing by Unified ICM software.
Media classes include:
- Voice, which
includes incoming and outgoing phone calls. Voice also includes Web Callback
and Delayed Callback through the Unified WIM.
- Chat, through Unified WIM
- Blended
Collaboration, through Unified WIM
- Email,
through Unified EIM
If your system is
designed to handle voice-calls only, you have the Voice media class
only.
A Media Routing
Domain (MRD) is a collection of skill groups and services that are
associated with a common media class. Unified ICM uses MRDs to organize how requests for different media are routed.
Each skill group is assigned to a MRD. Unified ICM
software uses MRDs to route a task to an agent who is associated with a skill
group and a particular medium.
Each MRD belongs
to a media class.
You can report on activity for all of the MRDs
that you have configured in your system.
When configuring your
system, you first configure MRDs in Configuration Manager and then enable the
appropriate MRDs on the Unified EIM and Unified WIM
applications. MRDs have unique IDs across the enterprise.
The
Voice MRD is created by default for all deployments.
Multichannel Reporting Data
Unified ICM databases store information about
agent activity and tasks routed by Unified ICM, including tasks that are
submitted by Unified EIM or Unified WIM. Reports contain a
Media field, when appropriate, to identify the MRD of each task included in the
report.
The following table describes major differences between
voice and
non-voice tasks in reports. Non-voice tasks include chat, email, and Blended
Collaboration.
Table 1 Report Data for Multichannel OptionsType of Data
|
Data for Voice
Tasks
|
Data for Non-Voice Tasks
|
Task direction
|
Task direction can be both incoming (agent receives call) and
outgoing (agent places call).
Note
| Calls placed by
Outbound Option appear as incoming calls because of the manner in which the
Outbound Option Dialer places calls between agents and customers. |
|
Task direction is always incoming, and values of report
fields pertaining to outgoing non-voice tasks are set to null.
|
Session ownership changes
|
The ownership of a voice task can change through the life of the call.
Agents can transfer the call or conference in another agent.
|
Non-voice tasks do not change session ownership. These tasks
cannot be transferred or conferenced and supervisors cannot barge into or
intercept the task.
Note
| While it is possible for a
Unified WIM agent to allow another agent to join a session and then
drop the session, leaving the second agent and the caller in session together,
this is not the same as a voice call transfer. Unified ICM software interprets
this scenario as two different sessions, one for the original agent and one for the
second agent. |
Also, while Unified EIM agents can forward
messages to other agents, this is not the same as a voice call transfer.
Unified ICM interprets message forwarding as two different sessions, one for
the original agent and one for the receiving agent.
|
Short
calls
|
Voice calls are considered to be short
calls if they disconnect within the time boundaries defined in the Agent Desk
Settings for short tasks.
|
Unified EIM and Unified WIM do not enable administrators to
configure a short task time boundary. Therefore, non-voice tasks are not
reported as short tasks, even if they disconnect within the short task time
defined in Agent Desk Settings. Values of report fields pertaining to short
calls are set to zero.
|
Multiple
tasks
|
Agents can handle one voice task at a time.
Agents can handle a voice task and an email task simultaneously.
Email is an interruptible MRD and agents handling email tasks can be
interrupted with a voice call. Reports show the agent as Active for both the
email and voice task.
|
Agents might be configured
to handle multiple non-voice tasks, such as chat, at the same time. If an agent
is engaged in several non-voice tasks, the reports contain data for each of the
tasks.
These tasks might be from multiple skill groups. For
instance, because email is an interruptible MRD, an agent can be working on an
email task while also working on a task or call in any other medium.
Note
| Task duration fields are also affected in
reporting. For instance, the half-hour duration fields might have a value
greater than 30 minutes for non-voice tasks. |
|
Service Level
|
You determine which Service Level type you want to use
for voice tasks and this setting affects the reporting data.
|
The Service Level for non-voice tasks is always set to "ignore
abandoned calls". The Service Level setting affects the Service Level data in
reports for non-voice tasks.
|
Report Templates for Multichannel Applications
Although Unified ICM reporting applications offer templates that report
on multichannel skill groups, agents, and tasks, reports generated from these
templates do not contain details regarding specific events that transpire
during a Unified EIM or Unified WIM task.
For
example, Unified ICM report templates show that an agent handled a chat task,
but do not provide the text of a sent chat message. Similarly, these reports
show that an agent is currently Active on an email task, but do not show the
number of emails received by an agent.
Multichannel applications
have separate reporting tools, available through the applications, that provide
application-specific details about the sessions.
These are some of the reports that contain operational
information on activity in the Media Routing Domain:
- Unified Intelligence Center Agent Real Time All Fields
- Unified Intelligence Center
Agent Historical All Fields