EFSwitch Dialer

Work In Progress

This document is a work in progress until details have been finalized.

Requirements

To automate outbound communication with customers via interactive voice response (IVR) systems or agents.

Scenario

• The campaign information is specified in the user's campaign manager of choice(Mautic etc).

• This campaign when started is sent to the scheduler which stores the contacts and sends them to CCM at their designated start times.

• CCM feeds contacts one by one to the voice connector which forwards them to the dialer for storage in a database.

• The dialer periodically runs a query to retrieve pending contacts from the database:

  • The total number of contacts to be retrieved depends on the current free call slots.

  • These contacts are distributed equally among all campaigns.

• Appropriate action is taken for each contact based on whether its campaign time is AGENT or IVR.

• In case of AGENT campaign call, a payload containing call information is sent to the voice connector which requests an agent from the CCM.

  • If an agent is received by the voice connector, the information is sent to the dialer and a call is made to the customer via EfSwitch ESL and bridged to the agent.

  • If an agent is not received then the dialer is notified and it sets the contact back to pending again.

• One of the following flows will take place based on the dialing mode for agent-based calls:

  • PROGRESSIVE: https://expertflow-docs.atlassian.net/l/cp/gpY1JTsJ

  • PREVIEW: TBD

  • PREDICTIVE: TBD

• In case of IVR campaign call, a call is made to the customer and an IVR menu plays.

• In either case, when the call ends:
  

  • The call result is stored in a database.

  • The call result is sent to the voice connector which sends it to the CCM.

• In case of agent-call ending:

  • The call information is sent to the voice connector which sends a recording link the CX.

Flow

Proposed Solution

Contact Structure

The parameters for a campaign contact are set in the campaign manager e.g. Mautic and sent to the scheduler.

These parameters are described in the following sections, along with other relevant information that the dialer stores in a database based on the state of the contact.

Mandatory

IVR campaign

Can be provided in an IVR campaign. If not provided, the default value configured in the dialer is used.

Agent campaign

Mandatory for agent campaigns.

Dialing Flow

1. The dialer will periodically query the database and take note of all the campaigns and the number of their contacts present.

2. It will also take note of the current free call slots.

3. Based on this information, it will calculate the number of contacts to be retrieved for each campaign such that they are all treated equally.

4. A set of queries is then run to retrieve the allotted number of 'pending' contacts for each campaign.

5. These contacts are then sequentially processed based on the campaign type.

IVR Campaigns

1. For IVR based campaigns, the IVR number is taken from the contact entry if set.

2. If the IVR number is not provided in the contact entry then the default IVR specified in the dialer configuration is used.

3. The dialer checks via EfSwitch ESL if the gateway provided is valid.

   1. If it is valid, then the following command is sent to EfSwitch to initiate the call: 

      Originate IVR Call

      JS

      originate {session_in_hangup_hook=true, origination_uuid=call_uuid}sofia/gateway/gateway-id/customerNum IvrNumber XML EfSwitch-IP

      
      

   2. If invalid, the contact status is set to 'failed' and it will not be redialed.

   3. If the gateway is down then the contact status is set back to 'pending' to be tried again later.

4. Once the call ends, the dialer receives a call-ended event from the EfSwitch ESL and:

   1. Stores the call result in the database and sets the status to 'ended'.

   2. Sends the call result to the Voice Connector for a Delivery notification to be sent to the CCM.

Agent Campaigns

1. If the campaign call type is of 'AGENT', then the contact status is set to 'agent_pending' and call information is posted to the voice connector API.

2. The voice connector sends back the following payload when it received either an agent reserved or no agent available notification from the CCM:

3. If no agent was available, the dialer sets the contact status to 'pending' to try again the next time it queries for pending contacts.

4. If agent was reserved, then the dialer checks via EfSwitch ESL if the gateway provided is valid.

   1. If invalid, the contact status is set to 'failed' and it will not be redialed.

   2. If the gateway is down then the contact status is set back to 'pending' to be tried again later.

   3. In either case call information is sent to the voice connector which will send an END_CHAT payload to the CCM to close the conversation and free up the agent.

5. The following command is sent to EfSwitch which will call the customer and bridge the answered call to the agent:

   Originate Agent-based Call

   JS

   originate {ignore_early_media=true,session_in_hangup_hook=true,sip_h_X-Destination-Number=<CX-VOICE-SERVICE-ID>,sip_h_X-CallType=<DIALING-MODE>,customer_number=1234,sip_h_X-CALL-VARIABLE0=<CALL-ID>,sip_h_X-Call-Id=<CALL-ID>,domain_name=<EFSWITCH-IP>,record_session=true,call_direction=outbound,sip_h_X-queueType=NAME,sip_h_X-queue='<QUEUE-NAME>',origination_uuid=<CALL-ID>,origination_caller_id_name=<AGENT-EXTENSION>,sip_h_X-agentExtension=<AGENT-EXTENSION>}sofia/gateway/<GATEWAY-ID>/<CUSTOMER-NUMBER> <AGENT-EXTENSION> XML <EFSWITCH-IP>;

   
   

6. Once the call ends, the dialer receives a call-ended event from the EfSwitch ESL and:

   1. Stores the call result in the database and sets the status to 'ended'.

   2. Sends the call result to the Voice Connector for a Delivery notification to be sent to the CCM.

   3. Send call information to the Voice Connector for a call recording link to be sent to CX.

   4. If the customer had declined the call:

      1. The dialer detects the case via the call variables in the call-ended event.

      2. Call information is sent to the voice connector which will send an END_CHAT payload to the CCM to close the conversation.

Additional Functions

Campaign controls

The dialer exposes three APIs that can be called by the campaign manager to start, stop or purge campaigns:

• Set this campaign's stopped contacts' status to 'pending'.

• Set this campaign's pending contacts' status to 'stopped'.

• Remove all pending contacts with this campaign ID.

Failover Cases