Definitions and components

Definitions and acronyms

Components and architecture

Step 1: Configure the Mindful platform

Before your ACD can send inbound calls to Mindful, there are a few items that must be configured on the Mindful side:

• At least one Call Target to register and dial callbacks
• One Scheduler Widget for each Call Target used in the integration
• A Data Set Template in Mindful Datastore (if you intend to use Datastore to store custom user data and context)

Call Target configuration

There are a few settings in Callback that must be adjusted to integrate with your ACD.

Registration

Quick access: Callback > Call Targets > Your Call Target > General tab > Registration

• Offer ASAP Callback: Select this checkbox to offer callbacks to be returned as soon as possible.
• Offer Scheduled Callback: Select one or both of these checkboxes (Voice and/or Widget/API) if you wish to offer callback scheduling for specific dates and times.

Contact Center

Quick access: Voice > Call Targets > Your Call Target > General tab > Contact Center

• Callback Telephony Type: Select SIP.
• Callback Number: This will be configured in a later step.

Callback Strategy

Quick access: Voice > Call Targets > Your Call Target > General tab > Callback Strategy

Most of the Callback Strategy settings are not relevant to the integration, and they can be set however you would like. However, there is one notable exception when using the Customer First Callback Strategy.

When using Customer First, enable Wait for live Agent. This will prompt agents to press a digit to accept a callback, which provides an Agent Answer event to Mindful. The Agent Answer events assist in calculating an accurate Estimated Callback Time (ECBT).

Phone Numbers

Quick access: Configuration > Phone Numbers

On the Phone Numbers page, provision as many SIP numbers as needed and assign a number to each Call Target in your Organization. This is the number to use when configuring the SIP endpoint to which to send inbound calls for callback treatment.

Scheduler Widget configuration

Each Call Target used in the integration will require a Scheduler Widget. These Widgets will provide API endpoints that will allow your ACD to check the status of a Call Target before forwarding an inbound call to Mindful. Important points for the Widgets used in this integration are listed below:

• Template: Select any Scheduler Template. Templates will not be used since this Widget will only be accessed via API, but Mindful Callback requires a Template to be assigned.
• Call Target: Select the appropriate Call Target. The ACD will check the status of this Call Target (via the Widget) to ensure it is ready to register callbacks before transferring inbound calls to Mindful.

For complete instructions on creating Widgets, see Getting Started with Scheduler Widgets.

Datastore configuration

Mindful Datastore allows you to store user data to maintain call context at critical points in an interaction. If you intend to use Datastore, you will need to perform the next few steps within the Datastore user interface.

A Data Set Template contains a collection of Data Keys that allows the Mindful Datastore to store customer data during the callback request process. This collection includes:

• The set's name and description
• How long you want to retain collected data submitted with this Data Set
• What information you want the set to collect (through configuration of Data Keys)
• The API token that is used to associate data submitted via POST requests and return information via GET requests

The Mindful Solution Delivery team can assist with setting up a Data Set Template, as well as a unique authentication token. To create one on your own, use the steps below.

Quick access: Datastore > Data Set Templates

• On the Data Set Templates page, click Add Data Set Template. This takes you to the New Data Set Template page.

• Name: Enter a name that will be recognizable to others in your organization.
• Description: Enter a description for the benefit of other Administrators.
• Data Retention Period (Hours): Manually enter or use the +/- buttons to customize your Data Retention Period. You can retain data for 1 hour, or for up to 48 hours.
• API Token: The system automatically generates your API Token.

• Template Data Keys: You can select from existing Data Keys in your system or add new keys. The selected keys will filter out any submitted data that does not correspond to one of the configured keys, and will only retain submitted data that matches the configured keys.

Add a Data Key

Click Add Template Data Key. This opens the New Template Data Key modal window.

• Click in the Manually Enter Data Keys field.
  • If your Mindful Datastore instance contains existing Data Keys, select one from the dropdown list that appears.
  • If not, type the name of a new Data Key here.
• When finished, click Add.

Your key now appears in the Template Data Keys list.

Example

In our example integration, we set up the following Data Keys for callbacks:

• FirstName
• LastName
• AccNum
• CallId

You can configure Data Keys in the same way for any user data that you need to maintain in your environment.

With the Mindful Datastore integration already enabled for your Organization, you can now enable it for individual Call Targets. Complete the following steps for all Call Targets within your Organization:

Quick access: Call Targets > Your Call Target > General tab > Mindful Datastore Integration

• Select the Mindful Datastore Integration checkbox to reveal additional settings below.
• In the Data Set Template field, select the Template that you created in a previous step.

Step 2: Configure Your SBC

Mindful Callback integrations can function with different Session Border Controller (SBC) products regardless of the ACD platform used in your environment. Click any of the links below for instructions on integrating your chosen SBC.

• Avaya Session Border Controller Enterprise (SBCE)
• Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE)
• Audiocodes Mediant
• Ribbon SBC
• Oracle SBC

We plan to add integration guides for more SBC products over time. Check back here for updates or let us know if you would like us to cover a specific SBC!

Step 3: Configure Your UCCX Environment

Several additional steps are required to prepare the UCCX environment for the integration:

• Create a CUCM Route Pattern
• Create a Dial Peer on the Cisco SIP Proxy
• Configure UCCX scripts
• Final steps on the Script Managment and Application Management page

Create a CUCM Route Pattern

You will need a set up a Route Pattern in CUCM to allow dialing out from CUCM to your SBC. Use the following image as a guide when configuring the Route Pattern.

• Route Pattern: Set the pattern to be identified for numbers that will use this route. In our example configuration, we are designating 11-digit numbers beginning with 91 to use this route.
• Gateway/Route List: Specify the destination of calls matching this Route Pattern. In our example, we are sending these calls to our Cisco gateway.
• Called Party Transformations > Discard Digits: Select the built-in PreDot Transformation, which will remove any digits prior to a dot (.) in the Route Pattern field. In our example, this Transformation removes the initial 9 in the Route Pattern field.

Create a Dial Peer on the Cisco SIP Proxy

Configure a Dial Peer to send calls from CUCM that begin with 1 and contain 11 digits to your SBC. In our example integration, we used a 3900E ISR as the SIP proxy.

Use the following example as a guide when creating the Dial Peer:

dial-peer voice 1 voip destination-pattern 1......... session protocol sipv2 session target ipv4:10.10.10.10:5060 session transport udp incoming called-number 1......... voice-class codec 12 voice-class sip early-offer forced voice-class sip pass-thru headers unsupp voice-class sip referto-passing dtmf-relay rtp-nte no supplementary-service sip refer

• Destination pattern: 1...........
• session target: Specify ipv4 and enter the IP address of your SBC's internal signaling interface
• dtmf-relay: Specify rtp-nte to allow RFC2833 DTMF

Configure UCCX scripts

The integration presented in this guide uses the Mindful Datastore application to pass user data between UCCX routing scripts and Mindful Callback. The scripts will use REST API calls to Mindful Datastore to create records for each call's user data. Mindful Callback will then make updates to the Datastore records for any changes in callback phone numbers or scheduled callback times, and finally a second UCCX script will retrieve the data to re-attach to callbacks received from Mindful Callback.

An inbound/queueing UCCX script will send HTTP POST requests to Mindful Datastore, and a callback UCCX script will send HTTP GET requests to retrieve stored user data. Both scripts use a Make REST Call step to send the POST or GET requests. This method of handling user data can be especially effective when using unsecured SIP, or when any SIP devices in the signaling path might not handle custom SIP headers well.

Click both of the following tabs for instructions on creating the required UCCX scripts.

1. Inbound/queuing script

The inbound/queuing script will accomplish several tasks:

• Check to determine if the ANI begins with +1, and remove the +1 if so.
• Manage user data strings.
• Post user data to the mindful Datastore application.
• Send calls to the Mindful Callback application .
• Alternatively, send calls to a holding queue in case of failure.

Sample script and variables

The following images show a sample .aef script file and the definitions of variables used.

• When a call enters the inbound script, the script first retrieves the ANI to see if it begins with +1. If so, the script removes this leading prefix from the ANI.
• Next, the JSON string containing the user data to be sent to Datastore is concatenated together.

Important:

• The ds_contenttype string must contain application/json.
• The ds_auth string must match the Authorization string from the HTTP POST, including the word Bearer. The following example shows where the Authorization string is located in the POST:

Once the ds_content string has been set, the script executes a Make REST Call step to send an HTTP POST request to Mindful Datastore. After the Make REST Call block has completed, the script invokes a Call Redirect block. This block instructs CUCM to send the call to the destination number specified in the Call Redirect command, which will be the Call Target phone number configured in Mindful Callback.

• If the Call Redirect block fails, the call will be queued as normal.

2. Callback script

The second UCCX script will be invoked when a callback arrives at the queuing route point. The callback UCCX script will perform two main functions:

• Check to determine if the ANI begins with +1, and remove the +1 if so.
• Concatenate a string for use in the HTTP GET request to the Mindful Datastore application.
• Send an HTTP GET request to Datastore to retrieve stored user data.
• Convert user data into JSON format.
• Prepare user data to be assigned to UCCX call variables.
• Assign user data to UCCX call variables for later use.
• Queue the call to an agent at high priority.

Sample script and variables

The following images show a sample .aef script file and the definitions of variables used.

• When a call enters the inbound script, the script first retrieves the ANI to see if it begins with +1. If so, the script strips this leading prefix from the ANI.
• Next, the script concatenates a string to be used in the HTTP GET request to Mindful Datastore. The concatenated string should be in the format <Datastore URL>?customer_contact_number

The script executes a Make REST Call step to send an HTTP GET request to Mindful Datastore. The response from Datastore will be stored as ds_result. A Create JSON Document block will set the ds_result_json document variable to the value returned in the previous step. Set the Document and Source Document fields to the same variable.

For each piece of user data returned by Mindful Datastore, a separate Get JSON Document Data block will parse the data to be assigned to UCCX call variables in the next step. The accompanying image shows an example of one Get JSON Document Data block to assign a value to the first_name variable. You will need to set up a separate block for each piece of user data.

• Once all of the data has been parsed, a Set Enterprise Call Info block will assign the data to specific UCCX call variables (both Peripheral and ECC variables). These variables can then be used for agent screen-pop information (via Finesse) or other reporting purposes.
• With all user data handled, the script then queues the call to an agent at high priority.

Final steps to configure UCCX scripts

• Upload each of the scripts you created earlier into the UCCX Administration application on the Script Management page. Include both the inbound and outbound script.

• Create two new applications on the Application Management page. Create one for the inbound call script and another for the callback script.

• Create two new Triggers. Create one for the DN used for inbound calls and another for the DN of the route point for callbacks.

Call flow diagram

Callback Call Targets use a complete phone number for the inbound call transfer. Each Call Target represents a queue/skill/group, such as Sales or Billing.

Example

These call flow examples use three example Call Targets with the following phone numbers.

• Support Call Target: 111-111-1111
• Sales Call Target: 222-222-2222
• Billing Call Target: 333-333-3333

(Optional) Consolidate return-call destinations

Expand the content below to learn about best practices for return-call routing when the same group of agents are spread out among multiple queueing destinations.

Configure consolidated return-call destinations

This integration guide has assumed that each Call Target is configured with a Call Center Phone Number leading to a single group of agents in your call center. However, in some ACD environments, the same group of agents are spread out among multiple queueing destinations. Since a Call Target is intended to serve a particular agent group, there needs to be a way to deliver callbacks and return-to-hold calls to a single destination that can ultimate route calls throughout the entire agent group.

You can configure a Call Target to send calls to a Call Center Phone Number that leads to a shared disposition destination, then make further routing decisions based on data attached to the call. This form of queue consolidation allows you to route return calls among multiple destinations representing the same group of agents.

How it works

Using a consolidated callback destination requires custom data to be passed to Mindful Callback with inbound calls to identify their ultimate return destinations. This can be done in two ways:

• Send the destination to Callback via SIP Headers. This requires that you configure additional Metadata Items for each affected Call Target. Or...
• Post the destination to the Mindful Datastore application, using the customer's ANI as the data key. This method can be used even when calls are delivered via the PSTN rather than SIP.

In either case, Callback will re-attach the custom data to the return call (whether it is a callback or a customer returning to hold) and deliver the call to a single return-call disposition destination. From there, you can use the custom data to route the call to the appropriate agent groups.

Example

Consider the following example. Let's say you have the same agent skill assigned to different queueing destinations labeled 111, 222, and 333. You have a single disposition destination for callbacks and another for return-to-hold calls. In this case, the routing path for a callback could look like this:

• You identify that a particular new inbound call should ultimately be delivered to 333, so you attach that destination number to the call as custom data when sending it to Callback for treatment.
• When the time comes, Callback delivers the return call (a callback in this case) with the destination number still attached.
• When the call arrives at the callback disposition destination on your ACD, additional routing logic ensures that the call ends up with agents at 333.
• The appropriate priority is set, and the call is delivered to an agent.

(Optional) Offer Second Chance Callback

Expand the content below to learn how to make additional callback offers in your holding queue after a customer has declined the initial offer.

Configure Second Chance Callback

Second Chance Callback is a best-practice methodology that can increase the take-rate of callback offers and lower the abandon rate in your call center's holding queues. With a few updates to your routing logic, you can provide additional callback offers to customers waiting on hold who have already declined an initial offer.

There are a variety of reasons that customers might appreciate a second chance to accept an offer of a callback. For example, perhaps something has come up that requires their attention and they can no longer wait on hold. Perhaps the quoted wait time was low when they declined the first offer but queue conditions have quickly changed and resulted in a longer hold time. Regardless of the scenario, Second Chance Callback ensures that customers have the callback option available when they need it.

Benefits

Our research shows positive results for call centers offering Second Chance Callback, including:

• Keeping customers in control with additional options while holding.
• Reducing abandoned calls in the holding queue by offering an alternative option.
• Fully controlling Second Chance offers in your ACD with no integration constraints.
• Adding another tool to address unexpected increases in hold time.
• No additional requirements for customers. They are not required to respond to Second Chance prompts, but can instead simply continue to wait on hold if they choose.

ACD configuration

Most configuration for Second Chance Callback is done on your ACD platform, so the technical implementation will vary based on your integration. In all integrations, the following logic must be introduced to interact with customers in the holding queue.

• Whether offers are made in your ACD or in Mindful Callback, the process begins with the first offer. If the initial offer is accepted, then a callback is registered and no Second Chance offer is needed.
• If the initial offer is not accepted, callers are routed to a holding queue.
• A timer begins in the holding queue. When the specified time expires, another callback offer is made.
• If the customer declines the Second Chance offer, then the timer is reset, and another offer will be made when it expires again.
• If the customer accepts the Second Chance offer, the call is sent to Mindful Callback for treatment.

Things You'll Need

If you wish to use a single Call Target for normal inbound calls and Second Chance calls, you will need:

• Two Phone Numbers provisioned for the same Call Target.
• The Return to Hold Call Target setting disabled. Offering a hold option in Mindful Callback after a customer has already chosen to leave the holding queue can negatively impact the customer experience.

If you wish to use separate Call Targets for normal inbound calls and Second Chance calls, you will need:

• Two Call Targets configured with the same Call Center Phone Number targeting the same group of agents.
• The Return to Hold setting disabled for the Second Chance Call Target. The setting can still be enabled for the normal inbound Call Target.

For either method, you will also need:

• The ability to capture DTMF input from customers in your holding queue.
• The ability to play audio prompts to customers in your holding queue based on a timer.

Mindful Callback configuration

There are two alternatives for preparing your Mindful Callback account for Second Chance Callback. Each alternative introduces its own advantages and drawbacks.

• Option 1 (best practice): Use separate Call Targets for normal inbound calls and Second Chance calls.
• Option 2: Use a single Call Target for both normal inbound calls and Second Chance calls.

Option 1 (best practice): Use separate Call Targets

This option uses the first Call Target to service normal inbound callback requests with a second Call Target dedicated to servicing Second Chance callback requests. For an initial offer, send the call to the first Call Target. For a Second Chance offer, send the call to the second Call Target. This option separates the two types of calls for ease of reporting and real-time analysis.

Option 2: Use a single Call Target

The second option uses a single Call Target to service both normal inbound callback requests and Second Chance requests. This method is easier to configure and maintain, but it introduces a few additional drawbacks to consider.

Reporting on Second Chance Callback interactions

As noted in the lists of advantages and drawbacks, reporting on Second Chance interactions varies depending on whether you use one or two Call Targets.

Reporting with separate Call Targets

On the Metrics, Executive Summary, and Call Detail pages, use the Call Target filter to view data only for the Second Chance Call Target. This will exclude any data from initial offers and callers that chose to hold. If you offer Second Chance for multiple lines of business, you can add all of your Second Chance Call Targets into a shared Reporting Category to view all Second Chance interactions.

On the Callback Status page, review real-time statistics for the Second Chance Call Target or use the Category filter to limit the view to only Second Chance Call Targets.

Reporting with a single Call Target

When using a single Call Target, additional configuration is required and the reporting capabilities are limited.

Preparation:

• Provision two Phone Numbers in the Mindful Callback user interface, and assign both Phone Numbers to the same Call Target.

• In your routing scripts, send normal inbound calls for callback treatment to the first Phone Number.
• Send Second Chance calls for treatment to the second Phone Number.

Reporting:

• On the Call Detail page, export the reporting data to CSV. In the exported CSV file, the Call Target Phone Number to which each call was sent will be noted in the Source column.
• In the CSV file, filter the Source column for all records matching the Second Chance phone number. The remaining data will include only Second Chance interactions.