Opening and Closing Contact Center

[CC Estelle]

I'm currently running a UCCX environment. The script currently uses time of day to open and close the call center. Right now, the script checks time of day, if it's monday - friday, 8am - 8pm, the contact center is open, if not, it's closed. This no longer seems ideal as the contact center randomly works extra hours/weekends. To constantly change the scripts is an administrative nightmare.  It is possible to allow the staff(manager) of the contact center to "open" the contact center in the morning and "close" it at the end of day?  I've worked on other systems where it was like this, but never on Cisco.

[Dennis Mink · Accepted solution]

there is heaps of documentation on it. the gist of it is you script it to read an XML file that has a single value in it, either a 0 or a 1. you have the open/close branch check the value of the xml, if its 0 its closed and 1 its open.  create a DN that user can dial into an change the value from 1 to 0 and vice versa,

cheers

[CC Estelle]

@Dennis Mink thank you for reply. i will continue looking for the documentation that discusses this.  The only one i've been able to find is using time of day.

Is it common to do it the way you described?

[Dennis Mink]

I am not sure how common it is, it is the way I would do it, and I ve see a number of people do it this way.  Is it the only way?  possibly not. I am keen to hear other solutions from the community, but I would stick with xml for now

[CC Estelle]

Sorry, I meant, is it more common to setup the contact center the way you described versus the way we're doing it now with a set time of a day.  The way you described with the XML makes a lot of sense

[Dennis Mink]

it is fairly common to have a on/off function in your script on top of your time of day open close. customers request this for instance when there is an emergency/drill in the building and they need to vacante the building.

[Anthony Holloway]

If you have a single value in an XML document, then you could actually just use a plain text file.  I'd also recommend using words instead of integers, because in either solutions: XML or Plain Text, the result from the file read operation will always be a string, and this way, you don't have to remember what the numerical value represents.

E.g.,

Filename: status.txt

Contents:

Open

Script to read status:

Set status = doc[status.txt]
If (status != null && status.trim().toLowerCase() == "open")
  True
    /* Open */
 False
    /* Not Open */

Script to write status:

Set status = "Closed"
Authenticate User
  Successful
    Upload Document (L[], "status.txt", (Document) status)
      Successful
...

And of course if you needed more than one status, as with either solution: XML or Plain text, use a switch step.

If (status != null)
  True
    Switch (status.trim().toLowerCase())
      Open (value = "open")
        Goto Open
      Closed (value = "closed")
        Goto Closed
      Weather (value = "weather")
         Goto Weather
      Emergency (value = "emergency")
         Goto Emergency
      Default (value is anything else)
        Goto Answer Call

The XML file would be appropriate for a structured document containing more than a single value.

[CC Estelle]

thanks @Anthony Holloway and @Dennis Mink  

This all makes sense.