Normal Operations

1. A customer calls in to 512-471-5000 or 512-232-5400
   1. At present, both DSS and AV support numbers route to the same queue,
2. A text-to-speech message plays, reading "Thanks for calling LAITS."
3. The customer then hears a message saying "Press 1 for classroom technology issues affecting instruction. For all other issues, please stay on the line
   1. If the customer presses 1, they are placed in the queue at priority one. Otherwise, they are placed in the queue at priority two
4. The customer is then put into queue, and hears hold music until an agent receives their call
5. Every 2 minutes of being in queue, a text-to-speech message plays, reading "Press 1 if you want to receive a callback when the next agent is available, you will not lose your place in line. Otherwise, remain on the line."
   1. If the customer presses 2 or does nothing, they remain in queue
   2. If the customer presses 1, Connect collects their phone number then says "You will be called back when the next agent is available."
      1. This call then comes in as a typical phone call
   3. Callbacks are only offered until 3:30PM
6. When an agent is available, the customer is routed to them
   
   

Out of Hours/Closed for holiday

1. A customer calls in to 512-471-5000 or 512-232-5400
   1. At present, both DSS and AV support numbers route to the same queue, this may change as operations return to normal after COVID-19.
2. A text-to-speech message plays, reading "Thanks for calling LAITS desktop support."
3. If the office is closed for a holiday, or the user has called outside of our set hours of operation, the following text-to-speech message plays
   1. Note that we use phonetic spellings here so that the TTS bot reads it properly. This message is updated as our hours of operation are.

   2. "We are currently closed, our hours are 8AM to 5PM Monday through Friday. You can submit a ticket by emailing LAITS hyphen help at you texas dot e d u

      For Zoom Support, visit support dot zoom dot you S.

      Press 2 for Canvas support

      Press 3 for Pan-Opp-toe support

      This message will now repeat.

      Thank you for calling LAITS Computer Support. We are currently closed, our hours are 8AM to 5PM Monday through Friday. You can submit a ticket by emailing LAITS hyphen help at you texas dot e d u

      For Zoom Support, visit support dot zoom dot you S.

      Press 2 for Canvas support

      Press 3 for pan-opp-toe support"

   3. Pressing 2 or 3 transfers the users to the appropriate phone lines for Canvas and Panopto support.
4. Amazon Connect then ends the call. There is not an option for a user to leave a voicemail.

Closed for meeting/emergency/event

Note: For this state to activate, the Call Center Manager must update the relevant contact flow

The call center receives calls as normal, but plays a designated message to customers.  The steps to do this are recorded and available here. 

Logging in/Out

1. Visit https://laits.awsapps.com/connect/and log in

   1. Chrome or Firefox is required

   2. Your username is your EID, but your password is not necessarily your EID password - you can set it to be whatever you want 

   3. If you don't have an account, contact an Amazon Connect Admin. The Call Center Managers, and some DSS are admins. 

2. Once you're logged in, click the phone icon in the upper right hand corner
   1. Note: If you haven't already, click "Hide the guide" to remove the introduction steps.  
   2. 
3. In the popup, select the Gear Icon and select either soft phone or desk phone
   1. 
   2. Soft phone will route calls through your computer audio
   3. Desk phone will route calls through whatever number you plug in, eg your desk phone or cell phone. 
   4. Make sure to click save after you enter your desk phone number
   5. Set yourself to available, and you'll begin to receive calls. 
4. Once you're ready to log out, set yourself to Offline and close the window 
    

Everyone can view reports that show who's logged in, what status they're on, and other useful bits of info. Useful reports are linked here, but you can make your own too.

1. Queue + Agent Status
   1. Real time. Displays how many calls are in the queue, along with the status of all agents  
2. LAITS Historic
   1. Displays metrics on the calls we received in the past day

You can also view other reports by navigating here:

 

Before an agent can be transferred to  internally, they need to have a quick connect created for them and added to the queue. 

Create the quick connect

1. Navigate to Routing > Quick Connects
   1. 
2. Click Add New
   1. Enter the agent's details in the provided fields
   2. Type will be "Agent" And destination will be the EID/Username
   3. Contact Flow is Default Agent Transfer
3. Save the changes

Enable the quick connect

1. Navigate to Routing > Queues and Select LAITS Main
   1. 
2. Add the quick connect you just created to the quick connect list and save the changes

Amazon Connect handles Internal transfers through a feature called "Quick Connects". You can also transfer (Warm or cold) to any phone number.

To transfer to an Agent

1. You can only see agent transfer options when you're on a call
   1. While not on a call, you'll see external transfer options like the Service Desk
2. 
   
3. 
   
   1. Select who you'd like to transfer the call to, and click "Call"
   2. Connect will then attempt to reach that agent
      1. The original caller/customer will be placed on hold, with music
      2. The transfer will fail if the agent is offline
      3. If the agent is available and accepts the call, you'll be put on a call with that agent
4. This screenshot shows both sides of an internal transfer. The transferer is on the right, the transferee is on the left.
   
   1. 
      
      1. As you can see, the transferer (right) has a number of options
         1. Hold All - places everyone on hold
         2. Mute - Mutes your mic
         3. Join - Joins the calls together, resulting in a conference call
         4. Swap - Changes who you're speaking to
            1. You can use this to swap between talking to another agent and the caller

To transfer to any phone number

1. Click Number Pad
2. Enter the number you'd like to transfer to and follow the prompts

When we launched Amazon Connect, we began offering chat support via chat.laits.utexas.edu.  

Chat transcripts are logged in S3 and are accessible via Connect if need be. Contact a call enter manager if you need to review a chat transcript.

As a part of supporting remote instruction, LAITS has begun supporting some online classes as described here. If you are in a role or routing profile that may take chatbot escalations, you must use the custom agent control panel found here: https://chat.laits.utexas.edu/agent

 To use the custom agent control panel, simply log in to Amazon Connect as normal and then open https://chat.laits.utexas.edu/agent in a new window rather than clicking the phone icon.

Routing profiles may be edited and assigned by Amazon Connect Admins under Users > User Management > Selecting a User > Edit. All full time employees have this permission.

Anyone can view call history on Amazon Connect. Amazon maintains documentation for this, available here, under "How to search for a contact". 

Some notes: 

1. The 1-833 number you see listed is our internal amazon connect number
2. It can take up to 3 minutes for a contact log to appear here

Contact Flows are visual representations of how Amazon Connect routes calls. They look like flowcharts, and their blocks include actions like assigning a call to a queue, playing a message or hold music, requesting user input, etc.

Understanding how contact flows work is critical to understanding Connect. Explicitly spelling out how our flows isn't feasible, you can learn from Amazon here. 

Our current configuration of Amazon Connect uses the following contact flows:

• LAITS Call Introduction
  • The first place a calls goes. This plays a welcome message and sets various behaviors/variables before handing it off to another flow.
• LAITS Main Queue Flow
  • The heavy lifter. This flow does a lot - it checks our hours of operations and plays appropriate messages/solicits relevant input. It then routes the call appropriately
• LAITS Queue 
  • This flow handles the hold/waiting loop. It plays hold music and asks the customer if they'd like to receive a call back rather than waiting in queue
• LAITS Bot Chat
  • This flow handles chats initiated by the chatbot
• LAITS Basic Chat
  • This flow handles chats initiated by visiting chat.laits.utexas.edu
   

The Contact Center can be closed by editing relevant contact flows or editing our hours of operation. 

This is described in video here. 

To be completed whenever a DSS, Manager, or other staff member joins or leaves LAITS

Onboard/Creating Accounts

1. Log in to Amazon Connect
2. Navigate to user management
   1. 
3. Add new users > Create and setup a new user > 
   1. login name: employee EID
      
      1. All other details as appropriate, use the employee's austin.utexas.edu email address 
   2. Phone type: Softphone
      1. Make sure "Auto-Accept Call" is unchecked
      2. Set ACW timeout to 360 seconds
   3. Profiles
      1. Security profile, as appropriate
         1. We primarily use "Agent", "Admin", and "Trainee"
         2. The "Trainee" profile allows STAs and new DSS to monitor live conversations in order to shadow
      2. Routing profile
         1. Select the "LAITS Voice/Chat/Student Chat" routing profile
         2. The Remote Lead profile puts the agent on lower priority (sends calls to others first, if available) 
   4. Security and Routing profiles can be edited from the "Users" menu
   5. Click save in the bottom left, then follow the prompts to finish creating the user
   6. Password
      1. Create a dummy password for the new account.
      2. The new user can visit the LAITS Amazon Connect homepage and click the "Forgot Password?" link to reset the password and gain access to the account. 

Offboarding

To be completed IMMEDIATELY after an employee leaves LAITS 

1. Log in to Amazon Connect
2. Navigate to user management
   1. 
3. Check the box next to the user's name and click remove
   1. 

Amazon Connect is set up to run an AWS Lambda function to dynamically notify callers of any University holidays that fall outside of our normal closed hours.

To do this, Lambda will need to read a specifically named and structured .csv file to determine which days during the fiscal year or long semester are holidays.

The below instructions will detail the creation of this file and the upload process so that this functionality can be used.

1. Obtain a list of upcoming University holidays. You can find UT System's holiday schedule here
2. Launch Microsoft Excel, or your preferred spreadsheet program
   1. Please note: these instructions will only detail the process in Excel, though the process should not differ too much in other tools
3. Create two columns, with headers "Holidays" and "Name" respectively
   
   1. Lambda will discard the first row from this .csv, so remember to include these headers
4. In the "Holidays" column, enter in each of the scheduled holiday dates

   1. Lambda will be able to interpret MM/DD/YY, DD/MM/YY, or ISO 8601 date formats

   2. If Lambda does not properly interpret a given date, please alter its formatting to fit ISO 8601

      Date Formatting

      When you have entered in all the needed dates, you may wish to specify their formatting.

      Specifically, you may wish to change the format to ISO 8601, as shown below.

      

5. In the "Name" column, enter in the name of the holiday

   1. Please note, UT System uses "Winter Holiday" to refer to the holiday time granted between Fall and Spring semesters, not including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Day After Christmas, and New Year's Day.

      Connect will read the holiday name out to the caller via text-to-speech.

      This field should be provided, if possible, so that Connect can give specific information.  If no name is provided for a holiday, Connect will instead say "a university holiday".

6. When you have confirmed that the data entry is complete and properly formatted, save the file as a .csv file with the filename, holidays.csv
   
   1. Please be sure to select "CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)", rather than any of the other available .csv formats. The other formats add extraneous information that is not necessary and may not work properly with Lambda.
      
7. Upload your holidays.csv file to our AWS S3 bucket so that Lambda can interact with it during each call
   1. You can visit this link to be taken directly to the appropriate S3 bucket
      1. Alternatively, you can navigate to AWS, select the S3 service, and open the laitscc bucket, navigating to laitscc/connect/laits
   2. Click "Upload", then drag and drop your holidays.csv file or browse to it using the dialog box
   3. Click the "Upload" button in the lower-left corner of the dialog box. You'll receive a confirmation message when the upload is complete.