Telephony controls

The Phone Log In dialog box allows a Pega Customer Service™ user to log in to the telephony system as a call center agent. After connecting to the telephony system, the user can send and receive events through the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) link.

To log in, a user clicks the phone icon in the left pane and then enters login information.

The extension, agent ID, and password are defined in the telephony system.

The Phone Log In settings are dependent on the CTI. The CTI might provide its software or hardware interface for phone login.

After the CSR logs into the phone system, the softphone is displayed. The CSR sets availability.

When the CSR is available to take a call, the toolbar's phone icon displays a green overlay.

The CSR can set different statuses to indicate availability. When using the Full Telephony mode, the CSR must log out of the call center before logging out of Pega Customer Service.

The Agent State settings are dependent on the CTI. As an alternative, a CTI may provide its software interface for the agent state.

When a CSR has an incoming call, the soft phone displays the call information.

In the example, the softphone shows the agent extension, the agent state (On Call), and the caller phone number. After the CSR answers a call, the softphone actions are available.

The phone control features depend on what is offered by the CTI and can include call control (such as answer, hang up, hold, and conference) and feature control (such as Consult and Transfer).

The CTI may provide its own call controls. During CTI configuration, you can choose to use the CTI controls instead of the Pega Call softphone.

You can set basic telephony capabilities for the phone login, agent state, and the softphone. In App Studio, click Control Panel > Voice, and then click User device capabilities.

Telephony mode determines the call capabilities available to the customer service representative on the Pega Desktop. Capabilities are also dependent on the type of CTI used.

• Full Telephony Allows the user full control over call and agent state from the Pega Desktop. Users receive notification of new calls (screen pop or automatic interaction start) with CTI data associated with the call.
• Simple Telephony with Agent State Management Allows the user to manage agent state (Available/Unavailable) from the Pega Desktop. Users receive notification of new calls (screen pop or automatic interaction start) with CTI data associated with the call. This option does not provide telephony control (softphone) on the Pega Desktop. The CSR controls calls by using a third-party CTI dialog or hardware.

You can experiment with these settings in a test system by selecting a setting, and then logging in as a CSR to the Interaction Portal to see the result.

You can also set these properties in Dev Studio if you need to customize the device capability configuration. For example, you can create multiple device capability records if different users need different telephony configurations.

In Dev Studio, click Configure > Channel Services > Pega Call > Administration and Configuration. Then, click the Telephony Experience tab.

The User device capabilities section shows the Default record. The record displays the current settings for Pega Desktop call controls. 

Here, you have a third option named Simple telephony. If you select Simple telephony, users receive new call notifications (screen pop or automatic interaction start) with CTI data associated with the call. This option does not provide the softphone or agent state management in the Pega Desktop. The CSR logs in by using a third-party CTI dialog box and controls calls using a third-party CTI dialog or hardware.

The Switch capabilities tab of the CTI configuration shows the current settings for the Phone login, Agent State, and Softphone dialogs.

The settings must match the requirements for the associated CTI. For example, if users must log in with an agent ID and password, the Phone login dialog box must show the associated fields.

To change the settings, in Dev Studio, click Configure > Channel Services > Pega Call > Administration and Configuration. On the CTI Links tab, select the link, and then click Actions > Edit. Click the Switch capabilities tab.

The following image shows the settings for the example CTI Link.