Unity Connection 7.0 Route from Next TOI Jeff Lindborg

Agenda Overview Setup Call Flow

Overview The Route From Next conversation option shows up in the “Call Action” drop down list for most places where you can route calls (after greeting, after message, exit action etc…). As the name implies it will go back to the call routing list that the call came in on (forwarded or direct) and pick up where it left off. While this sounds trivial, the capabilities it provides are quite useful given this scheme “remembers” the original destination for the call allowing uninterrupted call flow.

Use Scenario: Snow Day Handler This feature can, of course, be used in many scenarios such as legal warnings for system use, warnings of systems going off line over the weekend etc… However the “Snow Day” scenario is a common case that demonstrates its use across several applications. A site can setup a “snow day” call handler that is “dormant” until an admin records an alternate greeting for it over the phone using the greetings admin conversation which will then cause all inbound calls to hear this message. Obviously many more applications outside of schools can leverage this call flow.

Snow Day Handler Setup 1 Create a call handler called “Snow Day”. Activate the alternate transfer rule and have it go directly to the greeting rules. This avoids any schedule issues and ensures the same call flow behavior regardless.

Snow Day Handler Setup 2 Enable the alternate greeting, set it to play nothing and set the after greeting action to Route from Next.

Snow Day Handler Setup 3 Typically in this scenario you’d also lock down all the user input keys such that nothing the caller would dial would interrupt the greeting playing – not required but if it’s important enough to force it to play on every inbound call it’s probably important enough to force users to not skip through the message with a key press.

Snow Day Handler Setup 4 Create a direct call routing rule that goes to the Snow Day call handler. In this case make sure it’s the first rule processed – that would be the case for most scenarios along these lines.

Snow Day Handler Setup 5 Create a forwarding routing rule that goes to the Snow Day call handler. Again, make sure it’s the first rule processed.

Snow Day Handler Setup 6 By creating both a forwarding and direct routing rule that go to the snow day handler, when it’s active and playing a greeting, ALL inbound calls hear the message regardless of where they came from or how they got into the system. It’s also possible to have the setup only play this for forwarded calls (i.e. outside callers) and not direct calls (i.e. employees) or vice versa or even play separate messages for internal vs. external callers or to allow internal callers to skip through the greeting but outside callers cannot etc… Lots of flexibility here. The route from next rule will process the next direct or forwarded routing rule depending on how the call came into the system. It’ll never “fall off the end” of the rule list – instead the last rule (typically opening greeting) will simply be processed again.

Snow Day Handler In Action The following is a shot of the Port Status Monitor showing the call flow of a direct call – you can see it processing the Snow Day message handler and then moving right on to the sign in as normal. This flow will look the same regardless of if the greeting is blank or recorded.

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