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User Manual - Abstract Micro Systems

1. Draw 6 18 EA Engine 47 Time left 0 Contacts Second 14324 Figure 10 Top portion of A DBS Worksheet The data in DBS are laid out so as to facilitate building Excel pivot tables and pivot charts If you are familiar with pivot charts you have the ability to create many ad hoc reports and or charts based on the data in DBS Contact Routing Simulator itself uses DBS to create the pivot chart UTIL showing the agent utilization outputs of the simulation 8 3 Column Definitions in A DBS Refer Table 4 to for detailed descriptions of the data in each column of A DBS Table 4 A DBS Worksheet Column Descriptions 1 Site The name of a Site on the Sites worksheet 2 Agent Group The name of an Agent Group on the Agent Groups worksheet 4 24 2008 43 Period Number 8 APPENDIX A_DBS Reference Integer identifying a time period Time period number begins at midnight 00 00 Period Start Time hh mm at which period begins Period End Time hh mm at which period ends Avg NAvail Avg Handle Time AvgNServeOrWra p Average over all repetitions of number of agents of the specified Site Agent Group who are present in the call center during the period Note that Avg NAvail Avg NServeOrWrap AvgNWait Average over all repetitions of TalkTime Wrap Time for all calls handled by agents of the specified Site Agent Group the calls included in this average are
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3. ABSTRACT MICRO SYSTEMS Contact Routing Simulator Version 2 0 User Manual April 15 2008 O 2008 Abstract Micro Systems L L C CONTACT ROUTING SIMULATOR USER S MANUAL TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION e 4 1 1 WHAT IS SIMULATION ccccsesssceccceceessssscecececsessasesececesesssaeceeecescsesesssaeseeeceeseesaeeeeececeeneeeeeeececeenes 4 1 2 WHY BOTHER TO SIMULATE c cccccccecessesscceeececeessuscecececseseseeeccecceseaeceeeceeeeceensaeeeeeceeseseaaseeeececensas 4 1 3 DESIGN OF CONTACT ROUTING SIMULATOR cccccccsscecsessseceeececeesesneceeececseseseceeeeeceesenseaeeeeseeeeenees 4 1 4 INPUTS AND OUTPUTS ec ccc diced edebat od eee ec Lech oe ee PE e dedi aa Pre VLA 5 1 5 COMPUTER CONFIGURATION cccccceesessscececececsesneseceeececsesseaeeeeececeeeauscesececsesesaeceeeceesesneaseeeeeeeeenees 5 1 6 PLAN FOR THIS MANUAL cscssccccccecsessssscecececeesenseaececececsessaueceecceceeeaaeceeececseseseaeceesesesenssaeeeeeeseeeneas 6 THE CONTACT ROUTING PROBLEM cccccssscssssscscssssscsscscccssssscesecccsescsscssececcscssssessececesceces 7 2 1 INGRESA 7 2 2 OBJECTIVES AND CONSTRAINTS eee esed E eee tee te eoe ee ede eoe eee ee Econ ds 7 23 TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS e eek Bee rv 8 2 4 NETWORK CONTROL OPTIONS 5 i cdesicete teo eee 8 2 5 MEASUREMENT ISSUES 5 3 3 2 v
4. Edit View Insert Format Tools Data Window Help is E x 3 27 2008 9 39 41 AM 2 0 03 3 27 2008 9 28 3 23 2008 10 14 ech Support June 04 10 Yes 1811562500 3 2 1 Yes Yes 5 Minutes Variable 3 27 2008 9 39 54 AM 10 17401 Yes Figure 8 Log worksheet created by the simulator In this example the simulator wrote rows 1 16 when the user first pressed the Run button on the Simulator Console These rows disclose when the run started what software versions were used the scenario name the initial number of repetitions whether the user specified Randomize as the Random Seed on the General worksheet shape parameters for probability distributions for talk time wrap time and wait time etc Especially useful for customer support is line 9 the value of the Random Seed that the simulator used This allows someone having a copy of your scenario file to replicate the exact outputs from your simulation The simulator wrote lines 18 21 after the simulation run finished If line 21 Inputs Synchronized has the value No then the user has changed the values of some input parameters after starting the simulator The user can do this by pressing the Pause button on the Simulator Console then performing some edits and then pressing Run again and ignoring the simulator s warning message that inputs have changed If you send a scenario workbook file to Customer 4 24 2008 37 6 Interpreting Results Support at Abstra
5. Engine MB 10 Time Figure 13 Asymmetric Eligibility Routing Suppose that the following events occur at this site beginning at 12 00 00 noon hh mm ss Event 12 00 00 Suppose that no agents in any agent group are available to take calls i e all agents are busy at this instant AND suppose that no calls of any type are in queue 12 00 00 A Desktops call from a caller named Daniel arrives 4 24 2008 51 10 APPENDIX The Require Consent Parameter 12 00 00 to 12 00 05 Suppose no other call of any type arrives during this 5 second period and that no agent becomes available during this period 12 00 05 Agent Nancy in Notebook Experts group becomes available 12 00 05 to 12 00 10 Suppose that no call of any type arrives during this 5 second period and that no other agent becomes available during this period 12 00 10 Desktops Experts agent Della becomes available Under these assumptions Daniel s call will connect to Nancy at 12 00 05 if Require Consent No On the other hand if Require Consent Yes then Nancy can not connect to Daniel but 5 seconds later at 12 00 10 Della will connect to Daniel 10 3 Further comments on Require Consent Both examples David Patty and Daniel Nancy Della illustrate how the Require Consent parameter on the Advanced Parameters worksheet the hidden worksheet always named Adv controls what happens during the simulator s routing decisions if there is a conflict between
6. Figure 7 Routing Detail Window The Routing Detail Window contains the data on the Routing Worksheet s You get here by pressing the Routing Detail button on the Scenario Editor Console You will see a Choice Box at the top of the window followed by three data grids Use the choice box at the top to choose the routing worksheet for which you would like to see the details Note that unlike the Workload and Staffing Details All is not an option For the routing you have selected you will see the Contact and Agent Routing Priorities in the first two tables and the associated Expected Wait Thresholds in the last two For more information about Routing Details refer to Section 3 4 1 Routing worksheet 4 24 2008 31 6 Interpreting Results 5 5 Limitations of Scenario Editor Scenario Editor is very useful in the cases discussed above namely creating a scenario workbook from scratch or major reconfiguration of a scenario workbook such as adding or removing sites agent groups etc However the following limitations exist e Scenario Editor does not update the CR In Cost Revenue inputs sheet in a scenario workbook If you enable Cost Revenue computations you do this by setting Calculate Cost Revenue Yes on the Adv worksheet then you must set up the CR In worksheet by hand within Excel e While you can edit Workload Detail Staffing Detail and Routing Detail in Scenario Editor it is much easier to make such edits using Excel
7. Also be aware that many talk time spans wrap time spans and wait time spans cross the boundaries between one period and the next period Some calls or wait spans may actually extend through 3 or more simulation periods For calls spanning period boundaries how do we decide which period to assign them to for purposes of calculating Service Level Fraction Finally remember that a Contact Routing Simulator run usually involves multiple repetitions How does this fact affect the calculation of the performance data When you need precise answers to such questions please refer to this appendix Tip Feel free to skip this section in your first reading of the User Manual 7 2 Structure of the C DBS Worksheet The C DBS worksheet is structured as a normalized EXCEL database That is there are several columns which together form a unique key and several other columns that represent the data associated with each key The key fields are Site Contact Type and Period Number and the worksheet contains one row for each unique combination of Site Contact Type Period Number 4 24 2008 39 7 APPENDIX C_DBS Reference enario O DOO ampie enario m i8 File Edit View Insert Format Tools Data Window Help question for hep X ED i 3 3 153 13 17 83 08 7 311 amp x 21 ALII Arial x10 mu 5 A Show 9 About Al K Site R s Ix sonic seve P
8. although rich in detail are not as well organized as are the data items in the standard output tables The intent is to allow expert users to investigate results more thoroughly than would otherwise be possible 4 0 Textboxes The content of these boxes Arrivals Repetition Period and time is updated as the simulation progresses 4 21 Arrivals This item shows the number of contact arrivals in the current repetition It is updated at 5 minute simulation intervals 4 2 2 Repetition This item shows the repetition number 4 2 3 Period This item shows the period number within the current repetition 4 24 2008 18 4 Running a Simulation 4 2 4 Time hh mm This item shows the time within the current repetition If the simulation is for more than 24 hours the field automatically changes to dd hh mm It is updated at 5 minute simulation intervals 43 Completion When all repetitions are completed an information box appears indicating that the output table is being written When that box disappears additional tabs will appear on the worksheet These contain output graphs output data tables and a log as explained in Chapter 6 Interpreting Results 4 24 2008 19 5 Scenario Editor 5 Scenario Editor The Scenario Editor is a tool to streamline data entry for new scenarios Scenario Editor is also useful when you need to make a major reconfiguration of a scenario workbook as for example when you need to add or remove o
9. Create a New Scenario When you want to create a new scenario workbook from scratch it is difficult to add all the necessary worksheets manually inside Excel while maintaining all the necessary relations between the data in worksheets A better approach is to use Scenario Editor in conjunction with the the Excel template file EmptyScenario XLT one of files installed into the Application Directory by the Contact Routing Simulator installer In fact this is why EmptyScenario XLT exists The procedure is simply as follows 1 Open the Excel workbook template EmptyScenario XLT You may do this by clicking on the shortcut on your desktop or by selecting the EmptyScenario XLT menu option in your Programs menu under Abstract Micro Systems This causes Excel to open a new workbook called EmptyScenariol xls This workbook is formatted in such a way that Contact Routing Simulator recognizes it as a scenario workbook Therefore the Simulator Console appears and is ready to accept commands 1 Press the Edit button on the Simulator Console The Scenario Editor main screen appears 2 Using Scenario Editor specify the main scenario inputs including a Period Length 4 24 2008 20 j k 3 Press the Update Scenario button You are back in Excel editing the EmptyScenariol xls workbook As result of your Scenario Editor session however this scenario is longer empty It contains sites agent groups etc 4 Using File Save As
10. Editor Console Scenario Editor Console is the central organizing window of the editor During a Scenario Editor session you are likely to open several subsidiary editor windows to view or change information displayed in the Scenario Editor Console However when you close any of these subsidiary windows Scenario Editor returns you to the Scenario Editor Console 4 24 2008 22 5 Scenario Editor Scenario Editor SampleScenario xls Tech Support June 04 Figure 2 Scenario Editor Console The main controls on the Scenario Editor Console are designed to correspond with the worksheets columns and rows of a scenario workbook The section at the top of the dialog box contains information found on the General worksheet The data grids that follow have a one to one correspondence to the other input worksheets Finally there are a set of four command buttons at the bottom of the Scenario Editor screen that dictate what should be done with the data just entered Below the buttons at the top of the window are eight data grids for various types of data entry These eight data grids correspond to various worksheets within the scenario workbook If you d like to see more of a data grid click on the full screen icon in the top right corner of the window If the grid still is not as large as you would like click on the blue header box at the top of the data grid to expand it In general the active field is indicated with an arrow while
11. Excel workbook that has been formatted as a scenario workbook a small window that we call the Simulator Console appears near the top right of your screen The Simulator Console contains five buttons Run Pause Reset Statistics and Edit The first four of these buttons are associated with running a simulation and are therefore discussed in this chapter The Edit button is described in Chapter 5 Scenario Editor The Simulator Console also contains four textboxes Arrivals Repetition Period and time expressed as hh mm Micro SYSTEMS Figure 1 Simulator Console You may move the Simulator Console anywhere on your screen by simply dragging with your mouse You may also hide the Simulator Console by pressing the Hide button that has appeared on your toolbar Pressing the X button in the upper right corner of the Simulator Console has exactly the same effect as pressing the Hide button Pressing the Hide button removes the Simulator Console and changes the Hide button to a Show button Pressing Show then restores the Simulator Console Note that the title bar of the Simulator Console contains the name of the scenario workbook associated with this simulation It is possible to have several scenario workbooks open at the same time In that case each scenario workbook has its own distinct Simulator Console You can tell which is which by looking at the title bar 4 1 Buttons on the Simulator Console 411 Run button Press the Run b
12. Instead Excel creates a new scenario workbook initially named SampleScenariol xls Excel then automatically copies into this new workbook all the worksheets and other objects in the scenario file You now have an Excel workbook open on your screen a workbook called SampleScenariol xls that does not yet exist as a file on your hard disk If Contact Routing Simulator is installed on your system you also see at this time a small window that we call the Simulator Console on top of the Excel window This contains the controls needed to run the simulator You may save SampleScenariol xls to disk using Excel s menu option File Save As In the rest of this manual we will assume that you have saved this workbook under the name SampleScenario xls Be sure that you understand that SampleScenario XLT and SampleScenario xls are two different files We refer frequently to SampleScenario xls in this workbook and also in training materials because this scenario workbook illustrates many features of Contact Routing Simulator You use the template EmptyScenario XLT in similar fashion You use this template to create a new scenario workbook that initially contains no data See chapter 5 You make most edits to a scenario workbook by means of standard Microsoft Excel techniques If you know how to use Excel then you already know how to edit a scenario workbook However Contact Routing Simulator provides an additional user interface tool the Scenario Editor wh
13. Simulator is a software tool for simulating the operation of a contact center or network of contact centers usually for a one day time span This manual will explain how to use this powerful tool 1 4 What is simulation Simulation is the mimicking of a real world process on a computer To perform a simulation we construct a computer model of the process For example if we are simulating a contact center we model the arriving contacts the agents handling those contacts the rules that are used to match contacts to agents and all of the events that occur as a contact moves through the system We mimic contact arrivals by using a random number generator whose parameters are set to produce the appropriate contact volumes while allowing for contacts to arrive at random times Similarly we determine the length of a contact by drawing from a distribution of talk times and after contact work times As each simulated contact arrives we use the routing rules to assign it directly to an agent or if no agent is available we place it in queue While the contact is in queue we may randomly determine whether the contact will abandon before an agent becomes available We can use the computer model to mimic events that might happen to a contact in the real world As the simulation proceeds we keep careful track of every event that has occurred Thus when the simulation is complete we can evaluate a set of statistics that are comparable to those we wou
14. Talk Time Seconds is the average talk time for a contact of this type This average figure will only be used if you do not enter period by period talk time data in the workloads worksheet A contact that is not a voice call will have a talk time of zero The Default Wrap Time Seconds is the average after call work time for a contact of this type Talk time plus wrap time is equal to handle time This average figure will only be used if you do not enter period by period wrap time data in the workloads worksheet agent time spent on a contact that is not a voice call should be shown as wrap time The Abandon Rate can be 0 or a positive number If zero then customers who begin waiting are infinitely patient they will never abandon If the abandon rate r is a positive number then r 1 T where T is the average time that a caller of this contact type would wait in a totally understaffed call center that is in a call center having no agents at all See 9 2 Abandon Rate Balkiness is the probability that customers of this contact type will immediately abandon when they learn that there is going to be wait Balkiness is a number between 0 and 1 inclusive See 9 Balkiness The Maximum Queue Length is the upper limit on the number of contacts of this contact type that can be in queue at the same time It is sometimes referred to as the number of queue slots 3 2 2 Workload Sources worksheet There is one row in this worksheet for
15. are not allowed to connect to agents of type G but agents of type G are allowed to connect to calls of type 4 The issues surrounding asymmetric routing will become clearer when you study the example in section 10 2 10 1 Example David and Patti Delayed Eligibility Matching An example will help explain how the Require Consent parameter affects matching when there is delayed eligibility Consider the routing that is defined in the Routing2 worksheet of SampleScenario xls see Figure 12 In this scenario the Routing2 worksheet associated with the 4 24 2008 49 10 APPENDIX The Require Consent Parameter Chicago site uses delayed eligibility routing that is a match between a call and an agent able to handle the call may be disallowed until the call and or agent have waited for a specified delay period An example of this is cell E2 of the Routing2 worksheet The cell s contents 2 10 specify that PC Generalists are a 2 choice agent group for Desktops calls and that a Desktops call must wait 10 seconds before trying to connect to a PC Generalist agent Suppose that the following sequence of events occurs at the Chicago site beginning at 12 00 00 noon hh mm ss Event 12 00 00 Suppose that no agents in any agent group are available to take calls i e all agents are busy at this instant AND suppose that no calls of any type are in queue 12 00 00 A Desktops call from a caller named David arrives 12 00 00 to 12
16. e Scenario Editor clears all data in the scenario workbook s worksheets that contain simulator inputs General Sites Contact types Workload Sources before performing an Update Scenario action e After Scenario Editor performs an Update Scenario action all workbook cells containing input for the simulator contain values rather than formulas 6 Interpreting Results Contact Routing Simulator provides graphical output on key performance measures and tabular statistical output on a wide variety of contact and agent measures This chapter describes how to interpret those outputs In reviewing this data you should recognize the difficulties inherent in reporting on contacts that may atrive in one period begin service in another period and be completed in yet a third period Thus if you are simulating a contact center in which there are relatively few contacts in any period some of the results may appear to defy intuition If you are unable to reconcile any apparent inconsistencies please call the help desk 6 1 Key performance measures 6 1 1 Service quality Service quality is typically measured in terms of delay before service The two common service quality measures are Average Delay and Service Level Average Delay is simply the total length of time that all contacts wait during a period divided by the number of contacts in that period and is typically reported in seconds Service Level represents the percent of all contacts that
17. eh ee de ie ce PERO Re eh S 43 9 APPENDIX EXPLANATION OF ABANDON RATE AND 46 9 1 BALKINESS me 46 9 2 TIE RNC 47 9 3 WHAT VALUE SHOULD YOU USE FOR ABANDON RATE cccccccccecsessstsceeececeessstcecceeeeesseeeeseeeserees 47 9 4 SHOULD ABANDON RATE EVER BE 0 sssssssscecesssssececececcsesessececececensaaececececsessaeceeeceesensaseeeeeeees 48 10 APPENDIX THE REQUIRE CONSENT PARAMETER sccssscssssscssccssssscssssesssssssssessesees 49 10 1 EXAMPLE DAVID AND PATTI DELAYED ELIGIBILITY MATCHING eere 49 10 2 EXAMPLE DANIEL NANCY AND DELLA ASYMMETRIC ELIGIBILITY MATCHING 51 10 3 FURTHER COMMENTS ON REQUIRE CONSENT esee eene 52 11 APPENDIX FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS eere ecce e eerte eene ee tn ee tn sette seen aseo 53 11 1 SURPRISING RESULTS 5 5 castes tr rebus E He eo eo RU See Te 53 112 MULTIPLE SCENARIO WORKBOOKS OPEN AT THE SAME TIME cssessssecececeessnseceeccecsesssnseeeeceees 54 11 3 SIMULATOR MEMORY nitro rettet E bere eene tener eee 54 12 CREDITS 54 Introduction 1 Introduction Thank you for choosing Contact Routing Simulator from Abstract Micro Systems Contact Routing
18. on the Excel menu bar save this workbook under a new name 53 Add Remove a Site Workload Source Agent Group etc Scenario Editor is useful if you have a scenario workbook in which you want to add or remove one or several sites workload sources agent groups contact types or routings Just do the following 5 Scenario Editor Simulation Start Time Simulation End Time List of Routings List of Sites List of Agent Groups List of Workload Sources List of Contact Types Workload Detail data Staffing Detail data Routing Detail data 1 Open the scenario workbook with Excel 2 Press the Edit button on the Simulator Console to bring up Scenario Editor 3 Perform the additions or deletions that you wish 4 Press Update Scenario button on the Scenario Editor Console 5 Scenario Editor closes and your changes are reflected in the underlying scenario workbook If these changes are what you want save the scenario workbook using Excel menu option File Save or File Save As Workload Detail Staffing Detail and Routing Detail are most easily changed in Excel rather than in Scenario Editor So you usually will skip steps 2 i 2 j and 2 k Add the detail information in Excel after pressing Update Scenario in Scenario Editor 4 24 2008 5 Scenario Editor Tip When you press Update Scenario Scenario Editor clears each worksheet in your scenario workbook General Sites Workload Sources before updati
19. revenues calculated on a per contact basis and the revenue calculated on a per minute basis The revenue per contact shown by contact type and agent group CRS calculates multiplies the potential revenue of a contact of type a being handled 4 24 2008 35 6 Interpreting Results by an agent of type x by the number of contacts of type a that were handled by agents of type x to determine the total revenue for that contact agent type pair The result of this calculation is shown in each cell of the table on the top left of the worksheet To the right of that is the revenue per minute for each contact type multiplied by the number of minutes spent handling that contact type Totals are shown both at the foot of each column as well as the right of each row so that revenues can be seen across agent groups or contact types 6 4 2 Cost Totals There are four different categories of costs shown The cost per contact is calculated and displayed as is described above for revenue per contact The per minute costs are calculated and displayed as is described above for revenue per minute The costs of lost contacts are calculated as the cost per lost contact of each contact type multiplied by the number of lost contacts of that type The agent cost totals are calculated as the cost per hour of an agent of that type scheduled to be handling contacts multiplied by the number of hours agents of that type were scheduled to be handling contacts Totals are shown both
20. such a way that they can provide the raw data for pivot tables and pivot charts The pivot charts worksheets SL UTIL XC and XA that the simulator creates during each run are examples of what can be done with the data in the performance detail worksheets C DBS A DBS XC DBS and XA DBS 6 3 1 Contact Performance Worksheet The worksheet labeled C DBS holds a variety of contact statistics Each row in the table represents data for a specific site contact type and period combination For a detailed and complete definition of each of the data columns in this worksheet see 7 APPENDIX C DBS We give an abbreviated description here Avg NPresent Average Number Present is the average number of contacts present in the system during the period This includes contacts being serviced by an agent and those waiting in queue Avg Handle Time 1s the average time it took to handle a contact of this type during the period Avg NWait Average queue length Avg Wait Time All is the average time spent in queue by all contacts including those who were serviced immediately Avg Wait Time Delayed is the average time spent in queue by those contacts that were not serviced immediately including contacts that reneged Avg Wait Time Reneged is the average time spent in queue by those delayed contacts that abandoned before they could be served Avg Wait Time Served is the average time spent in queue by contacts that were eventually served Thus it does n
21. waited less than a specified number of seconds and is typically reported as x percent within y seconds Most call centers set goals using one of these two types of measures For example if the goal is to answer 80 percent of the calls within 25 seconds but we actually answered only 65 percent of the calls within 25 seconds within a busy half hour then we know that we were understaffed for the workload during that period 4 24 2008 32 6 Interpreting Results Service quality is presented graphically on the worksheet labeled SL The initial graph shows service level by period for all sites and for all contact types You can change the graph using the three drop down boxes The box at the upper left allows you to select individual sites Selecting an individual site rather than all sites controls what is displayed for each contact type The box at the right allows you to select one or more contact types for display Selecting contact types controls the number of contact types for which you will display data that is the number of lines of data shown on the graph The box beneath the graph lets you choose a subset of the periods for which the simulation was run if you wish to show fewer periods 6 1 2 Agent utilization Agent utilization is the fraction of time during a period that an agent spends working directly on a contact It is normally expressed as a percent Its complement is the fraction of time that an agent is waiting for a contact to a
22. 00 05 Suppose no other call of any type arrives during this 5 second period and that no agent becomes available during this period 12 00 05 An agent Patti in PC Generalists group becomes available 12 00 05 to 12 00 15 Suppose that no call of any type arrives during this 10 second period and that no other agent becomes available during this period Under these assumptions David s call will be connected to Patti but at different times depending on the value of the Require Consent parameter In fact David is connected to Patti at 12 00 05 if Require Consent No and at 12 00 10 if Require Consent Yes Why is this When David s call arrives at 12 00 00 the routing instructions in row 2 of the routing worksheet apply to his call because the call is a Desktops call This means that if there were a Desktops agent available then the ACD would immediately connect David to such an agent However no Desktops agent is available at 12 00 00 Therefore the routing algorithm says to wait 10 seconds and then see if there is either a Desktops agent or a PC Generalists agent available Now consider the routing from Patti s point of view At 12 00 05 she becomes available Her routing rules are contained in column E in cells E8 E9 and E10 The first choice for Patti would be a Notebooks call however our assumptions imply that no such call is waiting Therefore the ACD looks to see if any calls are waiting in Patti s second prior
23. 08 44 8 APPENDIX A_DBS Reference 12 NArrive Average over all repetitions of the number of agents of the specified Site Agent Group who join the workforce during the period See also comment at end of description of NDepart next item 13 NDepart Average over all repetitions of the number of agents of the specified Site Agent Group who leave the workforce during the period Note in Contact Routing Simulator the number of agents entering and the number leaving are determined so that the number present will conform to the staffing numbers specified on the Staffing worksheet Agents always arrive at the beginning of a period and agents always leave at the end of a period or soon after the end of a period Why do agents not always leave at the end of a period It can happen that n agents must leave in order to reduce the staffing in the next period to the staffing level specified in the Staffing worksheet where n gt 0 but sometimes all agents are busy at the moment marking the boundary between two periods In such cases Contact Routing Simulator selects the next n agents to finish a call as the agents who leave 14 Utilization Fraction Average over all repetitions for agents of the specified Site Agent Group of the ratio To T where To sum of all time spent by agents talking and wrapping during the period and T sum of all time that agents were present during the period Note It is al
24. an asterisk denotes the next available row for an insertion There are two general types of data grids dimension grids and detail grids The dimension grids provide information about the categories for example the sites agent groups and contact types The detail grids contain the details about each of those categories for example the staffing by time of day for each agent group The five dimension grids are the Routings Sites Agent Groups Workload Sources and Contact Types grids The three detail grids are the Workload Detail the Staffing Detail and the Routing Detail grids At the bottom of the Scenario Editor window are four buttons that control exiting and saving 4 24 2008 23 5 Scenario Editor Note that certain general data entry rules apply in all Scenario Editor data grids For example you must tab off a field before the software recognizes that you have changed the field And buttons that appear grayed out are not enabled the feature is only available 1f the button appears enabled Most data grids have an extra row at the end labeled with an asterisk If you navigate to this row and start typing data into it the data grid adds a new row Table 2 Controls on the Scenario Editor Console Scenario Editor Controls Scenario Name Text Box No of Repetitions Combo Box Periods Panel Change Periods Button Advanced Parameters Button 4 24 2008 Name you wish to give this scenario It correspo
25. ap time for a particular period is left blank the default value entered on the Contact Types worksheet will be used 3 3 Contact handling resources The following parameters describe the resources available to handle incoming contacts 3 3 1 Agent Groups worksheet The Agent Group is the name of each group of agents Agents are typically grouped in accordance with the mix of skills they possess but this is not absolutely required For example you may wish to form separate groups for new and experienced agents because of differences in contact handling speed even though they have the same basic skill The Talk Time Factor is used to adjust the talk time of members of this agent group relative to the average talk time of all groups For example if you expect an agent group made up of trainees to take 25 percent more time talking to customers the factor would be 1 25 The Wrap Time Factor is used to adjust the wrap time of members of this agent group relative to the average wrap time of all groups For example if a group consisted entirely of very experienced agents who could be expected to wrap up contacts about 10 percent faster than average the factor would be 0 9 3 3 2 Staffing worksheet Site 1s the name of the site where the agent group is located Period Number is the sequence number of the period For example if a contact center that uses 30 minute periods were open from 8 00 in the morning until 10 00 in the evening the peri
26. at the foot of each column and the right of each row 6 43 Net Revenue Totals The format of the Net Revenue table mirrors that of the Cost Totals table that is it shows four different categories of net revenue The net revenue per contact is the revenue for a particular contact type agent group pair less the cost for that contact type agent group pair The net revenue per minute is the revenue for a particular contact type less any costs for that contact type Because there is no potential revenue associated with lost contacts the net revenue is shown as the negative of the cost per lost contact for each contact type The same is true for net revenue on a per agent hour basis net revenue is shown as the negative of the cost per agent hour by agent type As with costs and revenues net revenue totals are shown both at the foot of each column and the right of each row 6 4 4 Log Worksheet At the beginning and end of each simulation run Contact Routing Simulator writes certain information to a worksheet named Log in your scenario workbook If no worksheet with this name exists then the simulator creates one The data in the Log worksheet is seldom of interest with one exception the Log entries provide essential information for Abstract Micro Systems when you have a customer support question Here is an example Log worksheet Figure 8 4 24 2008 36 6 Interpreting Results Microsoft Excel SampleScenario xls
27. be less difficult than it sounds because it is likely that one reason you are trying to model this particular call center is that the number of abandoned calls is too high and you are trying to correct the problem 4 24 2008 48 10 APPENDIX The Require Consent Parameter 10 APPENDIX The Require Consent Parameter Scenario Workbook SampleScenario xls ex ea File Edit View Insert Format Tools Data Window Help a question for help X bd Contact To Agent Priority Generalists 11 Threshold f Staffing Routing1 Routing2 Routing3 CR In lt Ready Figure 12 Routing2 worksheet used to illustrate Require Consent The Require Consent parameter see section 3 6 Advanced Parameters affects the matching of callers and agents when your routing worksheet specifies either delayed eligibility or asymmetric eligibility Delayed eligibility occurs when your routing worksheet contains numbers in parentheses specifying delays for example see cell E2 in sheet Routing2 of SampleScenario xls See Section 10 1 for an extended discussion of this example Asymmetric eligibility occurs when there exists a contact type A and agent group G such that calls of type A are allowed to connect to agents of type G but agents of type G are not allowed to connect to calls of type A Asymmetric routing also occurs when there exists a contact type 4 and agent group G such that calls of type A
28. ber of calls handled in a period But what about calls that cross period boundaries In which period do we tabulate such calls When you need precise answers to these and similar questions please refer to this appendix 4 24 2008 42 8 APPENDIX A_DBS Reference Tip Feel free to skip this appendix in your first reading of the User Manual 8 2 Structure of the A DBS Worksheet This worksheet is structured as a normalized EXCEL database That is there are several columns which together form a unique key and several other columns that represent the data associated with each key The key fields are Site Agent Group and Period Number and the worksheet contains one row for each unique combination of Site Agent Group Period Number Ei Scenario Workbook SampleScenario1 BEE im File Edit View Insert Format Tools Data Window Help Type a question for help X ES ied 3 358 13 1 7 831 4 53 0 1 0 8 a9 Arial x10 x BR show 9 About 1 01 136 99 156 22 0 96 9222 108 28 76 0596 1 29 91 04 4 A 78 47 4869 2 87 62 4568 0 00 87 91 53 94 E 4 86 22 52 14 85 80 42 76 j 88 91 75 29 3845 1 89 58 317 89 11 49 E 41 15 88 36 326 91 11 59 39 87 1 89 16 328 49 11 59 79 39 85 89 12 319 88 11 63 39 73 89 4796 10 100 1200 33191 1072 73 40 73 i 89 31 L XC Summary DB pas XA lt zt zasp
29. calls that begin talking during the period after waiting and all calls that begin talking during the period after no wait these calls have a wait time of 0 that is included in the average Blocked or balked calls are not included in the average 10 Avg Wait Time Delayed Average over all repetitions of wait time experienced by all delayed calls of the specified Site Contact Type during the specified period The average includes all calls that renege during the period and all calls that begin talking during the period after waiting Calls that begin talking after no wait are not included in the average Likewise blocked or balked calls are not included in the average 11 12 Avg Wait Time Reneged Avg Wait Time Served Average over all repetitions of wait time experienced by all calls of the specified Site Contact Type which renege 1 abandon after a wait during the period The Average over all repetitions includes all calls that renege during the period and all calls that begin talking during the period after waiting Calls that begin talking after no wait are not included in the Average over all repetitions Likewise blocked or balked calls are not included in the Average over all repetitions Average over all repetitions of wait time experienced by all calls of the specified Site Contact Type which finish wrap during the period The Average over all repetitions includes both calls that waited before beg
30. center is told there will be a wait waits for a while and then hangs up before being connected to an agent In Contact Routing simulator the degree to which a waiting customer is likely to renege is called Abandon Rate The Abandon Rate for a contact type has the following precise meaning First if Abandon Rate 0 then every caller who begins a wait is infinitely patient that is will never abandon If Abandon Rate is a positive number r then r 1 T where T average length of time in seconds that customers will wait before abandoning given that the following conditions are true Customer has begun waiting 1 was told there is a wait and the customer did not balk There are no agents in the call center but the caller does not know this This is tricky A concrete example may help Example In the SampleScenario xls workbook consider the Peripherals contact type for example see Figure 11 Here Abandon Rate 005 This means that the average time 7 to abandon for waiting customers given that there are no agents in the system is 1 0 005 200 seconds However when we look at the Avg Wait Time Reneged column on the C DBS worksheet after a simulation we see that the values in this column for Peripherals calls are sometimes 0 and often in the range 60 to 90 seconds but never near 200 seconds What is going on The answer is that the measured average wait time for abandoning Peripherals customers is 0 i
31. ct Micro Systems please be sure that the simulator has written Yes as the value of Inputs Synchronized 6 5 A final note You can create your own graphs Contact Routing Simulator stores data in Microsoft Excel worksheets You have complete flexibility to use the Excel graphing functionality with the data in these tables to create any graph that you choose 4 24 2008 38 7 APPENDIX C_DBS Reference 7 APPENDIX C_DBS Reference At the end of each simulator run Contact Routing Simulator produces a worksheet called C DBS see below Figure 9 containing a wealth of information about the simulated performance from a Contact Type perspective of your ACD or network of ACDs We gave an overview of this worksheet in Section 6 3 1 Contact Performance Worksheet In the current appendix we provide additional details about the structure and contents ofthe C DBS 7 1 Need for Precise Specifications and Definitions Why might you refer to this appendix It is surely true that the general meanings of the data items reported on the C DBS worksheet are familiar to you However in many cases the precise definitions may not be obvious For example consider Service Level Fraction Clearly Service Level Fraction M N where M the number of calls that began service within T seconds with T Service Level Seconds and N the total number of calls But consider the fact that some calls abandon renege or balk Are they included in N
32. e Randomize means that every run of the word Randomize simulator will produce different results Setting this value to a number for example 378932 means that every run of simulator will produce identical output Users should almost always use Randomize An integer value is used mainly by personnel at Abstract Micro Systems for code testing and customer support Require Consent Recommended setting for most ACD software 15 probably Setting the value to Yes changes the way simulated calls and simulated agents are matched up during a simulator run This setting has no effect unless you have introduced delays into your routing tables or have an asymmetric routing scheme See Appendix 10 Renege Distribution Integer from 1 to 10 This is the shape parameter of an Erlang Shape distribution assumed during the simulation to be the distribution of customer wait time A random variable having an Erlang distribution is the sum of s independent random variables that are exponentially distributed where s is the shape parameter Therefore when s 1 we have an exponential distribution Setting s to a higher value causes wait times to be more concentrated about the mean Talk Distribution Integer from 1 to 10 See explanation of Renege Distribution Shape Shape above Wrap Distribution Integer from 1 to 10 See explanation of Renege Distribution Shape Shape above 4 24 2008 15 3 Preparing Inpu
33. e to use delays in your routing instructions you may also provide an additional row that contains the Expected Wait Threshold for that agent group The program calculates an expected wait time for the agent before being presented with the next high priority call If this time is greater than the threshold the delays are effectively set to zero for that agent 4 24 2008 13 3 Preparing Inputs group You may leave the cell blank for agent groups that won t be using this feature If no agent groups will be using this feature you need not include the row 3 5 Cost Revenue Parameters If your software has been configured to calculate costs revenues and net revenues for each simulation run you will need to set cost revenue parameters in the CR In worksheet The worksheet is divided into two primary sections the first for Revenue and the second for Costs Further divisions allow inputs for these items on a per contact basis per unit of time or per lost contact 3 5 1 Revenue Inputs The revenue inputs can be divided into two types the revenue per contact and the revenue per minute For each there is one row for each contact type For the revenue per contact there is one column for each agent group since different agent groups may produce different average revenues for the same type of contact 3 5 2 Cost Inputs The cost inputs can be divided into four types The first is cost per contact There is one row for each contact type and one co
34. each source of contacts The Workload Source 1s the name of a contact source It can be the network for example or a local contact source The remaining columns list the site names Each cell represents the percent of contacts from the source that should be allocated to that site The percentages must add to 100 3 2 3 Workload worksheet The workload worksheet provides information on the amount of work to be done the volume of contacts and how long it takes to handle the average contact Workload Source is the name of the source of a particular type of contact It must be contained in the list of workload sources in the Workload Sources worksheet The Contact Type is the name of an incoming contact group It must be identical to one of the contact type names listed on the Contact Types worksheet The Period Number is the sequential number of the period For example if you are simulating an entire day using half hour periods the periods would range from one to 48 If you are simulating to 11 pm operation the periods would range from 13 to 46 The Number of Contacts 1s the expected number of incoming contacts for the period 4 24 2008 11 3 Preparing Inputs The Talk Time Seconds is the expected talk time for the period If the talk time for a particular period is left blank the default value entered on the Contact Types worksheet will be used The Wrap Time Seconds is the expected wrap time for the period If the wr
35. erning the nature of the contact or other data items The system then searches a database for additional information on that contact It may then employ sophisticated rules that determine the characteristics of an agent best suited to handle this contact It then searches the pool of available agents and selects one to match to the contact If no available agent is deemed suitable the contact can be placed in queue until a better suited agent becomes free As time marches on what constitutes suitable may also change with the probability of abandonment being balanced against the use of a less well suited agent 2 2 Objectives and constraints The goals and constraints that govern routing rules are usually much simpler than the rules themselves Of first importance in most contact centers is customer service usually measured by service level average delay or abandonment rate Contact center managers usually specify desired service quality levels for each contact type In simple environments we can easily compute the expected service quality parameters using standard queueing theory formulas In an 4 24 2008 7 2 The contact routing problem environment using more complex routing rules these values can only be estimated by using simulation Another very important measure is the expected utilization rate of agents This figure represents the fraction of each hour that an agent can expect to be talking to a customer or performing after con
36. et ivt reto tr ere ete wees ashe 9 PREPARING hu ME boe K 10 3 1 GENERAL SIMULATION PARAMETERS eese ener enne annee ettet nenne seen entre 10 3 2 CONTACT SOURCE PARAMETERS 10 33 CONTACT HANDLING RESOURCES ssccssccscesssssccecceccessesscceecsecscesnsceueesscsceensceecessesceesseeeesscesceessenee 12 3 4 MATCHING CONTACTS WITH AGENTS cccesssssecsccescecsesscceecssceceensceeeessceceensceeeessesceesseeeeeesesceessenee 12 3 5 COST REVENUE PARAMETER Sees rne v ee eae e RE YT 14 3 6 ADVANCED PARAMETERS ro rtr E RP E e P EIE E Pe Eee EG IE CR tvi dd 14 RUNNING SIMULATION eoe nna eren naa eoo e pano E aae Va aao 17 4 1 BUTTONS ON THE SIMULATOR CONSOLE cssssssesececsessssececeeecsesenseseeeececenenssseceecesesenssaeeeeseeeneneea 17 4 2 JiEXCPBOXESAS escis Oe eI contis ees DIS enc e Marl Hose rc Meer AM Mae tone techs toad 18 4 3 COMPLETION MT eee 19 SCENARIO EDITOR uo e cddvestusuessesbsetesssusakecedesteseedasecssedesedsasecs 20 5 1 SCENARIO EDITOR OVERVIEW 5 eeceevecieteivvtcesveteteecu tee de eg eco Pee ve eb Edda dw e 20 52 USING THE EMPTY SCENARIO TEMPLATE TO CREATE A NEW SCENARIO eme 20 5 3 ADD OR REMOVE A SITE WORKLOAD SOURCE AGENT GROUP ETC 21 54 SCENARIO EDITOR WINDOWS d eesce
37. eteseecetvuree cese dee ceat eee duvide E due discat du ve vae deg 22 5 5 LIMITATIONS OF SCENARIO EDITOR ccccessessececececsesssececececsesensecececeeseseeaececeesesenseaeeeeeeeenensea 32 INTERPRETING RESULTS 32 6 1 KEY PERFORMANCE MEASURES sssessssesececeesessscecececeesenseseceeccecsenseaeeeeececsenssaeceeececsensaeaeeeceeeensas 32 6 2 CROSS PABULATIONS 4 sees sere cote coe e reete ie ete tos 33 6 3 PERFORMANCE DETAILS A ret eee eae eed erbe ed dada 34 6 4 COST REVENUB JANALEYXSIS sole locas ase bese RS ERE 35 6 5 ACEINADNGTE Seer eccesso 38 APPENDIX C DBS REFERENCE erinnerte Poeno o Paten e Eno Seas vane en begun soa eue one sre orla oer see 39 7 1 NEED FOR PRECISE SPECIFICATIONS AND 39 7 2 STRUCTURE OF THE DBS WORKSHEET 39 7 3 COLDUMNIDEEFINITIONS IN ite eer HE USED GER NU es be nte R 40 APPENDIX DBS REFERENCE eerte ette esten tt neta setas etas tasto sete see soe sse ess eese ease eaae en 42 8 1 NEED FOR PRECISE SPECIFICATIONS AND DEFINITIONS eese enne en eterne ee 42 8 2 STRUCTURE OF THE DBS WORKSHEET ccesccssscecesseeeseeceeeeeneeceseeseacecsueeseneecaeeseaeecsaeeneneeees 43 8 3 COLUMN DEFINITIONS IN A DBS iiss ech eoe eere ERE Re eee
38. f no customers abandon during the period and will likely be less than 200 when the call center is well staffed so that almost all calls are answered quickly Another way of looking at it is if there are lots of agents to handle a type a caller then all wait times will be small so the average wait to abandon must also be small Now modify the Staffing worksheet of SampleScenario xls so that the number of agents in the call center is 0 for every site agent group and period Run the simulator again and look in the C DBS worksheet in the scenario workbook Note that for Peripherals the values in the Avg Wait Time Reneged column are all fairly close to 200 seconds 9 3 What value should you use for Abandon Rate How should you select the value of Abandon Rate in your scenarios If possible find an ACD report that covers a time period during which as large a fraction as possible of callers are 4 24 2008 47 9 APPENDIX Explanation of Abandon Rate and Balkiness abandoning Determine from this report what the average time T to abandon is for waiting customers Make sure that customers whose wait time is 0 are not included in the computation of the average value Now compute r 1 7 The number r is a lower bound for the value to enter for Abandon Rate Therefore pick a somewhat larger number and enter it as Abandon Rate Tip Don t worry excessively about getting an exact Abandon Rate This parameter cannot be es
39. for this Contact Type on the Contact Types sheet 19 Service Level Average over all repetitions of the service level fraction displayed as a Fraction percent for calls of the specified Contact Type during the specified period Precisely this is a fraction N N5 where number of callers of specified Site Contact Type who began service during the period after either no wait or after a wait time that was less than or equal to Service Level Seconds and number of callers of specified Site Contact who began service reneged or balked during the period 8 APPENDIX A_DBS Reference At the end of each simulator run Contact Routing Simulator creates a worksheet called A DBS see below Figure 10 containing a wealth of information about the simulated performance from an Agent perspective of your ACD or network of ACDs We gave an overview of this worksheet in Section 6 3 2 Agent Performance Worksheet In the current appendix we provide additional details about the structure and contents of A DBS 8 1 Need for Precise Specifications and Definitions Considerations similar to those discussed in Section 7 1 where we discussed the C DBS worksheet apply here Take Average Handle Time as an example On the A DBS worksheet Contact Routing Simulator reports Average Handle Time for each combination of Site Agent Group and Period Clearly Average Handle Time equals the sum of all handle times divided by the num
40. g Simulator itself uses DBS to create the pivot chart SL showing the service level outputs of the simulation 7 3 Column Definitions in C DBS Refer Table 3 to for detailed descriptions of the data in each column of C DBS Table 3 C DBS Worksheet Column Descriptions 1 Site The name of a Site on the Sites worksheet 2 Contact Type The name of a Contact Type on the Contact Types worksheet 3 Period Number Integer identifying a time period Time period number 1 begins at midnight 00 00 4 Period Start Time hh mm at which period begins 5 Period End Time hh mm at which period ends 6 Avg NPresent Average over all repetitions of number of contacts in the system of the specified Site Contact Type during the specified period Includes contacts that are waiting and those that are talking 7 Avg Handle Average over all repetitions of Talk Time Wrap Time for calls of the Time specified Site Contact Type that finish wrap during the specified period 4 24 2008 40 7 APPENDIX C_DBS Reference Avg NWait Average over all repetitions of number of waiting calls of the specified Site Contact Type during the specified period Sometimes called Average Queue Length Avg Wait Time All Average over all repetitions of wait time experienced by all calls of the specified Site Contact Type during the specified period The average includes all calls that renege during the period all
41. g instructions you may also provide an additional column that contains the Expected Wait Threshold for that contact type We calculate the expected delay for a contact at a site as the wait time of the currently longest waiting contact If this time is greater than the specified threshold the delays are ignored for that contact You may leave the cell blank for contact types that won t be using this feature If no contact types will be using this feature you need not include the column The Agent to Contact Priority table works in much the same fashion but it is read from the top down instead of from left to right It shows the set of decision rules used by agents that have just entered the system or have just become available after handling another contact The agent looks for the highest priority contact type for its agent group usually represented by the number 1 If there are contacts of that type in queue the agent matches with the contact that has been waiting the longest If there is more than one cell with the same lowest priority number the agent will look for contacts in queue from all of those contact types and match with the caller waiting longest If no contacts are in queue in any of the first priority groups the agent looks for cells having a lower priority and repeats the process If none of the contact types for which priority numbers are listed have contacts in queue the agent goes to an idle state Again if you choos
42. guration All inputs and outputs for a single simulation are located in a Microsoft Excel workbook file called a scenario workbook You will probably wish to store all such files on your computer in a single folder or tree of folders You start program execution as you would any other Excel application simply double click on the name of the scenario workbook you wish to open There are several other files necessary for running a simulation on your computer These files are added when the Contact Routing Simulator software is installed on your computer You will not 4 24 2008 5 Introduction need to access these files directly See CRS Installation Instructions pdf for full details about installation The software is delivered with two Excel template files SampleScenario XLT and EmptyScenario XLT The installation program places shortcuts to these templates in two places on your desktop and in your Programs menu under Abstract Micro Systems These templates work similarly to any other Excel template when you open a template Excel creates new workbook that contains the objects in the template Initially this workbook exists only in the computer s memory but you may at any time save a copy by means of Excel s menu option File Save As For example consider what happens when you open the template SampleScenario XLT you can do this by clicking on the shortcut to it on your desktop Excel does not actually open the template file itself
43. ich streamlines certain editing tasks You will use Scenario Editor when you are creating a new scenario workbook from scratch or when you are making a major reconfiguration of a scenario workbook such as adding or removing sites agent groups or contact types 1 6 Plan for this manual The next chapter focuses on the contact routing problem itself It addresses the pros and cons of different routing schemes and different technology options including network level routing in a multi site environment The third fourth fifth and sixth chapters contain instructions on preparing inputs running Contact Routing Simulator using Scenario Editor and interpreting outputs Finally there are several appendices giving expanded documentation on several matters covered in the earlier chapters 4 24 2008 6 2 The contact routing problem 2 The contact routing problem 2 1 Routing basics The problem is simply stated When a contact arrives or an agent becomes available what should be done The answer to this question can be very simple or remarkably complicated Take the case of the arriving call In the simplest case the call is matched to an available agent who possesses the skills needed to handle the call If there are no such agents available the call is placed in a queue When an agent becomes available queued calls are serviced in the order in which they arrived Callers may occasionally grow impatient while waiting and abandon the q
44. inning service and those that had no wait for such calls a 0 wait time is averaged in 13 NArrive Average over all repetitions of number of calls of the specified Site Contact Type which arrive at the site during the specified period Blocked or balked calls are not included 14 NDepart Average over all repetitions of number of calls of the specified Site Contact Type which leave the system during the period Calls leave the system either by finishing talking or by reneging Blocked or balked calls 15 NBlock Average over all repetitions of number of calls of the specified Site Contact Type which arrive at the site but which can not enter the system because all agents able to handle the call are busy and the Maximum Queue Length for this contact type would be exceeded if the call were placed in queue 4 24 2008 41 8 APPENDIX A_DBS Reference 16 NBalk Average over all repetitions of number of calls of the specified Site Contact Type which balk during the period A caller is said to balk if the caller immediately abandons upon learning that there will be a wait 17 NRenege Average over all repetitions of number of calls of the specified Site Contact Type which renege during the period A caller is said to renege if the caller abandons after waiting for a while 18 Service Level This data item replicates the Service Level Seconds that was specified Seconds
45. iod parameters and then select the Partial Commit button If you then make some errors while editing the staffing detail you might wish to restore the staffing table to the values shown before you started making changes Choosing Partial Rollback will undo the changes you made to the staffing detail data grid but not to the period parameters because you altered those before the Partial Commit If you ve lost track of when you made the error relative to the last Partial Commit you can always cancel the Scenario Editor session That action would restore the values stored before you entered the Scenario Editor for this editing session Update Press this button to exit Scenario Editor and update the open scenario workbook Scenario with the changes you ve just made in Scenario Editor Button Cancel Press this button to close Scenario Editor without updating the open scenario Button workbook You will be presented with a dialog box that asks if you are sure Selecting the X button in the top right corner of the Scenario Editor Console has the same effect as pressing the Cancel button 4 24 2008 26 5 Scenario Editor 5 4 2 Advanced Parameters Window Advanced Scenario Parameters Figure 3 Advanced Scenario Parameters Clicking on the button labeled Advanced presents a number of fields displayed on the Advanced parameters worksheets In most cases you should just use the default values shown in Figure 3 Advanced Scenario Paramete
46. istribution of agent groups in the idle state 6 2 2 Agent group The worksheet labeled XA graphically displays the breakdown of an agent group s activity for each period That is it shows the fraction of time an agent group spent handling each type of contact and the fraction of time spent in the idle state The specific site agent group and contact type displayed can be changed using the boxes in the upper left corner the right side and beneath the graph This display is interesting because it tells us how an agent group spent its time during a period In a skills based environment we may prefer that agents get the chance to handle a representative sample of all the contact types they are trained for This graph provides that information 4 24 2008 33 6 Interpreting Results 6 3 Performance Details During a simulation run Contact Routing Simulator continually updates very several large internal tabulations which aggregate the performance data from the run At the end of the run the simulator writes out the results of these tabulations to several worksheets C DBS DBS XC DBS and XA DBS Typically these output worksheets contain many thousands of numbers far too many numbers to comprehend in a useful way without the aid of powerful data analysis and visualization tools Such tools are readily available in Excel pivot tables and pivot charts For that reason the worksheets C DBS DBS XC DBS and XA DBS are organized in
47. ity namely Desktops There is one such call in queue namely David s call It is now 12 00 05 in the middle of the 10 second wait by David s call The question is should Patti and David be connected now David doesn t want to be connected because his call s routing rules specify a 10 second delay before connecting to PC Generalists agent But Patti wants to be connected because her routing rules have no built in delays 4 24 2008 50 10 APPENDIX The Require Consent Parameter If Require Consent is Yes then Patti is not allowed to connect to David during his 10 second delay because such a connection would be without David s consent In this case the next event which triggers a routing decision occurs at 12 00 10 when David s call wakes up after its 10 second sleep At that time David routing algorithm implies that he will immediately be connected to Patti On the other hand if Require Consent is No then Patti is connected immediately to David at 12 00 05 when Patti becomes available Patti can connect because her routing rules say to do so overriding David s objections 10 2 Example Daniel Nancy and Della Asymmetric Eligibility Matching To understand how Require Consent works when there is asymmetric eligibility consider a site whose routing is determined by the routing worksheet displayed in Figure 13 E Scenario Workbook RequireCons 2 4 4 Hi Routing 5 UTI XC
48. ld expect from an ACD contacts offered handled and abandoned average handle times service quality for contacts and utilization rates for agents In a matter of seconds we will have experienced what might have taken hours to happen in real time 1 2 Why bother to simulate Simulation is an alternative to experimenting with real customers and real agents It is fast and it is inexpensive It is an easy way to try out new ideas without disrupting operations Few modern contact centers operate very long without changing at least one key variable New contact types are added call volumes increase or decrease agents acquire new skills new technology is implemented and new routing rules are put into effect In even a moderately large contact center the impact of these changes cannot be foretold with even minimally acceptable accuracy You have to try out something new to see what its effect will be The choice is between trying it out on a simulator and trying it out on your customers and agents 1 3 Design of Contact Routing Simulator Contact Routing Simulator has three components or layers At the core is a powerful simulation engine It is designed to generate vast quantities of random numbers extremely rapidly and assign them to simulation events such as contact arrivals contact abandonment agent arrivals and departures and so forth This layer also keeps track of the sequence of events the order in which contacts arrive and are hand
49. le for matching Delays are shown in parentheses immediately after the priority number and represent time in seconds measured from contact arrival or in the case of agents from the time the agent finishes the previous call The Contact to Agent Priority table shows how an arriving caller should act when entering the system The caller in effect looks across the row to find the cell with the lowest priority number usually a 1 This cell s column is the agent group that the caller will attempt first If there are one or more agents available in that group the caller will match with the agent idle longest If multiple cells in this contact type s row have the same lowest priority number the caller will attempt to match with the agent idle longest across all of the groups represented If no agent is available in any of the first priority groups the caller looks through all the cells for the next highest priority number and repeats the process just described This procedure continues until all groups having a priority number associated with this contact type have been checked If no available agent is found the contact goes into queue to await the first available agent from any eligible group If you are using delays the contact cannot go to a lower priority group until it has waited the appropriate delay time If more than one group has the same priority number they must also have the same delay If you choose to use delays in your routin
50. led and the timing of agent arrivals and departures 4 24 2008 4 Introduction Contact Routing Simulator s middle layer models the operation of contacts moving through the contact center It provides for the assignment of individual contacts to individual agents by implementing the center s routing rules It also collects the event data that will form the basis for all the statistics reported at the end of the simulation Contact Routing Simulator s outer layer is the user interface which uses Microsoft Excel It provides a mechanism for the user to specify parameters such as contact types contact arrival rates abandonment percentages handle times contact routing rules and agent data It also generates the statistics that describe the results of each simulation run It is designed to accommodate users that will be entering data on large numbers of contact types and agent groups 1 4 Inputs and outputs Contact Routing Simulator s basic inputs are contact data agent data and routing rules Contact data includes a list of contact types and the parameters associated with each type e g arrival rate priority abandonment rate and average handle time Agent data includes a count of agent groups typically defined with respect to the contact types they are capable of handling average handle time factors how quickly efficiently or effectively this particular agent group handles a contact type relative to other agent groups pri
51. lk or work time simply highlight the relevant field and replace it Note that the fields for workload source contact type and period are disabled and cannot be changed For more information about workload detail fields refer to Section 3 2 3 Workload worksheet 4 24 2008 29 5 Scenario Editor 5 4 5 Staffing Detail Window Staffing Detail 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Figure 6 Staffing Detail Window The Staffing Detail Window contains the data on the Staffing Worksheet You get here by pressing the Staffing Detail button on the Scenario Editor Console You will see two choice boxes on the top of the window and a data grid Use the boxes to limit the data you wish to view The data you have selected to view 1s organized within the data grid below first by Site name then by Agent Group name then by period number and day number The start and stop time is shown for each period number Each row then shows the number of agents for that combination of site agent group and period To change the number of agents simply highlight the relevant field and replace it Note that the fields for site name agent group name and period are disabled and cannot be changed For more information about Staffing Detail refer to Section 3 3 2 Staffing worksheet 4 24 2008 30 5 Scenario Editor 5 4 6 Routing Detail Window Routing Detail RoutingName Routing1
52. lts that you have generated so far are erased All inputs that were read during the previous initialization are also cleared from the simulator engine s internal memory However pressing Reset does not erase or affect in any way the data that you have entered in the input worksheets in the scenario workbook If you press the Run button after having pressed the Reset button all inputs will be re read 4 1 4 Statistics button The Statistics button is enabled whenever the simulation has run long enough to create some output data This happens when a simulation run is complete 1 e all repetitions have been finished or when the Pause button is pressed after at least one full period of one repetition has been simulated If you press the Pause button after just beginning a simulation run say after 20 minutes of the first 30 minute period have been simulated the Statistics button will not be enabled When you press the Statistics button after simulating at least one full period you are given an opportunity to view a variety of data items some of which are not available as part of the standard simulation output These data items can be viewed for all repetitions combined or only for the repetition just completed for all periods combined or for a selected period and for any site Once you have set these parameters you can choose a particular contact type or agent group for which to view detailed data The data available in the Statistics window
53. lumn for each agent group for this cost input For cost per minute and cost per lost contact there is one row for each contact type For agent cost there is one column for each agent group 3 6 Advanced Parameters There are several additional parameters with which some experienced users may wish to experiment These are detailed on a worksheet named Advanced which normally remains hidden To display the advanced worksheet first unhide it by using the Sheet Unhide command on the Excel toolbar Format pull down menu Choose Adv from the drop down list of hidden worksheets Tip If your scenario workbook does not have a worksheet named Adv you can still perform a simulation if everything else needed by the simulator exists in your scenario workbook When you press the Run button in the Simulator Console the simulator will create a new hidden worksheet named Adv and fill it with default values You can unhide this worksheet by using the Sheet Unhide command on the Excel toolbar Format pull down menu Similarly Scenario Editor too will create an Adv worksheet in your scenario workbook if none exists when you start the editor Most users will seldom if ever view the Adv worksheet or change its contents So feel free to skip over the following table in a first reading of this user manual 4 24 2008 14 3 Preparing Inputs Table 1 Advanced Parameters Reference Advanced Parameters Random Seed Any integer or th
54. me way Thus some ACDs may report calls that abandon within 20 seconds as handled calls and thereby artificially raise the reported service level while others may treat them as calls not handled within 20 seconds Still other ACDs may attempt to finesse the problem by computing service level as the fraction of handled calls that were handled within 20 seconds Bottom line understand what your ACD 15 reporting before you attempt to produce comparable results with a simulator 4 24 2008 9 3 Preparing Inputs 3 Preparing Inputs 3 1 General simulation parameters The first set of inputs controls basic simulation setup and describes general characteristics of the network to be simulated 3 1 1 General worksheet The first item allows you to enter a Scenario Name The name will appear on various output reports The Number of Repetitions determines how many times a complete simulation will be performed For example if you are simulating one day s worth of contacts and you set the Number of Repetitions to 100 Contact Routing Simulator will perform 100 independent simulations of that day s activities The results will then show an average over the 100 repetitions The Start Time 1s the opening time for the contact center or the beginning of the day The format is hh mm Midnight is entered as 00 00 Period Length is the duration of the reporting period in minutes Most ACDs and workforce management packages are set to report using either 15 o
55. nario workbooks open at the same time Yes you can have any number of scenario workbooks open at the same time in Excel limited only by your computer s memory Can I run two or more simulations simultaneously Yes but each simulation must be running inside a separate instance of the Excel application For example open a scenario workbook Press the Run button on the Simulator Console Now use the All Programs menu on the Windows Taskbar to open another instance of Excel With this Excel window s menu bar use File Open to open another Scenario Workbook Press the Run button on the Simulator Console You now have two simulators running simultaneously Why would I want to run two or more simulations simultaneously Because you might get the work done sooner Suppose for example that you have two simulations to run Suppose also that your computer has a multiprocessing CPU as do many PCs today Then you might get your two simulations done sooner if they run simultaneously than if they run one after the other This would require that the simulations run in separate processors something over which you probably have no control Experiment with this Tip if you do not have multiprocessing CPU then there will be no speed advantage from running simulations simultaneously 11 4 Simulator Memory Usage How much memory does Contact Routing Simulator use Loading the Excel addin A ContactRoutingSimulator xla consumes a small amount of memory abou
56. nds with the first field shown in the General Worksheet The number of repetitions You may choose the appropriate number from the dropdown list or key in any positive integer yourself The Periods Panel displays parameters associated with the simulation scenario time frame including the period length the number of periods period count the start day and time and the end day and time You ll notice that each of these fields is disabled Select the Change Periods button to make changes Click to open the Periods Window where you view and change parameters related to the time periods of the simulation scenario Click to open the Advanced Parameters window where you view and edit the fields displayed on the Advanced parameters worksheet 24 5 Scenario Editor Scenario Editor Controls Routings Grid Press the title bar to open a larger version of the grid The Routings Grid names the Routing Worksheets that will be used for this scenario It contains one row for each Routing Worksheet that will be used by the Simulator and each row contains only the name of the Routing Worksheet Tip Notice that the title bar of this control the blue bar containing the work Routings is a button Push this button to open a larger resizable window in which you can edit the same data Sites Grid The Sites Grid reflects the information shown on the Sites Worksheet It shows the sites that will be used for this scenario and which rou
57. ne or more agent groups or call types Changes made within Scenario Editor are reflected in the relevant worksheets of a scenario workbook when you exit Scenario Editor by pressing the Update Scenario button Virtually all changes possible within a scenario workbook can be made through Scenario Editor as well The task at hand will dictate whether the change can be more easily made with eh Scenario Editor 5 1 Scenario Editor Overview Scenario Editor is a set of data entry windows by means of which you add remove or change data in a scenario workbook To use the Scenario editor you first open a scenario workbook When the Simulator Console appears you press the Edit button on the Simulator Console This action starts the Scenario Editor Now you use the screens of the Scenario Editor to make the changes to the scenario After making these changes you press the Update Scenario button in Scenario Editor to close Scenario Editor and update the underlying Scenario Workbook At this point you are back to using Excel as your user interface Changes to the scenario workbook become final only if you save the workbook using the Excel menu option File Save or File Save AS Many changes to existing scenario workbooks are most easily made without the services of Scenario Editor This is especially true of changes to Workload Staffing and Routing worksheets Just make such changes using Excel s usual editing tools 5 2 Using the Empty Scenario Template to
58. ng that sheet This means that if you have placed any items values formulas charts etc in these sheets other than simulator inputs all such data will be lost during the update process Furthermore if some of the simulator input cells in the scenario workbook contain Excel formulas rather than values then after running Scenario Editor and pressing Update Scenario all such cells will now contain values In other words all formulas are replaced by values This behavior of Scenario Editor is by design The conclusion is if the worksheets used by the simulator contain additional data not used by the simulator or if some of the inputs to the simulator are formulas rather than values then you should probably make copies of all such material before you run Scenario Editor 5 4 Scenario Editor Windows The main window of Scenario Editor is the Scenario Editor Console This window is the first window that appears when you start Scenario Editor by pressing the Edit button on the Simulator Console You access all other Scenario Editor windows by pressing buttons on the Scenario Editor Console All windows in Scenario Editor are modal This means that at each moment during a Scenario Editor session exactly one Scenario Editor window has the focus and you can not activate the controls on another Scenario Editor window unless you first close the window that now has the focus or open another modal window which will then receive the focus 5 4 4 Scenario
59. od numbers would go from 17 until 44 The remaining columns represent the agent groups The names must correspond exactly to the list of agent group names in the Agent Groups worksheet Cells contain the number of agents of that agent group working during that period This figure should represent the bodies in chairs number net of all unproductive time 3 4 Matching contacts with agents The final worksheet or worksheets provides the rules by which contacts and agents are matched with each other Because different contact routing devices use different rules for this matching process the information is broken down into two separate tables 3 41 Routing worksheet The name of this worksheet is supplied by the user on the Sites worksheet The same routing worksheet can be used for all sites or different ones for different sites 4 24 2008 12 3 Preparing Inputs The routing worksheet contains two tables The first table gives the rules to follow if a contact is to choose an agent group and the second table gives the rules for an agent to use when selecting a contact type Both tables operate in much the same fashion but they are read from a different direction The left hand column lists the contact types and the column headings represent agent groups Each cell shows the priority associated with a match of that contact type with that agent group and if delays are being used the delay contacts or agents must endure before they are eligib
60. ority rules and shrinkage factors Routing rules determine how contacts and agents are matched They are of two kinds skills based routing and rules based routing Skills based routing typically directs a contact to an agent group based on that group s ability to handle that type of contact and various contact level or agent level priority factors Contacts are usually assigned to agents within a group on the basis of agent longest idle That is when a contact is to be assigned to a group the contact goes to the available agent that has gone the longest time without being on a contact Rules based routing on the other hand directs individual contacts to individual agents It makes use of contact routing technology now available that can identify the incoming caller perform a database search to gather caller specific data and perform a calculation to determine the available agent most suited to handle that contact This approach to contact routing raises the level of complexity several notches Contact Routing Simulator outputs include the standard set of key system performance statistics service quality service level and or average delay abandonment rate to each group of incoming contacts and utilization statistics for each agent group or individual agent It is also possible in cases where complicated routing schemes are employed to track the usage of the various paths that contacts can take through the system 1 5 Computer confi
61. orkload Press this button to open the Workload Detail Window where you edit the Detail information in the Workload worksheet of the scenario workbook Button Tip Workload detail information is almost always easier to edit within Excel rather than in the Scenario Editor Staffing Press this button to open the Staffing Detail Window where you edit the Detail information in the Staffing worksheet of the scenario workbook Button Tip Staffing detail information is almost always easier to edit within Excel rather than in the Scenario Editor Routing Press this button to open the Routing Detail Window where you edit the Detail information in the routing worksheets of the scenario workbook Button Tip Routing detail information is almost always easier to edit within Excel rather than in the Scenario Editor Partial This button commits the changes you ve made thus far in this Scenario Editor Commit session Note that even after one or more Partial Commits you can still choose Button Cancel to exit the Scenario Editor and discard all changes you ve made in this Scenario Editor session Partial The Partial Rollback feature allows you to undo the changes you ve made since Rollback the last Partial Commit or since you entered the Scenario Editor if you haven t Button chosen to make a Partial Commit in this Scenario Editor session For example you might change the timeframe of the simulation by making several changes to the per
62. ot include contacts that abandoned NArrive Number Arrive represents the number of contacts that arrived during the period NDepart Number Depart 1s the number of contacts whose service was completed during the period or who abandoned during the period NBlock Number Blocked is the number of contacts that arrived when all agents were busy and all queue slots were full NBalk Number Balked is the number of contacts that arrived when all agents were busy and then immediately abandoned without waiting at all 4 24 2008 34 6 Interpreting Results NRenege Number Reneged 15 the number of contacts that abandoned the queue after waiting for a while The last two columns Service Level Seconds and Service Level Fraction show the service level for the period 6 3 2 Agent Performance Worksheet The worksheet A_DBS holds a variety of agent group statistics Each row in the table represents data for a specific site agent group and period combination For a detailed and complete definition of each of the data columns in this worksheet see 8 APPENDIX A DBS We give an abbreviated description here Avg NAvail Average Number Available is the number of agents in the group that are logged in and working Working means that the agents are in one of three states talking with a contact doing after call work or waiting for a call to arrive Avg Handle Time is the average time spent by agents in this group handling contacts It includes
63. r Balkiness must be a number between 0 and 1 inclusive When balkiness 0 every caller who learns that there will be a wait will stay on the line at least for a while When balkiness 1 every caller who learns that there will be a wait will immediately hang up Note that if for example balkiness 0 2 or 20 then this does not mean that 20 of callers balk It means that over many simulator repetitions it will be true that among simulated callers who arrive at the system and learn that there will be a wait close to 2096 of them immediately abandon without waiting at all So the actual fraction of callers who balk during any simulation run will range between 0 and roughly 20 4 24 2008 46 9 APPENDIX Explanation of Abandon Rate and Balkiness Tip Set balkiness to 0 in almost all cases Simulator outputs are easier to understand in this case and there is enough flexibility built into the wait time distributions i e ability to set the shape parameter of the wait time distribution on the Adv worksheet so that we can properly simulate abandonment behavior by manipulating the Abandon Rate see below and the shape parameter At Abstract Micro Systems we sometimes use non zero values of balkiness for testing and validating the simulator against theoretical queueing theory models 9 2 Abandon Rate A customer who waits for a while and then leaves the system is said to renege An example would be a customer who calls your call
64. r 30 minute period lengths The Number of Periods setting determines the length of the day Forty eight periods of length 30 minutes corresponds to a 24 hour operation Note that some Start Time Number of Period combinations may result in a day that crosses midnight 3 1 2 Sites worksheet This worksheet describes the sites in a single or multi site network Each site is listed along with the name of the Routing Worksheet holding that site s customer agent routing rules information 3 2 Contact source parameters The contact source parameters describe the incoming contacts and the procedure for allocating them among sites 32 1 Contact types worksheet There is one row in this table for each incoming contact type The Contact Type is the name of an incoming contact group for example customer service calls Service Level Seconds 1s the benchmark time for contacts of this type to be answered by an agent It can be thought of as the goal for how long contacts are forced to wait in queue Note that the figure for calls may be in the range of several seconds whereas it may be a matter of hours for emails Note further that no matter how lengthy the benchmark it must always be expressed in seconds 4 24 2008 10 3 Preparing Inputs Minimum Service Level 1s the desired percent of contacts that meet the service level seconds benchmark It is expressed as a percentage that 1s seventy percent would be entered as 70 The Default
65. routing rules for calls and the routing rules for agents The David Patty example shows how a conflict can occur when a call is in the middle of a delay mandated by the routing rules when the agent tries to connect or vice versa When such a conflict occurs caller and agent are connected if Require Consent No and are not connected if Require Consent Yes The Daniel Nancy Della example shows that the Require Consent setting can have a significant effect 1f your routing scheme involves asymmetric eligibility Tip Don t use routing schemes with asymmetric eligibility Such schemes are unlikely to accurately reflect the inner workings of your ACD software Instead use routing with symmetric eligibility You do this by making sure that the blank cells 1f any in the call routing matrix on your routing worksheet are matched by corresponding blank cells in the same places in the agent routing matrix on that routing worksheet In other words both matrices should have blank cells in exactly the same places What setting for Require Consent is appropriate for your ACD software Abstract Micro Systems believes that for almost all ACDs you should set Require Consent No For that reason we have chosen No as the default value for Require Consent when you run a simulation on a scenario workbook in which there is no Advanced Parameters worksheet 1 a worksheet named Adv In that case Contact Routing Simulator creates a new hidden
66. rrive As an example an agent utilization statistic of 85 percent means that an agent is spending 51 minutes out of each hour working directly on contacts and nine minutes sitting idle waiting for the next contact to arrive Agent utilization is displayed graphically on the worksheet labeled UTIL The initial display shows utilization percent for all sites and all agent groups By using the box on the upper left corner you can change the display to an individual site Similarly you can use the box on the right side to select which agent groups you wish to view The box beneath the graph lets you choose a subset of the periods for which the simulation was run if you wish to show fewer periods 6 2 Cross tabulations 6 2 1 Contact type In a skills based routing environment many different agent groups may be capable of handling each call type It is interesting to know for a specific contact type how the workload of servicing that contact type has been shared among the various agent groups The graph on the worksheet labeled XC provides this information Just as in the case of the service quality and utilization graphs you can use the boxes at the upper left corner right side and at the bottom to focus in on the site contact type agent groups and periods you d like to view However the cross tabulations graph provides an interesting option in addition to the contact types idle You can choose to view a period by period graph of the d
67. rs If you want to experiment with changing these values please refer to their descriptions in Section 3 6 Advanced Parameters 4 24 2008 27 5 Scenario Editor 5 43 Periods Window Periods Figure 4 Periods Window In the Periods Window you may enter or select from the drop down menu for five of the fields the Period Length the Start Day number and time and the End day number and time The sixth field period count is calculated from the other fields and may not be changed directly by the user 4 24 2008 28 5 Scenario Editor 5 4 4 Workload Detail Window Workload Detail IBEESBEBSEEEEEBESSSESBES Jgssoscsssosssso2sosssss 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Figure 5 Workload Detail Window The Workload Detail Window contains the data on the workload worksheet You get here by pressing the Workload Detail button on the Scenario Editor Console You will see two choice boxes on the top of the window and data grid Use the boxes to limit the data you wish to view The data you have selected to view 1s organized within the data grid below first by workload Source then by contact Type then by period number and day number The start and stop time is shown for each period number Each row then shows then number of calls the average talk time and the average after call work time for each combination of workload source contact type and period To change the number of calls or the ta
68. so true that Utilization Fraction AvgNServeOrWrap Avg NAvail 4 24 2008 45 9 APPENDIX Explanation of Abandon Rate and Balkiness 9 APPENDIX Explanation of Abandon Rate and Balkiness This appendix discusses how Contact Routing Simulator models the impatience of customers who experience a delay before their call is answered and explains how you should decide what values to enter on the Contact Types worksheet for Abandon Rate and Balkiness Queueing theory distinguishes two types of impatient behavior also called abandonment for customers arriving at a queuing facility balking and reneging Abstract Micro Systems Contact Routing Simulator SampleScenario 19 File Edit View Insert Format Tools Data Window Help 23 29 Default Default Minimum Talk Wrap 1 90 00 280 70 0 001 14 30 80 00 300 70 0 005 5 lw General Sites y Contact Types Jiad Sources Ready Figure 11 Abandon Rate and Balkiness on Contact Types worksheet 91 Balkiness A customer who refuses to enter a queue when he discovers that there will be a wait is said to balk An example would be a customer who calls your call center receives the message representatives are currently assisting other customers and then immediately hangs up The conditional probability that a caller will balk given that the caller discovers that there will be a wait is called balkiness in Contact Routing Simulato
69. t 2 MB When you open a scenario workbook and press the Run button on the Simulator Console the simulator engine then begins using a larger amount of memory that depends on the nature of the simulation inputs An approximate empirically determined formula for the amount of memory needed by the simulator engine is MB of memory used 20 0 025 NPeriod NSite NContactType NAgentGroup A rule of thumb is that if the amount of memory calculated from this formula is greater than the installed physical memory on the user s computer then the program will either not run at all or will run extremely slowly due to excessive paging 12 CREDITS Design of Contact Routing Simulator Tom Potter Bob Hayes Karen Weir and Gene Johnson Programming Tom Potter User Manual Written by Karen Weir revised and expanded by Tom Potter 4 24 2008 54
70. tact work Again managers usually specify a maximum desired utilization rate a figure that may be different for different agent groups In simple environments it too can be easily computed and in more complicated environments it can only be estimated through simulation The question then becomes What is a simple environment For our purposes the practical answer is that a simple environment is one in which a single type of contact can be connected to a single group of agents For example customers calling for technical support are directed to a single group of agents each member of which is capable of handling those customers needs These agents handle no other types of contacts and no other group of agents can take this type of contact Everything else falls under the heading of complex at least as far as estimating performance parameters is concerned Other variables of interest often involve measures that relate directly to the purpose of the contact For example we may be interested in knowing the revenue that will be generated by a group of sales agents or the rate of first call resolution for a group of service agents both of which may be easy to estimate directly in simple environments but can only be estimated through simulation in a more complex environment 2 3 Technology options Improvements in contact routing technology have made it increasingly more difficult to predict the value of key indicators without using sim
71. those whose wrap ends during the specified period Average over all repetitions of number of agents of the specified Site Agent Group who are busy talking or wrapping during the period Note that Avg NAvail Avg NServeOrWrap AvgNWait Avg NWait Average over all repetitions of number of agents of the specified Site Agent Group who are waiting during the specified period This number could also be called the Average Agent Queue Length Note that Avg NAvail Avg NServeOrWrap AvgNWait 10 Avg Wait Time All Average over all repetitions of the wait times experienced by agents of the specified Site Agent Group during the period More precisely consider each occurrence of an agent beginning to service a call during the period Let N the number of such occurrences Add up the wait times that preceded each occurrence adding 0 if there was no wait that is if the agent connected immediately to a call after finishing the previous call Take this sum and divided by N 11 Avg Wait Time Delayed Average over all repetitions of the wait intervals experienced by agents of the specified Site Agent Group during the period More precisely consider each occurrence of an agent beginning to service a call after waiting for a non zero amount of time during the period Let N the number of such occurrences Add up the wait times that preceded each occurrence Take this sum and divide by 4 24 20
72. timated exactly from your ACD reports Moreover remember that your goal is a well functioning contact center and in such a center there will not be very many abandoned calls anyway The simulation model is not very sensitive to the Abandon Rate parameter in the types of configurations that you are trying to achieve Just pick a value for Abandon Rate that seems reasonable based on your understanding of the ACD reports and based on your intuition about your customers behavior Then do a simulation If the simulation outputs for number of abandoned calls and or Avg Wait Time Reneged seem too large or too small to fit the actual behavior of your call center then experiment with adjusting Abandon Rate to try to get a better fit 9 4 Should Abandon Rate ever be 0 Setting Abandon Rate to 0 means that a customer who begins waiting will never abandon no matter how long the call has to wait For telephone calls this almost never is a realistic assumption Human nature and physiology do not produce an infinitely patient caller Therefore Tip Don t use Abandon Rate 0 for a contact type corresponding to telephone calls Even if you think the callers are extremely patient use a small number such as 0001 instead of 0 However if you are modeling emails coming into your call centers then you may realistically set Abandon Rate 0 for each email Contact Type Those emails will never go away until they are processed This may
73. time spent talking to customers and doing after call work Avg NServeOrWrap Average Number Serve or Wrap is the average number of agents that are either talking to a customer or performing after call work Avg NWait Average Number Waiting is the average number of agents that are waiting for a contact to arrive to be connected to them Avg Wait Time All is the average time spent by agents awaiting the arrival of the next contact This is the average of all agent wait times including wait times of 0 duration Wait times of duration 0 occur when an agent finishes one call and immediately begins talking to the next caller Avg Wait Time Delayed is the average of all agent wait times that were greater than 0 NArrive Number Arrive is the number of agents that signed on during the period NDepart Number Depart is the number of agents that logged off during the period Utilization Fraction is the percentage of the period that an agent spent handling contacts 6 4 Cost Revenue Analysis The worksheet labeled CR Out contains Cost Revenue figures that will have been calculated 1f your system has been configured to provide such an analysis The worksheet is divided into three primary sections the first for Revenue Totals the second for Cost Totals and the third for Net Revenue Totals Each of these three sections mimics the layout of the inputs entered in the CR In worksheet 6 4 4 Revenue Totals Revenues are shown in two categories the
74. ting worksheet will be associated with each It contains one row for each site and in addition to the site name each row contains the name of the Routing worksheet that will be used for that site Tip Notice that the title bar of this control is a button Push this button to open a larger resizable window in which you can edit the same data The Agent Groups Grid lists the agent groups to be used in the simulation and indicates the talk and wrap time for the group relative to other groups Refer to Section 3 3 1 Agent Groups worksheet for more details Tip Notice that the title bar of this control is a button Push this button to open a larger resizable window in which you can edit the same data Workload The Workload Sources Grid contains the information shown on the Workload Sources Sources worksheet For each workload source the grid shows the percentage of Grid that workload that will be allocated to each site Tip Notice that the title bar of this control is a button Push this button to open a larger resizable window in which you can edit the same data Contact The Contact Types Grid contains the data shown on the Contact Types worksheet Types Grid Refer to Section 3 2 1 Contact types worksheetfor details Tip Notice that the title bar of this control is a button Push this button to open a larger resizable window in which you can edit the same data 4 24 2008 25 5 Scenario Editor Scenario Editor Controls W
75. ts Advanced Parameters Calculate Cost Revenue Subperiod Length Value must be a divisor of Period Length Contact Generation Variable Fixed Algorithm 4 24 2008 1 5 10 15 30 60 If set to Yes the simulator searches for Cost Revenue inputs on the worksheet named CR In and at the end of the run the simulator outputs Cost Revenue results to the CR Out worksheet If set to No the simulator ignores Cost Revenue inputs and does not write to the CR Out worksheet Recommended setting is 5 for users Other settings are used for testing at Abstract Micro Systems The subperiod length can equal the period length in minutes or be any divisor of the period length Using a subperiod length smaller than the period length means that the simulated arrival rate of calls will be smoothed across period boundaries resulting in more realistic simulated performance Most users use Variable as the setting If Fixed then the simulated number of calls m arriving in each period for each contact type and each workload source will exactly equal the number of arrivals n specified in the Workload worksheet for that workload source contact type and period This will be true in every repetition of the simulator If Variable then m will vary randomly from repetition to repetition but will have a mean close to over a large number of repetitions 4 Running a Simulation 4 Running a Simulation When you load an
76. ts to take calls of the type in question On the Contact performance worksheet C DBS why do I see non integer values for NArrive NDepart NBlock etc Remember these numbers are averaged over multiple repetitions of the simulator In each repetition these values are integers but the average over several repetitions often is not an integer I have two scenarios that differ only in their routing scheme The first scenario shows a higher service level percent than the second But the first scenario also has a higher number of abandoned calls Does this make sense Yes For example your first scenario may use delays in the routing matrices while the second scenario does not This can lead to improved service level in some call types in the first scenario but at the expense of making callers wait longer on average When callers wait longer a higher percentage will abandon Suppose for example that your service level goal is 90 answered in 20 seconds For a certain call type we might find 1 Scenario 29 Scenario Percent of calls answered after wait lt 20seconds 91 8896 Percent of calls answered after wait gt 20 seconds 4 8 Percent of calls abandoned 5 4 Here the 1 scenario has a higher service level than the 2 scenario but the 1 also has a higher percent abandoned than the second 4 24 2008 53 12 CREDITS 11 3 Multiple Scenario Workbooks Open at the Same Time Can I have two or more sce
77. ueue The problem can quickly grow more complicated Suppose for instance that there are several groups of agents each one possessing a unique combination of skills Any particular type of call might be handled by several different agent groups The routing rules may simply call for looking across the entire pool of agents and choosing the one having the appropriate skills that has been idle longest Or the rules may specify which group should be searched first for an available agent In this latter case they may also specify a preferred group and if no agent is currently available in that group they may call for a delay of several seconds before looking to another agent group Put these examples into the context of a large multi site contact center with perhaps dozens of different contact types and hundreds of agent skill combinations and the complexity is overwhelming New technology has given rise to an entirely different concept of contact routing one that is often referred to as rules based routing but which might better be described as contact agent matching This approach attempts to find the ideal match between contact and agent making use of information collected from the contact and resident in various databases When a contact enters a rules based contact routing environment the contact is first identified This is usually accomplished using IVR or the contact s dialing telephone number The IVR may also obtain information conc
78. ulation Simply allowing contacts to overflow from one group to another eliminates the ability to easily compute performance measures And when skills based routing came along it simply made such computations even more difficult In a skills based routing environment virtually no parameter of interest can be computed directly Only simulation allows us to estimate the values of performance measures The ability of modern rules based routing engines to employ computational tools for deciding routing between individual customers and individual agents further complicates matters In these environments service quality may be highly individualized with preferred customers getting great service and less desirable customers not faring nearly so well Similarly agent utilization may be less a matter of ensuring that agents on average work only so hard than of determining whether a particular set of routing rules produces an unacceptably wide range of agent utilization rates In fact in certain instances it may be desirable that certain agents work more than others such as in a sales environment where the best performers are rewarded with more opportunities 2 4 Network control options The previous section dealt with routing at the site level or in a multi center network that acts as a single virtual center Many companies have multiple independent contact centers with a network level controller that determines the site to which each contact should be ro
79. uted Different network controllers may use different algorithms to determine the receiving site for each contact This is really a two stage routing procedure The network controller first selects a destination site for a contact and then the routing mechanism at that site selects the agent 4 24 2008 8 2 The contact routing problem These environments are obvious candidates for simulation No other means exists for estimating the various performance measures 2 5 Measurement issues When assessing estimates of performance measures it is customary to compare an estimate with the actual result Subject to the randomness inherent in contact center events there should be a reasonably close match if the simulation has been performed correctly When discrepancies occur it is natural to first ask whether the simulation itself has a problem If all appears well with the simulation it may be appropriate to ask if the measures produced by Contact Routing Simulator are the same as those produced by the telecom infrastructure reporting system For example when producing a statistic like service level we must understand exactly what we re attempting to measure When we track the fraction of contacts handled within some time limit say calls handled within 20 seconds how do we account for calls that were abandoned within 20 seconds We can tell Contact Routing Simulator to deal with such calls any way we choose but not all ACDs are programmed the sa
80. utton to start the simulation The first thing that you should see is a small information box that tells you the program is initializing Initialization causes the inputs to be read Once all the input data are read the initialization process executes a number of procedures designed to maximize the efficiency of the simulation thus increasing its execution speed Finally the initialization process sets up the output tables into which Contact Routing Simulator will write the results of the simulation Once these steps are finished the actual simulation begins 4 1 2 Pause button The Pause button is enabled whenever the simulator is running Pressing the Pause button halts the simulation in mid execution You might want to pause the simulation to examine the statistics for the portion of the simulation that has been run so far as described below After pausing the user can re start the simulation by pressing the Run button or press one of the other 4 24 2008 17 4 Running a Simulation two buttons Reset or Statistics Note that if you press the Run button to re start the simulation you simply pick up where you left off when you pressed the Pause button There is no re reading of input data or re initialization If you change one of the input parameters that change will not be reflected in the output 41 3 Reset button Pressing the Reset button puts you back to where you were before you initially pressed the Run button All simulation resu
81. worksheet named Adv and sets Require Consent No on that worksheet Nevertheless it may be that for some ACDs you should put Require Consent Yes Users wishing to simulate delayed eligibility or asymmetric eligibility in their routing rules should 4 24 2008 52 11 APPENDIX Frequently Asked Questions consult their ACD software documentation to determine how their system resolves conflicts between call routing rules and agent routing rules On the other hand if your routing rules contain no delays or asymmetric eligibility then forget about Require Consent the same simulation results will occur no matter what setting you use 11 APPENDIX Frequently Asked Questions 11 1 Strange Behavior I pressed the Run button on the Simulator Console and nothing happened what s going on Did you make some edits to cells in the EXCEL worksheet and then leave the cursor in the last cell that you changed If so TAB off this cell or click on another cell then press Run again The simulator can not operate when a cell in your workbook has the focus for editing 11 2 Surprising Results Why do I see poor service quality in Period n even though I have plenty of agents during that period It might be because you were badly understaffed in an earlier period leading to a large number of calls in queue at the beginning of Period n Another possibility is a problem with your routing worksheet s Make sure that your routing enables your agen

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