In my last post, we looked at configuring UCCX Queues, Skills, and Resource Groups. In this post, we will look at Agents, Supervisors, and Teams. These are how UCCX manages the call center employees. Agents (or Resources) are the people that  answer the incoming phone calls, or are assigned outgoing calls. Supervisors are usually the call center managers, although this capability may be assigned to other people, such as marketing, HR, or IT employees. Teams are administrative groupings of agents, supervisors, and queues.

Configuring Agents (Resources)

In UCCX, agents are referred to a Resources. A Resource can be assigned skills, be assigned to a Resource Group, or both. Agents are the people that calls are directed to, based on skills or resource groups.

The Agent capability cannot be assigned directly to a user; to make a CUCM user a call center agent, find the end user in UCM end users, and assign the user’s phone as a controlled device. Once you click save, you will be able to select a line from any of the controlled devices as the IPCC (IP Contact Center, one of the various names UCCX has had) extension. The extension used for UCCX must not be shared, and should be the first line on the phone. Once a UCM end user has an IPCC extension assigned, they have the agent ability assigned automatically.

Agents also need to be assigned Skills or assigned to a Resource Group before calls will be routed to them. To access the Resource Configuration page, you can go through Subsystems > RmCm > Resources, or the Configure Resource link in User Configuration. In the Resource Configuration page, you can assign a single Resource Group, and one or more skills.

To assign a new skill or skills, select a skill, or multiple skills using the Shift or Ctrl keys, in the Unassigned Skills, then select a Competence Level, and click the left arrow to move them to Assigned Skills. Once a skill is assigned, you can select it, and click the right arrow to unassign it, or change the Competence Level with the drop down. You can assign the resource to a team on this page, or on the Team configuration page. The Team configuration here is only for agent purposes, and does not affect supervisor rights.

Configuring a UCCX Agent’s Phone

For a phone to be usable as an agent phone, there are several configurations needed. The phone must be set as IPv4 only, via a common device configuration assigned to the phone. To do this, in the UCM Administration site, go to Device > Device Settings > Common Device Profile. If you have an appropriate Common Device Configuration, you can edit that, otherwise, create a new one, give it a name like “CCX Agents,” and set the IP Addressing Mode to “IPv4 Only.” The other settings can be left as the defaults. Apply this Common Device Configuration to the phones on the phone configuration page.

For CAD based recording and remote silent monitoring, “Span to PC Port” must be enabled on the phone on the phone configuration page.

IP Phone Agent (IPPA) needs Web Access enabled on the phone configuration page.

The phone must be associated with the RmCm user created when UCCX was installed.

For IPPA, the phone must also be associated with the telecaster user.

Configuring Supervisors

Supervisors are able to view and manage agents. Supervisors can log into the AppAdmin page to make changes to queues and resources, and use the Cisco Supervisor Desktop (CSD) to monitor agents and queues, as well as listen to agent calls, send team messages, and other functions. Supervisors can also be agents, and to intercept an agent call or conference in from CSD, they need to be an agent and be running Cisco Agent Desktop (CAD.) If the supervisors wants to be logged in for call intervention, but should not receive calls, they should stay not ready in CAD, or not be assigned skills. Another common configuration is to assign the supervisors a much lower skill level than the agents, that way calls will only route to them if no other agents are available, assuming the CSQ is configured for Most Skilled. Remember if doing this that calls will route immediately to the Supervisors if they are ready and no one else is logged in and ready.

To assign a user Supervisor access, open AppAdmin, go to Tool > User Management > User View, and find the user. Once in the User Configuration page, find Supervisor under Available Capabilities, highlight it, click the left arrow to move it to Selected Capabilities, and click Save.

Supervisors can log into the AppAdmin page, and make changes to Resources, Teams, and Queues. To be able to do this, the administrator has to go into System > System Parameters, and select either “Access to Supervisor’s Teams Only” or “Access to All Teams” under Supervisor Access.

Configuring Teams

Teams are a grouping of Agents, supervisors, and contact service queues that are used for Supervisor access. Supervisors can change skills for agents assigned to teams they manage, change parameters for contact service queues assigned to their teams, and assign agents to teams.

Agents can only be part of one team, but supervisors can manage multiple teams, and contact service queues can be assigned to multiple teams. For a Supervisor to be able to monitor and agent or queue in Supervisor Desktop, the agent or queue must be part of a team the supervisor is assigned to.

To configure a team, open the AppAdmin page, and navigate to Subsystems > RmCm > Teams. Edit a team, or click Add New.

In the team configuration page, assign a Name and a Primary Supervisor. You can then assign Secondary Supervisors, Resources, and CSQs. Supervisors and CSQs can belong to multiple teams, but Resources can only be members of a single team.

Check out the rest of my UCCX posts here.