To properly route calls, three independent systems must work together:

• The routing client

• The system software

• The peripheral that ultimately receives the call

The routing client requests a route from the system software, receives a response, and delivers the call to the specified destination.

The system software receives a routing request and determines the appropriate destination for the call. The destination is an announcement (which is played by the routing client), a scheduled target, or a specific target at a peripheral (represented by a trunk group and dialed number identification service [DNIS]).

A peripheral is a switch at a call center, such as an ACD, a PBX, or Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM). The peripheral completes the routing by dispatching the call to the specific target determined by the system software.

A target is the destination for a call. The target can be a label, an announcement defined by the routing client, or a target at a peripheral.

A target at the peripheral is a service, skill group, or individual agent that the system software selects to handle the call. This is called the skill target. Regardless of the specific skill target, every call routed by the system software must also be associated with a service. The combination of a skill target and a service is a route.

A target represents a network trunk group at the peripheral and, optionally, a DNIS value. The routing client uses this type of target, called a peripheral target, to route the call. Each peripheral target or announcement maps to a routing label.

The following figure shows the relationships among skill targets, routes, peripheral targets, announcements, and labels.

The system software works from top to bottom in the preceding figure:

1. A routing script determines a destination for the call.

   The destination is a routing label that the system software can return directly to the routing client.

   Otherwise, the destination is one of the following:

   • A skill target to receive the call

   • An announcement to be played

   • A scheduled target to receive the call

   If the destination is a skill target, that skill target has an associated route.

2. The system software uses the route to find an associated peripheral target supported by the routing client.

3. The peripheral target is associated with a label. The system software returns that label to the routing client. If the destination is an announcement, the system software needs only to find the label associated with that announcement and return the label to the routing client.

   The routing client processing depends on the type of the label. Some labels instruct the routing client to take a special action: playing a busy signal for the caller, playing an unanswered ring for the caller, or making a special query.

   For normal labels, the routing client converts the label to an announcement, scheduled target, or peripheral target by working up from the bottom of the above figure.

4. The routing client receives a label from the system software in response to its route request. It translates that label into one of the following:

   • A peripheral target

   • An announcement

   • A scheduled target

   • An unrouted task that gets routed to a local agent

   The result is an announcement, which plays the announcement for the caller. The result is a scheduled target, which delivers the call to that target.

5. The routing client delivers the call to the specified network trunk group at the peripheral and sends the specified DNIS value, if any, with it.

6. The peripheral itself must then recognize the network trunk group and DNIS for the call as it arrives and determine the associated service and skill target. The peripheral then completes the process by locating the appropriate agent to handle the call.

Translation routes allow you to send additional information to a skill target along with the call..

A translation route is a temporary destination for a call. When the system software returns a translation route label to the routing client, it also sends a message directly to the peripheral gateway (PG) at the targeted peripheral. This message alerts the PG that a call will be arriving that requires route translation.

The message contains the following information:

• The trunk group on which the call will arrive and the DNIS value associated with it.

• A label to be used by the PG to determine the ultimate skill target of the call. This is a label that the PG can interpret to find the correct destination.

• Instructions for further processing to be performed by the PG. This further processing might include, for example, looking up an account number in a database.

When the peripheral sees the call arrive on the specified trunk group and with the specified DNIS value, it passes this information to the PG. The PG then combines it with the information it has received from the system software. It then sends the call along with this information to the skill target specified by the label it received. At the same time, the peripheral might, for example, send a message to a host computer that controls the display on the agent's workstation. This allows data, such as the caller's account information, to be displayed on the screen when the call arrives. The PG coordinates communication among the network, the peripheral, and the computer application that controls the display.

To set up translation routing, you must do the following:

• Set up a translation route associated with the peripheral. You do not need a separate translation route for each possible skill target at the site, but you need at least one for each peripheral that performs translation routing.

• Set up one or more routes and associated peripheral targets for the translation route. Typically, all peripheral targets for a translation route refer to the same trunk group, but with different DNIS values.

• Set up a label for the original routing client for the call to access each of the peripheral targets associated with the translation route. For example, if the routing client is an IXC, you must set up a label to the targets with the IXC. This allows the call to be initially sent to the translation route at the peripheral.

• For each peripheral target that you want to be able to ultimately access via a translation route, set a label with the peripheral as the routing client. For example, you might want to be able to send calls to the Atlanta Support skill group through a translation route. To do this, you must configure a label for that skill group with the Atlanta peripheral as the routing client. This allows the peripheral to determine the ultimate destination for the call.

• To display data on the agent's workstation when the call arrives, you must configure the peripheral to inform the PG which agent is receiving the call.

In setting up your configuration, you need to specify several timeout and timing threshold values.

For routing clients, you must specify the maximum time the system software can spend before responding to each routing request. You must also specify the maximum time for the routing client to wait for a response before it stops sending new requests to the system software.

For each service at a peripheral, you must specify your goal for the maximum time a caller must wait before the call is answered. The system software uses this value in calculating the service level.

You can specify how to count abandoned calls in the service level calculation. You can also specify the minimum time a call must be in the queue before it can be considered abandoned.

For specific information about configuring routing clients, peripherals, and services, see Chapters 4 through 7.