ACD DNs

[coniglio]

i have 600 people in my office and the CEO wants to start using ACD in conjunction with MIRAN cards so that callers to these attorneys' DIDs will first hear the firm's name and then I will have the DIDs programmed as ACD DN's with the NCFW pointing to their current system exts. I'm on rls. 25.40. Do i need to check anything regarding ACD licenses? When i am in LD 11 i see the following message:

ACD AGENTS AVAIL: 300 USED: 0 TOT: 300

I actually already have a couple of dummy ACD queues already built. Do they not show up because there's no actual agents? thank you for your help.

 

[sandyml]

You have a system limit of 240 ACD-DNs (that will be your dummy Q's), unless you are on a fiber network PBX with a pentium processor. Also, you only have license to program 300 ACD phones.

In the event you are on a PBX with the appropriate hardware, you would need to purchase 300 more ACD agent licenses to accommodate 600 people. That would be pretty expensive.

Finally, there is a bottleneck at the point where the caller hits the RAN announcement on the dummy Q. You should have RAN broadcast or a good-sized number of trunks in that RAN route, or callers will hear a lot of ringaway. Suggest you take a look at your incoming traffic and make some estimates about calls coming in to those people via the ACD queues.

This would be a solution that is more suitable to a small number of phones, but not for big groups of people. Sorry..

 

[coniglio]

I actually have 500 ACD agents, not 300. it's an option 61C on rls. 25.40. So i have the ability to create 240 DUMMY ACD queues? unless it's fiber w/pentium? (I'll have to ask my vendor). and i can create 300 ACD telephone sets (with agents, in-calls key, etc?) and these 300 ACD phones are SEPARATE from the 240 ACD dummy queues?
Does the MIRAN card support up to 30 callers? All our calls come into 3 M2250 consoles so I honestly don't know how I'd determine which of these incoming calls are for particular individuals versus which of these callers are just calling the firm. But the bottom line is, do you think it's at all possible to create a separate dummy ACD DN for EVERY current system number? i don't care what it costs. thank you.

 

[StoneColdphoneman]

Ok what you trying to do is plane dumb for starters if you build acd point to recording that will play “what ever the name of the Co is “ now after announcement is finish how are you planning to point caller to right ext??????

The only two ways of doing this is with symposium create script for each DID to give announcement and then transfer call to proper ext

#2 is build acd point to voicemail build menu with greeting and do silent disconnect and point to ext.

It its possible but it will be pricey and will require lots of work but if the CEO feels like it is necessary go for it.

Some one please correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[sandyml]

From your first email, your printout showed:
ACD AGENTS AVAIL: 300 USED: 0 TOT: 300
That indicates that you are licensed for 300 agents but have not used any. So is that not the real printout from your PBX? Go to LD 22 and type SLT at the REQ prompt; that will give you all your system limits that you have purchased (which is a separate matter from the ultimate capability of your PBX and software release).
The MIRAN capability depends on how many RAN broadcasts you have in your license (system limits), if any. You'll see that when you get the above printout.
Yes, the ACD-DNs are separate from ACD agents. The first is how many ACD queues & CDNs (combined) that you can program. The second is how many phones can be programmed as members of an ACD queue.
However, the fiber network/pentium processor remark applied to an 81C PBX. That would have let you to increase the allowable number of ACD DNs and/or CDNs on a Meridian 1 Option 81C CP PII system from 240 to a maximum of 1000 if you have ACDE Package 388 (Automatic Call Distribution Directory Number/Control Directory Number Expansion feature). So, no, you have a limit of 240 ACD-DN (less existing usage) that you can program. Sorry..

 

[sandyml]

StoneColdphoneman -- I don't disagree with you at all. Our friend's problem is that the CEO wants a mandatory first announcement followed by routing to the end user's phone with no ringing or caller interaction. I don't see that happening for that many people.

And yes, Symposium would fix this quite nicely. You could have all the DIDs IDC'd to one CDN, then write a script to play that announcement, go to a table to look up where to route the call, and just be done with it.

I almost wonder if a MIPCD (Meridian Integrated Personal Call Director) would be an option, but that would probably involve some caller interaction. But it would give some interesting additional features in searching out the callee -- on second thought, better not mention THAT to the CEO!

 

[StoneColdphoneman]

This guy has 600 DID’s I’m not sure how many incoming calls he usually gets at one time but this can cause some problems all 600 DID’s points to one application, that will create bottleneck like Sandyml sad. If you have Symposium use it if you don’t Good luck man
I’m out

 

[coniglio]

i never said I DON'T want ringing. I just want the FIRST thing the caller hears is "You have reached XYZ firm". Let me restate that...the CEO wants this! I am just tasked to see if it's doable. But what you're saying is, bottom line, the MAXIMUM # of DIDs i can build as dummy ACD agents is ONLY 240! we have six hundred people. so i guess it's not really going to work. I'll look into some of stonecold's suggestions but like he said i won't mention any of it to the CEO just yet!

 

[faelo]

Just go to LD 23 and print the ACD's you have. Remember to change MAXP to the maximun agents you will use per ACD plus 1. LD 11 will print the License in LD 23 you may programmed. Also you may need more than one MIRAN because the traffic.

 

[sandyml]

Still, you are limited to 240 ACD Q's. So however many you currently have programmed takes away from that number. If tcomanalyst is going to use dummy Q's, then MAXP will be set at 1 for each dummy Q.

 

[coniglio]

sandyml said that the below printout would show me how many RAN broadcasts i am licensed for. Please tell me which of these shows my RAN, as none of them seem to to me. Thank you.

REQ slt
TNS 1000 LEFT 57 USED 943
ACDN 24000 LEFT 23960 USED 40
AST 500 LEFT 500 USED 0
DCH 255 LEFT 254 USED 1
AML 16 LEFT 16 USED 0
ACD AGENTS 500 LEFT 500 USED 0
INTERNET TELEPHONES 0 LEFT 0 USED 0
WIRELESS VISITORS 0 LEFT 0 USED 0

 

[sandyml]

Hmmm.. do you have package 327 (RANBRD)? In LD 22, print PKG 327 or just PKG and look at the list. You may not have the feature package.

 

[coniglio]

i don't have 327 (RAN broadcast). i do have 7 (RAN). Dummy ACD DNs do NOT count as ACD agents? and what is a CDN? does that work the same way as a dummy ACD DN? and one more thing. i think you said I have a limit of 240 dummy ACD DNs but in the NTP it says for an Option 61 there is a maximum number of ACD DNs/CDNs per customer of 1000 and a maximum # of 1200 agents, and with rls. 19 & later that goes up to 10,000! So maybe i do have more than 240? thanks for your help Sandyml.

 

[kcfonman]

You should be using an IVR. The IVR can play the message and transfer the caller back to the DN. You will have to IDC the DID DN's to the IVR and then have it route the call back to the user.

It would be cheaper to have the user record the greeting on thier voicemail, when VM answers and if the user answer the call they would say; "Thank you for call xyz law offices, this is Jane Doe. How can I help you." More personalized and profession than a machine answering all the time.

 

[coniglio]

that won't work because if the person actually answers the phone they will say "Jane Doe speaking" and then the caller never hears the firm's name. And they are NOT going to answer their phones by saying "you have reached XYZ firm, Jane Doe speaking". But maybe I will look into IVR. We need for the person calling to FIRST hear "you have reached XYZ". The same as if you call an 800# and you hear "you have reached Delta Airlines". Then I was going to set the ACD DN to NCFW to the existing system number on attorney Xs phone. Will IVR work the same way? thanks for your help.

 

[sandyml]

kcfonman has a good suggestion with IVR. What you have to work with now won't really solve your problem.
I'll try to help clear up some of your other questions:
Since you don't have package 327, you can't do RAN broadcast. That would have let you have multiple callers on a RAN trunk listening to a recording. You are limited to a one-to-one connection between caller and trunk without it. You can have multiple trunks in a RAN route, which would help a little. MIRAN cards really work best with RAN broadcast, since then you can use those features they advertise.
ACDNs and CDNs both count toward the same limit. A CDN is a "Control DN" programmed in LD 23. It is used by applications like Symposium and Call Pilot, which actually "control" those CDNs and direct calls to themselves, monitor activity, etc.
When you look at your SLT printout, you will see a limit of 24000 ACDNs. That actually derives from 240 ACDNs per customer, and a maximum 100 customers per system (240 x 100 = 24000). Release 25 introduced ACD DN/CDN Expansion (package 388) that can expand that from 240 to 1000 with the requisite hardware in place. An excerpt from the Release 25 Feature Summary document: The Automatic Call Distribution Directory Number/Control Directory Number Expansion feature (ACDE Package 388)increases the allowable number of ACD DNs and/or CDNs on a Meridian 1 Option 81C CP PII system from 240 to a maximum of 1000 for each customer.The number of customer groups remains at 100 and the system level total of configurable ACD DN/CDNs remains the same at 24,000.
Your license for ACD sets is 500, and 1000 for TNs. The 1200 that you see is the maximum number of ACD set licenses that you can purchase for an Option 61C (assuming you had the TNs and the hardware to support that many!). You also have a license for 500 ASTs. Those are not ACD sets, although they are most frequently used in a contact center environment (such as providing screenpops to ACD agents, etc.) It enables a third-party application to monitor TNs (similar to what Symposium or Call Pilot does with CDNs). It looks like whoever engineered your PBX anticipated that you might implement some third-party application some day, since ASTs licenses are not free by any means.
Hope this helps answer some of your questions..

 

[coniglio]

Dear sandyml, thank you for your detailed response. It helps quite a bit. The question that was posed to me was "can a MIRAN card(s) enable us to preface each call to each individual DID with a greeting?" and it sounds like the answer is yes, although it won't be easy to implement. I tried explaining all this but the response was "can it work, yes or no?" so i said YES! Maybe i can just purchase pkg 327 for RAN broadcast. And since it takes approximately 5 seconds (i timed it) to announce the firm's name, won't that MIRAN port free up once the call is NCFW'd to the system number? that's all we want. We don't want a first RAN, a second RAN, etc. On another note, I looked at my cabinets and I have four IPE cabinets with some available slots and one PE cabinet with no power. What's the difference? the slots on the PE cabinet said 1/1x, 2/2x, etc. can i put a MIRAN in that cabinet? thank you for your help!

 

[sandyml]

Yes, you can put the MIRAN in slot 1-10, anywhere a digital or analog line card will work. Are you going to limit the number of people (since you cannot accommodate 600 people)? Good luck with this and all the other projects your company tasks you with, you certainly seem to get 'em!

 

[coniglio]

for now I am just focusing on the attorneys, of which we have 235 (just made it under the limit!) and i do get crazy projects because my CEO surfs the 'net all weekend and finds this stuff (MIRAN cards, for ex) and asks me to "look into this", not having any idea how much time this takes. so, to recap, I CAN use MIRAN cards for 235 people, correct?

 

[sandyml]

According to your SLT, you have already used 40 of your ACDNs, leaving you only 200. One of these at least is for Meridian Mail, and you probably have some "dummy Qs" also going there. You'll need to look closely at what you are currently using to see if there is anything you can do without. Even so, probably some of those attorneys (juniors?) will need to do without a DID.