Set up custom audio announcements

• Welcome announcements to play before callers enter a queue.

• Ad-hoc welcome announcements to play once immediately after the welcome announcement. Ad-hoc announcements are designed for temporary use, for example when you need to inform callers about longer-than-usual waiting times.

• Ad-hoc queue announcements to play once when callers enter a queue in order to wait for an available agent (if agent agents are immediately available, callers won't hear the ad-hoc queue announcement).

• Periodic announcements for new calls to play repeatedly, for example every 30 seconds, for new calls while callers wait for an available agent. A periodic announcement for new calls is useful when you want to announce something about the queue that callers wait in.

  Example: While you wait for a support engineer to become available, please find the serial number on the back of your product, and have that number ready.

• Periodic announcements for returned calls to play repeatedly, for example every 30 seconds, for calls that have come back to a queue, for example because of a failed transfer, so that callers once again wait for an available agent in the same queue.

• Periodic announcements for private (owned) calls to play repeatedly, for example every 30 seconds, for calls that have been answered by an agent, who has then decided to transfer the call to another agent. If that other agent is busy, the caller will then wait for that agent to become available, and the caller will hear this particular type of periodic announcement while waiting.

• Announcements to play immediately before position announcements (also known as pre-position announcements) to play repeatedly before any position announcements. Such pre-position announcements are typically used to announce something just before the position announcement.

  Example: All of our agents are still busy helping other callers. Thank you for your patience.

• Part 1 of position announcements.

  Example: You are now number ...

• Part 2 of position announcements.

  Example: ... in the queue.

• Announcements to play for calls at position 1 in queues.

  Example: Your call is now first in line, and it'll be answered by the next available representative.

• IVR (Interactive Voice Response) announcements, also known as IVR speaks.

  Example: For passport renewals, press 1. For driver's licenses, press 2 ...

• Failover announcements to play if calls are going to automatically be sent to another queue, for example because too many calls are already waiting in the original queue, or because no agents have been logged in to the original queue for a certain amount of time.

Custom announcement audio files that you want to upload to your Zylinc Novus solution must be in one of these file formats:

• .mp3

• .wav

1. Log in to your Novus Configuration Manager, and, in the Audio section, select Custom announcements.

2. Click the Upload button.

3. Click the Browse button to select the required custom announcement audio file.

4. Specify a descriptive Name for the custom announcement file. The name mustn't contain spaces, only letters, digits, hyphens, and underscores.

5. If you want the file to overwrite an existing file with the same name, select Overwrite.

6. You can group your custom announcements into categories. It helps you keep track of your custom announcement files, but you don't have to specify a category.

   If you don't specify a category, your custom announcement audio file will be placed in a special category called Uncategorized.

   To specify a category, either select an existing Category, or select - Create new- and specify the required New category name in the next field.

7. Select the main Language that's spoken in the custom announcement audio file.

8. Optionally, type any Comments.

9. Specify a Volume factor.

   Enter 100 to use the original volume of the custom audio announcement audio file.

   To use a lower volume, enter a number that's smaller than 100. For example, 50 will halve the original volume.

   To use a higher volume, enter a number that's higher than 100. For example, 200 will double the original volume.

   If you use a volume factor that's higher than 100, it can result in a form of distortion known as clipping. When that's case, the caller experience will be negatively affected, and clipping can also damage the audio file. That's why you shouldn't normally use a volume factor that's higher than 100.

   To make multiple audio files have the same volume level, it's often a better idea to use audio editing software, such as the free, open-source tool Audacity that has a feature called Normalize for this purpose.

10. Click Save.

    Repeat as required for other custom announcement audio files.

If you later want to manage your custom announcement audio files, log in to your Novus Configuration Manager, and, in the Audio section, select Custom announcements. Then click the name of the required category (remember that if files don't have a category assigned, you find them in the Uncategorized category). You can now:

• Click the names of individual audio files in the category to listen to them

  Don't use this feature to determine the audio quality that callers will experience. The best way to do that is to call the actual queue once the custom announcement has been assigned to a queue.

• Place your pointer over the names of individual audio files in the category to view their volume factor

• View the size and upload time of individual audio files in the category

• Delete individual audio files from the category

• Upload new audio files to the category

In Zylinc Novus you don't assign an individual custom announcement audio file, or a custom announcements category, directly to a queue. Instead, you assign it to a bundle of many types of queue-related audio settings, called a Queue announcement configuration, and you then assign that bundle to the queue. It works like this:

1. Log in to your Novus Configuration Manager, and, in the Contact center and PBX configuration section, select Queue announcements.

2. If you're going to assign custom announcements to an existing queue announcement configuration, click Edit next to the name of the required queue announcement configuration.

   If you're going to assign custom announcements to a new queue announcement configuration, click the Create new button, and give the new queue announcement configuration a name.

3. Your next step depends on what you're going to use the custom announcements for:

   Welcome announcements, Ad-hoc welcome announcements, and Ad-hoc queue announcements

   Scroll down to the relevant section of the page, select Custom and then, in the Name menu, select the required custom announcement.

   Periodic announcements for new calls, returned calls, or private (owned) calls

   Scroll down to the relevant section of the page, select Custom and then, in the Name menu, select the required custom announcement.

   Then specify the required Announcement interval in seconds.

   Position announcements

   Scroll down to the check box Play position announcements (it can be a bit hard to find, but it's located just after the music on hold settings, a little more than halfway down the page), and make sure that the check box is selected.

   Then specify the required Position announcement interval in seconds.

   You can then select an announcement to play immediately before the position announcement, an announcement to play for the call at position 1 in the queue, and parts 1 and 2 of the position announcement. In all cases, select Custom in the relevant section and then, in the Name menu, select the required custom announcement.

   IVR announcements

   Scroll to the bottom of the page, to the IVR announcement section, select Custom and then, in the Name menu, select the required custom announcement.

   Select the required Number of times to play the IVR announcement.

   Select the required Maximum number of IVR digits allowed.

   Select the required IVR timeout, which is number of seconds to wait for the user to enter digits after the IVR announcement has been played.

4. Click Save, but remember that a queue announcement configuration can contain many types of queue-related audio settings, and that during this process you may only have specified some of the announcements that are required on the queue, so the queue announcement configuration may not yet be ready for use on a queue. This especially applies if you created a new queue announcement configuration.

   Also note that queue announcement configurations can refer not only to custom announcements, but also to the Zylinc Novus solution's built-in generic system announcements.

5. When you think that the queue announcement configuration is ready for use on a queue, go to the Contact center and PBX configuration section on the Configuration Manager home page, and select Queues.

6. Click Edit next to the name of the required queue.

7. Scroll around halfway down the page to the Audio announcements menu, and select the required queue announcement configuration.

8. Click Save.

Queue failover is when calls are automatically sent from one queue to another, because it wasn't possible to handle the calls on the queue that people originally called. That can be set up to happen if:

• The original queue is closed

• There are no agents working on the original queue

• The number of calls in the original queue exceeds a threshold

• Waiting time on the original queue exceeds a threshold

Custom announcements about queue failover are handled in a different way than other custom announcements. Instead of referring to the required custom announcement in a queue announcement configuration, you refer to it in a Failover configuration, which you then assign to the required queue:

1. Log in to your Novus Configuration Manager, and, in the Contact center and PBX configuration section, select Queue failover.

2. If you're going to assign custom announcements to an existing queue failover configuration, click Edit next to the name of the required queue failover configuration.

   If you're going to assign custom announcements to a new queue failover configuration, click the Create new button, and give the new queue failover configuration a name.

3. In the Failover announcement section, select Custom and then, in the Name menu, select the required custom announcement.

4. Make sure that the other parts of the failover configuration are complete, and then click Save.

5. On the Novus Configuration Manager home page, in the Contact center and PBX configuration section, select Queues.

6. Click Edit next to the required queue. You can then refer to the required failover configuration in the Failover behavior while queue is open and Failover behavior when queue is closed fields respectively.

7. When ready, click Save.

Zylinc Novus is still a new product line, and you can help us improve the Novus Configuration Manager if you tell us what you think is good or bad about this configuration workflow.

Use the Zylinc Idea Portal to give us feedback, and make sure to include information about which Novus configuration workflow you're writing about.

That way you can help shape the future of the Configuration Manager. Thanks for your help!