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Batch vs. Interactive Results
Processing
There are 2 fundamentally different methods for results processing, batch and interactive. Batch is rarely used within the CT Center interface, except for processing CT Impact result files. CT Impact is IAT’s off-site hosted system used to handle CT Center’s overflow. Interactive result processing is used within the CT Center interface for handling both interactive and batch campaign files.
Interactive result processing is handled one dialer attempt at a time, in near real time.
Most batch result files contain an entire day’s results for each of the agency’s logons. Batch files are read by the program IAT.BATCH.DTC (DTC is an acronym meaning Dialer-To-Cubs). This program needs to be run once per logon against each result file. It keeps track of which logons have already processed each file. Once every logon has processed a file it is moved from the DTC folder to the DTCArchive folder.
The batch front-end filters out all dialing attempts for each debtor / phone number combination except for the last attempt. For example, if the first attempt for a phone number generated a “busy” result, and a subsequent attempt generated a “left message to call” result, the second one is the only one which will be updated into the Cubs database. Since interactive results processing happens in near real time, it must update each attempt.
Updates are only performed if the result code from IAT is in the Cubs result code table. If you have set up a new result code on CT Center, but neglected to set up the corresponding result code specification on Cubs, no update will take place.
If the debtor account which was called is a packeted account, the following updates will happen to each packet member, as well as the actual account dialed.
A single attempt is made to lock the item in each of the files to be updated. If that item is previously locked by another application, the update for this result for this file will be skipped. The program will not hang up waiting for that item to become unlocked. There is not a facility in this interface to buffer incomplete updates for processing later.
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Disable or Delete Phone Number
- LAST ACTION DATE (attr 22): If this result code is not configured as a “failure”, populated with the call date.
- LAST ACTION CODE (attr 42): Set to “325”.
- # OF CURRENT ATT (attr 62.1): Increment up by 1.
- TOTAL COLL ATT (attr 62.7): Increment up by 1.
The tickler file is named CFxxx where xxx is the desk code for the account. Within the tickler file, the item-id is the debtor number.
If this result code is configured as a “failure”, no update to the tickler or WIP files will take place.
After the tickler file item is read, if HOLDOVER FLAG (attr 8) has a value of “Y”, it indicates that this account was worked today and that the tickler has already been updated. In this situation, no update to the tickler or WIP files will take place, because to update automatically may overwrite a collector’s personal update
- LAST ACTION DATE (attr 1): Populated with the call date
- NEXT WORK DATE (attr 4): If the result code is configured to set ahead the next work date, populate with call date plus the specified number of days.
- FOLLOWUP PRIORITY (attr 7): If the result code is configured to update priority, populate with the specified value.
- HOLDOVER FLAG (attr 8): If the call date is greater than the previous work date (i.e. yesterday), populate with “Y”.
- WIP update. If this account is on the WIP, update the xxxW record in the CF-WIP file (where xxx is the desk) to show that this account has been worked.
Here is where we keep track of each result code for each debtor. The following attributes are updated by placing data about the most recent event in front of the multi-valued data in each of the following attributes. All of the data for previous results is retained, but pushed back one value.
- History Date (attr 1): Populated with the call date.
- History Time (attr 2): Populated with the call time.
- History Result Code (attr 3)
- History Campaign Name (attr 4)
- History Phone Number (attr 5): Populated with the phone number dialed.
Additionally, a tally of dialing attempts and failures is kept as follows:
- Number of Attempts (attr 10): incremented up by 1.
- Number of Failed Attempts (attr 11): If this result code is configured as a failure, incremented up by 1.
For each result code with the “Memo note line text” with a non-null text value, a new note line is added to the MEMO file. For example, if the result code is ANS_MACH_LMTC with note line text set to “AM / LEFT MSG TO CALL” and the phone number dialed is 123-456-7890, the following line is written to the MEMO file:
^52920 15023 AM / LEFT MSG TO CALL [7890]
02/15 09:22
which will appear in the notes window of the collector screen as:
021609 2P AM / LEFT MSG TO CALL [7890] 02/15
09:22
The date and time on the left is when the results were processed and the MEMO record was written. The date and time to the right is the actual call date and time. The 4 digits in the square brackets are the last 4 digits of the phone number.
Additionally, some of the other updates are done calling the Cubs program DEBTOR.FISCAL.UPDATE. This program, depending upon configuration, will sometimes update the MEMO file with the previous value of a changed data field.
A result code can be configured to disable (!) or to delete (D) a phone number. Disabling a phone number is accomplished by using the Cubs standard convention of putting an exclamation mark “!” in front of it. The dialer will exclude that number from dialing in the future.
The program looks for the phone number dialed in the regular phone number fields in the DEBTOR and FISCAL file (D8, F36, F40, and F45). It also looks in any of the other FISCAL phone number fields configured to be used by the dialer. Once all the occurrences of the phone number to be maintained are found, Cubs’ DEBTOR.FISCAL.UPDATE program is called to perform the database update.
If a result code is configured to move to a new desk, that is done by calling the Cubs subroutine SUBDESKCF. For the main account dialed, the following updates are done:
- Desk (attr 10): Populated with the new desk
- Old Desk (attr 59.9): Populated with the old desk.
- Desk Change Date (attr 59.10): Populated with today’s date.
- A note line (ODSK:xxxx) is written to the MEMO file where xxxx is the old desk.
If a result code is configured to change the account’s status, and if the account’s current status is not a protected one, the following updates are done in the DEBTOR record:
- Previous Status Code (attr 69.1): Populated with old value of attribute 23.
- Date Status Code Changed (attr 69.2): Populated with today’s date.
- Status Code (attr 23): Populated with new status code.
The above updates are not done directly into the database, rather they are implemented by calling Cubs’ DEBTOR.FISCAL.UPDATE program.
If the result code is configured to update the CF-ACTIVITY report, a unique item-id is built and the following attributes are written as a detail record to the CFDAILY file:
- UNIT # (attr 1): Populated with the desk translated from the Agents setup, using the IAT AgentID as the key.
- START TIME (attr 2): Populated with the call time.
- ACTION CODE (attr 3): Populated with the MEMO note text for this result code.
- DEBTOR # (attr 4): Populated with the Dnum of the account called.
- RESERVED FOR AGENCY USED (attr 7): Populated with the literal “IAT”.
- EMPLOYEE INITIALS (attr 8): Populated with Cubs initials translated from the Agents setup, using the IAT AgentID as the key.
- SOURCH (attr 9): Populated with the literal “1”, indicating that this record came from the dialer.
The IAT-RESULT-HISTORY file stores data for the Result History Query program. The item-id is multipart, with each part separated by asterisks. The parts of the item-id are, in order:
- Campaign
- Client
- Date
- Hour (0 through 23) – actual time of call, rounded down
- Result Code
- Agent ID
There is only 1 attribute in this item. It is:
- Count (attr 1): Incremented up by 1 for each occurrence.
Copyright 2012, Cubs Consulting, Inc.