CT Center Documentation > Reference Manual Menu
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Why
aren’t all of the selected accounts in the campaign?
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Can/should
we allow yesterday’s campaign to be dialed today?
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When
campaigns are built automatically, what time are they built?
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How can we add
extra phone or data fields to campaign data?
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How can we
either include or exclude from dialing accounts with a future next work date?
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How are
packets handled in building campaigns?
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How are
packet members updated when processing dialer results?
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Why are there
timing conflicts between Cubs and dialer logs?
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Why
didn’t the interactive IO recognize a changed configuration option
immediately?
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Why aren’t result codes tied to Cubs’ action codes?
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Why
does IAT support say that Cubs is not responding?
After having been selected, but before being included in a campaign, all accounts go through an exclusion process. The multiple reasons why an account may be excluded are fully explained in the “Exclusions” section of the “Campaign Building Logic” documentation page. For any particular campaign, a recap of build-time exclusion counts can be found in the detail screen of the Campaign Query screen.
There is nothing in the software to stop you from doing this. However, we don’t recommend it for a couple of reasons:
- The various attributes of accounts which are used to select them for campaigns can change from day to day. It would be best to re-select yesterday’s campaign, making it a fresh list as of today.
- When batch or CTImpact campaigns are built, the accounts added to the campaign have their WIPs marked as having been worked. Overnight, the WIPs get rebuilt, so if you are dialing from yesterday’s batch campaign, it is possible to contact an account twice (once with the dialer and once through the WIP) opening yourself up to complaints of harassment.
The program which automatically builds scheduled campaigns has been added to the end of your dayend processing as part of the interface software installation. It must be run after WIPs are built because one of the build strategies works off of the current WIP, and because some of the campaign types (batch and CTImpact) update the WIP for accounts on those campaigns as having been worked. There is no way to reliably predict exactly when the automatic campaign building will take place. It is entirely dependent upon the start time of the dayend process and the duration of the programs which are executed before it.
At the request of IAT, adding extra fields to the campaign detail data records is restricted to Cubs Consulting, Inc. personnel. Their reasoning is that any changes to campaign data will affect the CTCenter software and so must be carefully coordinated between the 2 platforms. If you would like to add extra phone or data fields to the campaign interface, please contact CCI or IAT, and it will be taken care of for you.
There is a switch that you can configure at the bottom of the top section of the Processing Parameters Definition screen.
The usage of packet data in building campaigns is explained in the “Packet Data” section of the “Campaign Building Logic” documentation page.
All updates to the DEBTOR, tickler, and MEMO files are done for each of the packet members except those which are closed or paid off.
The CT Center host computer has its own clock which is set independently of the clock in the Cubs computer. Even if they were perfectly synchronized at one time, computer clocks tend to get out of synch very easily.
The interactive IO program reads the configuration files (static data) at initialization time, when it is first launched. During the time that an interactive IO session is up and running, the program looks for an opportunity to refresh the configuration options. If the following 2 conditions are met, the program will re-read all of the configuration options:
1. It is a “quiet time” in that there are no updates or requests from the CT Center host to process, and
2. It has been more than 5 minutes since the last time that the static data has been initialized.
Therefore, in most situations where “quiet times” present themselves regularly, any configuration option changes will become active within 5 minutes.
Please don’t use a “GET-LIST xxxxxx” Recall statement within a campaign definition if the name of the list is the same as the campaign name. This will cause your original list to become overwritten by the campaign building program. This is explained in the “Build the List” section of our “Campaign Building Logic” documentation page.
We are aware that most Cubs/Dialer interfaces make use of Cubs’ action codes to define database updates to perform when a specific result code is encountered. During our preliminary design of this interface, we decided to not follow that precedent, in the interest of providing ease of use and more granularity to the dialer administrator. To make a small change to an existing set of updates for a result code, it is not necessary to program a new action code to get that done. The small change can be implemented directly into the Result Code Definition screen. We believe that this is an improvement over the previous paradigm.
The chain of communication between the Cubs system and the CT Center system is a collection of multiple links. The failure of any of these links can lead to a breakdown of communications.
For a new installation, here are some possible causes:
- The shared data files may not be appropriately pointed to by one side or the other.
- The CT Center telnet session into the Cubs host may not have gotten completely established using the logon criteria.
For an existing installation, which is all of a sudden not working, here are some possible causes:
- Newly installed software on one side or the other may not be behaving appropriately.
- On the Cubs side, the Interactive IO program may not have been launched.
- The Cubs host may be running slower than usual and the CT Center host is timing out.
- There may be network issues inhibiting the free flow of data and messages.
In most cases, to resolve one of these issues, it is necessary for a 3-way meeting to take place on the phone between the dialer administrator on the Cubs system, a support person from IAT, and a support person from Cubs Consulting. With 3 sets of eyes on the problem, as it’s happening, we’ve always been able to find a resolution.
Copyright 2012, Cubs Consulting, Inc.