OnState’s January 2010 product release includes support for several new features including Gtalk chat, more flexible prompt menus, configurable ring timeouts, an external routing server API, and settings to limit maximum number of simultaneous chat calls. It also includes several product enhancements and a few bug fixes.

NEW FEATURES

• Support for Google Chat - In addition to answering chat calls on Skype, users can now answer calls on Google Talk.
  
  
  Customer's View                                                             Agent's View
   
• Flexible prompt menus - Each prompt menu can customized  to use any digit for any purpose, instead requiring 8 for voice mail and limiting each menu to a maximum of seven consecutive choices. With this release, you can use any digit including zero and the # key. You can also decide what happens if no choices are made. For example, if no button is pressed, you could repeat the menu, send the call to voice mail, send the call to a specified skill, or even route to another prompt menu. The choice is yours.
  
  
  Prompt menu configuration screen
  
  To go with the added options, there are new icons that appear in the Dialed
  Numbers/Names view, as shown below.
  
  
  Prompt menu overview with new icons displayed
   
• External routing server API (database routing) - The OnState Call Event Interface provides call events for integration with CRM systems or other business applications. Events are sent to a customer webservice. The system supports three call events, one of which you now can configure via the OnState Supervisor, as shown below. Click here for more details.
  
  Example of a RoutingQuery setup
   
• Outbound dialing options - For users answering calls on Skype, it is now possible to indicate if you want their outbound calls made via OnState or Skype. Use the Skype option if your users have Skype credit or a Skype subscription. Use OnState if they don't.
   
• Configurable simultaneous chats - By default, the system allows a user to receive up to 4 simultaneous chat calls. You can now set the maximum to any value. Additionally, you can also prevent the system from sending voice calls to a user if he/she has a certain number of ongoing chat calls or more. For example, it is now possible to prevent voice calls from being sent to a user who has 3 or more simultaneous chat calls (as shown below). By default, voice calls always take precedence over chat calls and will ring through regardless of the number of chat calls currently handled by a user, however, you now can override that behavior.
   
• Configurable ring timeouts - Previously, users had 30 seconds to answer an incoming call before they were forced off and the call was delivered to another user or sent to voice mail. Now, the administrator can choose the length of time that a call will ring at an agent's desk before giving up. The timeout can be set for ACD calls and personal extension calls. The timeout for calls transferred out to an external number can also be specified.
  
  
  Settings to specify ring timeouts

PRODUCT ENHANCEMENTS

• AutoDialer - Numerous improvements including weighted campaigns so you can have more calls from one campaign compared to others, more error reporting so you can see exactly why a CSV file failed to upload, and a new Status view that displays the current state of a campaign including the number of records for each call disposition.
  
  AutoDialer Campaign Status View
   
• OnState Anywhere Stats - The skill statistics, shown under the "Stats" tab, now display all skills in the system, not just those assigned to the user. Two additional columns have been added as well. "Agents" displays the total number of users who are logged in with the skill, and "Backups" shows the total number of users who are logged in with the backup skill for the skill.
  
  
  Expanded user statistics in OnState Anywhere
   
• Skill Summary Report - The wait time has been split into two parts: "Wait to Answer" and "Wait to Abandon." These times indicate the average queue time for calls that were answered and unanswered. The data under the "Answered" and "Not Answered" columns are now hyperlinks to the Call Detail Report for those calls. For example, in the figure below, if you clicked on the "11" for the default skill, it would open the Call Detail Report containing the 11 calls routed to the default skill that were answered on during the week of January 2-9, 2010.
  
  New Skill Summary Report view
  
  The blue times under "Wait to Answer" and "Wait to Abandon" are links that will open a graph displaying the duration of the queue times. The next example shows the distribution of the wait times for all "support" skill calls that were answered for the week of January 3-9, 2010.
  
  Distribution of the wait times for answered calls
   
• Supervisor View By User - This tab on the Status page will show only information for users who are logged in, not everybody in the system.

BUG FIXES

• Users answering calls on a SkypeIn number, mobile phone, or landline can now answer chat calls.
   
• Corrected the agent counts per reporting period in the Skill Detail Report.
   
• Under the heading "Other Party," outbound calls in the Agent Detail Report table properly display the phone number or Skype ID of the person called.