Tasks Integration

Tasks Overview

Symbee Connect fully supports Amazon Connect Tasks, allowing you to prioritize, assign and track the completion of activities beyond communications contacts within your contact center.

A Task can represent any type of event generated from an external system, or initially created by an Agent, that you want to manage the completion of within your contact center. Handling and completion of Tasks can occur through either automated Contact Flows (for example, processing a task with Lambda Functions), or by delivering the Tasks to Agents to be worked, or a combination of both.

For Agent initiated Tasks, you can configure Task Templates in Symbee Connect to define the form presented to the Agent, the details to capture when creating the Task, and the initial Amazon Connect Contact Flow the Agent initiated Tasks are routed to.

If an Amazon Connect Task is delivered through a Queue and associated Routing Profile to an Agent, Symbee Connect will present the task to the user without any additional mandatory setup, and will allow the task to be worked and completed by the Agent.

Symbee Connect additionally supports optional added functionality related to handling Amazon Connect Tasks, including:

  • Configurable display of Task details to the user, based on Task Templates.
  • Configurable display of Task details to the user, based on Task Contact Attribute naming conventions, to allow hiding Task Attributes not intended to be displayed to the user, controlling the order Attributes are displayed, highlighting specific Attribute values, and displaying specific Attributes as clickable links or buttons.
  • Displaying Task Attributes containing phone numbers with click-to-call controls.
  • Configuring Screen Pops to external systems based on nominated Task Attributes.
  • Use of Work Codes to capture the outcome and report on the handling of Tasks by your users.

Special Contact Attributes used for control of Task presentation

When an inbound Amazon Connect Task is delivered to an agent, Symbee Connect will look for the following specifically named (case sensitive) Contact Attributes on the Task. All of these attributes are optional, but if present, assist in the display of the Task details to the agent:

Contact Attribute Name Behavior
sc_task_type If present, will be hidden.
contactid Populated automatically by Symbee Connect, and can be used in Customer Fusions or screen-pop integrations. Will be hidden from from the Task Detail area of the display.
sc_task_template Gets automatically injected onto any Task created via a Symbee Connect Task Template (see the section on Task Templates). If detected, the references Task Template will be loaded, and the display of attribute labels, ordering, and hidden/visible behavior is driven by the Task Template.
sc_display_order Ignored if the Task is associated with a Task Template (see above).
Otherwise, if present, can contain an ordered list of pipe (|) delimited Contact Attribute names, which will be followed when displaying the Task information to the agent.
sc_hidden_attributes Ignored if the Task is associated with a Task Template (see above).
Otherwise, if present, can contain a list of pipe (|) delimited Contact Attribute names to be suppressed/hidden from display.
sc_hilight_attributes If present, can contain a list of pipe (|) delimited Contact Attribute names to be highlighted (displayed in red) during presentation to the agent. A special value of "ALL" will result in all fields being highlighted.
Name ending in "_link" Any Contact Attribute with a name ending in "_link" will be assumed to contain a URL, and will de displayed as an HTML anchor link. When clicked will result in the URL being opened in a separate Browser tab or window.
Name ending in "button" Any Contact Attribute with a name ending in "_button" will be assumed to contain a URL, and will de displayed as a clickable button to the agent. When clicked will result in the URL being opened in a separate Browser tab or window.
Name containing 'phone' anywhere If the word "phone" (not case sensitive) is contained anywhere in the Contact Attribute name, for example PhoneNumber, MobilePhone, WorkPhone, etc., and the value of the attribute is a well-formed E.164 phone number, the field is assumed to be a phone number, and will be displayed to the agent with a click-to-call icon beside it that will launch an outbound call if clicked.

Display Labels

When an incoming Task is delivered to an agent, the information in the Contact Attributes of the Task are displayed to the agent (see control of presentation in the previous section). The display labels used for each attribute depend on whether the Task is associated with a Symbee Connect Task Template or not.

If the task was created from a template, display labels are driven off the related Task Template definition.

If the task is not associated with a template, Symbee Connect performs a best effort to create a friendly display name for each Contact Attribute found, based on the Contact Attribute Name** . The following rules are applied:

  • The Attribute name is split into words at any non alphabetic or numeric character. For example Account_Number becomes "Account Number"
  • Any word containing mixed case will also be separated into multiple words. For example AccountNumber becomes "Account Number", and PrimaryAccount_Number becomes "Primary Account Number"
  • After word separation above, each word is capitalized. For example, primaryAccntNumber becomes "Primary Accnt Number"
  • Any word that is all-caps is left capitalized. For example EST_balance becomes "EST Balance".
  • Any "_link" or "_button" attribute has the suffix _link / _button part removed from the attribute name before following the above rules


Task Templates

Task Templates Overview

Symbee Connect Task Templates work in combination with the Symbee Connect User/Agent UI Create Tasks tool, allowing Contact Center users to create new Amazon Connect Tasks from the User/Agent UI by completing a form defined by the chosen Task Template.

A Task Template defines the information to be collected during the creation of a task by a user/agent, the name of the Contact Attributes the information is stored in, and display and field validation characteristics. Essentially, the Template defines the form presented to the user during Task creation.

In addition, each Task Template is associated with a configurable, but required, Initial Contact Flow. The Initial Contact Flow is the beginning of the routing within Amazon Connect of the Task after the Task Form is submitted by the user/agent.

If an Amazon Connect Task is created based on a Symbee Connect Template, the Template is also used to assist the display of that Tasks information back to another user, if the result of the Template's associated Contact Flow ends up routing the Task back to another agent to be worked.

Defining New Task Templates

Symbee Connect Task Templates are viewed and maintained within the Administration Portal, found under Tasks Integration in the Channel Configuration section of the main Function Menu.

Options provide Modify, Delete, and Add New Task Template.


Add and Modify Task Template header

The Task Template header has the following fields:

Template Name

A concise name for the Task Template, used in the drop-down pick list presented to the User/Agent in the Create Tasks tool.

Template Description

A description of your template, user for documentation purposes only.

Initial Contact Flow

The initial Contact Flow in Amazon Connect that a new Task using this Template will start in.


Configuring Task Template Details (the Attributes and Fields on the Template)

After a Task Template is initially added, from the Task Templates listing screen, click the Template Fields button to the right, to maintain the Contact Attributes that make up the template, how they are presented on the entry form, and the associated data type and validation criteria.

On the Maintain Template Fields dialog, add new / additional fields to the template by clicking the "+" button at the end of the field list. Remove existing fields from the template by clicking the "x" to the right of the field.

Each field represents a Contact Attribute created on the resulting Amazon Connect Task. The following characteristics are configured for each field:

Label

The Label defines how the field is presented to the user.

Name

The Name represents the name of the Contact Attribute on the Task. See additional feature support (hilighting, links, buttons) based on how contact attributes are named in the Special Contact Attributes section.

Order

The order is any numeric value to control the order of how the fields are listed on the input form presented to the user. You can use: 1, 2, 3... or 10, 20, 30... etc.

Type

The Type defines the type of input control representing the field on the form presented to the user, and based on the type selected also controls some of the validation characteristics. Select from the following:

  • String - Character based input, with optional configurable minimum and maximum length requirements.
  • Multiline Text Box - Results in an HTML textarea allowing the user to enter multiple lines of input (for example, notes, or a detailed description). Like String, has optional configurable minimum and maximum length requirements. Additionally, Symbee Connect AutoText library entries can be used to auto-populate values in Multiline Text Box fields.
  • Number - An unbounded numeric value
  • Range - A bounded (minimum and maximum) numeric value
  • Picklist - Restricts the user to only allow a configurable list of dropdown options the user can select from.
  • URL - A URL.
  • E.164 Phone Number - Validates the input for a well-formed E.164 format phone number (starts with "+" followed by digits only, with minimum and maximum length restrictions).

Default Value

When the field is visible and editable, Default Value provides an optional value to prefill the form input field with. Can also be used for non-visible fields to transport internal attributes/values to the Amazon Connect Contact Flow for use in routing or Lambda calls for external system integration.

Visible?

When checked, causes the defined field to be added to the Input Form for the user when creating a new task, and also causes the field to be displayed on a resulting task that ends up being routed back to another user.

Editable?

Only relevant if Visible is checked. When checked, causes the field to be editable on the user Input Form - if unchecked and visible, the field is displayed read-only on the Input Form.
For a resulting task that ends up being routed back to another user after creation, Editable is ignored, as during inbound delivery mode all fields are read-only.

Required?

Only relevant if Visible is and Editable are checked. When checked, causes the editable field on the user Input Form to be required. For a resulting task that ends up being routed back to another user after creation, Required is ignored, as during inbound delivery mode all fields are read-only.

Back-End or External System Integration using Task Templates

Each Task Template is associated with an Initial Contact Flow (see details above for configuring this in the Task Template Header.

The Initial Contact Flow is the beginning of the routing within Amazon Connect of the Task after the Task Form is submitted by the user/agent. Your contact flow therefore has access to all the Contact Attributes populated on your Template - either from user input, or via hidden attributes configured on your Task Template.

From your contact flow you can therefore invoke external systems using the Invoke AWS Lambda function Contact Flow block, to perform actions such as creating cases in an external CRM, adding notes in external systems, or invoking external communications such as sending SMS or Email notifications. A Task can also be put into a wait state in a Contact Flow, and can intermittently check on the state of an external system as needed before progressing further Task routing.

Your contact flow can also re-queue a created Task back into queue to be worked by agents in other departments or groups as needed.


Enabling the Create Tasks tool for a User/Agent

Once Task Templates are created, they are accessed using the Create Tasks tool from the Tools bar in the Symbee Connect User/Agent UI.

The Create Tasks tool is enabled for the user based on the Symbee Connect User profile or User Template. In the Administration Portal:

  1. Under User Administration, select either single user's profile, or a User Template.
  2. Within the User profile or User Template Maintain screen, select the General section on the left.
  3. Expand the Toolbar settings group, and check the Create Tasks Enabled setting.
  4. Save your User profile or User Template.
  5. If updating a User Template, make sure to re-apply the User Template to the required users after updating your User Template.

When your users next sign in to the Symbee Connect User/Agent UI, the Create Tasks tool will be present on their Tools bar in the lower left area of the UI.

The Create Tasks tool can be used in any work state - when Available, Unavailable, when working an Interaction or when idle.

When opening the Create Tasks tool:

  1. The user will be presented with a drop-down list of configured Task Templates in your Company Environment.
  2. After selecting the resulting Task Template, the Task Form will be presented for input.
  3. If your Task Template makes use of any Multiline Text Box fields, the agent can also use the AutoText Library tool (also on the Tools bar) to auto-fill Multiline Text Box fields with pre-written text or paragraphs from your AutoText library.
  4. Once the form is complete, the user clicks Submit to create the Task.
  5. The Amazon Connect Task is then created and sent to the Initial Contact Flow configured on the respective Task Template for processing.



Testing Tasks

Use the form on this screen to artificially generate Tasks to verify your Task Contact Flows and user configuration when tasks are delivered. The quick pre-fill buttons provide examples of using each of the Symbee Connect Task Contact Attribute handling extensions described in the Special Contact Attributes section above.

Example Tasks:

  • Upsell Example
  • Event Example
  • IoT Example