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Working with Dialing Filters

Dialing filters are used by the Siebel application to manipulate telephone numbers for voice calls made, transferred, or for conference calls made.

Dialing filters specify a set of phone-number translation rules that are invoked when the Lookup or PhoneTypeLookup keyword is specified in macro-expanded text in a communications command for the voice channel (using Siebel CTI). Dialing filters are defined as configuration parameters in the All Configurations view in the Administration - Communications screen.

In each of the examples in this section, the first set of numbers is searched for. If there is a match, the searched numbers are translated to the numbers after the -> symbols.

Filter rules are checked for matches in numerical sequence. The last rule in the sequence should always be defined to match any number.

The numeric elements in the names of the filter rule parameters are applied by string comparison, from small to large. For example, this means that a dialing filter named DialingFilter.Rule11 will be applied before one named DialingFilter.Rule2. Consequently, use the same number of digits for each rule, according to your total anticipated number of rules. For example, the numeric elements in the filter rules could use a sequence starting with 000, followed by 001, and so on, up to 999.

NOTE:  How dialing filters actually function is subject to the command data definition for the command that is performing the make-call operation.

By default, the Lookup and PhoneTypeLookup keywords used in command data definitions do the following:

• Treat a phone number as domestic (that is, omit the country code) if the country code matches the current locale.
• Treat a phone number as international (that is, include the country code) if the country code does not match the current locale.

For CTI implementations supporting multiple call centers, consider the dialing filter requirements among the factors in deciding how to organize your agents in communications configurations. You may decide, for example, to ensure that all agents included in a single configuration are located within a single location for which the same set of dialing filters will apply. For example, this grouping may be defined as a particular call center facility, or a particular locale corresponding to a country code.

For more information about configuration parameters, including DialingFilter.RuleN, see Specifying Parameters for Communications Configurations.

For more information about the Lookup and PhoneTypeLookup keywords, keywords to represent parts of phone numbers, phone-number formatting, and the $DialingRuleMethod macro, see Using Macro Expansion for Character Fields.

For more information about international telephone numbers, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.