Before You Begin

This chapter covers the following topics:

Related Documentation

The following is a list of documentation containing information that will assist you when implementing Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony:

Installing Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony

You install Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony by performing the Oracle Applications Rapid Install process.

The Rapid Install is intended for customers who are installing Oracle Applications for the first time or upgrading to Release 12 from to earlier releases.

The Rapid Install is provided on CD-ROMs and is available from Oracle Store at http://oraclestore.com. For information about installing Oracle Applications using Rapid Install, see Installing Oracle Applications. For information about upgrading Oracle Applications using Rapid Install, see Upgrading Oracle Applications.

Accessing Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony

Oracle Applications uses two different technology stacks:

AOL applications are Oracle Forms developed using Oracle Developer and are usually referred to as Forms-based applications. JTF applications are Java Server Pages (JSPs) developed using Oracle JDeveloper and are usually referred to as HTML-based applications. Each type of application accesses the same database and can share information with the other.

The product interfaces are accessed by providing the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the environment in an Oracle Applications 12-compliant Web browser and navigating to the hyperlink for the login page for the specific technology stack. You can also provide the URL for the specific login page. This URL is referred to as your login URL.

Oracle Applications URL

Use this URL to navigate to the Personal Home Page URL or the CRM Home page URL.

http://<host>:<port>/

CRM Home Page URL

This URL is sometimes referred to as the Apache or JTF login URL. Use this URL to open the login page for HTML-based applications.

http://<host>:<port>/OA_HTML/jtflogin.jsp

Personal Home Page URL:

This URL is sometimes referred to as the Self-Service Web Applications or SSWA login URL. Use this URL to open the login window for Oracle Applications via the Personal Home Page. You can access Forms-based or HTML-based applications from the Personal Home Page.

http://<host>:<port>/OA_HTML/US/ICXINDEX.htm

Forms URL

Use this URL to open the login page for Forms-based applications. This login URL is typically used by system administrators, not end users.

http://<host>:<port>/dev60cgi/f60cgi

User Accounts

An application user is an authorized user of Oracle Applications and is uniquely identified by a username. After the user account has been defined, the application user can sign on to Oracle Applications at the CRM Home Page, Personal Home Page, or Forms login.

Note: Oracle Applications is installed with a system defined username and password.

An application user enters a username along with a password to sign on to Oracle Applications. The password assigned by the system administrator is temporary. When signing on for the first time, the application user will be prompted to change the password. Access to specific functionality and data will be determined by the responsibilities assigned to your user account.

Responsibilities

A system administrator assigns one or more responsibilities to an application user. A responsibility is a level of authority that allows a user to access specific functionality and data in Oracle Applications. Oracle Applications is installed with predefined responsibilities. A system administrator can modify a predefined responsibility or create custom responsibilities.

The following table describes the predefined responsibilities that are used to implement Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony.

Responsibility Function Interface
Call Center HTML Administration Allows you to manage multiple aspects of interaction center, including: ICSM, and UWQ Media Actions. HTML
Oracle Marketing Campaign WorkBench SuperUser Allows you to manage Oracle Marketing operations, including the creation of campaigns, and campaign activities. HTML
Oracle Marketing Audience SuperUser Allows you to manage Oracle Marketing operations, including the creation of lists, and target groups. HTML
Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Administrator Allows you to manage Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony operations. HTML
Advanced Outbound Performance Monitor Allows you to monitor Call Center performance. HTML
Interaction History JSP Admin Allows you to create outcome, result, and reason codes. HTML
Oracle Marketing Administrator Allows you to create custom target group priority levels. HTML
Sales Online Super User Allows you access to the Oracle Sales Application, where you can assign agents to campaigns. HTML

In the Forms interface, if an application user has only one responsibility, then the related menu or application (if there is only one function in the menu) appears after the user signs on. If an application user has more than one responsibility, then a list of available responsibilities appears after the user signs on. To switch responsibilities, choose Switch Responsibility from the File menu.

In the HTML interface, an application user must select a default responsibility (even if the user has only one responsibility). The next time the application user signs on, the tabs related to the default responsibility appear. To switch responsibilities, go to Navigation Preferences in your profile (Profile icon). In the Switch Responsibilities section, select another responsibility from the Current Responsibility list.

Dependencies

The dependencies for Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony can be divided into two categories, including: Oracle products, and third party products.

Oracle Products

These products must be completely installed and configured prior to the installation and implementation of Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony. For more information on installing these products, please refer to each product's individual Installation and Implementation Guides. Each of these products may have its own prerequisites, for example TeleSales and UWQ require Oracle Resource Manager and can integrate with Oracle HRMS.

Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony depends on the following Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products:

Third Party Products

Requirements

This topic group contains the following topics:

Minimum Software Requirements

To successfully implement Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony, the following software must be installed and configured prior to the implementation of Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony:

Oracle Software

Third Party Software

Minimum Hardware Requirements

When implementing Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony, you should consider the following when deciding on your minimum hardware requirements:

Memory requirements vary with the number of CRM applications being used on a particular instance, the number of users using each of the applications, and the estimated volume of customer interactions and application use.

General Hardware Requirements

You will need the following:

Sizing Guidelines

The Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony services can be run on any approved CRM platform.

This topic group contains the following topics:

Sizing Parameters for the Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Servers

The Dial Server

The Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Dial Server is moderately memory intensive, however, it is heavily network intensive due to its communications with the UWQ agent and UWQ server, as well as the database.

The following table provides sizing recommendations for the Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Dial Server:

# Agents Minimum Memory Maximum Memory Thread Count
1 - 100 128 Megs 256 Megs 300
101 - 250 256 Megs 512 Megs 500
251 - 500 512 Megs 1024 Megs 1000

The number of trunks is dependent upon call volume, call center size, and so on. Each agent must have 1 channel to go out and 1 channel for the dialer. Oracle recommends a 1 to 1 trunk to agent ratio in cases of high voice rate (when we expect a high percentage of dials to result in a live voice). However, if the voice rate is low (say 30%) or when live agents are expected to leave answering machine messages, a higher dialer-to-agent ratio is acceptable. This ratio should not be 2 to 1.

The Central Server

The Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Central Server is not memory or server intensive, however, it does rely heavily upon the database. Therefore, when you are considering an AO implementation, ensure that you have allocated enough disk space, memory, and have a large enough CPU to handle all of the requirements that AO will place on it in the future.

Most of the Central Server's operation consists of scheduling the execution of PL/SQL on the database. However, it requires 20 or so database connections (problems will arise if the database connection (dbc) file has a low value for the number of connections (NUM_CONNECTIONS).

The amount of disk space is largely determined by the level of logging you want to utilize. Logging levels can be set from 0 to 4.

Factors That Determine the Hardware Size

The following factors must all be taken into consideration when determining the hardware size for Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony:

The number of services (one service = one running instance of the software) and servers varies, based on the needs of an individual call center. There will only be one Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Central Server needed per CRM instance, but you may need multiple Oracle Advanced Outbound Telephony Dial Servers (depending on your business needs).