PeopleSoft CRM 9.1 Multichannel Applications PeopleBook

Working with Chat in PeopleSoft CRM

This chapter provides an overview of the chat workspace and discusses how to:

Work with the customer chat window.
Work with the chat workspace.
View chat logs and reports.

Understanding the Chat Workspace

This section discusses:

Unified Agent Desktop.
Agent chat window.
Agent popup page.
Chat session categorization.

Unified Agent Desktop

After a customer submits a chat request from a self-service page, the request is routed to an appropriate queue and then an available agent. Usually, a notification about the task appears (depending on the agent setup) on the Unified Agent Desktop (UAD) with some information about the requester. Upon accepting the chat task, the UAD provides:

Chat-specific action buttons that the agent can use during the session to perform actions, such as inviting another agent to join the chat, transferring the chat session to another queue for a new agent to take over, and terminating the chat session.
Statistics of the chat session, including the customer wait time before the agent accepted the session and the duration of the ongoing session.
Agent-to-agent chat, which can be initiated during a chat session with customers for consultation purposes. A consultation chat is different from a conference chat because the dialog between agents is unavailable to the customer.
A task navigation list in which the agent can switch among accepted tasks that are currently in working progress.

See Understanding Multichannel Toolbar Functionality.

Agent Chat Window

The agent chat window, along with the agent popup page, appears after the agent accepts a chat request. The window contains a history box that captures the entire chat conversation as it proceeds and a field in which the agent enters text messages to interact with the participants.

To help agents monitor the activities of multiple chat sessions that they work on concurrently, the agent chat window lists all the active chat requests in the Open Customer Chats field. If any one of the sessions receives a response, a visual cue appears to alert the agent of the activity.

Text Tray

The agent can use the text tray feature to include predefined messages automatically in the Input Text field by pressing quick keys or selecting the messages from the Text Tray link. This link contains a list of static quick keys that are defined in the system. The agent can modify the populated text before sending it.

See Working with the Text Tray.

Quick Actions

The agent chat window provides a list of actions that the agent can perform for customers while interacting with them. PeopleSoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) delivers these common actions:

Email password to the customer.

This action resets the customer's user password to password.

Oracle's PeopleSoft CRM delivers this feature, and customers need to implement their own password retrieving mechanism (for example, asking users personal questions) and send the user ID as part of the payload. This effort requires code change on PeopleTools. Specifically, implementers must change the TriggerQAction function on HTML.RB_AGTCHAT_FUNCTIONS2 to obtain the user IDs using their own implementations.
Email chat log to the customer.
Push web pages to the customer.

Web pages can be any external websites or CRM self-service pages.

Be sure to give your customers security access to the pages that agents can push to them. For example, if you want to push a page with solution information to the customer, you may want to use the customer solution search rather than the helpdesk solution search.
Display the initial agent popup page on the right side of the chat workspace.

This is useful after the agent navigates in different pages for a while and wants to returns to the initial agent popup page.

Agent Popup Page

The agent popup page is a CRM transactional page that is associated with the self-service page from which the chat request originates, and it appears next to the agent chat window when the agent accepts the chat request. The purpose of this page is to assist agents in finding relevant information about the customer or the transaction about which the customer inquires.

The agent can scroll the agent chat window to view the agent popup page while researching information for the customer.

See Also

Application Data in the Chat Workspace

Configuring Agents for Unified Agent Desktop

Chat Session Categorization

When the agent chooses to end a chat session, all the fields in the agent chat window and buttons on the Multichannel Toolbar are disabled. The agent can categorize the session on the toolbar before closing the chat workspace browser window. The selected category is available for viewing in the interaction created for the chat session, as well as on reports.

CRM delivers a chat-specific category set that you can use to categorize chat sessions.

Agent-to-agent chat sessions are not subject to categorization.

See Also

Defining Category Codes

Working with the Customer Chat Window

This section discusses how self-service customers:

Send chat requests.
Use the customer chat window.

Sending Chat Requests

Access any CRM self-service page that is enabled for the chat feature.

This chat portion appears on a self-service page if ERMS (Email Response Management System) is licensed AND the chat feature is enabled.

Your Name	Enter the name that the system and agent can use to address the self-service user during the chat session. This field appears if the Allow guest user to enter name option is selected in the chat profile that is associated with the self-service page.
Subject	Select the subject of the question from values that are defined in the associated chat profile. The CRM system uses the subject information for routing chat requests to corresponding queues.
Question	Enter the specific customer question. Users must enter questions in chat requests, if such option is specified in the associated chat profile.
Start Chat	Click to submit a chat session to the queue server. Once completed, the CRM system displays a message to inform customers that the chat request is submitted to the queue server automatically. If the queue server receives the chat session, it returns a chat ID for the session, which automatically gets updated on the Chat Details page. The CRM system creates an interaction for the chat session if the requester is a registered self-service user.

See Also

Sending Contact Us Messages

Using the Customer Chat Window

Access the customer chat window (click the Start Chat button on a chat-enabled self service page).

A customer uses the customer chat window to chat with the agent who accepted the chat request. The customer chat window provides only simple chat functionality, not the more extensive capabilities of the agent chat window.

The customer chat window is common to all PeopleTools chat implementations. You can find more detailed information about the customer chat window in your PeopleTools documentation.

Send	Click to send the chat message you entered in the Input Text field to the agent.
Exit Dialog	Click to close and leave the chat session.

See PeopleTools 8.52: PeopleSoft MultiChannel Framework PeopleBook

Working with the Agent Chat Workspace

This section discusses how to:

Process chat requests.
Push pages to customers.
Email passwords.
Email chat logs.
Transfer chat sessions to other queues.
Conference with other agents.
Chat with other agents.
End chat sessions.

Page Used to Work with the Agent Chat Workspace

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Push Web Page	RB_CHAT_WIZARD	Select the Push web page action on the chat workspace.	Displays the pages that you've defined to show here so that you can select a page whose URL you want to push to the customer.

Processing Chat Requests

Access the chat workspace (click to accept an incoming chat request).

Depending on the accept and popup modes that are selected for agent-to-agent and agent-to-customer chat window types in the agent configuration, the agent may not be required to click the chat task notification that appears on the Multichannel Toolbar to accept the chat request. Typically, if both modes are automatic, the chat workspace appears with information about the new chat request that the system automatically accepts for the agent. If the popup mode is manual, a notification appears, and the agent can preview, click to accept, or reject (by not clicking) it.

The chat workspace consists of three sections where agents research, interact with customers, and perform chat-related actions: the Multichannel Toolbar, the agent chat window, and the agent popup page.

Unified Agent Desktop (UAD)

The UAD provides action buttons for agents to invite another agents to join the customer-to-agent chat (conference), initiate an agent-to-agent chat, transfer the session to another queue as needed, and end the session. It also displays statistics about the chat session for reference.

Agent Chat Window

Conversation History	Displays the ongoing chat dialog. Each response has a time stamp and is color-coded by participant for easy recognition. The system makes note in the dialog box when a chat action is performed (for example, when the password or chat log is sent to the customer, a web page is pushed to the customer) or the session is being transferred to another queue.
Input Text	Enter the agent's response. In addition to entering text manually, agents can use the text tray feature to populate predefined messages by typing quick keys or using the Text Tray link.
Text Tray	Click to open the Text Tray window to review a list of available messages and select one to use in the response.
Push Page	Click to push the page that currently appears on the right side of the chat workspace to the customer. For example, the agent can push the Case search page to the customer who needs to look up a case during the chat session. Note that customers can view only those pages that they are authorized to see.
Actions	Select an action to perform on the chat session. Options are: Email password. Email chat log. Push web page. Display initial screen.
Open Customer Chats	Displays all active chat sessions that the agent is currently processing. If any one of the sessions receives a response, a visual cue appears to alert the agent of the activity.

Agent Popup Page

This section displays a CRM transactional page that is associated with the self-service page from which the chat session originates. Typically, it is the 360-Degree View page or the mini navigation page on which agents can search for multiple CRM objects. The page can also be the main page of any CRM object (for example, case, if the self-service page that it associates with pertains to that object).

Pushing Pages to Customers

When the agent selects the action to push a web page to the customer, the Push Web Page page appears:

In addition to performing the push web page action, agents can also push a transactional page to customers by clicking the Push <transaction> button that's available (if agents are navigating transactions on the agent popup page section, for example, order). Currently, CRM supports the pushing of case and order pages using buttons.

After the URL has been pushed to the customer, a confirmation message appears in the Conversation History field.

URL	Enter the URL of a website to push to the customer. The page appears in a new browser window on the customer's workstation. Remember to enter http:// at the beginning of the URL.
Static URL	Select a predefined URL to push to the customer's workstation. Define static URLs under the Chat Setting section on the Configure Agent - Multichannel Configuration page. See Configuring Agents.
Self-service Pages	Select a self-service search page from the list to push to the customer's workstation. You establish the list of search pages on the Self-Service Page Mapping page.
Select and URL	The URL of the corresponding page appears in the URL field automatically. You can edit the URL if you already know the application keys (such as an order ID) to the URL; the URL with keys directs the customer to the exact CRM transaction.
Description	Click to access the search page of the corresponding CRM object. From the search page, agents can look up transactions that relate to the customer and select one that the customer would be interested in viewing.
Copy URL	Click to copy the URL of the corresponding search page in the clipboard. The agent can paste the copied URL on a browser window or text file and modify it as needed.
Push	Click to send the URL to the customer's workstation without closing the Push Webpage window.
Push and Close	Click to send the URL to the customer's chat workstation and close the Push Webpage window.

Emailing Passwords

When the agent selects the action to email the user password to the customer, a window appears. The agent enters the user ID of the customer:

The Send Password window then appears:

Click the customer email address to which the password is sent. This action resets the user's password to password. After the password has been mailed to the customer, a confirmation message appears in the Conversation History field.

Note. This implementation is delivered as an example on how user passwords can be retrieved. Customers should come up with their own design to obtain the user ID and make the modification in PeopleTools accordingly. Refer to this see reference for guidelines.

See Agent Chat Window.

Emailing Chat Logs

When the agent selects the action to send the chat transcript to the customer, the Email Chat Log window appears:

Select or enter the customer email address to which the chat log is sent. The agent can enter multiple email addresses in the field and separate them by commas. After the log has been mailed to the customer, a confirmation message appears in the Conversation History field.

Important! Sometimes, chat logs cannot be mailed to customers successfully because their line lengths exceed the default maximum line length that the mail server can accept. Check the text line setting of your mail server configuration and increase the number by the use of SMTP Service Extensions if needed.

Transferring Chat Sessions to Other Queues

When the agent clicks the Forward Chat button, the Transfer Chat to Queue window appears:

Name

Displays the list of queues to which the chat session can be transferred. Click the name of the queue that the chat session should go to start the transfer.

When the transfer is completed, the current session ends automatically. The agent can categorize the chat session on the Multichannel Toolbar before closing the chat workspace browser window.

Agents Logged In

Displays the number of agents who are currently logged on for the corresponding queue. This information is displayed after the agent availability check is performed.

Agent Available

Displays the number of agents who are currently set to be available for the corresponding queue. This information is displayed after the agent availability check is performed.

Check Availability

Click the Availability button to check for agent availability for the corresponding queue. The button label is changed to Checking while the check is in progress. When it is finished, the system displays the number of agents who are logged in and the number of agents who are marked as ready for the queue. If no statistics can be retrieved after the check process times out (30 seconds), a dialog box appears and relays the message back to the agent.

The numbers are not updated automatically; when needed, click the button to refresh the data.

Note. The Check Availability feature provides information on agent availability in queues so that when an agent thinks about forwarding a chat session to another queue, he or she can decide what to do based on the current state of the queue. Agents can, but do not have to, check for agent availability before they transfer chat sessions.

Here is an example. Suppose that an agent is chatting with a customer and he thinks that he should forward the chat session a different queue so another agent from a specialized team can review the customer's request. After he checks for agent availability for that queue, he realizes that there is an agent currently logged on but the agent is not set to be available. With this information in hand, he can inform the customer of the situation and make recommendations. For instance, create a case for the customer and assign it to the target group, or continue forward the chat session on just in case someone becomes available momentarily (if the customer can wait).

The system allows the transfer of chat sessions to queues that do not have logged-in or available agents currently. It provides flexibility because either agents are in the process of logging in or making themselves available, or managers who monitor queues can adjust staffing resources dynamically based on the real-time information they receive—have agents log into queues with tasks waiting to be reviewed.

Conferencing with Other Agents

When the agent clicks the Conference button, the Conference Chat window appears:

During a chat session, the agent can invite another agent to join the chat. The invited agent can interact with all participants to exchange ideas and discuss issues.

Click the agent's name to initiate the conference chat.

When the chat session is displayed to the invited agent, the chat history between the first agent and the customer appears as reference.

Chatting with Other Agents

When the agent clicks the Agent Chat button, the Agent to Agent Chat window appears:

In addition to inviting an agent to start a three-way conferencing chat, the agent can initiate a chat session with another agent without the customer knowledge. The agents can discuss the customer's issue and later relay the information back to the customer.

Ending Chat Sessions

When the agent ends a chat session, all fields on the agent chat window and chat buttons on the Multichannel Toolbar are disabled. The agent can categorize the session in the Category field that appears on the toolbar.

The selected category is available for viewing in the interaction created for the chat session.

PeopleTools 8.52: PeopleSoft MultiChannel Framework PeopleBook

Viewing Chat Logs and Reports

To view chat details, use the Chat Detail (RB_CHAT_DETAIL) component.

This section discusses how to:

View chat logs.
View chat details.
View chat reports.

Pages Used to View Chat Logs and Reports

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Chat Log	RB_CHAT_LOG	Correspondence, Chat Detail, Chat Log	View chat transcripts and related transactions.
Chat Details	RB_CHAT_DETAIL	Correspondence, Chat Detail, Chat Details	View system information about the chat session.

Viewing Chat Logs

Access the Chat Log page (Correspondence, Chat Detail, Chat Log).

Related Transactions

This grid displays CRM application objects that are associated with the selected chat session (if applicable). These objects are subinteractions of the chat interaction.

Chat Log

This area records the dialog between the agent and chat requester. The time that corresponds to each line in the conversation changes based on the time zone that is selected on the toolbar. The right column displays the content of the dialog. Customer's name appears in red and agent's name appears in black.

See Also

Chat Logs and Reports

Viewing Chat Details

Access the Chat Details page (Correspondence, Chat Detail, Chat Details).

Detail Summary

CRM Chat ID	Displays the unique identification number of the chat request.
View System Chat Detail	Click to access the Chat Log component in PeopleTools in a new browser window.
Initial Queue and Final Queue	Displays the first queue to which the chat session was submitted and the last one to which it belonged. These values are different if the chat request was reassigned.
Source Page	Displays the self-service page where the chat was initiated.
Question and Subject	Displays the question (if available) and subject that was entered by the customer in the chat request.
Agent Name	Displays the agent who was last assigned to the chat request.

Interaction Category

This section displays information of interaction category that is associated with this chat session. If more than one entry is available, they are listed chronologically (the most recent appears first). You can click the Refresh toolbar button to refresh the list as needed. If the category information does not exist, the No Interaction Category message is displayed.

Description

Displays the category of the chat session.

Viewing Chat Reports

See PeopleSoft Multichannel Communications Reports.

Name	Displays the list of queues to which the chat session can be transferred. Click the name of the queue that the chat session should go to start the transfer. When the transfer is completed, the current session ends automatically. The agent can categorize the chat session on the Multichannel Toolbar before closing the chat workspace browser window.
Agents Logged In	Displays the number of agents who are currently logged on for the corresponding queue. This information is displayed after the agent availability check is performed.
Agent Available	Displays the number of agents who are currently set to be available for the corresponding queue. This information is displayed after the agent availability check is performed.
Check Availability	Click the Availability button to check for agent availability for the corresponding queue. The button label is changed to Checking while the check is in progress. When it is finished, the system displays the number of agents who are logged in and the number of agents who are marked as ready for the queue. If no statistics can be retrieved after the check process times out (30 seconds), a dialog box appears and relays the message back to the agent. The numbers are not updated automatically; when needed, click the button to refresh the data. Note. The Check Availability feature provides information on agent availability in queues so that when an agent thinks about forwarding a chat session to another queue, he or she can decide what to do based on the current state of the queue. Agents can, but do not have to, check for agent availability before they transfer chat sessions. Here is an example. Suppose that an agent is chatting with a customer and he thinks that he should forward the chat session a different queue so another agent from a specialized team can review the customer's request. After he checks for agent availability for that queue, he realizes that there is an agent currently logged on but the agent is not set to be available. With this information in hand, he can inform the customer of the situation and make recommendations. For instance, create a case for the customer and assign it to the target group, or continue forward the chat session on just in case someone becomes available momentarily (if the customer can wait). The system allows the transfer of chat sessions to queues that do not have logged-in or available agents currently. It provides flexibility because either agents are in the process of logging in or making themselves available, or managers who monitor queues can adjust staffing resources dynamically based on the real-time information they receive—have agents log into queues with tasks waiting to be reviewed.