AWS Connect Task Activity Test

Amazon Connect Tasks allows you to prioritize, assign, track, and even automate tasks across the disparate tool agents use to support customers. For example, using Tasks an agent can:

  • Follow-up on customer issues recorded in a customer relationship management (CRM) solution

  • Follow-up with a customer via a call

  • Complete actions in a business-specific system

A task is a unit of work that an agent must complete. This includes work that may have originated in external applications. It's routed, prioritized, assigned, and tracked. Agents handle tasks in their Contact Control Panel (CCP), again just like any other contact. When assigned a task, agents see a notification with the description of the task, information associated with the tasks, and links to any applications that they might need to complete the task.

In real-time environment, there may be multiple tasks that should be resolved by the agents for the intents performed by the contacts. While resolving a specific intent, if the agents suddenly become unavailable or are in an error state, the tasks for that intent get lined up and the credibility of the business that is governed by the contact center may suffer. If the issue prolongs, then, the business may experience a loss in revenue. To improve the overall performance of the business, it is essential to track how well the agents can handle the tasks that have been assigned to them with respect to each intent. For this purpose, eG Enterprise offers the AWS Connect Task Activity Test.

This test auto-discovers the intents that the agents are following up through tasks in the target Amazon Connect instance, and for each intent, this test reports the count of available agents, agents in error state, non-productive state etc. Using this test, administrators can figure out the intent that has been frequently handled by the agents through task channel and in the process, figure out how well the performance of the agents is while handing the intent. If the performance of the agents suffers while handling each intent, administrators can analyze if it is due to too many agents in error state? or is it due to too many agents being non-productive? or is it due to too many contacts contacting the contact center for the same intent? or is it due to unavailability of slots for handling each intent?

Target of the test : An Amazon Connect Contact center

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each intent handled through the task channel of the target AWS Connect that is to be monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the Amazon Connect that is being monitored.

Port

Specify the port number at which the specified HOST listens. By default, this is NULL.

AWS Access Key, AWS Secret Key, Confirm AWS Access Key, Confirm AWS Secret Key

To monitor an Amazon Connect instance, the eG agent has to be configured with the access key and secret key of a user with a valid AWS account. For this purpose, we recommend that you create a special user on the AWS cloud, obtain the access and secret keys of this user, and configure this test with these keys. The procedure for this has been detailed in the Obtaining an Access key and Secret key topic. Make sure you reconfirm the access and secret keys you provide here by retyping it in the corresponding Confirm text boxes.

AWS Default Region

This test uses Amazon Connect CLI to interact with AWS and pull relevant metrics. To enable the test to connect to AWS, you need to configure the test with the name of the region to which all requests for metrics should be routed, by default. Specify the name of this AWS Default Region, here.

AWS Instance ID

Specify a unique identifier for each instance created by Amazon Connect

Note: To monitor multiple instances of Amazon Connect, each instance should be added as a separate Amazon Connect component in eG and assigned a unique nick name. When configuring tests for the component, you need to make sure that the specific Amazon Connect instance to be monitored is indicated using the Instance ID parameter.

Timeout

Specify the maximum duration (in seconds) for which the test will wait for a response from the server. The default is 10 seconds.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement

Description

Measurement Unit

Interpretation

Agents on after call work state

Indicates the number of agents working in AfterContactWork state for this intent up through tasks.

Number

When a conversation between an agent and a contact end, the agent is automatically allocated to do After Contact Work for the contact. This includes updating the system, logging the reason for contact and outcome, updating colleagues, and scheduling follow-up actions.

Compare the value of this measure across the intents to identify an intent for which maximum number of agents are working in AfterContactWork state.

Agents available

Indicates the number of agents who are available to take an inbound contact for this intent following up through tasks.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure is preferred to be high.

Agents error

Indicates the number of agents, who are currently working for this intent, in error state.

Number

The value of this measure is desired to be zero.

Agents non productive

Indicates the number of agents who have set a custom status in CCP, while working on this intent.

Number

Agents use the Amazon Connect Contact Control Panel (CCP) which is an exclusive website to interact with customer contacts. Using CCP, they receive calls, chat with contacts, transfer them to other agents, put them on hold, and perform other key tasks.

Agents on call

Indicates the number of agents who are currently on call with a customer for this intent.

Number

 

Agents on contact

Indicates the number of agents who are currently handling a contact for this intent.

Number

In Amazon Connect, each interaction with a customer is a contact. The interaction can be a phone call (voice), a chat, or an automated interaction using an Amazon Lex bot.

Each contact can have some data that is specific to a particular interaction. This data can be accessed as a contact attribute. For example:

  • The name of the customer

  • The name of the agent

  • The channel used for the contact such as phone or chat, and more.

An agent is considered to be in “On contact” status when he/she is handling at least one contact who is either connected, on hold, in After contact work, or outbound ring.

Agents allocated

Indicates the number of agents allocated for this intent who have set their status other than Offline in the CCP.

Number

Contact Control Panel (CCP) is a website that the agents use to communicate with contacts.

Agents can also customize their status such as ‘On Call’, ‘On Contact’ ‘After Contact Work’ etc., though the CCP.

Agents staffed

Indicates the number of agents who are online in the CCP for this intent, and not in Non-Productive Time (a custom status).

Number

There are two scenarios in which this measure is not incremented:

  • The agent's status in the CCP is set to Offline.

  • The agent's status in the CCP is set to a custom status.

For example, let's say an agent sets his/her status in the CCP to a custom status such as Break and he/she makes an outbound call. Now, the agent"s status is set to “On call”, but Staffed value is 0.

If the agent sets his/her status in the CCP to Available and makes an outbound call, the agent’s status is set to On call and Staffed value is 1.

Contacts in queue

Indicates the number of contacts that are currently in the queue for this intent.

Number

A sudden/gradual increase in the value of this measure indicates an influx of customer queries to the contact center. A persistently high value for this measure is an indication for the business owning the contact center to right-size the contact center with adequate number of agents to handle the contacts.

Contacts scheduled

Indicates the number of contacts who have scheduled a call back with the agent for this intent.

Number

 

Oldest contact age

Indicates the maximum time that the contact waited in queue for this intent.

Seconds

Compare the value of this measure across all the intents to find out an intent for which the contacts waited in the queue for longer time.

A high value for this measure is an indication that all the agents of the contact center for an intent are busy.

Slots active

Indicates the number of active slots for this intent.

Number

A slot is where an agent can either connect to a contact on call or connect to concurrent contacts via chats.

This value indicates the number of active slots for an intent that the agent is engaged in.

Slots available

Indicates the number of available slots through which an agent routes contacts to resolve this intent.

Number

Slots are allocated for an agent based on his/her routing profile.

For example, let's say an agent's routing profile specifies he/she can handle either one voice contact or up to three chat contacts simultaneously. If he/she is currently handling one chat, they have two available slots left, not three.

A slot is considered unavailable when:

  • A contact in the slot is: connected to the agent, in After Contact Work, inbound ringing, outbound ringing, missed, or in an error state.

  • A contact in the slot is connected to the agent and on hold.

Amazon Connect doesn't count an agent's slots when:

  • The agent has set their status in the CCP to a custom status, such as Break or Training. Amazon Connect doesn't count these slots because agents can't take inbound contacts when they've set their status to a custom status.

  • The agent can't take contacts from that channel per their routing profile.