OCM 7.6 List Weights

[SagaAssist2016]

Hi
I know we're using really old Software, but I wondered if anyone would be able to assist.  I'm looking to use List Weights to combine 6 Calling Lists, each with set Filters, into one campaign.  I have not used List Weights before, and being such old Software, getting assistance is pretty hard!
I've found the 'Understanding Weights' help topic on OCM 7.6, but this doesn't really explain to me how these work.  I understand that a weighting number is allocated to each Calling List, and this volume of the total weight will be presented, e.g. calling list 1 = 60, total weight = 100, so 60 in 100 records will be for calling list 1.
*  How is the total weight determined?  Does this need to be greater than the volume of records in all included calling lists as any given time?
*  How does the total weight work?  Is it a rolling number, with new records constantly added?
*  Do we run the risk of records not being presented to agents because they are of a lower weighting or do not fit within the set weight?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks, KOW

[Dionysis]

List weighting is one of those things that's hard to get your head around, but once you understand it it's pretty straight forward.

It's the percentage of records from each list are retrieved into the buffer as a percentage.  So if your 6 lists are set like this:

List1 - weight = 10
List2 - weight = 20
List3 - weight = 10
List4 - weight = 10
List5 - weight = 10
List6 - weight = 10

total of all weights = 70.

The percentage of records retrieved into the buffer will be like this.
List1 - 14.3%
List2 - 28.6%
List3 - 14.3%
List4 - 14.3%
List5 - 14.3%
List6 - 14.3%

To work this out you do this:  <weight> / <total> * 100

* remember, this is records in the buffer (in a retrieved state), not records that will dial.

Now, it's not quite that simple (because Genesys), this is where it gets complicated.

You also have the record buffers and dialling priorities to contend with, and the dialling priorities.

Minimum Record Buffer = Minimum number of records retrieved from a list, per agent.
Optimal Record Buffer = Number of records retrieved per agent when OCS retrieves new records (eg. when it hits the minimum buffer)

Dialling priorities control which records from the buffer get dialled first.  By default these are set so that Campaign Callbacks dial first, then Campaign Rescheduled, and the lowest priority are new, or fresh, records.

So, if your Optimal Record Buffer is too low you can end up with a situation where a particular list only has fresh records retrieved but other lists have campaign callbacks and rescheduled.  In which case, the list where only fresh records are retrieved will not dial because the other records are high priority.  It's also possible that you will experience slow dialling because there are not enough fresh records in the buffer and OCS is waiting until the right time to dial the callbacks and rescheduled.  What the record buffer values should be requires experimentation and tuning.  I will say this though, do not use the default values for your buffer values, but on the other hand, do not use very large values.  Personally, I run 10 and 12 as a starting point, then analyse and tune from there. 

I would also recommend not using 6 lists unless you have a very large agent pool.  Weighting and priorities are very difficult to predict so the smaller the number of variables the better.

Hope this helps.

[SagaAssist2016]

Hi Dionysis

Thanks for your reply.

We don't use Campaign Callbacks or Campaign Rescheduled, nor any treatments; all records are dialled once before being 'manually recycled' (pushing those with a non-complete outcome back into the lists).  Would this make the below any more reliable, as the only focus would be new / fresh records, followed by records that have been already dialled, but are again available?

We're looking at c.30 agents dialling the 6 campaign on Preview, with c.2,000 leads being loaded per week.

Thanks, KOW

[Dionysis]

Wait, it's 6 campaigns?  Or it's 1 campaign with 6 lists?

If 6 separate campaigns then list weights wont do anything.  If 1 campaign with 6 lists then the above applies.

With no treatments the buffer values become less important so it will purely be a percentage of the lists based on the total number configured in the weight values.

Not running treatments is really cutting Genesys' legs out from under it though.  The most efficient way to dial is to develop a logical treatment strategy and then dial until there are no incomplete records left.  But you are running preview, which is inherently inefficient anyway so it's not that big a deal I guess.

One tip though, each day as you're refreshing your lists, make sure you change the order that you load the records.  By default OCS will dial using the "record_id" field as the order to dial.  So for lower numbered record_id's you will dial them at essentially the same time every day, and if someone's not available at 10am on a Monday, there's a very high chance they wont be available at that time on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday either.

[SagaAssist2016]

Apologies for my terminology!  It's currently 6 campaigns, but is to be combined as 1 campaign consisting of 6 calling lists with the weighting included.

We haven't run treatments as we've never really understood them fully, and with such an outdated version, getting any training from Genesys is near on impossible.  We run on preview to remove the dreaded 'its a call centre silence' as we are dialling such high-value leads.

Regarding your tip, would the 'order by' part of the filter still work, if I have selected to order by load date newest to oldest, or by lowest number of attempts first, in order to avoid your point on calling pretty much the same records at the same time of day?

[Dionysis]

Ok, so it's 1 Genesys campaign, with 6 business campaigns, got it.

Treatment settings aren't that much different from 7.6 to 8.5, as long as you're not using scxml treatments you can follow the current documentation.  For high value leads, preview is fine.  There's no escaping the 1 or 2 seconds of silence at the beginning of a predictive/progressive outbound call.

For ordering the list, I would insert a custom column with and insert a random value into that field when you're loading data.  Then use an "order by" dialling filter on that field.

[SagaAssist2016]

Thanks, it's all starting to make more sense now!

I think our only way to go really is trial and error on the buffer size to see what works.  Do we run the risk of losing records to a 'retrieved' state that are never dialled if only the new records are being loaded?

Thanks, KOW

[Dionysis]

With no treatments you can leave the buffer size to the default values, it wont make much difference.  The only time it needs changing is if you're using treatments and end up with different record types in the buffer.

[SagaAssist2016]

Brilliant, thank you.  Sounds like we'll be ok then.  Thanks for your help 
KOW