Ignite Your Contact Center

Rebuilding an application after only completing it two months earlier is not a developer’s dream. But this was the scenario last September when we finished our 5.9 release and started diving into the Lync Client SDK. We knew changes were coming and we knew they were going to affect our agent plugin to Office Communicator (Agent Communicator), but we didn’t know how widespread these changes would be. Lync re-imagined the Microsoft client API and we had to do the same while ensuring the agent desktop experience remained simple for someone to learn, yet powerful in what they could accomplish.

From day one the vision behind our agent desktop was to create a plugin that integrated with Communicator and delivered all of the information agents need to complete their jobs, such as queue stats, personal agent stats, and agent controls (Log in/out, Make Busy, Do Not Disturb, and Work Timer).

We spent a lot of time going back and forth over what would be the best implementation: a secondary stand-alone application, further enhancements to our supervisor Contact Center Client application to make it easier to use, or something completely different? We went with something completely different, maintaining the original vision of Agent Communicator, while creating something stunning and new—we went with Ignite.

Ignite doesn’t plug into your Lync client; it dynamically docks beside it. When the Lync client is moved around the agent desktop, Ignite moves with it. The two applications are always in sync. Agents need only to start Ignite and the application takes care of the rest: starting your Lync client, installing updates, downloading your configuration, logging agents into ACD, and providing a set of rich, interactive controls that allow agents to see all contact center activity. We received a lot of great feedback from our partners and customers on Agent Communicator in the 5.9 release and were able to bundle these requests into Ignite. For example, agents can now access all agent statistics, they are immediately available to ACD upon sign in to their desktop, and can work on outbound ACD calls while ensuring they are not routed incoming ACD calls. The new Dashboard view for accessing Agent and Queue statistics enlivens the agent experience.

But we weren’t done yet; we added a custom conversation window to Ignite. Now, when agents receive an ACD call they get a custom Ignite screen that offers them quick search and transfer controls. This same window applies to supervisors listening in on a Silent Monitor. With a simple click, supervisors can now whisper or barge in on calls while silent monitoring. In future releases we’ll be looking to build on this infrastructure by providing support for account codes and custom screen pop integrations within this window. 

Last but not least, Ignite is a beautiful application to look at. Every time I look at it I want to lick the icons off the screen. The developers on the Ignite project spent a lot of evenings and weekends wanting and needing to make it perfect and they did a great job. In the upcoming Version 5.11 release, we’re looking forward to implementing exciting new alarming and threshold functionality in the Dashboard and providing support for both agent and supervisor profiles. 

If you’re using Ignite, we’d love to hear your feedback on what you like or don’t like about the product. Our goal is to keep making it better!

Greg Thomas
Development Manager, Unified Communications

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Categories: Blog, Contact Center Management, Microsoft Lync Server, prairieFyre Software

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