Method and apparatus for monitoring work center operations
View Patent ↗A work center monitoring system includes an output device, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), or other display device and a display controller. The controller formats work center information to be displayed on the output device as single-valued and multi-valued display segments. Each segment displays information related to work center activities, which may be categorized as various skills. The displays may be provided to a work center supervisor to assist in the management of a work center, such as a contact and fulfillment center. Current and historical values of the parameters may be displayed, simultaneously, or in sequence. The values of the displayed parameters may be different types, such as any of a variety of numerical representations which might represent the number of calls in one or more queues, or the oldest call in a queue, for example. The values may be indicative of the elapsed time for servicing the oldest call in a queue, or other indications of time. The information being displayed may derive from a number of sources such as a work center management database, directly from a call management system, or from some other source. In accordance with the principles of the invention, the displayed parameter representations include indicia of “permissible” parameter values. One such indicator might be an “I-beam” glyph that indicates the highest and lowest acceptable values for a particular parameter. The area immediately surrounding such an “I-beam” glyph may include further indicia, such as graduated zones of acceptability.
1. A contact center, comprising:
a plurality of queues to hold contacts waiting to be serviced;
a plurality of agents to service the contacts, the agents being subdivided into groups having different skills and each of the queues corresponding to an agent group;
a contact distributor to route contacts to a selected queue;
a controller to generate and send commands to other contact center components; and
a supervisor interface comprising a display and an input device, the display displaying simultaneously a graphical representation of historic values of a monitored parameter and a graphical representation of a current value for the monitored parameter, wherein the monitored parameter is at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, an oldest wait time in queue, and a number of available agents.
2. The contact center of claim 1 , wherein a plurality of the at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, an oldest wait time in queue, and a number of available agents are displayed at one time by the display.
3. The contact center of claim 1 , wherein the display further displays, concurrently with the monitored parameter, at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value for the monitored parameter.
4. The contact center of claim 3 , wherein the at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value is displayed on the graphical representation of the current value.
5. The contact center of claim 3 wherein the at least one of the maximum and minimum preferred value is rendered as an affordance, wherein, in response to user manipulation of the affordance, the controller generates and sends a command to a contact center component to alter a contact center operation.
6. The contact center of claim 5 , wherein the contact center operation is at least one of routing of contacts, issuing a warning, and assigning a level to the warning.
7. The contact center of claim 3 , wherein, when the monitored parameter is one of above the maximum preferred value and below the minimum preferred value, a displayed color changes from a first normal color to a second different warning color to alert a user.
8. The contact center of claim 4 , wherein the at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value is displayed as an I-beam glyph, with the upper bar of the “I” representing the position of the maximum preferred value and the lower bar of the “I” representing the position of the minimum preferred value, and wherein the I-beam glyph is overlaid on the graphical representation of the current value.
9. The contact center of claim 8 , wherein the graphical representation of the current value is a bar chart and the graphical representation of the historic values is a line chart.
10. In a contact center, the contact center comprising a plurality of queues to hold contacts waiting to be serviced; a plurality of agents to service the contacts, the agents being subdivided into groups having different skills; a contact distributor to route contacts to a selected queue; a controller to generate and send commands to other contact center components; and a supervisor interface comprising a display and an input device, a method comprising the step:
the display displaying simultaneously a graphical representation of historic values of a monitored parameter and a graphical representation of a current value for the monitored parameter, wherein the monitored parameter is at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, an oldest wait time in queue, and a number of available agents.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the display displays, at one time, a plurality of the at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, an oldest wait time in queue, and a number of available agents.
12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the display further displays, concurrently with the monitored parameter, at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value for the monitored parameter.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value is displayed on the graphical representation of the current value.
14. The method of claim 12 wherein the at least one of the maximum and minimum preferred value is rendered as an affordance and further comprising:
in response to user manipulation of the affordance, the controller generating and sending a command to a method component to alter a contact center operation.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the contact center operation is at least one of routing of contacts, issuing a warning, and assigning a level to the warning.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the operation is routing of contacts.
17. The method of claim 14 , wherein, when the monitored parameter is one of above the maximum preferred value and below the minimum preferred value, a displayed color changes from a first normal color to a second different warning color to alert a user.
18. The method of claim 13 , wherein the at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value is displayed as an I-beam glyph, with the upper bar of the “I” representing the position of the maximum preferred value and the lower bar of the “I” representing the position of the minimum preferred value, and wherein the I-beam glyph is overlaid on the graphical representation of the current value.
19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the graphical representation of the current value is a bar chart and the graphical representation of the historic values is a line chart.
20. A contact center, comprising:
a plurality of queues to hold contacts waiting to be serviced;
a plurality of agents to service the contacts, the agents being subdivided into groups having different skills;
a contact distributor to route contacts to a selected queue;
a controller to generate and send commands to other contact center components; and
a supervisor interface comprising a display and an input device, wherein the display displays simultaneously a graphical representation of a current value for the monitored parameter and at least one of a maximum and minimum value for the monitored parameter, wherein the monitored parameter is at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, an oldest wait time in queue, and a number of available agents, wherein the at least one of the maximum and minimum value is rendered as an affordance, wherein, in response to user manipulation of the affordance, the controller generates and sends a command to a contact center component to alter a contact center operation.
21. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein the display displays simultaneously a graphical representation of historic values of the monitored parameter and the graphical representation of a current value for the monitored parameter.
22. The contact center of claim 21 , wherein a plurality of the at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, an oldest wait time in queue, and a number of available agents are displayed at one time by the display.
23. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein the display further displays, concurrently with the monitored parameter, both the maximum and minimum value for the monitored parameter.
24. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein the at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value is displayed on the graphical representation of the current value.
25. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein the contact center operation is at least one of routing of contacts, issuing a warning, and assigning a level to the warning.
26. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein, when the monitored parameter is one of above the maximum preferred value and below the minimum preferred value, a displayed color changes from a first normal color to a second different warning color to alert a user.
27. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein the at least one of a maximum and minimum preferred value is displayed as an I-beam glyph, with the upper bar of the “I” representing the position of the maximum preferred value and the lower bar of the “I” representing the position of the minimum preferred value, and wherein the I-beam glyph is overlaid on the graphical representation of the current value.
28. The contact center of claim 27 , wherein the graphical representation of the current value is a bar chart and the graphical representation of the historic values is a line chart.
29. The contact center of claim 20 , wherein the monitored parameter is at least one of a number of calls in queue, an expected wait time for a call to receive service, and an oldest wait time in queue, wherein the at least one of maximum and minimum value is the maximum value, and wherein, when the maximum value is increased by user manipulation of the affordance, a number of calls in queue is increased in response thereto and, when the maximum value is decreased by user manipulation of the affordance, the number of calls in queue is decreased in response thereto.
30. A computer readable medium comprising executable instructions to perform the steps of claim 10 .