- Introduction to Cyara CVA
- Introduction to Amazon Connect
- Important Notes
- Amazon Connect Configuration Pre-Requisites for Cyara Virtual Agents
- Amazon Connect Voice CVA Integration Walkthrough
- Cyara Virtual Agent (CVA) Integration with Amazon Connect Walkthrough Video Tutorial
Introduction to Cyara CVA (Voice)
Contact centers need a way to test the whole chain of the customer journey. Solutions are needed that test digital and voice channels thoroughly and the transition points between channels. Testing should include call routing to appropriate agents, Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) to ensure that customer data from prior channels is readily available, and agent equipment and applications (phone and desktop).
Test the customer experience at the transition point from the self-service channel to the assisted service channel. Test that the customer is routed to the appropriate agent that has the skills to resolve the issue. Test that the customer data from the CTI data dip moves to the assisted service channel for the agent to access.
Cyara’s Call Routing Testing Enables You To:
- Test agent call routing by simulating agents and agent activity and Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) functions
- Validate that correct information is delivered to an agent
This integration manual is built in support of Cyara’s integration with Amazon Connect platform.
Introduction to Amazon Connect
Amazon Connect is an easy to use omnichannel cloud contact center that helps companies provide superior customer service at a lower cost. Over 10 years ago, Amazon’s retail business needed a contact center that would give our customers personal, dynamic, and natural experiences. We couldn’t find one that met our needs, so we built it. We've now made this available for all businesses, and today thousands of companies ranging from 10 to tens of thousands of agents use Amazon Connect to serve millions of customers daily.
Designed from the ground up to be omnichannel, Amazon Connect provides a seamless experience across voice and chat for your customers and agents. This includes one set of tools for skills-based routing, powerful real-time and historical analytics, and easy-to-use intuitive management tools – all with pay-as-you-go pricing, which means Amazon Connect simplifies contact center operations, improves agent efficiency, and lowers costs. You can set up a contact center in minutes that can scale to support millions of customers.
Important Notes
It is expected that users of this demo have working understanding of the Cyara technology (e.g., CX Models, Campaigns, Test Cases, CVA, CX-AX, VQ Testing, etc.) hence the focus of this guide is to highlight specific Amazon Connect configuration and integration features.
Supported Media Channel
Amazon Connect CVA integration is current only supports Voice channel (i.e. no Chat CVA)
Amazon Connect Agents Maximum Login Session Time
Amazon Connect agents have a maximum login session time of 10 hours. It is an Amazon Connect imposed limitation. While this limitation is not an issue for real life agents, customers may try to run Cyara Agent campaign in a perpetual mode (in support of Pulse), which will run in to this limitation. If you require an Agent Campaign to run for longer than 10 hours, you should leverage scheduling with “Run For” and “Run Every” settings. For example: run for 475 minutes (7hr:55min) and run every 480 minutes (8hr:00min). This will run campaign for 475 minutes, wait 5 minutes and start campaign for another 475 minutes (We recommend this additional 5 minute gap to allow for graceful stop and start).
Amazon Connect sessions expire 10 hours after a user logs in. After 10 hours, users are automatically logged out, even if they are currently on a call. If your agents stay logged in for more than 10 hours, they need to refresh the session token before it expires.
Amazon Connect CVA only support one-way audio
Current Amazon Connect CVA implementation only supports audio transmission and is not able to receive audio, which currently makes by-directional VQ testing unsupported. In addition, to simulate agent speaking, CVA audio is produced by playing a pre-configure audio file. Since the audio file is part of the Cyara software install package, it is not intended to be customizable on per agent or client basis.
Audio transcript: “Clothes and lodging are free to new men, the lamp shone with a steady green flame”
Amazon Connect Configuration Pre-Requisites for Cyara Virtual Agents
Before Cyara Virtual Agent (CVA) for Amazon Connect can be used, your Amazon Connect administrator must create supporting environment within Amazon Connect (i.e., agents, queues, routing profiles, flows, etc. see below for more info …)
Agents
Amazon Connect Agent logins being used with CVA should be configured with the following options:
|
Setting |
Value |
Notes |
|
Phone Type |
Soft Phone |
Soft Phone setting indicates use of WebRTC. Desk Phone setting can be used, but it will require use of the Outbound Test Cases to act as an agent phone |
|
Auto-Accept Calls |
Enabled |
When checked, Amazon Connect will auto answer the incoming calls. When Auto-Accept is selected, you do not need to use Request Answer Agent activity |
|
After Call Work (ACW) timeout |
1 |
Time before agent goes back into ready state after the call end. Highly suggested to set it to “1”. |
After Call Work (Wrap Up)
Amazon Cloud CVA currently does not support “After Call Wrap Up” activity, so agents must be setup with auto wrap-up. Wrap-up settings are configured as part of the Agents Settings. (Users -> User Management -> Edit).
In the After Call Work (ACW) timeout field, enter how many seconds the agents have for after call work. Enter 0 if you don't want to allocate a specific amount of ACW time. It essentially means an indefinite amount of time.
Amazon Connect Voice CVA Integration Walkthrough
The main sections of this integration manual are:
- Amazon Connect Site and Environment
- Definition of Agent Behaviors
- Definition of Voice Cyara Virtual Agents
- CVA Campaigns
- Inbound Test Case
- Velocity and Pulse Campaigns
- Web Dashboard
Amazon Connect Site and Environment
Site
A site is used identify a specific Contact Center
Environment
An Environment represents the specific instance of Amazon Connect within Amazon Cloud that Cyara will connect Voice Virtual Agents to.
Note: It is important that proper configuration is followed for providing CX-AX linkage between CTI data being provided to a CVA and an inbound Test Case. Virtual Agent Voice Campaigns will link to Cyara Cloud instances to validate attached data for inbound voice calls.
Only Test Cases from the account defined in the “Server Attributes” will be able to use CX-AX linkage.
Environment Attributes
|
Key |
Value |
Notes |
|
ccp-instance |
Customers Amazon Connect instance alias. |
The alias can be obtained from the URL customers use to login to Amazon connect: https://cyarademo.awsapps.com/auth/?client_id............. |
|
ccp-domain |
Domain used to access the Amazon Connect instance.
If domain is awsapps.com, set ccp-domain to: · awsapps.com/connect
If domain is my.connect.aws, set ccp-domain to: · my.connect.aws
|
The domain for the Amazon Connect access URL has changed to my.connect.aws. For example:
The legacy access URL awsapps.com continues to work for Amazon Connect instances created before the release of the my.connect.aws domain. Any Amazon Connect instances created after the release automatically use the new domain. Check the URL used to access the Amazon Connect instance to determine the proper domain name to use |
Server Configuration
|
Server Name |
Any meaningful name you want to give this configuration |
|
Primary Hostname / IP |
Not relevant, but since it is mandatory, set it to the Amazon Connect instance alias name from the CCP Url |
|
Primary Port |
1 (not relevant, but since it is mandatory, set it to the 1) |
|
Backup Hostname / IP |
N/A |
|
Backup Port |
N/A |
|
Channel |
Agent Voice |
|
Attributes |
Not required for basic configuration. Specific use cases may require use of attributes (e.g., CX-AX). |
CX-AX Attributes
The following are the 3 attributed required for configuring CX-AX link:
|
RemoteSyncAccount |
Account ID from wich the inbound CX call is initiated (e.g., 6) |
|
RemoteSyncApiKey |
API Key for the CX account user, on who behalf the API will be invoked (do not include “ApiKey” text) |
|
RemoteSyncEndpoint |
URL to the CX Portal. Example: US Portal: https://www.cyaraportal.us/cyarawebapi AU Portal: https://www.cyaraportal.com/cyarawebapi UK Portal: https://www.cyaraportal.co.uk/cyarawebapi |
It is important that proper configuration is followed for providing CX-AX linkage between CTI data being provided to a CVA and an inbound Test Case. Virtual Agent Voice Campaigns will link to Cyara Cloud instances to validate attached data for inbound voice calls.
Only Test Cases from the account defined in the “Server Attributes” will be able to use CX-AX linkage. CX-AX link can only be established with one CX account.
Agent Behaviors
Agent Behavior specifies how Agent handles an interaction, and it is made up of an ordered sequence of Activities to be performed by the Agent for each interaction received (for example, an Inbound interaction).
For this demo Voice CVA’s are configured to use agent behaviors, specifically to address named agent specific interaction data validation via “Verify Interaction Data” agent activity, as well as CX/AX Synchronization using “Verify Interaction Data from Test Case” activity.
Behavior Activities
Please note the agent specific (agent001 whos name is Cyara, Agent One) attributes from the “Verify Interaction Data” activity
The above Agent Behavious is designed for Amazon Connect Agent that is configured for auto-answer and auto-ready.
Supported Agent Activities for Amazon Connect
|
Activity Name |
Activity Type |
Function |
Description |
|
Wait Ringing |
Wait |
Answer/Release |
This Activity waits for the server event that notifies the agent that an incoming call is ringing. |
|
Request Answer |
Request |
Answer/Release |
This Activity instructs the agent to answer the incoming call from the agent server. |
|
Wait Answer |
Wait |
Answer/Release |
This Activity waits for the server event that notifies the agent that the call is answered. |
|
Request Release |
Request |
Answer/Release |
This Activity causes the agent to release the current interaction. |
|
Wait Release |
Wait |
Answer/Release |
This Activity waits for the server event that notifies the agent that the current interaction has been released. |
|
Request Agent Not Ready |
Request |
Ready |
This Activity instructs the agent to enter not ready mode for a specified duration. |
|
Wait Agent Not Ready |
Wait |
Ready |
This Activity waits for the server event that notifies that the agent is now in not ready state. During not ready state, agent does not receive any interaction. |
|
Request Agent Ready |
Request |
Ready |
This Activity instructs the agent to enter ready mode for a specified duration. |
|
Wait Agent Ready |
Wait |
Ready |
This Activity waits for the server event that notifies that the agent is in ready state. During ready state, the agent is available to receive interaction from the server. |
|
Verify Interaction Data |
Verify |
Interaction Data |
This Activity validates the current interaction's data with specified data. |
|
Verify Interaction Data from Test Case (applies only to Pulse and Velocity Campaigns) |
Verify |
Interaction Data |
This Activity waits for information from a synchronized Velocity Campaign and validates the key-value pairs of the Test Case against the attached data. |
Cyara Virtual Voice Agents
This integration demonstration has multiple Virtual Voice Agents (CVAs) configured
For this integration demonstration all Voice CVA’s are configured to use the unique, agent specific, Agent Behaviors defined earlier.
Agent Voice Server Configuration parameters
|
Name |
Server Name that you configured in Environments |
|
DN |
Not really used, but a required field. Set it to agent login username (same Switch Login) |
|
Switch Login |
Agent login username |
|
Switch Password |
Agent password (password will be displayed as *****) |
Virtual Endpoints
Unlike previously available CVA integrations (e.g. Genesys Engage, Avaya, Cisco), Amazon Connect utilized WebRTC instead of SIP, which makes the need to use SIP Endpoints, and specific Endpoint Outbound Test cases, obsolete. WebRTC Endpoint is an integral part of the CVA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free, open-source project that provides web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via simple application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication to work inside web pages by allowing direct peer-to-peer communication, eliminating the need to install plugins or download native apps. Supported by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera, WebRTC is being standardized through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
CVA Campaigns
To log-in Amazon Connect CVAs and make them ready to take calls, CVAs must be part of the Agent Campaign.
Once the campaign is running, that that will complete the configuration, and CVAs are ready to take calls.
Please remember the note about Amazon Connect 10-hour agent login limit. If you look at the campaign you will notice the schedule where campaign runs for 7 hours and 50 minutes before stopping for 10 minutes and then restarts. This allows the campaign to run “perpetually” while logging agents out before the timeout and then logging them back in, hence allowing to “work around” the Amazon imposed limitation. That said, you should be aware that there is a short period of time when agent campaign may not be running.
Below is an example schedule that keeps this Agent Campaign running throughout the week for monitoring purposes.
Real Time Voice Agent Report
If you want to see a real time dashboard showing CVAs taking calls you can launch the Real Time Agent report in one of the browser tabs.
Select the currently running campaign. As calls arrive, you should see them in real time.
Agent Campaign / Agent Historical Reports
To see detailed results of the CVA interactions, specifically Data Validation, you can view Agent Historical Reports.
Every time Agent Campaign restarts, the current report is closed and new one is started.
Access the most current report which will contain completed interactions since the campaign been started.
You can select any interaction to view details
Please note Activity 3, where the actual CTI data is validated, and Activity 4 for CX/AX synchronization
You may notice some Agent Interactions that have Failed result:
- CTI data was not available. This issue is cause by either the data not being sent correctly by Amazon Connect, or Cyara CVA is missing it. If you find these issues while running a linked CX/AX Test, please raise a support ticket.
- Synchronization Service error: Identifier not found. This is a result of a manual (not test case generated) or manual Test Case validation that does not have CX/AX step or Test Case was not run as party of the Velocity or Pulse Campaign.
Note: CX/AX Synchronization only works for test cases executed as part of a campaign
Inbound Test Case
Cyara Test Cases can perform a Customer Experience (CX) Voice Quality (VQ) assessment of an Amazon Connect environment, these Test Cases are standard voice Test Cases that return a MOS score.
For more information on Voice Test Cases, consult the Cyara User Guide.
Velocity Regression Test Campaign
Another capability of the Cyara Amazon Connect CVA Integration is to run a regression test via a Velocity Campaign. This testing method will launch two concurrent calls to different queues and will validate IVR interactions as well as the Voice Quality (CX), from CVA out to the caller.
Pulse Campaign
A key feature of the Cyara Amazon Connect CVA Integration is to use Pulse Monitoring that is configured to monitor Basic IVR Flow, Agent Transfer, CX/AX and CX Voice Quality. For more information on Pulse Monitoring Consult the Cyara User Guide
Web Dashboard (Voice)
Below is an example Pulse Dashboard labelled “Amazon Connect” which has been configured to provide visualization of the monitoring results for test call being initiated every 60 minutes:
The dashboard has two service groups configured for Voice:
- Test validation initial IVR interaction, agent transfer, CX/AX Data and CX VQ Test (Sales and Service journeys)
- Sales Agent Behavior
- Service Agent Behavior
- MOS Score Graph for the Customer Voice Quality Sales and Service journey
Cyara Virtual Agent (CVA) Integration with Amazon Connect Walkthrough Video Tutorial
Watch the video below for a full walkthrough of how to configure your Cyara Platform to integrate with Amazon Connect to perform Voice Quality and CX/AX interaction validation testing.
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