Auto alt dial statuses and list resets

[dspaan]

Hi,

I have some questions about the process documented here:
http://vicidial.org/docs/ALTERNATE_NUMBER_DIALING.txt

STEPS OF AN AUTO-ALT-DIAL CALL:

1. When a call to a lead's main phone_number is placed by AST_VDauto_dial.pl or AST_VDauto_dial_FILL.pl and the auto_alt_dial field is NOT set to NONE, a flag will be set in the vicidial_auto_calls field as MAIN to note that this lead needs to be called again under it's alternate number(s) if it is terminated under a no-connect status(NA/B/DC/N).

2. What happens when one of these calls is terminated:
2a. If the call has an alt_dial value of MAIN or ALT and went to an agent and was defined as no-contact(NA/B/DC/N) then the vdc_db_query.php script will immediately place that lead back into the vicidial_hopper to be dialed under it's alternate phone number or addr3.

2b. If call has an alt_dial value of MAIN or ALT and was terminated as no-contact by no-answer(NA/B/DC) then the VDhangup process will immediately place that lead back into the vicidial_hopper to be dialed under it's alternate phone number.

3. When the alt_phone is dialed of the same lead, the alt_dial flag in vicidial_auto_calls will be set to ALT, then repeat step 2

4. When the address3 field is dialed from the same lead, the alt_dial flag is set to ADDR3

5. When a call is terminated in auto-dial mode and the number dialed was not the main phone_number, the status will not be changed in the vicidial_list table unless the status is a connect status and it came from an agent.

What is not completely clear for me:

-The auto alt dial campaign page allows you to set any status as a trigger for alt dialing but the documentation only talks about statuses NA/B/DC/N). Do other custom statuses work too?

-Suppose i have defined DC as an alt dial status and an agent uses dispo's a call with DC, according to the above setps the alt_phone number will be dialed automatically after that. Will that alt dial attempted be inserted in the top of the hopper or the bottom?

-Once the agent gets a connected call on the alt_phone number and then dispo's the call with status A (answering machine) the next time the list is reset and the lead is dialed again will it dial the phone_number field again or skip that and from that point on only dial the alt_phone field? In other words will each phone number have their own sub-status code?

-When a final disposition code is used for a lead that was dialed on the alt_phone number, is there still a way to see afterwards (when exporting) if the phone_number field was dispositioned with DC or ADC? Otherwise those numbers will be recycled back into future projects.

[blackbird2306]

-The auto alt dial campaign page allows you to set any status as a trigger for alt dialing but the documentation only talks about statuses NA/B/DC/N). Do other custom statuses work too?

Yes they work

-Suppose i have defined DC as an alt dial status and an agent uses dispo's a call with DC, according to the above setps the alt_phone number will be dialed automatically after that. Will that alt dial attempted be inserted in the top of the hopper or the bottom?

They are inserted at the top with higher priority 25

-Once the agent gets a connected call on the alt_phone number and then dispo's the call with status A (answering machine) the next time the list is reset and the lead is dialed again will it dial the phone_number field again or skip that and from that point on only dial the alt_phone field? In other words will each phone number have their own sub-status code?

In fact some time ago we have noticed that the first phone_number will always be dialed after resetting the list. There is nothing like an "own sub-status code".

-When a final disposition code is used for a lead that was dialed on the alt_phone number, is there still a way to see afterwards (when exporting) if the phone_number field was dispositioned with DC or ADC? Otherwise those numbers will be recycled back into future projects.

Every lead has only one actual status. Therefore you will see only this status after exporting. But on the other side there is a way to see a status history within "admin modify lead". In "CALLS TO THIS LEAD" section it is possible to see the called number with status. These details are stored in "vicidial_log" db table.

[williamconley]

That sounds an awful lot like a very good feature request: ADC with alt_number dialing that results in a valid number ... swap the DC number into the alt_number field and the Good number into the Phone_number field.

[dspaan]

Thanks for the answers! This saves us some grief because we would be dispositioning live calls with people on the first phone number for when someone says this is the wrong number and then let the campaign auto dial the alternate number but this means that it will call the person on the primairy number again after the list resets resulting in complaints.

It would indeed have to be a feature request but not only for swapping the primariy and alternate number but also for giving each of them a sub-status. Otherwise you will dial the alt number unwanted after the list resets again.

Now that i'm thinking about it the best existing way to do this is with multi lead:

MULTI LEAD Auto Alt number dialing:

Using MULTI_LEAD is different from the other standard Auto-Alt-Dial functions, it allows you to use a separate lead for each number on a customer account that all share a common vendor_lead_code, and the type of phone number for each is to be defined with a label in the Owner field. This option will disable some options on the Modify Campaign screen and show a link to the Multi-Alt Settings page which allows you to set which phone number types, defined by the label of each lead, will be dialed and in what order. This will create a special lead filter and will alter the Rank field of all of the leads inside the lists set to this campaign in order to call them in the order you have specified.

The Auto-Alt-Statuses are still in used for MULTI_LEAD so you may want to make sure that statuses like DROP, PDROP and others to your campaign's auto-alt-dial statuses so that the other leads tied by vendor_lead_code in the campaign's lists are not deactivated.

There is a feature in the hopper section of the modify campaign page that it is recommended you activate if you are using MULTI_LEAD auto-alt dialing: Hopper VLC Dup Check. This feature will prevent multiple numbers from the same account from getting inserted into the hopper at the same time.

[blackbird2306]

We had the same problem with dialing false unwanted numbers again and again. Calling e.g. unwanted customers more times has consequently led to "DNC". After that this lead, which had also correct numbers was completely out of calling process. Our workaround was deleting the false number and replacing it by "0" during the call before pressing "HANGUP" button. Or you try the MULTI LEAD Auto Alt number dialing.

[dspaan]

I did a test with the multi lead alt system and it seems to work fine. But of course it's more of a hassle when loading leads and also when importing the call data back into the source system. We also proposed to swap the numbers or delete the number or replace it with 0 like you suggested but then there is not feedback to the source system if a number was wrong or not resulting in wrong numbers getting back in rotation.

[williamconley]

I did a test with the multi lead alt system and it seems to work fine. But of course it's more of a hassle when loading leads and also when importing the call data back into the source system.

So modify the lead-loader and list exporter to separate into multi-lead when multiple numbers are present (and re-merge during export). Sounds like an even better feature solution.