Call Routines are used in Action Plans to determine how to interpret Call Dispositions entered by operators.
Call Disposition
Call Dispositions (Setup > Phone Setup > Call Disposition) are options for an operator to enter when placing a call during dispatch. The Disposition will be recorded into history and dictate the next step in the Action Plan.
Call Dispositions should be very general and only refer to phone call outcomes such as Contact Made, Busy, Answering Machine... etc. The Disposition should be a short code, with a description of the written-out disposition. The operators can then enter the short code for the disposition or look up the description during dispatch.
Call Routine
Call Routines (Setup > Phone Setup > Call Routine) have rules to dictate the next step in the dispatch. Call Routines could either be rules for dialing such as BZ3 for 3 attempts on a busy or rules for a situation such as BurgPrem for calling a premise on a Burg Alarm.
Routine options include whether to end the call after the first contact, the maximum number of recipients to call before proceeding to the next step, the maximum number of phones to call for one recipient, whether verification is required, and whether to use the Phone Type Order in the Phone Type setup (First ALL Cell Phone, then ALL Work Phones...).
By default, the Contact Made outcome is met when one recipient is reached. This can be changed to require ALL recipients to be attempted in Stop Call Rule.
The Call Routine can be set up to require that ALL recipients have Contact Made for the Contact Made outcome to be met. This is set in Contact Made Rule.
Retry Phone Rule determines what phones to call when the Routine is repeated in an action plan. By default, the Contact Made and New Rule is used.
- All – Calls all phones.
- Contact Made & New – Calls Phones that have previously had a Contact Made outcome and Phones that have not been called previously.
- Contact Failed & New – Calls Phones that have previously had a Contact Not Made outcome and Phones that have not been called previously.
- Contact Made & Contact Failed – Calls Phones that have previously been called, both Contact Made and Contact Not Made outcomes.
- Contact Made – Calls Phones that have previously had a Contact Made outcome.
- Contact Failed – Calls Phones that have previously had a Contact Not Made outcome.
- New – Calls Phones that have not been previously called.
Call Routine Disposition
Call Routines also limit the available Call Dispositions available to the operator. Dispositions can then be given their own rules for the amount of attempts and redials before proceeding to the next step. The Disposition is also applied an Action Outcome of either Phone Contact Not Made or Phone Contact Made. This Action Outcome is how stages™ determines which step to proceed to in the Action Plan. For 'V-type steps' (Call and Verify) only Dispositions marked as 'Include in V Action' will be available to the operators.
Dispositions may have different Outcomes based on the routine. For instance, when needing a response for dispatch, a 'Answering Machine' disposition would have an outcome of Contact Not Made, but when informing of a low battery signal, the 'Answering Machine' disposition could have an outcome of Contact Made.
Examples:
Calling Contacts during Dispatch
Call Routine - End After First Contact - Yes, Max Recipient - 10, Max Phone - 2. This will attempt a maximum of two contacts and a maximum of two phones per contact. After the first contact is made disposition, the call routine will end and the next step in the plan is started. If no contact is made, the routine will call two people using two phone numbers before proceeding to the next step.
Call Routine Disposition - Call Disposition - Busy, Attempts - 3, Redial Delay Seconds - 10, Action Outcome - Contact Not Made, Contact Made - No. A 'Busy' disposition will attempt to call the same phone number 3 times with a delay of 10 seconds between the calls before entering an action outcome of Contact Not Made.
If a disposition is entered other than busy on the second or third attempt, the routine will switch to follow the rules for that disposition.
Calling Contacts as follow-up after Dispatch
Call Routine - End After First Contact - No, Max Recipient - 4, Max Phone - 1. This will call one phone for four contacts before proceeding to the next step.
Call Routine Disposition - Call Disposition - Busy, Attempts - 1, Redial Delay Seconds - Blank, Action Outcome - Contact Made, Contact Made - Yes.
A 'busy' disposition will only call the phone number once before proceeding to the next recipient or ending the routine.