Understanding hours and windows

The optimal timing of outgoing messages is a complex problem that many enterprises struggle with. There are strict regulations governing when calls and messages are allowed to be sent to home phones or devices, and these vary from region to region and country to country. Furthermore, some campaigns need to make sure that messages are sent at times when call centers are open to receive inquiries from consumers, and the timezones, regions, and even nations may be different for each message in a batch, meaning that different rules may apply to each outgoing message.

To solve this problem, PEP takes all of these variables into account and generates a schedule of safe messaging windows for each incoming record. To determine the schedule, the platform looks at the control settings (campaigns, calendars, consumer hours, call center hours, and so on), the application logic, and the timezones of both the consumer and call center. By default, there are no restrictions on messaging and if no hours settings are defined, the platform will make calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays. Of course, most messaging campaigns, especially those that make voice calls, want to avoid this and this is why hours and their related controls are so important.

Using hour codes

Hour codes specify the hours during which phone calls and email messages are allowed. There are three types of hour codes: Consumer (recipient) hours, Call center hours, and Region hours. Consumer hours specify when consumers can be contacted and are evaluated relative to the consumer’s time zone. Typically multiple calling windows are defined for consumer hours. Call Center hours define when the client's call center is open, and are typically used for applications that contact consumers by voice and transfer them to a call center. Call Center hours are evaluated relative to a fixed time zone, typically the location of the call center. Region hours represent the legal voice calling hours in a particular geographic region and are applied to campaigns by Nuance Professional Services. They are not exposed to end users.

Note: These settings and their interactions are complex. Misconfiguration can result in unexpected behavior. If you have questions, please contact Nuance for assistance.

Scheduling example using Consumer, Call Center, and Region hour codes

The windows for a schedule are determined by finding the intersection of all the applied hour types for the campaign. Consider the following schedule, which uses Consumer, Call Center, and Region hours:

The platform has determined that the consumer lives in Los Angeles, based on their area code. The client has defined three calling windows (Consumer hours) in the consumer's local timezone (PST), 9 AM–12 PM, 1 PM–4 PM, and 5 PM–8 PM. Because the application uses a transfer, the client has defined Call Center hours for the call center, which is in New York state (EST). The NY call center is open 9 AM–10 PM, but because the consumer is in Los Angeles (PST), the image above converts the call center hours to PST. Nuance Professional Services has applied a Region hour code for California, which is also displayed in PST. The resulting intersection yields three calling windows, shown as Window 1, Window 2, and Window 3 above.

Using hours sets

All types of hour codes (Consumer, Call Center, and Region ) have a default hours set (a group of windows) called "default". Call Center hours have only the default hours set, but Consumer hours can have additional hours sets. For most clients, the default hours set should suffice, but some clients may need additional sets, such as those specific to non-voice messaging. If your campaign is set to dispatch both SMS and voice messages, you could set up the default hours set to define several windows for voice messages and an additional hours set to define a single window for SMS messages. As with other kinds of configuration in PEP, Dispatch service uses the most specific level of configuration available when treating a record.

Most clients will never need to define a custom hours set. Do not use a custom hours set unless the client needs to override the calling windows for a certain segment of records. In each hours set, you can specify attributes for country, state, timezone, delivery type (channel) and service type (land vs. cell). When records are loaded into the system they are assigned the hours set that has the closest match with the record’s attributes. If no hours set matches then the default hours set is used.

The following situations can be handled without defining custom hours sets:

  • Do not use an hours set to restrict calls to consumers who may be in a different calling window than the call center. This is handled automatically if you apply a call center hour code to your records, which ensures that no calls will be placed when the call center is closed. (See the diagram in Scheduling example using Consumer, Call Center, and Region hour codes.)

  • Do not use an hours set to handle the differences in legal calling hours between states and regions. This issue is handled automatically if you are using region hour codes properly.

  • Do not use an hours set with no windows to restrict calls based on delivery type or handset type.

The following is a legitimate use case for a custom hours set. If the application sends both Voice and SMS messages and you wanted to use the same hour code for both channels (alternatively you could use two hour codes) but wanted to have different windows. You could put the windows for Voice in the default hours set, and define an additional hours set for SMS specifying the windows you want to use for SMS.

As we have already pointed out, you will rarely need to set up custom hours sets. If you find yourself setting up custom hours sets for a client, stop and ask yourself if there is another scheduling feature that could handle the situation. If you unnecessarily create a large number of hours sets for client, you'll find that modifying windows becomes a very tedious and error-prone process.