Microsoft Project Integration

Introduction

By integrating MSProject in Anywhere365 many extra possibilities are created and you can speedup the adoption process of Anywhere365 in your organization.

Are you used to plan the occupation of your employees with MS Project? By integration with MSProject this is still possible while the use of Agents is automatically taken over by Anywhere365. This allows you to work the way you prefer and a revolutionary way of planning comes available.

Because Anywhere365 stores all historic data about your call center and MS Project provides contact and cost price information of your employees, it will be possible to determine the optimal occupation of your call center. Your clients will be helped in conformity with the service agreements (SLA). Costs will be decreased by preventing over allocation and taking differences between regular employees and flex workers.

The advances of the connection between MS Project and Anywhere365 are not only for managers. Registration of time is for many employees an obstacle. The presence state within LyncMicrosoft Lync (formerly Microsoft Office Communicator) is an instant messaging program designed for business use and is the successor of Windows Messenger. In order to use Lync, a Microsoft Lync Server is required. and the connection with MS Project could help to automate this process to take away this administrative load. For example a time could be started when a scheduled employee signs in via Lync. When the employee signs out the registered time could be written to a time sheet of this employee. Now the employee only has to check his hours at the end of the week before handing them in.

Those are just a few examples of the possibilities created by connecting MS Project with Anywhere365. The possibilities are endless. Think free and create ideas to make the new style of work even simpler for your employees.

 

Global Settings

For the integration of MS Project with Anywhere365 a number of global settings must be added to the UCCUCC stands for Unified Contact Center and consists of a queue that can be handled by Agents. Each UCC has its own settings, interactive voice response questions and Agents with specific skills. Agents can be member of, or sign up to, one or more UCCs. settings:

Item	Description
PWA Site	The URL which refers to the SharePoint site on which the Project Web App is located.
PWA Authorization	An encryption of the user name and the password to login to the “PWA Site”. If the “PWA Authorization” is empty, it is assumed that this field has the same value as “Agent Authorization”. One of those fields should always be filled in. The encryption of the value of this field should be according to the “Basic Authentication” method:, <user name>:<password> encrypted with the Base64 Encryption.
PWA Project	The name of the project which should be connected to the UCC.
PWA Project GUIDGUID stands for Globally Unique Identifier and is a pseudo random number used in software applications that is assumed to be unique. The total number of unique keys (2<sup>128</sup> of 3.4028×10<sup>38</sup>) is very large and the probability of the creating the same GUID twice is very small, though not 100% guaranteed.	The GUID of the project which should be connected to the UCC. If “PWA Project GUID” is empty, the value of the “PWA Project GUID” is collected and stored based on the value of the field “PWA Project”.
Agent Site	The URL which refers to the SharePoint site on which the Agent List is located.
Agent Authorization	An encryption of the user name and the password to login to the “Agent Site”. If the “Agent Authorization” is empty, it is assumed that this field has the same value as “PWA Authorization”. One of those fields should always be filled in.. The encryption of the value of this field should be according to the “Basic Authentication” method:, <user name>:<password> encrypted with the Base64 Encryption.
Agent List	The name of the list in which the Agents are stored.
Agent List GUID	The GUID of the list in which the agents are stored. If “Agent List GUID” is empty, the value of the “Agent List GUID” is collected and stored based on the value of the field “Agent List”.

 

User Settings

For the integration of MS Project with Anywhere365 several user settings must be added to the Agents.

Item	Description
Active	This field displays if an Agent was active today (and thus can receive calls if available).
Synchronize	This field displays if an Agent should be synchronized based on the MS Project Planning.
Work	This field displays how many hours the agent is scheduled today (in combination with the field “Active”).

 

UccWfmFlow

The UnifiedContactCenter WorkForceManagement WorkFlow is devided in five stages. Each stage could exist of actions or multiple steps containing actions.

 

Start

In the stage “Start” the date is logged together with the corresponding UCC that is synchronized with MS Project.

 

Settings

The stage “Settings” exists of three steps.

CheckPwaSettings

In the first step “CheckPWASettings” it is evaluated if the variables “PWA Site”, “PWA Authorization” and “PWA Project” are known. The return of this check is logged.

When “PWA Authorization” is unknown but “Agent Authorization” is, it is assumed that the same authorization can be used.

CheckAgentSettings

In the second step “CheckAgentSettings” ” it is evaluated if the variables “PWA Site “Agent Site”, “Agent Authorization” and “Agent List” are known. The return of this check is logged.

When “Agent Authorization” is unknown but “PWA Authorization” is, it is assumed that the same authorization can be used.

CreateWorkflowVariables

If as well the step “CheckPwaSettings” as the step “CheckAgentSettings” were completed successfully, the evaluated variables will be stored in the local variables in the step “CreateWorkflowVariables”. When this is completed, the action is logged.

 

Guids

The stage “Guids” exists of two steps.

CheckPwaProjectGuid

In the first step “CheckPwaProjectGuid it is evaluated if the variable “PWA Project GUID” is known. If this is not the case, it is attempted to determine the GUID of the project with a HTTP Request.

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?getProjectGuid&t=[%Variable:PwaProject%]&h=[%Variable:PwaSite%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:PwaAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	{"guid":"<guid>"}

The GUID is stored in a local variable and logged.

CheckAgentListGuid

In the step “CheckAgentListGuid” it is evaluated if the variable “Agent List GUID” is known. If this is not the case, it is attempted to determine the GUID of the project by a HTTP Request.

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?getListGuid&t=[%Variable:AgentList%]&h=[%Variable:AgentSite%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:AgentAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	{"guid":"<guid>"}

The GUID is stored in a local variable and logged.

 

UpdateAgentList

The stage “UpdateAgentList” exists of five steps..

GetEnterpriseResources

In the step “GetEnterpriseResources” all potential Agents of the UCC are collected from the “Enterprise Resource Pool” of the “Project WebApp” with a HTTP Request, and are stored in a local variable.

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?getEnterpriseResources&h=[%Variable:PwaSite%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:PwaAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	{"resource":[ {"ResourceName":"<resource name>", "ResourceSipAddress":"sipThe Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a protocol to make multimedia communication (audio, video and other data communication) possible and it is also used for Voice over IP (VoIP). SIP has similarities with other Internet protocols such as HTTP and SMTP.:<resource e-mailaddress>", "ResourceId":"<resource guid>"} ]}

GetAgents

In the step “GetAgents” all existing Agents of the UCC are collected from the Agent List, by a HTTP Request, and are stored in a local variable. .

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?getAgents&h=[%Variable:AgentSite%]&g=[%Variable:AgentListGuid%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:AgentAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	{"agent":[ {"AgentSipAddress":"<agent sipaddress>", "AgentId":<agent index>} ]}

AddNewEnterpriseResources

In the step “AddNewEnterpriseResources” potential Agents are compared with existing Agents. When a potential Agent does not yet exist in the list with existing Agents he will be added as inactive Agent to the list by a http Request. ,

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?addAgent&h=[%Variable:AgentSite%]&g=[%Variable:AgentListGuid%]&s=[%Variable:EnterpriseResourceSipAddress%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:AgentAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	<blank>

The number of added Agents is counted and logged.

DeactivateOldEnterpriseResources

In the step “DeactivateOldEnterpriseResources” existing Agents are compared with potential Agents. When an existing Agent does not exist anymore in the list with potential agents, this agent will be set to ‘inactive’ by a HTTP Request.

HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?deactivateAgent&h=[%Variable:AgentSite%]&g=[%Variable:AgentListGuid%]&i=[%Variable:AgentId%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:AgentAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	<blank>

The number of deactivated Agents is counted and logged.

ActivateTodaysAgents

In the step “ActivateTodaysAgents” the scheduled Agents are collected by a HTTP Request and are stored in a local variable.

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?getProjectResources&g=[%Variable:PwaProjectGuid%]&h=[%Variable:PwaSite%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:PwaAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	{"resource":[ {"TimeByDay":"<date of today>", "TaskName":"<task name>", "ResourceName":"<resource name>", "ResourceSipAddress":"sip:<resource e-mailaddress>", "AssignmentWork":"<work time>"} ]}

Subsequently the scheduled Agents are compared with the existing Agents. When an existing agent is scheduled, this agent will be to ‘active’ and will be scheduled for the total amount of hours as registered in MS Project by a HTTP Request.

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?activateAgent&h=[%Variable:AgentSite%]&g=[%Variable:AgentListGuid%]&i=[%Variable:AgentId%]&w=[%Variable:AssignmentWork%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:AgentAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	<blank>

If an existing active Agent is not scheduled, this Agent will be set to ‘inactive’ by a HTTP Request.

Item	Description
HTTP Request URL	http://<UrlWebService>?deactivateAgent&h=[%Variable:AgentSite%]&g=[%Variable:AgentListGuid%]&i=[%Variable:AgentId%]
HTTP Request Headers	Authorization: Basic [%Variable:AgentAuthorization%]
HTTP Response (JSON)	<blank>

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