microsoft / dstoolkit-pva-audiocodes-cc

PVA / AudioCodes Contact Center Accelerator

The goal of a modern contact center solution is to provide a customer experience that rivals that of an experienced human agent and do that at scale and at a fraction of the cost of a traditional contact center. Achieving that goal requires a solution that can transform conversation into a coordinated business process that weaves together a core set of solution elements to respond effectively. This solution accelerator provides the building blocks and blueprint for how to use Power Virtual Agent and AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Cloud Edition to build a modern contact center assistant.

Modern Contact Center Solution

A modern contact center solution involves the effective integration of the key systems and services shown in Figure 1. The primary goal of this accelerator is to identify these systems and services and show how each can be effectively integrated into a modern contact center solution to provide maximum capability. To accomplish this goal, the accelerator includes a set of building blocks and blueprints that address common contact center tasks and scenarios. You can think of the systems and services in Figure 1 as sort of a checklist of key topic areas you need to give careful consideration in order to build an effective modern contact center solution.
 

 
Figure 1: Contact Center Core Elements

 

Table of Contents

SOLUTION OVERVIEW
PREREQUISITES
      Required Skills
      Demo-Only Prerequisites
      Development Prerequisites
Getting Started
      Clone the PVA/AudioCodes Contact Center Repo
      Deploy Mock Services
      Import, Configure & Publish the PVA / AudioCodes Solution
      Telephony Configuration
Using the Accelerator
Best Practices

Solution Overview

In the context of a contact center, two disciplines weave each of the various solution elements in Figure 1 together and bring them alive: conversational AI and telephony. In this accelerator, the conversational AI discipline is provided by Microsoft's Power Virtual Agent (PVA) and telephony is provided by AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Cloud (VAIC-C). Figure 2 provides an architectural understanding of how those two technologies fit together along with the other elements of the accelerator. In this initial version of the accelerator, only four of the seven core elements of Figure 1 are addressed: Contact Center Assistant, Experiences, Customer Services, and Line of Business Integration. The other three will be addressed as this accelerator evolves.

Figure 2: Accelerator Architecture Diagram

Prerequisites

Required Skills

If this accelerator is going to be used as a telephony demonstration, then only a basic understanding of Microsoft's Power Virtual Agent (PVA) is required and the instructions for configuring AudioCode's VoiceAI Connect Cloud (VAIC-C) should be enough to accomplish the task without any prior knowledge.

If this accelerator is going to be used to accelerate the development and deployment of a modern contact center solution, then a good working knowledge of PVA and VAIC-C will be required for tasks that involve creating and extending PVA Topics, PVA Composer Topics, Power Automate Flows, Azure Functions, and understanding the various VAIC-C capabilities and how to integrate them. If you are new to PVA and/or AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect, this accelerator can be very helpful in getting you up to speed with less effort since you'll start with an assistant that has an implementation that you can examine and extend so you aren't starting from first principles.

Demo-Only Prerequisites

You don't need to be a developer or have development tools installed in order to get this accelerator up and running and demo it but you will if you wanted to modify and extend this accelerator (see Development Tools section for details). The only thing you need to run this accelerator and try it out is access to Microsoft's Power Virtual Agent and AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Cloud Edition. If you don't already have access to either of those services, you can create a trial account to explore those services and this accelerator.

Note: The trial subscription for AudioCode VoiceAI Connect Cloud provides a standard set of telephony features but some of the capabilities of this accelerator use advanced telephony capabilities which require the AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Cloud Edition Plus and you can upgrade your trial subscription later if you want to leverage those features without having to reinstall the accelerator.

• Get PVA Trial Account
  To sign up for a free trial account for Power Virtual Agents click here

• Get AudioCodes Trial Account
  Follow the instructions here to sign up for a free trial account for AudioCodes Voice AI Connect Cloud Edition.
   
  Alternatively, you can also subscribe to AudioCodes Voice AI Connect Cloud Edition from Azure Market Place by following the instructions here
   
  When you've successfully created a trial account, confirmed your account, and successfully signed in, you can stop there and will come back to this AudioCodes portal later in the Telephony Configuration step

• Get PowerShell
  To make it as easy as possible to get started quickly, a PowerShell script is used in the Getting Started steps to install and configure various Azure services so you don't have to worry about those details and the accelerator will just work when you're finish setup.
   
  You'll need to download and install PowerShell here if you don't already have that installed.

Development Prerequisites

In addition to the demo-only prerequisites, if you want to explore or extend the more advanced and technical aspects of this accelerator, you'll need to install the following tools.

• Install Bot Framework Composer
  This accelerator extends its Power Virtual Agent by using Bot Framework Composer and you'll need to install it if you want to explore or modify those extensions. Download Composer for Windows here

• Install Visual Studio
  If you want to explore the mock Customer Service Azure Function or if you installed Composer to explore or extend PVA Composer Topics, you'll also need to install Visual Studio which can be installed here

Getting Started

Getting started should be quick and easy and there are only four steps you need to complete which are easy enough to follow that you shouldn't need any prior knowledge to be successful. Alternatively, this short Getting Started Screencast covers the same ground, but in video form which can be easier and quicker to follow for this type of activity.

1) Clone the PVA/AudioCodes Contact Center Repo

This repo has everything you'll need to get the solution up and running and to get started you'll need to clone the repo which copies the accelerator to your local device. If you have Git installed, create a folder to clone the accelerator in and open a PowerShell command window with its current working directory set to the folder you just created and then enter the following console command:
 
git clone https://github.com/managedcoder/PVAAudioCodesCC
 
If you don't have Git installed then you can scroll to the top of this page and click the green Code button and download a zip archive of this repo and extract it into a working folder.

2) Deploy Mock Services

In order to capture realistic enterprise scenarios for a modern contact center, this accelerator implements mock services and hosts sample audio logo files. To make it as easy as possible to get up and running quickly without having to understand the technical details of the accelerator, a single PowerShell script is provided that will deploy and configure these mock services and all you'll need to do is run it.
 
Open a Power Shell command window with its current working directory set to the Deployment project folder and sign into your Azure subscription if you haven't already
 
az login
 
Running the following command will deploy the mock services used by this accelerator. You can delete these services once they've served their purpose of providing an explicit blueprint/roadmap for building a modern contact center.
 
.\deploy.ps1 -name "<name>" -location "<region>"
 
Where:
<name> is the name to use to deploy the accelerator's mock services. For example, you could use some form of your contact center assistant's name using letters and numbers that's between 3 and 24 characters long (e.g., "ContosoMockServices").
<region> is the Azure region where the mock services will be deployed (e.g., "eastus").
 
The deployment generally only takes about a minute to complete and when it's done you'll see two important configuration settings in yellow that you'll need to come back and copy later when you get to the configuration step for your contact center assistant.
 
Note: If there are errors during deployment, you'll see them in the command window and more detailed error information will be written to a log file named deploy_log.txt.

3) Import, Configure & Publish the PVA / AudioCodes Solution

The accelerator's contact center assistant has been shared as a Power Virtual Agent solution that will need to be imported into your Power Apps environment.
 
Import Solution
Browse to the PVA portal and click the "settings" gear icon in the top right and then click "General Settings" link. In the resulting Setting dialog, click the "Go to Power Apps Solutions"
 

 
In Power Apps portal, click the "Import" link at top of page and then click the "Browse" button and select PVAAudioCodesContactCenterAccelerator_1_0_0_0.zip which you'll find in the root folder of the accelerator you cloned/extracted in step 1. Then click "Next" and "Import".  

 
Note: If you're having trouble importing the solution, you can find more detailed instructions here or watch this short video and skip to the 1:48 minute mark where it shows how to import a solution.
 
Open Solution
Open the PVA portal in a new browser window (or refresh the portal if it's already open) and open the imported assistant by clicking on the bot icon in the upper right corner of the page and choose your assistant from the menu.
 

 
Configure Your Assistant's Greeting
To connect your contact center assistant to the accelerator's mock services, there is a simple configuration step you'll need to complete.
 
Click the Topics tab in the left navigation and find the Greeting topic in the list of Topics (use Search box if needed) and click on it to open it. There are three values you'll need to set in the Redirect action for configureMockSettings. Replace the placeholder text in the customerServiceHostURL and audioLogoURL fields with the corresponding values displayed in yellow text at the end of the deployment in the deployment command window. For the agentPhoneNumber setting you can use the phone number you would like the assistant to call when agent escalation occurs. The number should start with the country code which in the US is "1" so the number would look something like 15554441212. There are several places in the building blocks and scenarios that escalate to an agent and when that happens the phone number you provide in this setting will be called. Using your cell phone number is a convenient way to test and demo this.
 

 
Copy the text highlighted with red boxes from the command window you used to deploy the mock services and paste it into the corresponding fields as described above.
 
Finally, click Save in upper right of page.
 

 
Set Security for Your Assistant
Set the security level of your assistant by clicking the Manage tab in the left navigation menu and then click the Security menu option and then click the Authentication option
 

 
For the purposes of getting started you can choose No Authentication and click Save and then click Close  

 
Publish Your Assistant
Finally, publish your assistant by clicking the Publish tab in the left navigation menu and then click the Publish button
 

4) Telephony Configuration

Configuring the telephony aspect of the solution accelerator involves working in AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Cloud portal. You can follow the instructions in this step or follow the instructions here to create a telephony bot connection.
 
Create a Bot Connection
Open the AudioCodes portal in the browser sign in and if this is the first time you've visited the AudioCodes portal, it will look like the screen below and you'll select the Connect your bot to phone number provided by AudioCodes wizard and then the screens from that point on will match starting with the selection of Microsoft Power Virtual Agent as the next step.  

 
If this is not the first time you've signed in to the AudioCodes portal, then the screen will look like the screen below and you should click the plus sign.
 

 
Select Microsoft Power Virtual Agents framework and click Next

 
Bot Details Tab
On the Bot Details tab, enter a name for the bot connection in AudioCodes then enter the PVA Bot's secret which you can find by following these instructions and then click Next
 

Bot Setting Tab
The default values of the Bot Settings tab are fine and don't need to be changed so you can click Create
 

 
Enable Bot Features
Once you've created a bot connection, you can edit it's features and enable capabilities that the accelerator is pre-wired to take advantage of. Switch to the Bots tab and click Edit on the bot connection you created.
 

 
Click on the Features tab and then enable outbound calling, call recording controlled by bot, and call transfer and then click Update.
 
These features are not available with the basic trial subscription and, although the majority of the accelerator's building blocks and scenarios work with the trial subscription, if you want demo or extend those aspects of the accelerator, you'll need to upgrade to the Essential Plan in lower left of dialog.
 
Note: The agent escalation capability requires the call transfer feature to be enabled so if escalation happens while you are experimenting or demoing, you'll hear a message that says, "Hello, welcome to AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect, the number you've dialed is not connected to a root...".
 

 
Provision a Phone Number
 
Next, you'll provision the phone number for your assistant. Click on the Numbers tab in the menu on the left and click the plus sign and choose a country, state, and city and click Add Number and then Finish.
 

 
Connect Your Bot to Phone Number  
Now you can connect your bot to the phone number you just provisioned. Click the Wizard button in lower left and then click Select button on the Connect your bot to phone number provided by AudioCodes wizard option and then select your bot from the list and click Next.
 

 
Select Existing Phone Number
On the SELECT PHONE NUMBER screen, choose Use existing number then select your provisioned number and click Next
 

 
You can take all the defaults on the CREATE ROUTING RULES page and select Create
 

 
Call Your Assistant!!!
 
Congratulations! You are now ready to call your bot and when you do, you should hear an audio logo and then the assistant's greeting.
 
If the number isn't working yet or AduioCodes says it not ready, then give it a minute and try again.
 
Trouble Shooting
If you hear a message that says, "To use this bot, publish it in Power Virtual Agents...", check to make sure that you have published the bot in the Power Virtual Agent portal.
 
If you hear a message that says, "The accelerator needs to be configured before its ready to take calls. Instructions can be found in the README documentation." then you'll need to review this section of Step 3 and replace the placeholder values with the correct ones.

Using the Accelerator

Think of this accelerator as part construction kit and part roadmap where its building blocks and scenarios allow you to minimize time-to-value and maximize solution capability.

Building Blocks - The accelerator includes a set of executable how-to's that provide "implementation snippets" for various common contact center tasks. You can use them "as is" or tailor and extend them to meet the needs of your solution.
Scenarios - The scenarios included in the accelerator are example implementations of common contact center scenarios like "order status" or "product trouble shooting".
Best Practices - Finally, the best practices discuss important contact center topics and provide insight and effective approaches for addressing contact center challenges.

The accelerator is spread across several portals and a number of assets so we've created this video to help you understand what's included in the accelerator and how to use it effectively.

Best Practices

As this accelerator evolves, this section will capture and discuss important contact center topics and common challenges and provide insight and effective approaches for addressing them.

Gotcha's To Be Aware Of

• Version Confusion - Use version numbers in PVA and Composer Topics so you can ask for them when you test your contact center assistant. Anytime you change a Composer topic you will need to

1. refresh the PVA portal page and 2) republish your contact center assistant, otherwise, AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Cloud (VAIC-C) will still be pointing to the last published version. Even more confusing is that the Test Panel in the PVA portal works fine since it points to the most up-to-date unpublished version.

• More to come soon!

Add or Extend Composer Topics

Coming soon!

Telephony User Experience Challenges and Best Practices

Coming soon!

Capturing Customer Insight

Coming soon!

Multi-modal Customer Engagement

Coming soon!

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact [email protected] with any additional questions or comments.

Trademarks

This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.