Organizations that want to succeed in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace must support customers with reliable, flexible and highly efficient contact centers - or risk losing market share. Avaya contact centers are the industry standard, proven as major distribution channels for a wide variety of goods and services around the world. They are the critical points of customer contact that help companies learn more about purchasing habits, recognize opportunities for crossmarketing, improve customer satisfaction and increase revenues. But there is potential for even greater returns from Avaya contact centers through enhanced access capabilities from Citrix.

A New Era For Contact Centers

In an era of unprecedented change, contact centers are evolving. Once used to support labor-intensive back-office operations dedicated to niche markets, today's deployments are essential business tools across a broad range of industries. From home shopping to banking to overnight courier deliveries, businesses depend on contact centers to lower costs, deliver new services and, most importantly, strengthen customer relationships.

This new era for contact centers is shaped in part by the impact of technology that extends capabilities beyond traditional enterprise architectures. A growing number of contact centers are remote - separated from the main or home office - while "virtual" contact centers employ agents from different office and home locations, all connected by a network (WAN, VPN, Internet or extranet). In each situation, data and processes are shared across multiple sites to accomplish the tasks once performed by a single location. The benefits of these arrangements outweigh the added complexity: remote and virtual contact centers are gaining in popularity because of the flexibility they offer, and companies can leverage technology to reduce labor costs by outsourcing agents (or the entire contact center). Productivity and service can be improved through expert resources that may not be available locally.

Beyond these configuration changes, technology is having a tremendous effect on the overall size and scope of contact center operations worldwide. The dramatic growth of distributed and remote contact centers is leading to an increase in the total number of seats in North America and offshore, even as the number of large, single-site centers is leveling off. In Europe, where contact centers are often smaller than their US counterparts, market growth is strong: market research firm Datamonitor projects the number of call centers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa will grow to approximately 44,200 by 2005, a 130 percent increase on the 19,200 centers that existed in 1999. A large factor in this growth is the European business community's heavy investment in technology that permits the unification of multiple small contact centers in a single large virtual contact center. This enables scalability without the need to relocate staff from country to country.

The Asia Pacific contact center market is growing at an even faster rate. Datamonitor expects that the region's approximately 8,600 call centers and 420,000 agents (numbers from 2003) will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.1 percent through 2008 and reach nearly 1 million agents in that period.

Success, however, also brings new challenges. As contact center operations continue to grow larger and more complicated, support needs increase as well. This is especially true for the many organizations that have merged with or acquired companies in the past few years. In order to meet these new challenges, today's contact centers, both single-site and distributed, need comprehensive IT solutions that provide agents with immediate access to distributed information, whenever they need it, wherever they are. This must be accomplished in a way that ensures maximum uptime while also reducing the risk and uncertainty associated with supporting large, complex computing environments. At the same time, these solutions must deliver ongoing flexibility to accommodate future changes in the way contact centers are configured - and used.

Challenges Facing Every New Contact Center

Today's contact centers are redefining how companies manage virtually every aspect of their customer relationships, and are themselves redefined as proactive tools for retaining existing customers and winning new customers.

The service and retail industries that have traditionally relied on contact centers to supplement sales organizations are now using contact centers to market their offerings more efficiently and less expensively than large, dispersed sales forces or branch office networks. Because remote and virtual contact centers allow companies to use remote agents located in markets where labor is less costly, or in low-overhead home offices with Web-enabled PCs, multiple centers can be cost-effectively operated as a single center. This has made contact centers a much more attractive customer marketing and support option to industries such as utilities, telecommunications and financial services.

As call volume grows, companies are having to open or outsource additional contact centers, each complete with automatic call distributors, interactive voice response units, email servers, Web servers, predictive dialers, intelligent workstation applications and screen-pop servers. Each center must run business-critical applications to multiple stations across its own supporting infrastructure.

These circumstances present a host of IT challenges both common and unique. For the purposes of this paper, we have categorized the primary challenges facing contact centers into six specific areas:

• Maximum uptime
• Rapid application deployment
• Dial-in and remote connectivity
• Management and integration
• Mixed desktop platforms and configurations
• Legacy desktops with new applications

Maximum Uptime

The primary mission of any contact center is to provide a positive, productive experience for customers, whether they are ordering goods or services, scheduling a flight or requesting additional information for a possible new purchase. There is no more certain way to anger and even lose customers than to have a contact center shut down. That's why maximum uptime is so important. From lost revenue opportunities to driving customers to competitors, a contact center that crashes causes tremendous, potentially fatal harm to any business.

Rapid Application Deployment

To ensure that agents are fully prepared to meet the needs of customers, contact centers must be able to rapidly distribute vital information throughout the enterprise. From application upgrades and script changes to customer purchase histories and real-time inventory figures, it is critical that contact center agents get the data they need whenever they need it. Contact centers that cannot respond quickly to the needs of customers fail in their primary mission.

Dial-in And Remote Connectivity

Contact center agents and their expert contacts are becoming more geographically dispersed and mobile. In response, contact centers need a fast, easy and reliable solution for connecting agents and other staff to information resources, wherever they happen to be.

Management And Integration

In the past, on-site IT staff could support a large single-site contact center. But in today's remote and virtual contact center environments, it is physically impossible for IT administrators to "touch" every desktop. And, as the number of remote contact centers continues to grow, businesses need an effective means of remotely managing, integrating and supporting existing sites, as well as adding new sites.

Mixed Desktop Platforms And Configurations

Contact center functions are increasingly handled by organizations both within and outside the enterprise that use a variety of different hardware, software and operating systems. While one company's contact centers may equip agents with only PCs, it may merge with a second company whose agents use a mixture of desktops and appliances, including old PCs, UNIX workstations, network terminals and handheld devices. It is imperative that today's contact centers effectively operate and support a diverse, "mixed breed" computing environment - without hampering performance.

Legacy Desktops With New Applications

Many contact centers are equipped with desktops that have been in service for years. Yet, to remain competitive, they must be able to run the latest applications and upgraded software. Companies need a flexible, cost-effective solution that enables contact centers to run new applications without having to invest in new desktop hardware every few years.

Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite And Avaya Contact Centers: Each Enhanced By The Other

The Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, in conjunction with Avaya contact centers, enhances the productivity of every agent regardless of location or network connection. Citrix allows agents to seamlessly and securely access enterprise applications and information. Organizations can accelerate the deployment and extend the reach of business-critical applications while reducing the total cost of application ownership. Avaya contact center managers enjoy the flexibility of centralized application management, and companies that rely on contact centers benefit from Citrix's established track record of reliability. Ultimately, the combination of Citrix and Avaya fulfills the three greatest needs of organizations competing in the digital economy: reach, speed and predictability.

Reach

To compete globally, companies must have the reach and flexibility to serve an increasingly mobile, remote and extended group of users around the world, including suppliers, partners and customers. The MetaFrame Access Suite makes applications instantly available to any Avaya agent - Avaya IP Agent, Avaya Contact Center Express, or Avaya Agent (Interaction Center) - regardless of location, desktop hardware, or network connection. In addition, Avaya supports and has tested Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP clients for agent use.

Speed

The time it takes to deploy an application determines when it will impact a company's revenue, customer service, levels of knowledge and organizational productivity. The MetaFrame Access Suite enables enterprises to rapidly deploy new applications, set up or add new Avaya contact center agents and integrate new systems in hours or days instead of months.

Predictability

Failure to achieve assured performance levels represents one of the greatest risks to businesses. For enterprises to succeed, business-critical applications must achieve new levels of reliability and performance - a standard already achieved by both components of the Citrix and Avaya contact center solution. The Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite is proven, with more than 120,000 customers worldwide, including 100 percent of the Fortune 500. Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than one million businesses worldwide, including 90 percent of the Fortune 500, with more than 22,000 contact center customers.

Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite And Avaya Contact Centers: Meeting Today's Challenges

The Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite is ideal for Avaya contact centers because it provides companies with the ability to deliver business-critical applications to anyone, anywhere, anytime. This not only enhances the productivity of every agent throughout the enterprise, it's also the most effective way for organizations to leverage their contact center investments as strategic assets.

Put simply, the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite increases performance and productivity while reducing uncertainty and risk. It is a proven, cost-effective solution that meets the specific business challenges of Avaya contact center environments.

Maximum Uptime

The MetaFrame Access Suite increases uptime in the Avaya contact center environment, from large single-site facilities to centers using distributed and virtual infrastructures. It improves service levels across dozens or hundreds of servers while maintaining business-critical application performance and security.

This is achieved through distribution. Distributed contact centers share applications and other resources so agents can work in real time with critical databases, such as financial management or travel scheduling, regardless of their location. While the applications execute on servers, they look, feel and perform as if they were running locally, enhancing agent productivity. With this architecture, Citrix also streamlines application management and facilitates technical support. This not only ensures maximum uptime, it also provides Avaya contact centers with substantial savings in administrative costs.

Rapid Application Deployment

With the MetaFrame Access Suite, applications are installed once on a server and deployed quickly and easily to Avaya agent desktops across the enterprise. This rapid application deployment dramatically reduces the rollout time of new and upgraded applications, saving organizations time, money and resources. Productivity and customer service are improved, since agents are always working with the latest applications and upgrades. And because applications are managed from a single site, Avaya contact center managers can selectively deploy them to a desktop or a browser according to an agent's needs and area of expertise.

Dial-in And Remote Connectivity

The MetaFrame Access Suite enables the enterprise to deliver information to Avaya contact center agents anywhere in the world, extending the reach and broadening the range of applications. Agents can contact expert resources wherever they may be, inside or outside the company, regardless of their client hardware or network connectivity. Agents and other users can access contact center applications and database information through the Internet, corporate intranets, extranets, WANs, LANs, VPNs, or remote access dial-up. Citrix also offers Web enabled connectivity.

Management And Integration

In a Citrix access infrastructure environment, all applications and data are managed, integrated, configured and supported from a single point. This provides Avaya contact center managers with an extremely flexible, scalable and secure contact center environment:

• Companies can remotely diagnose and resolve IT problems, saving time and money and freeing IT staff to address strategic corporate computing issues.
• Security is improved, since applications and data remain on the server instead of the desktop.
• Troubleshooting and diagnosis are greatly simplified in situations where fewer clients are being tested.

If a new application update is required for certain agents, the change is made once on the central server and the update will automatically be distributed to other servers across the enterprise. These, in turn, will distribute the update to every specified desktop. Additional contact centers (both Citrix servers and agent desktops) can be integrated into the system just as easily. There is never any need for special emulation software, changes in system configuration, or application rewrites. Agent productivity is increased and training costs are reduced, since users work on their preferred desktop.

Mixed Desktop Platforms And Configurations

Today's contact centers are often comprised of a mix of desktop hardware, network connections and operating systems, making access to business-critical applications difficult and expensive. Citrix software supports application access on virtually any type of client device, including Intel x86- and Pentium-based PCs, as well as non-Intel processors, such as RISC, Power PC and MIPS. Other supported devices include Windows-based terminals, network computers and wireless devices, as well as clients running DOS, UNIX, OS/2 Warp and Java. Avaya clients run on Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems.

Legacy Desktops With New Applications

Since the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite works with any desktop hardware, including legacy equipment such as 486 PCs and a wide variety of thin clients and network computers, businesses with Avaya contact centers can maximize their investment in the latest applications and upgrades while extending the life of their hardware investments. This "change resilience" helps organizations avoid the expense of investing in new desktops every few years and the recurring hardware costs of keeping up with the application lifecycle. Since Avaya clients run on Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems, they are already suited to the majority of desktop operating systems in use today.

Making It Work

Avaya Interaction Center is a comprehensive solution that makes it possible to integrate a broad range of communication channels and manage the entire customer interaction life cycle. This means companies can extend their customer reach and manage customer interactions through voice, email, Web chat, voice over IP and Web self-service. In addition, Internet-based communication companies that rely on Web and email for their customer service can extend to assisted Web collaboration or even intelligent call routing to manage call volumes.

Companies can start to manage their operations with one channel, such as voice, and add other channels like email and Web as their business objectives evolve.

Working with the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, Interaction Center (IC) 6.1.3 is deployed as usual except that Avaya Agent is installed once on the Citrix server instead of being installed at every agent desktop. The core IC servers do not reside in the Citrix environment. But the Citrix environment provides a means of roles-based access control of agents. For example, contact center managers can set up different configurations of agent desktop applications on different Citrix servers so that an agent who handles only voice media accesses Citrix Server A while those handling voice, chat and email access Server B. Contact center managers can specify only one server for an agent to avoid inappropriate access.

Avaya Agent on Citrix provides the following features:

• Inbound voice, email and chat channel controls plus contact history and eDU viewer;
• Voice chat channel;
• Prompter display of instructions to agents based on contact activity and defined business rules;
• CallCenterQ; and
• HRQ.

Installation and Configuration

Administrators use the Management Console for MetaFrame XP to manage Citrix servers and server farms, and choose between two Citrix interfaces for accessing applications published on the server machines: the Web interface or the Citrix client interface. IC's Avaya Agent can be published in either mode.

When using the Citrix Web interface for Avaya Agent - called "publish as desktop" - there are no IC-specific configuration steps for Citrix. Agents simply use their Web browser to access Avaya Agent and other agent desktop applications published on Citrix servers. An ActiveX control exchanges information about agent actions (keyboard and mouse clicks) with the applications.

When using the Citrix client interface for Avaya Agent - called "publish as application" - there is one IC-specific configuration step required for Citrix (described on the following page). Agents use the Citrix client to access Avaya Agent and other agent desktop applications published on Citrix servers. The Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol exchanges information about agent actions (keyboard and mouse clicks) with the published applications. In the "publish as application" mode, there are potential issues with resizing windows, such as pop-ups and Web Agent and with Avaya Agent overlapping those full-screen windows. IC provides a tool (available as an executable or ActiveX control) that resizes screen pops and reserves desktop space for Avaya Agent.

The installation steps for publishing Avaya Agent and desktop applications are:

1. Customize Avaya Agent or Business Application, if needed.
2. Perform integration steps for Avaya Agent or Business Application, if needed.
3. Create agent installer with Agent Site Preparation Wizard.
   a. New step in agent site preparation wizard asks if installing on Citrix
   b. Must say "yes" to that step or agent installer cannot install agent desktop applications on Citrix server
4. Install agent desktop applications on Citrix server.
5. Configure and install Citrix client interface or client interface on agent and administration workstations.
6. For Citrix client interface with seamless window, configure qui.ini file with required parameter.

Performance, Capacities And Caveats

The performance of the Avaya Agent application running in the Citrix environment depends on both the user scenario (the work to be done) and the servers (the hardware and software provided to support the work): CPU utilization on Citrix servers is higher for chat and email, and lower for voice-only configurations. Performance is directly linked to processor speed. We found, for example, that the IBM eSeries server with dual 2.8-GHz Xeon processors and 4 GB of RAM could support a maximum number of 40 agents per server machine. To support additional agents with the same Avaya Agent configuration would require additional Citrix servers.

As described above, the agent desktop applications are installed, published and accessed on one or more Citrix servers. There is no application integration across processor boundaries, so applications on Citrix servers will not integrate with applications on the agent workstation. To integrate Avaya Agent with another application, such as from PeopleSoft or Siebel, put them both on the Citrix server.

5.2 IP Agent R5

Avaya IP Agent is a softphone agent solution that accommodates all the Avaya call center agent features and capabilities for agents working remotely or in an office location. Agents have access to the full range of Avaya agent capabilities through an intuitive graphical user interface using standard Microsoft Windows conventions. The IP Agent solution includes an intuitive interface to access existing corporate database information via Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and an integrated call history feature that allows agents a detailed view of the calls made and received. In addition, contact center managers can administer screen pops based on commonly used triggers, such as dialed number identification service, automatic number identification and prompted digits.

Working with the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, IP Agent is installed once on the Citrix server instead of being installed at every agent desktop. Although IP Agent has several configuration options, when it is used in a Citrix environment, only the dual-connect configuration (Telecommuter Mode) is supported. It is a two-line configuration with voice over regular PSTN. Due to the mission-critical conversation that takes place between the agent and customer, it is likely that most contact centers will use this option for their remote agents since toll-quality standards can be met. With this option, feature/access control and signaling is maintained and delivered across the IP network, but the voice is delivered across a second line to either an analog, digital, or PSTN line to provide toll-quality voice. In fact, this capability can be extended to a cellular, PCS, or GSM phone. In this scenario, the Avaya Communication Manager software "binds" the two connections as a single transaction or session.

Avaya IP Agent controls the advanced telephony features through its direct communication with an Avaya Communications Server. Agents who are not located at the contact center can receive calls as if they were locally present.

Installation and Configuration

Administrators use the Management Console for MetaFrame XP to manage Citrix servers and server farms, and they choose between two Citrix interfaces for accessing applications published on the server machines: Web interface and Citrix client interface. IP Agent can be published in either mode.

When using the Citrix Web interface for IP Agent - called "publish as desktop" - there are no IP Agent-specific configuration steps for Citrix. Agents simply use their standard Web browser to access IP Agent and other agent desktop applications published on Citrix servers. An ActiveX control exchanges information about agent actions (keyboard and mouse clicks) with the applications.

When using the Citrix client interface for IP Agent - called "publish as application" - there are certain ICA Client configuration steps (described below). Agents use the Citrix client to access IP Agent and other agent desktop applications published on Citrix servers. The Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol exchanges information about agent actions (keyboard and mouse clicks) with the published applications.

The ICA Client requires configuration of connection properties and settings:

• Server IP address;
• User name, password and domain;
• Window color and size.

The ICA Client must be installed on the local client to launch the application. If the ICA Client is not detected, a message is displayed on the log-in page. Users can click the ICA icon to install the ICA Client.

Performance, Capacities And Caveats

The performance of the Avaya IP Agent application running in the Citrix environment depends on both the user scenario (the work to be done) and the servers (the hardware and software provided to support the work). Performance is directly linked to processor speed.

5.3 Contact Center Express

Overview

Avaya Contact Center Express (CCE) is a contact center interaction management solution for midsized contact centers. Built from the ground up to target these centers specifically, it provides customers with core functionality that can be easily adapted to business dynamics without requiring a large budget or IT staff. Agents have the ability to handle inbound and outbound contacts quickly and accurately while supervisors have operational oversight into performance. CCE, based on widely available technology standards, can be installed, configured and extended without extensive effort and specialized resources. This allows organizations to achieve a rapid return on their investment.

Working with the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, Contact Center Express is deployed as usual except that CCE Agent is installed once on the Citrix server instead of being installed at every agent desktop.

Agent stores its configuration information in the Agent.ini file, which resides in the same directory where Agent was installed. One of the parameters stored in this file is "MyDN," which is the Directory Number (DN) monitored by the workstation. Since there is no separate Agent.ini for each workstation, you may use the Visual Basic Application (VBA) project to modify the monitored DN when Agent starts up. You do this by using the ClientName variable in the Citrix environment, which contains the ComputerName of the local workstation.

Installation and Configuration

Administrators use the Management Console for MetaFrame XP to manage Citrix servers and server farms. To configure Agent on the Citrix Server:

1. Install Agent on the Citrix Server.
2. Copy the Citrix.vaa project file to a local drive on the server, preferably the same directory where Agent was installed.
3. Open Agent Administrator and select the VBA tab.
4. Select VBA - Run Macro List and Edit Macros in VBA IDE from the VBA work mode drop-down list box.
5. Click [Browse] and locate the Citrix.vaa project file.
6. Click [OK] to save your settings and close Agent Administrator.
7. Start Agent and click the [Toggle Menu] button.
8. Click the [VBA] button and select Visual Basic Editor from the pop-up menu.
9. In the Application_ApplicationOpened event, modify the code so it matches the client workstation names to monitored DNs. The code can be modified so it retrieves the information from a number of sources, including the text file and database.
10. Save and exit the VBA environment.
11. Publish Agent.
12. Run Agent from a Citrix client workstation.

Performance, Capacities And Caveats

The performance of the Agent application running in the Citrix environment depends on both the user scenario (the work to be done) and the servers (the hardware and software provided to support the work): CPU utilization on Citrix server is higher for chat, email and multimedia and lower for voice-only configurations. Performance is directly linked to processor speed. As described above, the agent desktop applications are installed, published and accessed on one or more Citrix servers. There is no application integration across processor boundaries, so, for example, applications on Citrix servers will not integrate with applications on the agent workstation. To integrate Agent with another application, such as those from PeopleSoft or Siebel, put them both on the Citrix server.

Conclusion

The Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite works with Avaya's contact center products, large or small, single-site, remote, or distributed, to maximize uptime and reduce the uncertainty of supporting complex computing environments. The net result is better service and stronger customer relationships.

The keys to success range from server sizing to very specific installation procedures; these need to be considered upon initial installation and during ongoing administration and upgrades. The Citrix access infrastructure offers one of the few computing environments that actually facilitates the implementation and ongoing management of IM-driven customer interaction systems.

Citrix and Avaya contact centers provide the benefits of rapid application deployment; centralized management of multiple servers, desktops and applications across platforms; and the ability to leverage existing investments in hardware and infrastructure for lower TCO. For more information on Citrix software products and services, contact your nearest authorized Citrix Solution Advisor, or visit the Citrix Web site at www.citrix.com. For more information about Avaya contact centers, visit the Avaya Web site at www.avaya.com.