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Call Center - Action Items and Phone System Automation

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Shelley Labrecque
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This article outlines how to use the Call Center with your phone system to answer homeowner calls and create action items. You can also set up your phone system to automatically provide homeowner information if it can launch a URL and search and report on call notes. 

 

Contents

 

Overview

The Call Center sits on the left side of the Vantaca screen (default view is the Action Center), and you can click the Phone icon to open it. 

Use the Call Center to:

  • Find an action item by searching for the XN number.
  • Navigate quickly to an owner's account.
  • Create an Action Item of the A Homeowner Call type (select this type only).
  • Set up your phone system to launch Vantaca when receiving homeowner calls and automatically open the homeowners account on the Action Items screen. For more information, see the Phone System Automation section.

 

2024-11-11_08-46-53.png

  

 

Homeowner Calls

When you receive a homeowner call (without phone system automation), you can use the Call Center to:

  • Ticket # (XN number): All Vantaca emails have a unique XN Number (Action Item or Ticket number) in the subject line to route email replies to the action item from which it was sent. You can search for exact correspondence using the XN, which also groups emails by conversation.
  • Owner: Click the Search icon (magnifying glass) next to the Owner field to look for an owner account using the Search screen that displays. After you click Select next to the owner, their name displays in this field as a link, which you can click to open their account.
  • Type: Select A Homeowner Call from the Type dropdown and enter your notes in the Notes section while talking to the owner. If they have requests that require follow-up, you can create the applicable action item (see the Create an Action Item section) on the owner's account while simultaneously recording your call notes. The A Homeowner Call action item closes when you click Update.

    Note    : Use the Call Center to create A Homeowner Call Action Items only.

 

Create an Action Item

If you need to create an Action Item:

  1. Navigate to Action Items > All Action Items on the right of the screen.
  2. Click New Action Item.

    2024-11-04_11-32-56 (1).png

  3. Fill out the screen as needed.
  4. Click Update.

 

Phone System Automation

Phone systems that allow users to launch a URL can open a new Vantaca tab to show the homeowner's account based on the phone number that they call from. When a homeowner calls the management company, and you have the URL set up in your phone system, Vantaca displays the phone number in the Call Center (information is pulled from all contacts - not primary only) and pulls up the homeowner's action item page.

Note: Ensure that cookies are enabled for your browser so you do not have to log in each time a call opens a new window.

 

Before You Start

Phone system automation works with any phone system that can launch a URL when it receives a call.

There is no setup needed within Vantaca.

You must go into your selected phone system settings (Zoom, Zoom Contact Center, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, Vonage, etc.) to enter a URL for inbound external calls (also called "screen pop") that directs to Vantaca. Each phone system configuration is different.

Important: Contact your specific phone system support center for more information and instructions about setting up the URL.

 

Browser Settings

Ensure that your default browser is set to the one that you use and work with every day to avoid another browser opening and asking you to log in.

For example, if your default browser is set to Safari but you work and use Chrome every day, the phone automation pop-up will try to open Safari in a new Chrome tab causing you to sign in. In this example, you would set your default browser to Chrome.  

Set your default browser in a Windows computer:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Search for and select Default Apps.
  3. Depending on your Windows version:
    Select the Browser that you use every day, and then click Set default. 
    OR
    Select the Browser app and change it to the browser that you use every day.

Set your default browser on a Mac:

  1. Open System Settings.
  2. Search for browser.
  3. Next to Default web browser, select the browser that you use every day.

 

Zoom 

Use the following articles for instructions about where to enter the URL within the Zoom setup:

 

Ring Central

See the "Launching an application or URL during an incoming call in the RingCentral app for desktop and web" RingCentral support article.

Note: Ensure that you include "https://" at the beginning of the URL and also use the %E parameter.

 

Microsoft Teams

Click the following link and follow the instructions about where to enter the URL within their setup: "Open Apps in browser for incoming PSTN calls".

Note that Teams only requires /?tel={phone} at the end of the URL and you do not have to add or change a parameter.

In addition to entering the URL, ensure that you have the following individual user settings set up within Microsoft Teams:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Notifications and activity.
  2. Go to the Calls section.
  3. Enable Allow third party apps to automatically open in a new browser window for incoming PSTN calls.
  4. Navigate to Settings > Files and links.
  5. Go to the Links open preference section.
  6. Set the Always open web links in: option to Default Browser.

 

Vonage

To enter the URL for the inbound call :

  1. Log in to the Vonage desktop app and click Settings.
    The Settings screen opens.
  2. Click Web Launcher.
  3. Enter the URL to Launch (see the following URLs and Example section).
  4. In the Launch URL's On section, select Incoming calls.

 

URLs and Example

  • Make sure to use https:// and the full Vantaca URL for your company. Each company may have a different URL, for example, vantaca.net, e1.vantaca.net, early-access.vantaca.net, etc. 
  • Zoom, Zoom Contact Center, and Vonage: Add /?tel=<parameter> to the end of the URL, where you replace <parameter> with %C or %E. The Vantaca Call Center phone system automation searches by phone number, so you must use %C or %E.
  • Ring Central: Add /?tel=%E to the end of the URL. 
  • Microsoft Teams: Add /?tel={phone} to the end of the URL (no parameter needed).

Example

In the appropriate place within your selected phone system (see the individual instruction links above) input your company URL with the selected parameters.

URL example for Microsoft Teams: https://vantaca.net/?tel={phone}

URL example for Zoom, Zoom Contact Center, Ring Central, and Vonage: https://vantaca.net/?tel=%C

Where:

  • Example full company Vantaca URL: https://vantaca.net
  • With the addition of: /?tel=

  • Add one of the following parameters (do not add parameters for Microsoft Teams):

    • %C to show a formatted 10-digit phone number
      OR

    • %E to show an unformatted number and include international calls. Use this for Ring Central.

 

Phone System Settings Best Practices

If your call center currently rings multiple staff simultaneously, because the URL launches upon ringing, we recommend that you use the options for ringing the longest person idle or a rotating ring so the system only rings one person at a time. These settings differ based on the phone provider.

At this time, Microsoft Teams is the only system we know of that has the option to launch the URL when a person answers the call versus when the call rings. 

 

Receiving Calls Through Phone System Automation

When you receive a homeowner call through phone system automation, a new call causes the Vantaca Call Center to open in a new browser tab. The Call Center shows the telephone number and the number of matching homeowner accounts:

  • Match: If the phone number matches one homeowner account, it shows 1 Match.
  • Number of Matches: If more than one homeowner account is tied to the number, it shows the number of matches, for example, 2 Matches.
  • No Match Found: If the phone number does not match a homeowner account, it shows No Match Found.

 

2024-11-11_08-44-45.png

 

Follow these steps when you receive a homeowner call through phone system automation:

  1. Answer the call using your call application (Zoom, Teams, RingCentral, etc.) so you can talk to the homeowner.
  2. At the same time, the Vantaca Call Center in the new tab displays the phone number of the caller with the appropriate message:

    2024-11-11_08-48-13.png

    • Match: Click Select Caller.

    • Number of Matches: Click Select Caller to open the Select Homeowner screen where you can then click Select beside the homeowner that is calling.

      Multiple_Matches.png

    • No Match Found: Click Dismiss to close the tab or click Call Center to open the Call Center search function and manually search for the homeowner.

      In the case where there is a match, the       Call Center populates with the homeowner account information of the caller with their Action Items page on the right of the screen.

  3. To create A Homeowner Call action Item related to the call:

    2024-10-30_10-13-22.png

    • Items: Select New Action Item (1) (default).

    • Type: Select A Homeowner Call (2).
      Note: Only use the Call Center to create A Homeowner Call Action Items.

    • Notes: Enter your notes (3) about the call. If the owner has requests that require follow-up, you can simultaneously create a different type of Action Item using the right side of the screen while you make your call notes. See the Create an Action Item section.

  4. Click Update (4).

 

Search and Report

To search or report on call notes:

  1. Navigate to Action Items > All Action Items. 
  2. Complete the following actions:

    2024-10-30_10-31-55.png

    • Select Include Closed (1).

    • Enter A Homeowner Call (2) in the Type search field.

    • Click the Hamburger (3) menu in any column header, hover over Columns, and then select Created Time and Description to see calls at a glance and sort by date.

  3. (Optional) Click Export to Excel (4) to save the information in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

 

FAQs

Q: How do I find my full company URL?

A: Open Vantaca in your browser. The first part of the URL is your full company URL. It could be vantaca.net, e1.vantaca.net, early-access.vantaca.net, etc. For example, in the following image, the full URL is vantaca.net.

 

2024-11-25_16-32-16.png

 

Q: I put my full company URL in the Zoom settings, and nothing happened when a call came in.

A: Verify that the URL is correct and that you included the correct parameters. Copy and paste your company URL, and then copy and paste /?tel=<parameter> right after. Delete <parameter> and replace it with %C or %E. For example, if your full company URL is vantaca.net:

 

2024-11-25_16-42-47.png

 

Q: I put my company URL in the Microsoft Teams settings, and nothing happened when a call came in.

A: Verify that the URL is correct. Copy and paste your company URL, and then copy and paste /?tel={phone} right after.

Also make sure your Admin enabled the Allow third party apps to automatically open in a new browser window for incoming PSTN calls setting.

For example, if your full company URL is vantaca.net:

 

2024-11-25_16-50-17.png

 

Q: When a call comes in, why does Vantaca display a name, but no number?

A: You may need to adjust your URL or parameter. Check that you are using your full Vantaca URL and added the correct options. See the Example section. 

 

Q: The phone number that is calling doesn't seem tied to the homeowner account. I have double-checked my URL and parameters. Can you help?

A: Enter a support ticket and provide the following information:

  • The phone system that you use.
  • A copy of the URL that was added to your phone settings to launch the app/URL for incoming calls.
  • A screenshot of the full URL (with parameters).

 

 

 

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