Dial Plans

The Dial Plan page allows you to define validation criteria for the:

  • Dial Number (DN) that an agent uses to sign in to the Agent Desktop.

  • DN that an agent uses for outdialing.

If you satisfy the validation prerequisites, the system validates DNs that agents enter in the Desktop environment against the syntax rules that are defined in one or more dial plans. The following table describes the validation prerequisites.

DN usage

Validation prerequisites

Agent Desktop sign-in

Configure Agent Profile > Agent DN Validation as follows:

  • Set Validation for Agent DN to Validation Criteria (Select from list).

  • Set Validation Criteria field to Specific.

  • Choose a dial plan from the drop-down list in the Select Validation Criteria field. Default dial plans and any dial plan you create appear in this list.

Outdial calls

Configure Agent Profile > Dial Plan as follows:

  • Set Outdial Enabled to Yes.

  • Set Dial Plan Enabled to Yes.

  • Choose a dial plan from the drop-down list in the Select Dial Plan field. Default dial plans and any dial plan you create appear in this list.

Note

Note: Agents use the Desktop dial pad to make outbound calls. To display the dial pad, you must have the correct setup. Contact your administrator for the setup.
Note

If you allow agents to enter DNs without requiring validation and their entries don't comply with valid syntax, the Desktop rejects sign-ins and outbound calls fail.

You can choose from two default dial plans and create new dial plans. The default dial plans are:

  • US

  • Any Format

The default US dial plan accepts entries such as:

  • 1-800-555-1234


  • 1 (800) 555-1234


  • 18005551234


  • 18005551234,,,222

    In this example, commas indicate pauses before entry of an extension number.

The default Any Format dial plan accepts entries such as:

  • 123

  • 5551234

  • 555-1234

  • 8005551234

  • 1800FLOWERS

  • bruce.matthews

Note

You can use the Any Format dial plan to validate a DN, the first part of an email address, or a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) uniform resource identifier (URI).

All dial plans require a regular expression for the system to recognize what defines a valid entry. The regular expression comprises the syntax rules that the system uses to interpret what is valid.

You can create separate dial plans with appropriate regular expressions to specify the required syntax for the:

  • DN that an agent uses to sign in to the Desktop Station Credentials pop-up window.

  • DN an agent enters in the Enter number to call field of the Desktop dial pad.

    Optionally, you can specify a prefix and characters that the system must strip from the entry in the dial pad.

The regular expressions of the default dial plans are described in the following sections. You can refer to the syntax rules that are described in these sections to guide you in formulating regular expressions for the dial plans you create.

For an outdial call, the system performs the following steps to determine the validity of an entry an agent makes in the Enter number to call field of the Desktop dial pad:

  1. Strip the characters specified in the dial plan’s Stripped Characters field from the entry in the Enter number to call field.

    Note

    In the default US and Any Format dial plans, the specified Stripped Characters are left parenthesis, right parenthesis, space, and hyphen.

  2. Validate the resulting entry according to the criteria defined in the regular expression of the chosen dial plan. If the entry meets the criteria, it's deemed valid.

  3. If the entry is invalid, prepend the entry that is specified in the Prefix field.

    Note

    In the US dial plan, the specified prefix is number 1.

  4. Validate the resulting entry according to the defined regular expression again.

Regular expression for the default US dial plan

The regular expression that is specified for the US dial plan is:

1[0-9]{3}[2-9][0-9]{6}([,]{1,10}[0-9]+){0,1}

Following is a description of what this regular expression specifies.

  • The first digit must be 1.

  • Three digits in the range of 0–9 must follow.

    {3} means 3 digits in the preceding range [0-9]

  • One digit in the range of 2-9 must follow.

  • Six digits in the range of 0-9 must follow.

    {6} means six digits in the preceding range [0-9]

  • Zero or one occurrence of the following sequence can follow: between one and ten commas [,] followed by one or more digits [0-9].

    {1,10} means one to ten pauses as specified by one comma [,] per pause

    + means one or more digits in the preceding range [0-9]

    {0,1} means zero or one occurrence of the sequence of pauses [,] followed by one or more digits in the preceding range [0-9]

Regular expression for the default Any Format dial plan

The regular expression that is specified for the Any Format dial plan is:

([0-9a-zA-Z]+[-._])*[0-9a-zA-Z]+

Following is a description of what this regular expression specifies.

  • The dial pad entry can start with zero or more sets of the following sequence:

    one or more alphanumeric characters [0-9a-zA-Z] followed by one hyphen, period, or underscore [-._].

    • + means one or more alphanumeric characters in the preceding range [0-9a-zA-Z]

    • * means zero or more of the preceding sequence of alphanumeric characters [0-9a-zA-Z] followed by one hyphen, period, or underscore [-._].

  • One or more alphanumeric characters [0-9a-zA-Z] must follow.