In this article
The CATI Supervisor module can work with a number of dialers concurrently. All available dialers are listed on the Resources > Dialer tab.
Important!
In the event multiple dialers are used with CATI Supervisor, they must all be of the same type - either all TCI dialers, or all ProTS dialers. the CATI Supervisor module cannot work with dialing systems of different types simultaneously.
You can monitor the current status of each dialer and connect/activate or disconnect/deactivate a selected dialer individually, or multiple dialers simultaneously.
When a dialer is connected it can be managed and configured by the supervisor. A connected dialer can be activated - this makes the dialer accessible to interviewers. Connecting a dialer beforehand saves time when you need to activate it promptly.
When a dialer is deactivated it becomes inaccessible to those interviewers who are not currently working with it. The interviewers who are already working with it can continue current interviews until another dialing job is due, then they will be logged out automatically. Before this logout takes place, the CATI Interviewer Console will display a warning message informing the interviewer of the forced logout. The interviewer cannot be automatically re-addressed to continue his work with another dialer while he/she is logged into the Interviewer Console.
When a dialer is disconnected for technical reasons, all interviewers working with the dialer will receive a "telephony error" warning message. Contact a system administrator or designated technical support person if the system does not resume within a short period.
Important!
You must terminate the current task for any interviewers who are automatically logged out due to dialer failure. Do this via the Interviewer List window - click the Terminate icon for the relevant interviewer (go to Monitoring Interviewers and their Work Overview for more information). Interviewers who are logged out automatically will not be able to log in to resume work with the Interviewer Console until the Terminate command is performed.
All dialers work independently of the CATI Supervisor module; the dialer remains in the chosen state (connected/disconnected, activated/deactivated) whether or not the CATI Supervisor module is running. The current dialer status is displayed in the State column in the table.
The Dial Type column indicates whether this dialer is the one that is allowed to dial the mobile phone numbers (Manual), or not (Automatic). This indication helps to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibiting automatic dialing of mobile phone numbers (go to Dialing in the Single Survey TCPA Mode for more information).
The Dialer type column displays the type of dialer currently used with the system (Pro-T-S or TCI etc.). If a number of dialers are used concurrently, all must be of the same type.
Figure 1 - The list of dialers available in the system
Dialer settings are displayed in the lower frame. The dialer settings are company-wide settings and apply to all dialers currently used with the company. They will therefore be the same for all the dialers listed on the page, and they are used automatically for each survey. The dialer settings can be overridden separately for each survey: the same settings are available on the Survey View > Dialer Settings tab (go to Configuring Survey Related Dialer Settings for more information). The settings available are different for different dialer types, view the tool-tips accessed by pressing the help button next to the relevant field.
The State column in the upper frame indicates whether the dialer is connected and activated. The following dialer states are displayed:
- Dialer connected and activated - means that this dialer is connected and available to interviewers. They can log in to work with this dialer.
- Dialer connected (but not currently activated) - means that the dialer is connected and available for configuration, but it is not available to interviewers so it cannot be used for conducting interviews at this time.
- Dialer disconnected - means that either a supervisor has disconnected the dialer intentionally, or connection with this dialer has been lost for some reason, or the current company does not use a dialer to conduct surveys. This dialer is not available for interviewers and cannot be configured at this time.
A situation may arise when the dialer cannot be accessed and therefore fails to be connected. The supervisor has an option of activating a dialer at the same time they connect to it, or de-activating a dialer at the same time they disconnect it.
Connecting or to Connect/Activate the Dialer
- In the Navigation menu go the the Resources > Dialer item.
- In the list, select the dialer or dialers you want to connect to.
- Click the Connect/Activate button
on the toolbar, or right-click the selection and choose Connect/Activate from the context menu that appears.
- Choose whether you want to connect and activate the dialer or only connect to it.
- Click Connect/Activate to start the procedure.
All currently available dialers are listed.
The Connect/Activate dialog opens.
Figure 2 - The Connect/Activate dialog
The Dialer list is refreshed. If the attempt is successful the dialer state (indicated in the State column) changes to "Dialer connected and activated". If the connection attempt fails the dialer state does not change and an error message is displayed informing you that the attempt has failed.
Disconnecting or to Disconnect/Deactivate the Dialer
- In the Dialer list select the dialer or dialers you want to disconnect from.
- Click the Disconnect/Deactivate button
on the toolbar, or right-click the selection and choose Disconnect/Deactivate from the context menu that appears.
- Choose whether you want to disconnect and deactivate the dialer or only to deactivate it.
- If you want to force all interviewers currently working with this dialer to be logged out, select the Terminate tasks option.
- Click Disconnect/Deactivate to start the procedure.
The Disconnect/Deactivate dialog opens.
Figure 3 - The Disconnect/Deactivate dialog
This option can be selected both when the Disconnect/Deactivate or only Deactivate option is chosen.
The Dialer list is refreshed. If the attempt was successful the dialer state (indicated in the State column) changes to "Dialer disconnected".
Configuring Global Dialer Settings
The set of dialer settings is different for different dialer types (TCI, Pro-T-S and other types). Below are listed the settings used with the TCI dialer type:
- No reply timeout - this is the timeout period (in seconds) that the dialer will wait until the call attempt is considered as a "no reply".
- Telephone number prefix - this is a string that is added to the start of every telephone number before it is dialed by the dialer. This prefix is not added to the telephone number stored in the survey data.
- Email address for error notification - email address(es) that should be informed in case the connection with the dialer is lost or the local dialer component is restarted. In such cases the dialer may need to be reinitialized and active interviewers may need to log back into the system. You can add a number of email addresses (divided by semicolon) in this field. The following requirements are applied to the email addresses entered in this field - the address should start with a letter or a number, the address should not start with an underscore or a dot, a dot can be used in the address name, the domain name can consist of several parts (subdomains are allowed), the top-level domain name should consist of 2 to 6 characters.
Respondent variables to send to the dialer - specify an optional set of variable IDs (separated by comma) to enable sending additional respondent variable information to the dialer. Fields specified here will be applied globally across all survey projects so it is recommended to only specify variables that will be commonly used. Variables specified that cannot be found will be ignored. This feature should only be used for dialers that are set up to be able make use of the additional information being transferred through the dialer API.
The following settings are available for the Pro-T-S type of dialers:
- No reply timeout - the number of rings that are to be performed by the dialer before the call attempt is considered a "no reply".
- Nuisance call abandonment rate - the value supplied controls the abandonment rate when dialing in full predictive mode, this parameter determines the rate at which connected calls will be dropped because an interviewer is not available. Valid values and their meaning are shown below:
- 0 - 1 in 10,000 (.01%)
- 5 - 5 in 1,000 (.5%)
- 10 - 10 in 1,000 (1%)
- 20 - 20 in 1,000 (2%)
- 30 - 30 in 1,000 (3%)
- 40 - 40 in 1,000 (4%)
- 50 - 50 in 1,000 (5%)
- 60 - 60 in 1,000 (6%)
- 70 - 70 in 1,000 (7%)
- 80 - 80 in 1,000 (8%)
- 90 - 90 in 1,000 (9%)
- 100 - 100 in 1,000 (10%)
- Enable answer phone detection - when enabled, the dialer will attempt to determine if the respondent's line has been answered with an answer phone. If the "reply" is considered to be an answer phone, the call will automatically be classified as an answer phone. Note that enabling answer phone detection may result in a short delay before voice is delivered to an interviewer in all call attempts.
- Billing Code - this optional parameter can be used to associate a billing code with a particular call. This option is typically used at the survey level. The value input can be used for dialer log file analysis for billing purposes.
- Email address for error notification - email address(es) that are to be notified in the event the connection with the dialer is lost or the local dialer component is restarted. In such cases the dialer may need to be reinitialized, and active interviewers may then need to log back into the system. You can add a number of email addresses (separated by semicolon) in this field. The following requirements are applied to the email addresses entered in this field: the address must start with a letter or a number, the address must not start with an underscore or a dot, a dot can be used in the address name, the domain name can consist of several parts (sub-domains are allowed), the top-level domain name must comprise 2 to 6 characters.
- Enter the required value(s) in each field - note that all fields are optional.
- On completion click the Save button to save the dialer settings.