Configuration Settings – Tips VIII

Oracle Service Cloud (OSvC) has circa 500 configuration settings, which control the platform’s functions. Some of them are commonly used but many are not that well known.

In previous blog posts (7 posts to be exact), I have been sharing a few that you might want to be aware of. This time, I share some that my fellow CX Heroes mentioned, in the Oracle Service Cloud Hero Hub, as being one of their favorite configuration settings.

CS_HOLIDAY_MSG_ENABLED

This configuration setting was mentioned by Jessica Campbell, from Brother International Corporation, who used it to disable the chat during holidays.

If it is enabled (set to “Yes”) then OSvC will use the holidays table (which you can find in Configurations > Service > Service Level Agreements > Holidays) to determine whether the Live Chat should be enabled or disabled.

If your customers try to use the Live Chat channel on a date that is specified as a holiday, they will be shown a message stating it is a holiday and no agent is available.

The default value for this configuration setting is disabled (set to “No”).

SNEAK_PREVIEW_ENABLED

This configuration setting was mentioned by Kristine Tannert, from Insperity, who says that her agents love the Sneak Preview functionality, as it allows them to get ahead of the game and prepare responses on chat with the customers. This is particularly helpful since the questions their agents have to answer for customers can sometimes take awhile to investigate, so anything that helps them get a jump start on answering the customers question is appreciated!

It enables the Sneak Preview functionality, which allows agents to preview what a customer is typing prior to the customer sending the message.

The default value for this configuration setting is disabled (set to “No”).

INC_INCLUDE_POST_TIME

This configuration setting was mentioned by Robert Pozderec, also from Brother International Corporation, who said it is an extremely important setting when it comes to QA (Quality Assurance).

It specifies whether the post time is to be included in incidents created for a Chat session, meaning messages in the chat transcript will have a date and time against it.

The default value for this configuration setting is disabled (set to “No”).

CUSTOM_SCRIPT_DATA_SIZE

This configuration setting was mentioned by Sasi Gudimetta, from AST Corporation, who shared with the community that he usually works with reports that have custom scripts, and these have a query data limit, controlled by this setting, which needs to be increased to avoid the script from stopping after the defined number of rows, and the report output from being “No Value”.

It specifies the size of the data buffer (in bytes) used when processing custom scripts in Analytics.

The default value for this configuration setting is 50,000. The minimum value is zero (0) and the maximum value is 2,147,483,647.

Keep in mind increasing this to a large value causes the custom script to parse more of the report data (which is good!), but this also causes additional load on the server, which could result in negative performance impact for the overall site (not so good!).

Configuration Settings – Tips VII

Oracle Service Cloud has circa 500 configuration settings, which control the platform’s functions. Some of them are commonly used but many are not that well known. Below are a few that you might want to be aware of.

AR_AUTO_ENABLE

This configuration setting is useful for knowledge managers or administrators to better manage the knowledge base, and ensure the answers are always up-to-date and helpful for customers.

It enables a feature that automatically changes the status of an answer to “Review”, when data aging reduces the answer’s solved count to zero. The default value is disabled (No) but you might want to turn it on (Yes).

ANS_NEW_INC_DURATION

Speaking about answers aging, this configuration setting specifies the number of days that the Solved Count of new answers will not be aged (meaning reduced).

You might new answers not to be impacted by aging, in the first few days or weeks, and ensure they keep up there for people to easily bump onto them.

If this value is set to zero (0) no answers will be considered new. The default value is 30. And the maximum is 9999999999 (basically, forever).

ANS_UPD_INC_DURATION

Similarly, this configuration setting specifies the number of days that the Solved Count of updated answers will not be aged.

If this value is set to zero (0) no answers will be considered new. The default value is 30. And the maximum is 9999999999 (basically, forever).

Please notice that this is for updated answers, whilst the above setting is for new answers.

ANS_PRV_ENABLED

If you would like to implement a specific answer access level, and have a subset of answers only to be seen/displayed to users with a specific access level, then you must enable this configuration setting.

It enables the “Privileged Access” feature which allows customers to access privileged access levels of answers. These access levels are in addition to those that are visible by default on the interface (Help, Everyone).

Privileged access levels are assigned to SLAs. An SLA must be applied to a Contact or Organisation and the individual must be logged in to the customer portal, in order to view the answer.

The default value is disabled (No), and you must enable it to allow privileged access (Yes).

OSvC_blog_accesslevel

ANS_SRCH_THRESHOLD

When a customer searches for an answer on the Oracle Service Cloud knowledge base, the system will weigh the answers, based on the search (keywords, etc.). This configuration setting specifies a threshold for returning answers.

Only answers that match at or above this threshold will be returned. The minimum and default value is zero (0) and the maximum is 2147483647, even though acceptable values are between zero (0) and 100.

If the configuration setting ANS_SRCH_SUB_THRESHOLD is enabled an exception is made when all matching answers are below the threshold.

ANS_SRCH_SUB_THRESHOLD

As mentioned above, this configuration setting is linked to ANS_SRCH_THRESHOLD and it specifies whether there should be an exception to limiting answer results with a threshold on matching.

If enabled, when no answers match at or above the threshold set, the answers that matched less well are still returned, avoiding a zero result set. If disabled, no answers matching below threshold are ever returned. By default this configuration setting is disabled (No).

How to catch foreign SPAM

Recently a client was being flooded by incidents that looked like coming from a Chinese account, which was impacting the performance of their contact centre. They asked how could Oracle Service Cloud (OSvC) help them deal with this situation.

The resolution for something like this cannot be easier. You can create an incident business rule that looks into the email header, assesses the character set, and either prevents incident creation, or routes incidents created to a specific queue.

If “Incident.Email Header” matches regular expression “character set name”
Then “Do Not Create Incident” or “assign incident to specific queue”

The “Email Header” field contains a lot of information, including the character set of the email charset=[character set name]. A list of all character sets can be found in the web (for example, here).

It is important to note that for the “Email Header” option to display on the business rule field drop-down, configuration setting EGW_SAVE_EMAIL_HEADERS (found in folder RightNow Common > Service Modules > RightNow Email) must be enabled.

Configuration Settings – Tips V

EGW_SECURE_UPDATE_ENABLED

One of the questions that has been raised quite a lot in our implementations is what happens if an agent CC’s someone else other than the Contact in an email response, and that person then responds?

This configuration setting, if enabled (set to “Yes”), prevents any other person – apart from the primary Contact associated to the Incident – from responding to the email. If a CC’d contact replies to the email, OSvC will not accept it as a response, and will notify the sender that he/she is not the primary contact, and thus their response will be discarded.

If you disable it (set to “No”), then any person can respond, and an Incident can be updated by any email address or Contact.

By default, this configuration setting is enabled (set to “Yes”). And unless you have a really strong case, I would recommend you leave it as-is.

SEARCH_WITH_OPERATORS

Searching a Knowledge Base of answers can be hard, particularly when it has loads of answers, and it is our job to make it easier for customers to find what they need.

This configuration setting enables the ability to use special characters or operators “+” (plus), “–” (minus) and “~” (tilde) while searching for answers.

These operators help refine the search and I’m sure most of you know how to use them. The plus operator links words together, the tilde operator makes the search look for synonyms, the minus operator excludes words from the search.

By default, this configuration setting is enabled (set to “Yes”), and I would recommend you leave it as-is, to ensure your customers can use all means and tools at their disposal to search.

SRCH_WILDCARD_MIN_PREFIX

One of the most common things, when searching content on the web, is also the use of wildcards. And customers are used to it. Now, unlike the above setting, this one helps broaden the search.

This configuration setting controls the minimum length of the term allowed in a wildcard search, on the OSvC knowledge base and portal.

The minimum value is zero (0)
The maximum value is 100
The default value is three (3)

This means that, for example, if the configuration setting is set to three (3)…

a search for “Vic*” will be treated as a wildcard search
a search for “Vi*“will be discarded (customer will get “No results found“)
a search for “V*” will also be discarded

Of course the value to which you should set your own instance is dependant on your requirement and the size of your knowledge base. Large knowledge bases may require this configuration setting to be higher in order to avoid impact on search performance.

Configuration Settings – Tips III

As most of you may already know, the access to functionality delivered via the OSvC Customer Portal web pages (e.g. self-service, chat, surveys) is charged per session. And a “session” is defined as a single 15 minutes time period of web visit activity.

A “web visit” is a series of customer interactions with the OSvC Customer Portal that can span one or more sessions. And the length of a web visit is configurable and allows you to track and report on activities by a single user for up to 12 hours.

A visit will be considered new in one of the following cases:

The customer is inactive for longer than time defined in VISIT_INACTIVITY_TIMEOUT;
The limit time defined in VISIT_MAX_TIME is hit;
The browser is closed;
The customer navigates way from the OSvC Customer Portal pages and the browser doesn’t support cookies.

Therefore it is important to understand what the above two configuration settings are.

VISIT_INACTIVITY_TIMEOUT

This configuration setting defines the period of time after which a web visit is considered to be expired due to inactivity. The default value is 30 minutes, the minimum value is 15 minutes, and the maximum value is 2147483647.

VISIT_MAX_TIME

This configuration setting defines a hard limit after which any web visit will expire. If a web visit is longer than VISIT_MAX_TIME, then a new web visit and session ID are generated. The default value is 240 minutes, the minimum value is 15 minutes, and the maximum value is 720 minutes (12 hours).

Apart from the two configuration settings above, it is also important to be aware of another two configuration settings, which apply to cases where the customer is logged in.

CP_LOGIN_MAX_TIME

This configuration setting defines a the maximum amount of time for the length of the customer login cookie. If a visit is longer than CP_LOGIN_MAX_TIME, then the customer will be required to login again. The default value is 0 (zero), which means that the login cookie will expire based on user inactivity specified by the CP_LOGIN_COOKIE_EXP configuration setting. The minimum value is 0 and the maximum value is 2147483647.

CP_LOGIN_COOKIE_EXP

This configuration setting defines the period of inactivity after which the login cookie will expire. The default value is 60 minutes. Value -1 means the cookie will expire when the browser is closed. And 0 (zero) means the cookie will never expire.

File Attachments – Open vs Download

As you know Oracle Service Cloud has a capability that allows users to attach files to any object, standard (e.g. contact, incidents) or custom object.

This causes some security concerns as hackers can attempt to send files with attacks. And despite all attachments are scanned for malware, some hackers could be able to evade detection.

That is why there is a configuration setting that prevents users of Oracle Service Cloud from opening files, and forces them to download the file if they want to open it.

This configuration setting is set to “No” by default in order to protect not only Oracle Service Cloud but also its data.

FATTACH_OPEN_ENABLED is the key/name of the configuration setting, with the following description: “Enables the option to open file attachments in the Oracle Service Cloud Console. If disabled, file attachments can only be downloaded“.

OSvC_FATTACH_CONFIG_SETTING

As it says on the description, if this configuration setting is set to “Yes” users will be allowed to open the file directly from the console (having the “Open” link active on the attachments report/control.

But if the configuration setting is set to “No” the “Open” link in the the attachments report/control will be disabled (greyed out) and users will only have the option to download by clicking the “Download” link.

OSvC_FATTACH_CONFIG_SETTING_Download

Customer Portal: Basic config on Admin interface

Before getting started with the customization of the Customer Portal pages and widgets, some basic configuration is necessary on the administration interface.

Assign permissions to staff members

Permissions have to be given to the staff members. An Admin can grant the following types of permissions through a staff member’s profile:

CP Edit permission lets staff members with this profile access the Customer Portal Administration site and edit customer portal pages in the development area using WebDAV. Staff members with CP Edit permission, but not CP Stage or CP Promote permission, cannot access the Customer Portal editor on the administration interface. Nor can they access the Deploy tab on the Customer Portal Administration site.

CP Stage permission lets staff members copy the development files to the staging area. Staff members with CP Stage permission but not CP Promote permission will not have the Promote and Rollback buttons enabled on the Customer Portal editor on the administration interface.

CP Promote permission lets staff members promote the pages from the staging area to the production area where customers can view them.

Note: Staff members who have CP Stage permission automatically have CP Edit permission as well. Staff members with CP Promote permission automatically have CP Edit and CP Stage permissions.

To assign permissions for your customer portal:

Click the Configuration button on the navigation pane.
Double-click Profiles under Staff Management.
Double-click the profile you want to assign permissions to.
Click the Permissions button on the ribbon.
Give staff members the permissions (editing, staging, or promoting).

Define configuration settings

The Customer Portal gives complete flexibility in creating templates, pages, and widgets. However, other configuration must occur on the administration interface. Configuration settings are used to define common features of the Customer Portal.

Enabling the development area: MOD_CP_DEVELOPMENT_ENABLED must be enabled before any changes can be made to the development site. If this setting is not enabled it is not possible to make changes to the Customer Portal.

Click the Configuration button on the navigation pane.
Double-click Configuration Settings under Site Configuration.
To open a specific configuration setting, type its name in the Key field and click Search.
To display all configuration settings, click the Search button.
Type MOD_CP_DEVELOPMENT_ENABLED it in the Key field and click Search
In the row for the configuration setting, click the drop-down menu in the Value column and select Yes.

Now that you have enabled your development area, you can begin editing other configuration settings that affect your customer portal.

Modify settings for pages on the Customer Portal

Some other general configuration settings, accessed through the administration interface, control functionality. For example, these settings let you configure searches, including how search results are returned, whether suggested searches are enabled, and whether search text feedback is given to customers.

You can configure the following pages:

Answers page: Configuration options include answer solved count, search results, search-field weighting, suggested searches, search text feedback, the aliases word list, search priority words, and stop-words.
Answer details page: The configuration option for the answer details page is the privileged answers feature.
Ask a Question page: You can configure SmartAssistant suggested answers for the Ask a Question page as well as specify an expiration time during which the form must be submitted.
Your Account pages: Configuration options include disabling an email link to a customer’s incident in confirmation emails, letting customers see all incidents from their organization, defining the length of time an answer subscription stays active, and allowing duplicate email addresses.
Log In, Create an Account, and Change Password pages: You can configure the security and strength of customer passwords.