One of the requirements of every interaction is to select a contact. This is the person that you're sending your answers to. They send you questions in the form of customer emails, customer tickets from form submissions, or agent tickets. Agents send the contact answers in the form of agent responses, agent emails, mass mailing messages, etc.
 
Contacts include a set of standard properties—such as Name, Email, and Login—that are automatically available to all agents and to the contact. You can also define custom contact properties (for example, Birthday or Customer Tier). These properties can be shared with agents in other segments and made visible to the contact when appropriate.

Business Rules

1.A contact is synonymous to a single person. They are external users of the iService product sometimes referred to as customers.

2.Each contact must have at least one value for a contact property.

3.Each contact must have membership with (i.e., be associated with) at least one segment. Segment association determines the values displayed to the customer in a customer portal.

4.A contact may be associated with more than one segment.

5.The standard contact information fields are available to everyone that has rights to view the contact, regardless of their segment access. That is, the standard contact details (Name, phone, address, email, organization) are shared among agents of all segments.

6.Interaction History for contacts will be viewable based upon the Segment in which the interaction took place. Agents without access to a particular segment cannot view the interaction.

In a B2B environment, agents often interact with organizations that include multiple contacts. Accounts provide a way to aggregate contacts into a single view, including interaction history across the organization. Accounts can be members of other accounts, which supports the creation of enterprise accounts across multiple geographies.  
 
 

Business Rules

1.An account is synonymous to a single organizational entity, but could be a subsidiary of another account.

2.Each account must have at least one value for an account property.

3.Each account must have membership with (i.e., be associated with) at least one segment. Segment association determines the values displayed to the person logged into the account in a customer portal.

4.An account may be associated with more than one segment.

5.The standard account information fields are available to everyone that has rights to view the contact, regardless of their segment access. That is, the standard account details (account name, phone, address, etc.) are shared among agents of all segments.

6.Interaction History for all contacts will be viewable in the account page based upon the Segment in which the interaction took place. Agents without access to a particular segment cannot view the interaction.

Departments are ways to group agents together. They aren't required as part of an interaction or any other process within iService. But they can make it easier for managers to administer your agents because they can provide segment access and skills to everyone in the department. As a separate entity in the database, departments can also be used within custom reports to more easily identify agents.

Business Rules

1.Agents that are assigned to a department (e.g., sales, support, human resources) will inherit the skills and segment access in that department.

2.Departments are used for round-robin message assignment in filters. Agents that are members of a department used in a round robin assignment filter will be assigned questions based on the last time they were assigned a question relative to other agents in the same department.

Some enterprises operate multiple business units with different brand identities, or multiple deparatments that have unique configuration needs. iService supports separate configurations for each business unit with their own set of mailboxes, topics, properties, etc. Access to customer information and interaction histories are controlled through segment access.

Business Rules

1.A Segment is a grouping of information within iService that supports separate levels of security and presentation. Segments are often used to separate Contacts of different business units.

2.Segments are defined as Standard or Information Only. Information only segments do not have topics or mailboxes. They are used to manage access to contact properties and provide hierarchy in the segment configuration only. Interactions (customer email, notes, etc.) cannot be entered into an information only segment.

3.Each Standard Segment must have a Default Mailbox. A mailbox may exist in only one segment of the tenant.

4.Each Standard Segment has a Topic Tree that is used to categorize incoming questions, and present articles in the iService knowledge base.

5.Agents are only assigned interactions from the Get Next process if they have access to the segment and all required  skills for the interaction.

6.Contact properties within the Global Segment (default fields such as name, login, etc.) are shared across Segments. For instance, a phone number entered for a Contact in Segment 1 is visible when the same Contact is viewed by an agent that only has access to Segment 2 (as long as the Contact is associated with Segment 2).

7.Segments may have additional Contact Properties that are separate from the Standard Contact Properties.  These contact properties are viewable based upon whether they are shared or private. If the property is shared, all users with access to the contact can view them. If the property is not shared, only users with access to the Segment may view those properties.

8.Customer Info Search Results are limited based on the Segments to which the Agent has access. (i.e., searches performed within the Customer Info – Search tab).

9.Find Answers Search Results are limited based on the Segments to which the Agent or Contact have access.

10.All interactions (customer emails, tickets, agent emails, etc.) are tied to a specific Segment and topic within that Segment.

11.Parent Segments are automatically granted access to the information (contacts and details) from their child segments.

12.Each tenant has a global hidden segment that is not visible to administrators. This segment contains the standard contact details that are shared with all segments.

13.Contact properties and interaction properties may be populated for a Contact or Interaction even if they are not a member of the segment that the properties are in.

iService is designed as a multi-tenant system where a landlord installs and maintains the software for tenants. Tenants have their own iService system and are unaware of other tenants within the environment. If you are an on premise customer, your company is acting as your landlord running iService on their own equipment.

Business Rules

1.A tenant is a separate database within iService that contains all the configuration information for your company.

2.Tenant information is completely isolated from other tenants. As a result, it is not possible for a user logged into one tenant to see any information from other tenants.

3.Reporting is designed to be on a tenant by tenant basis, without the ability to generate reports that combine more than one tenant.

4.Tenants have the ability to configure their iService system any way they choose, without regard to how other tenants configure and use their systems.

5.Tenants share a common website, but may customize the interface via custom forms.