What are Ingroups?

An Ingroup is an Inbound Group. Originally conceived by VICIDial, the easiest way to think about an Ingroup is a Campaign worth of settings for inbound calls. This is how calls are routed to specific Agents within the system from Vendor Sources and ensures only the correct agents get the calls.

Example: A call comes in regarding adding Dental to an existing plan. With Ingroups, this will route to Agents who specialize in Dental Coverage.

Why are Ingroups Important?

Without Ingroups the system would be unable to route calls to multiple recipients. The system would be required to send it to specific Users via the agent route and if that Agent was not available the call would drop or go into VM *Depending on DID settings). In the DID section under TLDialer there are different routes. These include extension, voicemail, agent, phone, ingroup, call menu, and voicemail - no instructions.

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Without Ingroups, the system would be limited to Call Menu, Agent, Phone (Which is NEVER used), or sent directly to Voicemail. 

Ingroups are designed to route calls to groups of agents. You can see what Ingroups are available under TLDialer and selecting Ingroups. There might be several here, including State Routes.

How are Ingroups Created?

In some cases the Ingroups are created automatically, such as when you connect a DID to a Vendor Source. When connecting DIDs, the Connect tool will ask if you are setting up a User or a Vendor. 

When you select Vendor you will also be given the opportunity to clone both the DID and all its settings as well as an existing Ingroup. What this does is copy, or clone, the Settings and assign Users from the chosen Ingroup already active in the system. These DIDs don’t always need to match, but use discretion when creating new Vendor Sources.

This is the Automatic part of Ingroup Creation. 

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How are Ingroups changed/updated/removed?

Ingroups should never be deleted. In the rare occasion that a deletion is needed, it MUST be escalated to Operations. Just like with DID’s, once an Ingroup is deleted all the information associated with that Ingroup will be lost forever.

Modifications can be made within the Ingroup configurations. These ingroups can be accessed in several ways.

1. From TLDialer and selecting Ingroups

2. From Leads and selecting Vendor Sources. Click the Ingroup ID associated with the DID

3. From TLDialer and selecting DID’s 

Changes to Ingroups shouldn’t be done unless you know exactly what you are doing. Refer to the Tier 2Operations team for assistance. 

There are several tabs across the top, but the one that is most useful is the Allowed Users and Campaigns which shows you what campaigns these Ingroups are allowed in and what Users are assigned to this ingroup. As a reminder, Ingroups can only distribute calls to Users that are logged into the Campaigns it is allowed in and the Users it is assigned to. So if you are a user that's in a campaign where this Ingroup is allowed and the User is not assigned to the Ingroup, you will not receive the call. You must satisfy both criteria.

If you receive a call where an Agent is not getting specific calls, check to see what campaign they are logged into via TLDialer and selecting Live Agent.

If the User is trying to receive a call from a specific Ingroup (ex. 17871) can add the column Closer Campaigns to the Live Agents screen to see all the Users Ingroups at a glance.

Any changes to Ingroups will not show up for the User until they log out/in of TLD or a force refresh is completed.  A refresh is achieved by going to Users and selecting Manage All. Check the box next to the user and Mass Edit. From here, select the TLDialer tab and set Refresh Live Agent Ingroups to YES. This forces any currently logged in agents to reevaluate the campaign that they're logged into and their assigned ingroups and fix itself.

How do Ingroups and State Routes Differ?

It’s important to remember that each State Route has its own logic which is why changes are not typically made. Multiple DIDs use the same routes, they're all sharing that same logic for all states. So this is why they're normally all identical to each other. If it's not State Routing but Ingroup Routing the ingroup itself determines how the call behaves. So that includes the call distribution strategy, drop, after hours, closing time, and NANQUE. 

Call distribution strategy, by default, is set to inbound group rank wait time. 

The process it follows is:

• Check the agent's rank first?

• Can the agent get this call? 

• What's their rank? 

• Are they the highest rank of the available Users?

• Who's waiting the longest in this rank? 

• Then it chooses the person waiting the longest in the highest rank. 

How are Ingroups Added to New Agents During the Cloning Process?

When you select Clone to create a new agent, you'll notice that everything about that original agent is copied, including User Groups and Ingroups. You would still need to acquire a DID and install it since everything in Clone User Creation is copied except Caller ID and TLM settings. It is also important to note that cloning agents saves you from having to go in and assign ingroups for every user set-up. 

One thing you need to be aware of when cloning Users that have State Routes; the new user will be in whatever State Route group the original agent was in, regardless of having a license to sell in that state. If you need to modify State Routes remember to remove all existing state route ingroups and then use the flag after the licenses have been added so that you know that they have the accurate ingroups

Where are Ingroups Located?

There are many options to locate ingroups in TLD

1. Under TLDialer select Ingroups. This is the best way to locate them.

2. Under both the Vendor Source section and the User section and selecting the Ingroup next to the DID.

Who Creates Ingroups?

While support can create ingroups they must ALWAYS be reviewed by Operations first. You can always ask Operations to take you into Training to review how it's done for future reference. 

Are Ingroups Impacted by TLD User Roles or Abilities?

Simple answer NO. In fact, Users have nothing to do with Ingroups. Ingroups are the assignment and distribution of calls.