Business units

Business units act as a filter for various other entities and operations within an organization. Organizations with multiple business units may find themselves in a position where they wish to restrict which customers, channels, templates, etc. agents can see in the context of a conversation. Business units act as a filter.

Create business units

To create a business unit, navigate to the Portal > General > Business units. Click the Create button, provide a name then click save. Your business unit is now created and ready to be associated.

Business unit settings

The following settings can be set on a business unit level:

Override global recording configuration: When this is turned on, the tenant-level recording configuration can be overriten on a business unit level without affecting other businesses. This allows disabling or enabling recording as well as allowing or disallowing agents to control the recording behavior. These settings become available once the toggle is turned on.
Data retention period: Allows setting a different data retention period per business unit than the tenant level one.
Recording retention period: Allows setting a different recording retention period per business unit than the tenant level one.

Custom fields definitions

Administrators can configure up to 20 custom field definitions. Definitions can be either text, or choice. If choice is selected, then the administrator must provide at least 2 choices. click the chevron down icon below the recycle bin icon to add your choices.

These custom fields definitions will be automatically added to all existing and new customer profiles, without a value set. The value can be set by the supervisor through the Customers menu on the portal, or by the agents, through the Customer Data panel.

Removing a field will erase it from customer profiles as well along with the data it held. This action is irreversible.

Renaming or modifying a field will remove the old value of the particular field from all customer profiles.

Custom fields set on a business unit will override the tenant level custom fields (if any).

Associate business units

Business units can be associated through the portal to:

Channels & Campaigns. 1 channel can have a maximum of 1 business unit associated.
Customers. 1 customer record can have a maximum of 1 business unit associated.
Agent workspace. 1 agent workspace can have a maximum of 1 business unit associated.
Email templates. 1 email template can have a maximum of 1 business unit associated.
Chat templates. 1 chat template can have a maximum of 1 business unit associated.
Agents. 1 agent can have any number of business units associated.
Workflows. 1 workflow can have a maximum of 1 business unit associated.

Note

Having no business unit is considered the default business unit and is used for filtering as well.

Business units and routing

Once business units are specified, the system will only offer conversations to agents (on top of the usual attribute based queue qualifications) if the business unit assigned to the conversation's channel is among the ones associated to them.

Collaborative scenarios

Agent can often require assistance to handle a particular customer from their colleagues or opt-in to transfer the customer to a different channel.

The list of agents available for the agent requiring assistance will be filtered by the business unit of channel the interaction came through. For example, if a customer reaches out through a channel having associated the BU A business unit, the agent receiving the interaction will only be able to consult with or transfer to other agents having BU A associated to them.

Additionally, the list of available channels for transfers or consults is also filtered by the business unit of channel the interaction came through as well.

Customers and activity history

The system attempts to identify the customer of a conversation in the context of the business unit associated to the channel the conversation passes through. If the customer does not have a previous interaction with that business unit, then a new customer record is created in the given business unit.

Following this principle, the customer activity history is also separated by business unit, as the system created a dedicated customer record for the same person in each business unit.

For example, John Demo is the human customer. John Demo reaches out to Agile Industries Contact Center through a channel that has "BU A" business unit associated. This generates a new customer record with this business unit. Agent Adam Alpha is also associated to the "BU A" business unit and has attributes qualifying him to receive this conversation. Then, John Demo reaches out to the same Contact Center but through a different channel with "BU B" associated. Another customer record is created, now with "BU B". As agent Adam Alpha is not associated to "BU B", he does not qualify to receive this second conversation and will never see it among the customer activity history of John Demo's customer record in "BU A". However, a supervisor or administrator with the right permissions can see both customer records in Buzzeasy Portal > Customers.

Lookup

The list of agent workspaces the agent can select during Lookup is pre-filtered by the Business unit associated to the agent. Consequently, customers and channels displayed are filtered by the Business unit of the workspace selected.

During Lookup, the agent can only see customer records from one business unit at a time, depending on the agent workspace selected, even if they are part of multiple business units.