Telephone interviewing project parameters
Sample Management scripts for telephone interviewing projects must perform the following tasks:
▪select records for the autodialer to call (or, for projects that do not use an autodialer, select records for interviewers to call manually).
▪set appointment times for records that were busy or unanswered when called.
▪ensure that records with appointments are presented for calling at the correct times to the correct interviewers.
▪assign records with specific requirements to interviewers with the appropriate qualifications.
▪reschedule missed appointments.
▪ensure that records are selected in a particular order of priority; for example, appointments arranged with participants, then appointments that have been set automatically, and finally new records.
▪dispose of records that become ineligible for use due to being called too many times.
The Sample Management script needs to have certain information in order to accomplish these tasks. For example, to set appointment times automatically it needs to know how much time must elapse between the previous call and the appointment. This information is held in the following variables that can be set in the Interviewing Options activity. Defaults will be used for unset variables.
Variable settings
AnswerMachineDelay
The number of minutes that must elapse between consecutive calls to a number that was answered by an answering machine. The default is 30 minutes.
BusyDelay
The number of minutes that must elapse between consecutive calls to a busy number. The default is 30 minutes.
NoAnswerDelay
The number of minutes that must elapse between consecutive calls to an unanswered number. The default is 30 minutes.
OrderBy
Defines the ordering of records in each queue. When the OrderBy property is present, it overrides any existing Order By SQL clauses.
PrioritizeRecalls
Whether recalls (that is, records with appointment times that have been generated automatically) should take priority over fresh (uncalled) records. The default is for recalls to take priority. Appointments arranged between participants and interviewers are always the top priority.
RejectDelay
The number of minutes that must elapse between consecutive calls to a number that rejected a call. Calls can be rejected if a mobile phone user has activated a meeting profile that rejects calls, or if a home phone has been set to reject calls that do not also transmit the caller's telephone number. The default is 1620 minutes (27 hours).
SilentAppointment
The number of minutes that must elapse between consecutive calls to a number that might have received a silent call. Silent calls can occur when an autodialer generates more connected calls than there are interviewers available to handle the calls. The default is 4320 minutes (72 hours). When a silent call occurs, the sample management script changes the value of the Queue field on the participant record to SILENT. To ensure that the phone number is re‑called at the end of the delay, the supervisor must change the value of Queue from SILENT to APPOINTMENT.
WebCallbackDelay
The number of minutes that must elapse before a record that timed out or was stopped during a self-completion (Web) interview can be called using telephone interviewing. The default is zero, which means that records for timed out or stopped Web interviews will not be called back.
MaxTries
The maximum number of times that a record can be called. The default is three. If an Appointment is made, then an additional MaxTries tries can be made to connect the appointment.
AppointmentPreferArranger
Whether the AppointmentMarginBefore setting applies to any available interviewer, or only to the interviewer who arranged the appointment. The default is that it applies to any available interviewer. If instead, you choose that it applies only to the interviewer who arranged the appointment, and the project uses group/predictive autodialing, the interviewer will not be connected automatically to the participant who has an appointment. Instead, the participant's details are displayed on the interviewer's screen, and the interviewer must then click the Start Dialing button to dial the participant's phone number.
AppointmentMarginBefore
The number of minutes before AppointmentTime when a number with an appointment can be called, either by any interviewer or the arranger only, depending on the setting of AppointmentPreferArranger. The default is five minutes.
AppointmentMarginAfter
The number of minutes after AppointmentTime when a number with an appointment can be called by any available interviewer. The sample management script uses this setting only when the AppointmentPreferArranger setting is to give preference to the arranger. The default is five minutes.
RecallMarginBefore
The number of minutes before RecallTime when a number with an automatic appointment can be called. The default is ten minutes.
TimeZones
The time zones in which participants are located. The values that you enter in this field must be the indexes of the time zones in the list of time zones stored in the registry. If more than one time zone is specified, the numbers must be separated by semicolons. If this property is blank, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server Admin will ignore time zone and calling times when selecting records for interviewers to call. The time zones in which participants are located. The values that you enter in this field must be the indexes of the time zones in the list of time zones stored in the registry. If you need to enter more than one time zone, separate them with semicolons, and do not include any spaces. If you leave this field blank, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server Admin will ignore time zones and calling times when selecting records for interviewers to call.
UseInterviewerQualifications
Whether or not to assign calls to interviewers based on interviewer qualifications. For example, if the participant's native language is Spanish, then assign the call to a Spanish speaking interviewer.
WeekdayEnd
The latest time at which participants can be called on weekdays.
WeekdayStart
The earliest time at which participants can be called on weekdays.
WeekendEnd
The latest time at which participants can be called at weekends.
By default, a weekend runs from 00:01 on Saturday to midnight on Sunday. Regional differences in the definition of weekdays and weekends can be dealt with in the Sample Management script.
WeekendStart
The earliest time at which participants can be called at weekends.
See also