This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We are honored to announce that Gartner® has recognized Microsoft as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) Magic Quadrant™ report.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We continue to expand the Azure Marketplace ecosystem. For this volume, 94 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:
Get it now in our marketplace
Cloud Native Stack Virtual Machine Image: NVIDIA’s Cloud Native Stack VMI is a GPU-accelerated virtual machine image (VMI) that enables advanced functionality for developers, including better GPU performance, utilization, and telemetry.
Demography: TensorGo’s Demography API detects faces in videos and returns gender, ethnicity, and estimated age in real time by using advanced machine learning models.
Face Detection: TensorGo’s Face Detection API uses computer vision to detect faces in an image or video and return a bounding box around individual faces.
Facial Landmarks: TensorGo’s Facial Landmarks API localizes a human face in an image or video and tracks the facial points to predict and track behaviors over time.
FTP Server Basic on Windows Server 2019: This preconfigured image from Tidal Media includes a minimized FTP Server on Windows Server 2019. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) lets you transfer computer files between a server and client.
Heart Rate Estimation: TensorGo’s Heart Rate Estimation API uses non-invasive computer vision techniques to estimate the heart rate of a subject in a video.
Hyper-V on Windows Server 2022: Cloud Infrastructure Services’ Hyper-V Server lets you deploy nested virtualization on Microsoft Azure to host multiple operating systems and containerized virtual machines.
Jenkins on Debian 10 with Support: This virtual machine from ATH provides Jenkins 2.361 on Debian 10. Jenkins is an open-source automation server that runs servlet containers and version control tools for CI/CD tasks.
Jenkins on Debian 11 with Support: This virtual machine from ATH provides Jenkins 2.361 on Debian 11. Jenkins is an open-source automation server that runs servlet containers and version control tools for CI/CD tasks.
Jenkins on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with Support: This virtual machine from ATH provides Jenkins 2.361 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Jenkins is an open-source automation server that runs servlet containers and version control tools for CI/CD tasks.
Jenkins on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with Support: This virtual machine from ATH provides Jenkins 2.361 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Jenkins is an open-source automation server that runs servlet containers and version control tools for CI/CD tasks.
License Plate Recognition: TensorGo’s License Plate Recognition API uses optical character recognition to identify vehicles in traffic and extract their license plate numbers.
Low Light and Infrared Face Detection: TensorGo’s Low Light IR Face Detection API overcomes environmental conditions to identify faces and people from video captured in low lighting or by an infrared (IR) camera.
LTAPPS Timesheet: The LTAPPS Timesheet is a time-tracking app for Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, whether desktop or mobile, that lets employees and managers track hours, overtime, and absences.
People Detection: TensorGo’s People Detection API lets you detect people moving in videos, regardless of which direction they are facing, the light levels, and their clothing.
People Segmentation: TensorGo’s People Segmentation API provides real-time detection and segmentation of people in an image or video, allowing you to home in on individuals in crowds.
Pose Estimation: TensorGo’s Pose Estimate API can track the pose and orientation of a person or object from an image or video to determine whether the person is standing, sitting, or performing activities.
Rocky Linux 8 – Generation 2 Virtual Machine: ProComputers has preconfigured this minimal, ready-to-use generation 2 virtual machine containing Rocky Linux 8, cloud-init, and the Microsoft Azure Linux Agent.
Rocky Linux 9 Minimal: Ntegral has preconfigured this minimal virtual machine containing Rocky Linux 9 for use on Azure. Rocky Linux is used for enterprise cloud environments including Node.js, web, and database applications.
Ruby on Rails: Data Science Dojo has packaged Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu 20.04 to enable students, developers, and organizations focused on web-based products to easily create Ruby-based data science apps.
Salesken – AI Assistance: Salesken is a real-time, Azure-based sales assistant that provides AI-driven conversation insights from contextual clues and talking points, enabling you to navigate sales discussions with ease.
SmartDA: SmartDA is an app for Microsoft Teams that provides a versatile and personalized internal assistant using Intumit’s conversational AI to answer user questions about Microsoft 365.
Traffic Analyzer: TensorGo’s Traffic Analyzer API detects vehicles, pedestrians, and road signs from images or videos, identifying the location and number of vehicles and people.
Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS: Ntegral provides this preconfigured image of Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS for use on Microsoft Azure. Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution used to serve enterprise workloads such as Node.js, web, and databases.
Veritas InfoScale for the Cloud (Ireland): Veritas’s InfoScale is a comprehensive availability and storage management solution delivering a common platform across physical, virtual, and multi-cloud infrastructure.
Veritas InfoScale for the Cloud (Singapore): Veritas’s InfoScale is a comprehensive availability and storage management solution delivering a common platform across physical, virtual, and multi-cloud infrastructure.
Veritas InfoScale for the Cloud (United States): Veritas’s InfoScale is a comprehensive availability and storage management solution delivering a common platform across physical, virtual, and multi-cloud infrastructure.
VSM for Microsoft Teams: Virsae’s VSM Everywhere is a centralized network management and optimization platform to ensure that your Microsoft Teams and contact center environments operate at peak performance.
Go further with workshops, proofs of concept, and implementations
Azure ARC and Azure Stack HCI: 1-Day Workshop: Available only in German, Bechtle’s practical workshop will present an overview of Microsoft Azure ARC and Azure Stack HCI, as well as use cases to manage your infrastructure uniformly.
Azure DevOps Best Practices: 1-Day Workshop: Learn from PetaBytz about best practices, tips, tricks, and working demos for Microsoft Azure DevOps to get the most out of your Agile software development stack.
Cloud Deployment, Migration, and Modernization Services: ISM’s Cloud Deployment, Migration, and Modernization services are targeted to optimize costs and line-of-business delivery for your enterprise IT landscape by using greenfield implementations on Microsoft Azure.
Cloud End-to-End Managed Services: ISM offers complete management of part or all of your Microsoft Azure environment, whether standalone or hybrid, in alignment with ITIL and the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework.
Cloud Migration Service: 3-Week Implementation: NCS will accelerate your migration and adoption of Microsoft Azure through this low-risk, cost-optimized service that includes strategic planning, technical design, delivery validation, and more.
DevSecOps Automated Pipeline Process: Implementation: Vismaya India will analyze your traditional automated pipelines and manual development processes, then implement an automation solution built on Microsoft Azure DevOps.
Hybrid Cloud Sync Services: AlgoSystems’ Hybrid Cloud Sync Services will provide you with a modern and reliable file solution built on Microsoft Azure File Sync and Azure Backup to support your business and users.
Infrastructure as Code on Azure DevOps: 1-Week Implementation: Drawing on expert experience, PetaBytz will use industry best practice blueprints to drive your adoption of Microsoft Azure DevOps to optimize delivery of business products and services.
Innovation Jumpstart: 6-Week Proof of Concept: Quisitive’s Innovation Jumpstart helps organizations build a ready-to-execute app roadmap and rapidly prototype a solution built on Microsoft Azure.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Empowering today’s digitally connected, distributed workforce requires the right culture powered by the right technology. This month in Microsoft 365, we’re highlighting new capabilities to boost productivity and inclusion.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
As a contact center manager, you need to ensure that customers are routed to the right agent while balancing factors like customer satisfaction, tiered SLA commitments, and agent satisfaction and utilization. Automated work assignment in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service can help. Choose the right assignment method to prioritize agents when multiple agents satisfy a work item’s skill and availability requirements, and Dynamics 365 unified routing will do the rest.
Out-of-box work assignment strategies
Let’s look at the assignment strategies available in unified routing and the scenarios where they may be most effective. Three are provided for you “out of the box.” These strategies incorporate skills-based routingthat is, if an incoming call is associated with a skill, then the assignment strategy will select only appropriately skilled agents. You can also create custom assignment methods to meet your business needs.
Highest capacity: Assign the work to the agent who has the most capacity remaining
In messaging channels like live chat and social media, agents can carry on multiple conversations at the same time. The number of conversations an agent can manage in parallel is their capacity. When more than one agent meets the requirements of an incoming work item, the highest capacity method assigns it to the agent who has the most capacity remaining. This strategy helps maintain an even distribution of conversations, leading to happier agents and more efficient agent utilization.
Let’s see how highest capacity assignment plays out in a sample scenario. We have two agents in a chat queue, Kayla Lewis and Finn Patel. Each has the same skills and the capacity to handle up to three chats at once.
Kayla and Finn are each assigned two chats. Kayla closes one of hers quickly. When the next chat comes in, both Kayla and Finn match the requirements, but Finn is still working on both of his earlier chats. Kayla has more available capacity, so she’s assigned the incoming chat.
Let’s extend this scenario and see what happens when there is a tie in capacity. When the next chat comes in, Kayla and Finn are “tied” at two chats each. Unified routing uses round robin assignment to break the tie. That means that since the last chat was assigned to Kayla, the new chat will be assigned to the next available agent, Finn.
Round robin: Assign the work to the agent who’s next in line
With asynchronous and longer-running conversation types like email, incidents, and tasks, capacity isn’t as important a consideration in assigning agents. In these cases, round robin assignment offers a way to evenly distribute conversations across agents. Round robin assigns a new work item to the next agent in turn. (This feature will be renamed “advanced round robin” in an upcoming release.)
Let’s look at how this plays out. This time Kayla and Finn are tasked with handling cases. By mid-morning, Kayla and Finn have been assigned four cases each. Kayla’s fourth case was assigned before Finn’s. After some time, Finn resolves one of his cases, leaving him with three open cases. A short while later, a new case comes in. Since Finn received a case last, unified routing assigns the next case to Kayla, even though Finn has more capacity available. This ensures that Kayla and Finn can work on a similar number of cases at an even pace.
Most idle: Assign the work to the agent who’s had the longest break
Most idle assignment is a common routing strategy in automatic call distribution systems. This method assigns conversations to agents based on how long ago they ended their last conversation. It gives agents who are working on longer, more complex conversations a chance to take a break and distributes new conversations to other agents. Most idle assignment has the largest impact on agent satisfaction and utilization in the voice channel.
Returning to Kayla and Finn, we find they’re now working in the voice queue. Kayla has a call that comes in at 1:00 PM. Finn takes a call at 1:05 PM. Kayla’s issue is complex and takes her 15 minutes to close. Finn solves his customer’s problem in five minutes. The next call comes in at 1:20 PM. The round robin method would assign the new call to Kayla since it’s her turn and she’s available. But with most idle routing, Finn is assigned the call instead since his last call ended earlier than Kayla’s. In effect, he’s had a longer break.
Custom strategies for complex work assignment requirements
If your call center has more complex work prioritization and agent assignment requirements, custom rules may meet your needs better than the out-of-box rules. Unified routing in Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers an option to create custom work assignment methods when you need to:
Route work items to agents based on specific attributes or related entities
Dynamically match an agent attribute with a conversation attribute
Create fallback conditions to ensure the customer connects with an agent without a long wait (bullseye routing)
Sort or prioritize agents based on attributes like proficiency in a particular skill type, the agent’s name, and so on
A custom assignment method is made up of two parts, a custom prioritization ruleset and a custom assignment ruleset.
Custom prioritization ruleset. By default, unified routing assigns work in first-in, first-out order. This ensures that the customers who have been waiting the longest are connected to an agent first. If you need more prioritization bucketsfor priority customers, SLA expiration, and so onthen you can define a custom prioritization rule with multiple rules for each bucket.
Custom assignment ruleset. You can define assignment rules with custom agent matching and ordering parameters.
Choosing the right work assignment strategy is essential to maintain high agent satisfaction while optimizing agent utilization. Which assignment strategy do you use?
Learn more
To get more information about unified routing and work assignment in Customer Service, check out our recent blog post and read the documentation:
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Today, the technology sector is growing very rapidly across Europe and requires many trained, prepared, and qualified professionals to help large, medium, and small companies meet the new global challenges ahead. A report by the agency DigitalES estimates that there are currently more than 120,000 unfilled jobs in Spain related to software development, communications, security, Cloud, Big Data, AI, and AR/VR.
From the Spanish Microsoft Technical Communities, we have always tried to bring technology to all people. That’s why we’ve designed a new type of event focused on learning with the aim of training professionals who are starting to work with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and who need to get the most out of its services.
In 2021, We Designed Academy365
This new type of event was born last year under the name of Academy365, and it was organized by a few Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and coordinators of MadPoint, the Microsoft 365 Technical Community of Madrid. As the objective of the event was to train the attendees, we organized an agenda of level 100 and 200 sessions, and we got several Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) professionals to help us teach attendees about Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Planner, Power Automate, Intune, Security, and other technologies.
Last year, Academy365 was broadcasted as a virtual experience on Twitch, and it was a success in Spain, with an average of 300 attendees on each training and an extraordinary reception. Attendees finished the event with a diploma that certified they had received quality training from our MCT and MVP people.
Example of one of our sessions during 2021
MadPoint coordinators prepared a professional-quality broadcast of the event, leveraging Microsoft Teams’ NDI capabilities, which allow us to extract video and audio signals from each trainer inside a Teams meeting and take that signal to a professional production environment such as OBS Studio.
Here you can check the recording of last year, in which you can see how Microsoft Teams helped us to have a fantastic production: YouTube – Academy365
In addition, Academy365 is a solidarity event. Last year we collaborated with the Food Bank Foundation of Madrid, which is a non-profit organization that is responsible for helping the neediest families, bringing them food and helping them as much as possible, especially on Christmas dates. All the amounts received by sponsors and individuals were invested in helping many families.
And this year?
This year we want to resume the physical events experience, and we have designed a second hybrid edition. Attendees can join online on Twitch, but they can also come in person to the Global Sports Innovation Center in Madrid. This center is powered by Microsoft, and it is a non-profit association that facilitates synergies and provides its members with value-added services that enable sports entities and companies to grow and develop with the help of experienced professionals in sports tech ecosystem.
In person attendees will be able to receive the training live from our speakers and will have some additional surprises, as we are preparing an innovation tour of the center, a Metaverse Corner and some additional activity thanks to our friends at Microsoft Education.
As for the online experience, we maintain our Twitch broadcast. We will combine live speakers and speakers by Microsoft Teams in a single production.
This year we have a very interesting agenda, where Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Viva will be the main protagonists. In addition, we can learn about security, Mixed Reality, Power Apps, migrations, development, accessibility, and Windows 365.
If you live in Spain and you are interested in our event, we recommend that you visit our website to know all the details and register for the event.
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