2015 Technology Update

Contact Center

• Patterned on the order entry UI changes

from last year

• Embeds customer service UI components

into scripts

• Supports tailored customer service

workflows

• Scripted customer entry

• Integrates with telephony

AdvantageCS 2

Initial Call Center Workflows

• Add new customers and orders

• Change personal and address data

• Review A/R status

• Manage newsletter subscriptions

(list email participation)

• Manage Sweepstakes points

• Review order / shipment status

• Review premium status

(“Where is my gift?”)

• Review issue fulfillment /

add customer service copies

• Retention (“save the cancel”)

AdvantageCS 3

Failover Clustering Support

• Planned / Unplanned failovers

• We have automated the previously manual

steps to restart Advantage services

• Expect

– Users to restart UI sessions

– Processes in error

– Down for a few minutes

• At 2014r1

• Next up? Auto-restart processes

AdvantageCS 4

‘Quantum’ Upgrade Technique

• Pre-upgrade is begun manually n hours

before the upgrade window

• A Sql job is created to incrementally

populate an upgraded table using

configurable ‘bursts’ of activity

• Production operations continue against the

original table

• If a ‘live’ row changes or is deleted, a

trigger deletes its upgraded counterpart

• Some limitations apply, e.g.

– Sufficient disk space

– Unchanging primary key

AdvantageCS 5

Improving the

Order Pipeline

Quicker to start

Quicker completion

Fewer steps

Simpler reports

More robust

No yellow stickies?

AdvantageCS 6

Why have it?

Ledger

Invoicing

Over/under payments

Suspend / restart

Inventory

Royalties

Commissions

Book club status

Data warehouse extracts

Summarizations– Access item performance, write-offs,

deferred income, coupon usage, promo

response, renewal response,

cancellations, etc.

The work Advantage does after

we know an order is complete.

AdvantageCS 7

What is ‘Posting’?

So the user or customer can

move on without waiting.

Posting Changes

First Phase

(mid 2015)

• Amb, Conference, Circ, Pro and Reprint

combine into Mst210

• Improved error handling

• Multiple streams

Second Phase

(2016.0?)

• Most of invoice and payment posting

(Arp210/230)

• Activation strategies

– Real and near-Realtime

– From web

– From UI

– From uploads

– By releasing control groups

AdvantageCS 8

AdvantageCS

Anticipated Questions

• Combined orders?

• Control Groups?

• Jobstreams and business workflow?

• What if an order has picked and non-picked parts?

• What about Reporting?

• What about troubleshooting?

• Performance?

9

Scrum• Teams

• Sprints

• Stand-ups

• Technology

AdvantageCS 10

AdvantageCS 11

2015 Technology Update