General

Overview

The XPhone Connect Dashboard enables the display of data and the control of company applications that are related to a communication partner. The focus is on the efficient handling of workflows in the company that are related to telecommunications. The data is displayed embedded in the communications application as a so-called dashboard. Example of the display of important company data in the caller popup of the XPhone Connect Client:

Dashboards are created via a visual design tool, the Dashboard Designer. The displayed components are placed in the dashboard using the WYSIWYG principle (What you see, is what you get) via drag & drop.

Commonly used dashboard building blocks

XPhone Connect provides a set of building blocks that can be dragged and dropped into the dashboard using the Dashboard Designer.

• Show address of a contact

• Show address on map

• Show weather in the place of contact

• call or embed any web page

• Show database fields

• various formatting elements (separator, static display texts)

• etc.

Integrate more applications

Many business applications can be integrated via the Dashboard Designer. The prerequisite is that the application is connected via the XPhone Connect Directory as a data source and the application has appropriate interfaces (e.g. to open a contact mask). Examples are already included for a number of application integrations, which can be adapted accordingly by the customer or partner. The dashboard makes it possible to export integration solutions or solution examples created with the designer and thus provide building blocks for a solution library.

Hint

The dashboards provided by C4B are generally configuration examples that are provided free of charge. The dashboards can be adapted or extended by the partner or customer on their own. C4B does not assume any functional guarantee or warranty for these provided example dashboards.

Tip

Your XPhone product support will be happy to inform you about complete solutions or consulting as part of C4B Professional Services.

Licensing

Each user who performs a dashboard call requires an XPhone Connect OFFICE PLUS license.

Knowledge of dashboard administration

The creation and maintenance of dashboards in the enterprise is associated with skills that are usually already available for the operation of enterprise applications. Depending on the enterprise application used and the demand for visualization and integration depth, different skill levels are necessary:

Task	Skill level
Simple dashboards with data display, use of the actions and widgets supplied in the standard (Solutions)	Administrator and power user, database or application administrator
Create custom actions for web applications or scripting for local applications or modify existing ones	In-depth application know-how (CRM, ERP, industry solution), knowledge of “scripting”, knowledge of the interface to the applications
Further formatting of the display	Basic HTML knowledge
Integration of iFrames or custom HTML/JS elements	HTML/JS/Web programming know-how
Calling batch/VB script data	Programming know-how for VB script and batch files incl. script debugging
Custom plugins for application control	Simple C# programming

Quick start

Perform the following steps to be able to use a dashboard: - Create data source

Open the XPhone Connect Directory Administration. Link the desired data source to the XPhone Server here.

• Create dashboard

  Open the Dashboard Designer: create a new dashboard (Menu > Create > New Dashboard) and assign a dashboard name.

• Select data source(s)

  Select for which data source(s) to display the dashboard.

• Set conditions

  Define where (in the client or in the caller toast) and for which client language version the dashboard should be displayed and whether other conditions must be met for the display.

• Design dashboard

  Design your dashboard by dragging and dropping the desired components into the drawing area from Links. Under Content Elements you will find HTML/JS & iFrames as well as Separators and Text. Under Variables you will find database fields and under Actions you will find actions. Under Widgets you will find predefined content fields. Elements you select in the drawing area can be edited in the edit bar on the right.

• Dashboard preview

  Use the preview to check the display of the dashboard in the pseudo-client. Here you can also create preview datasets and test the display with different call, user and contact data. To see how the dashboard responds to client resizing, you can resize the client in the bottom right corner.

• Test dashboard

  To test the dashboard display under real conditions, create a test case (Menu > Test) and run it. The generated search URL is called and the corresponding dashboard is displayed in the pseudo client, taking into account data source and dashboard priority. In order for dashboards to be displayed in the XPhone Client, you must activate this in the Server Administration under User Management > Location > Setting > Connect Client.

Mode of operation and architecture

A dashboard is usually structured according to the following scheme:

• Compressed information on the “company context” of a contact (e.g. display of customer number, service level, etc.).

• Calling a company application (e.g. ERP or CRM system) for the entry into the further workflow.

• A dashboard should be simple in structure, the information must be able to be captured at a glance. More complex views and functions should be handled via an entry point into the enterprise applications (e.g. display of the “list of open items”). The dashboard helps to automatically navigate to the appropriate record in the enterprise application by using the “data context” created during communication (contact record determined from phone number or email address) for control.

Technical process Dashboard call

Calling a dashboard always starts with a contact search, which the client initiates at the dashboard server. Search criteria can be e.g. name, phone number, e-mail address, record ID. The search request is submitted as an HTTP call to the dashboard server. The contact data search is handled by XPhone Connect Directory. Depending on the search criterion, one or more contacts can be returned as search results. The dashboard server determines which dashboard is to be displayed depending on certain conditions (e.g. in which dataset a contact was found). Based on the dashboard configuration (which data should be visible?), the server generates a web page that the client displays.

XPhone Connect Directory and Dashboard Web Server always run together on the XPhone Connect Server machine.

The data context of a dashboard

A central part of the display of a dashboard is its “data context”. This is data that is related to a workflow on a client. Such a workflow can be e.g. (depending on the client used):

• A voice call

• Opening a contact card

• Opening the detail view from the call journal

Different workflows have different types of data context:

Voice call	Contact data of the caller, data of the call (phone number, time)
Contact card	Contact details displayed in the mask
Call journal	Contact data of the caller, data of the call (phone number, time, duration)

In addition, there is always the context of the logged-in user, i.e. the one who performs the editing operation. This results in a total of three components of the data context of a dashboard:

Contact	Data of the contact involved (name, company, etc.)
Call	Data of the call involved (phone number, time, etc.)
User	Data of the currently logged in user (name, department, e-mail, etc.)

Contact and Call data contexts do not need to co-occur in all workflows (there is no call data when opening a contact card), but one of the two contexts is always required for a dashboard to be displayed. The contents of the data contexts are called Data Fields. They are provided via “Variable” in various places in the dashboard designer to control the dashboard display (see Variable names of the data fields).

Data from the context of a dashboard can be brought to the display or used to drive business applications.

Control business applications

Webviews can contain hyperlinks that generate commands from the dashboard data context to control business applications. Both web applications and locally installed applications can be controlled.

What dashboard does the user see?

In a user system, there is usually a need for multiple dashboards that users get to see based on certain criteria. The selection of which dashboard is displayed to a user is determined by the following criteria:

• Data source in which a contact was found

• Dashboard priority

• Display location (caller toast or client)

• Identifier of the user language reported by the client

• Additional conditions (see Customize Dashboard Priority)

Hint

See also View the matching dashboard.

Procedure for planning

Essential in planning a dashboard concept is an analysis of the workflows that occur in connection with telecommunications. The first step is to categorize users of a telecommunications system into roles that the employee occupies in the operation. For example, there may be the sales employee, the technical service employee, or the order processing employee. In each role, the workflows are different and therefore they will need to be covered by different dashboards.

The following list of questions can help to formulate the task:

• Which caller data is essential when contact is established and helps to efficiently initiate further processing steps?

• Which processes are carried out manually all the time today? Which of these processes cost time and where do most errors occur?

• At which points does the transition from communication to an enterprise application take place (e.g. verbal query of the customer number, call-up of the ERP system, manual entry of the customer number in the search mask of the ERP system)?

• Which workflows should take place fully automatically and where should the user have selection options (e.g. automatic opening of Open Items list on call versus Open Items selection menu, call note, order mask, etc.)?

A technical analysis of the affected enterprise applications should have been performed in advance:

• Does the system provide the decisive data in a suitable manner, e.g. contacts and companies from an ERP system? Can this data be integrated via XPhone Directory? The XPhone Directory technical documentation or your XPhone partner will help with this question.

Does the application that can be controlled via the dashboard have a suitable interface? There are already ready-made templates or integration examples for a large number of applications. You can find an up-to-date list in the Dashboard Designer under Solutions.

Connecting company data with the XPhone Connect Directory

Coupling and access security

The prerequisite for the dashboard function is a data connection of the relevant enterprise applications via the XPhone Connect Directory. For scope of services and technical details, please refer to the product documentation of XPhone Connect Directory.

The dashboard web server accesses the XPhone Connect Directory via the AppLink client interface (see the XPhone Connect Directory product documentation for how client interfaces work).

This is important to know so that an authorization concept can be created and access security can be achieved. The authorization concept of the respective company application is not adopted by XPhone Connect Directory. Instead, XPhone Connect provides various mechanisms.

The Dashboard Server is basically not able to use the XPhone Server login. Authentication is therefore either anonymous or integrated Windows logon. Restricting permissions in the XPhone Connect Directory data sources is therefore also limited to Windows users (or AD security groups).

Attention

Only use the AppLink Client Interface used by the system. Do not create a second AppLink Client Interface via the XPhone Connect administration interface. Otherwise, the function of the overall system is no longer given.

Enterprise application data model

In order for the Dashboard Server to process the Contact data context, it must be returned in a single record from the XPhone Connect Directory. In some cases, this does not match the data model of common enterprise data. To adapt the data model to this requirement, a view may need to be created within the enterprise application (if the data is connected via ODBC). Alternatively, the adaptation can be done via a CSV data export/import. The adaptation of the data model via an ODBC view has the decisive advantage that the display data in the dashboards is always up-to-date.

System Updates & Upgrades

When upgrading an XPhone system to version 9, the following things should be noted.

Windows-Client

The dashboard is no longer displayed in Microsoft Internet Explorer Control, but in Microsoft Edge WebView2.

Hint

Please also read the XPhone Connect Client System requirements and Installation instructions.

Dashboard-Designer

Dashboards from previous versions are automatically converted and usually do not need to be manually adjusted. The Client-Tag, which defines for which client type a dashboard is designed, has changed. As of V9, only XPhone Client and XPhone Caller Toast are possible here. Other client types are automatically converted to XPhone Client. If necessary, check the settings for the client types in the Designer under the conditions of a dashboard. Dashboards that had both XPhone-Client and XPhone Caller Toast configured as client in V8 and earlier are automatically duplicated when upgrading to V9 and adjusted to have one dashboard configured for display in client and one dashboard configured for display in caller toast.

Starting the Dashboard Designer

Call the Dashboard Designer from the Web Administration and log in with your administrator ID.

Navigate to System settings > Dashboard and press the Open XPhone connect Dashboard Designer button.

Attention

Designer can be opened in multiple instances (e.g. by multiple users on different workstations). Note that concurrent editing is not possible in the current version of XPhone Server. Therefore, make sure that only one user makes changes to the dashboards at a time.

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