CT Center Documentation > Reference Manual Menu
At the heart of the TCS/CT Center interface is a robust interactive real-time exchange of data between the two systems. In order for TCS to take part in this conversation, the Interactive IO program must be running on each TCS logon which is using the dialer.
The Interactive IO program looks to see if there is any work for it to do. Different types of work include, in order of priority:
- See if it is time to stop the program. If so, stop.
- Process requests from the dialer, and send responses back to the dialer.
- Update the TCS database with results from the dialer.
- Send the dialer information about available lists to be dialed.
- Re-initialize the program every 5 minutes to capture any configuration changes which may have been made.
- If there is not any work for the program to do, it goes to sleep for 1/10 of a second, wakes up, and once again tries to find some work to do.
When this program is started, the following message is displayed on the screen:
IAT Interactive processor
started. Use Stop Interactive I/O
option from IAT menu to terminate.
After that, every IO Log line is displayed as it is being written to the log. The IO Log lines are difficult to read because they are in an internal format. Therefore, they are only displayed for troubleshooting purposes and only intended to be read by CCI personnel. If you’d like to examine the IO traffic yourself, please have a look at the IO Log Query Screen which is presented in a more user-friendly format and documented here.
The Interactive IO program is intended to be left running without user inputs. Whenever the dialer is active, this program must also be active, with a single iteration for each logon.
Unfortunately, if run on a terminal screen, this program uses a TCS port. For agencies with a limited number of TCS ports available, it may be desirable to run this program in the background as a phantom process. We can help you to make this happen.
During interactive operations, there is a robust set of messages which pass back and forth between TCS and the CT Center dialer. Here is a list of message types:
From CT Center to TCS:
- Request account to dial, by list. The list could be either a pre-built campaign or a WIP.
- Request account by phone number. Used to identify and route incoming calls.
- Request account by debtor number. Used to identify and route incoming calls.
- Qualify an account to re-dial. Previous efforts to dial were unsuccessful. Is it still OK to dial this account?
- Update account with dialer results.
- Request list count, by list.
From TCS to CT Center:
- Submit account data in response to a “request account” message.
- Notify of end-of-list in response “request account by list” message.
- Accept or reject an account, in response to a “qualify an account message.
- Send list count, notifying dialer how many accounts are left to dial in a list.
Copyright 2012, Cubs Consulting, Inc.