Scalable Communications Framework Overview

Modified on Wed, 25 Sep at 3:02 PM

Scalable Communications Framework Overview

What is it?

The Scalable Communications Framework offers our partners advanced administrative tools and functionality for institutions with one communications platform or multiple platforms spanning multiple departments, schools, or campuses. This framework also supports institutions that simply want more management and insight.

Scalable Communications Framework offers clients:

Advanced Administrative Tools
- Roles - Assign roles to determine the level of permissions for your users
- Permissions - Configure and customize permissions based on the user’s platform and office associations
- Platform Configuration - Configure platform settings such as behaviors and look and feel on a per-office/department basis
- Staging Departmental Learning Models - Control library and category exposure while editing content
- Connectors -integrate with your SIS, CRM, and other third-party software to share data and provide students, staff, alums, and others with personalized answers.
Management
- Content Sharing - Manage and share Ocelot AI virtual assistant knowledge base content for multiple in one centralized location.
- Content Locking - Lock virtual assistant knowledge base content so standard users cannot edit content
- Multi-Virtual Assistant Live Assistant Conversation Management - Live agents can operate in the parent virtual assistant and manage conversations originating from child virtual assistants and the parent virtual assistant
- Clarifying Questions - Create custom questions to clarify an answer where there might be overlapping content that has multiple possible answers
Insight
- Multi-Virtual Assistant By Office Analytics - Provides a consolidated view of platform analytics for multiple offices and platforms with the ability to filter data
- Multi-Virtual Assistant By Office Transcripts - Provides a consolidated view of AI virtual assistant, live assistant, and two-way messaging conversations with the ability to filter and export transcripts for multiple offices and platforms
- Multi-Virtual Assistant By Office Interactions - Provides a consolidated view for reviewing individual messages within virtual assistants to identify areas for improvement with the ability to filter for multiple offices and virtual assistants.

Who does this benefit?

The benefit of the framework is that it is flexible and promotes scalability, meaning these tools make it easier to expand the use of the Ocelot platform across the institution to better meet everyone’s needs. Each functional area can select the tools and features that will benefit them. The chart below identifies four common platform structures and use cases for each structure option.

Platform Structure	Use Case Examples
One Platform, One Office	Financial Aid Office at a four-year university Admissions Office at a junior college
One Platform, Multiple Offices	A four-year university on a single platform supporting Financial Aid, Registrar, Admissions, and Advising offices A two-year school on a single platform supporting all offices
Multiple Platforms, One Office	One functional area, like Financial Aid, needs 11 separate platforms for the individual colleges within the university. This is likely due to significant policy variations based on a program or a college. One functional area, like IT, needs two different platforms based on population or segmentation. This is likely due to significant differences in context, such as employee versus student.
Multiple Platforms, Multiple Offices	There are multiple functional areas, such as Financial Aid, Admissions, and Registrar. They are typically grouped by location, such as campuses or colleges, delivery model, online vs. in-person, or programs or schools like the School of Nursing. Each group needs its own platform.

Which Scalable Communications Framework features apply to each platform structure?

There are many features as part of the Scalable Communications Framework. Not all features will be relevant to all clients. The below chart outlines which features can be leveraged by each of the four different platform structures.

One platform, one office Roles Permissions Platform configuration Staging departmental learning models Connectors Content locking Clarifying questions	One platform, multiple offices Roles Permissions Platform configuration Staging departmental learning models Connectors Content locking Clarifying questions By office analytics By office transcripts By office interactions
Multiple platforms, one office Roles Permissions Platform configuration Staging departmental learning models Connectors Content sharing Content locking Live assistant conversation management Clarifying questions Multi-Virtual Assistant analytics Multi-Virtual Assistant transcripts Multi-Virtual Assistant interactions	Multiple platforms, multiple offices Roles Permissions Platform configuration Staging departmental learning models Connectors Content sharing Content locking Live assistant conversation management Clarifying questions Multi-Virtual Assistant and by-office analytics Multi-Virtual Assistant and by-office transcripts Multi-Virtual Assistant and by-office interactions

Customer problems, key features, & benefits

Each of these features solves different specific customer problems. Here is a breakdown of each problem, which features solve these issues, and the benefits of each.

Partner Requests	Key Feature(s)	Key Benefit(s)
Partners want to be able to see only the content and data that is relevant to them	Roles & Permissions	Admin users have the flexibility to assign roles, offices, and departmental learning model access by user and dictate who can see and control specific features within the admin portal for virtual assistant, live assistant, and two-way messaging
Partners want to know that nobody else can change their content	Roles & Permissions Content Locking	The ability to assign office and departmental learning model access by users removes the worry about other offices impacting their content. Content locking allows virtual assistant admins to lock knowledge base content so that standard users cannot edit it. However, standard users still retain the ability to edit unlocked content. This gives virtual assistant admins more control of their content and provides a solution to ensure accurate and consistent messaging within a virtual assistant
Partners want varying levels of permissions within their office to align with the roles their staff play	Roles & Permissions	Because partners now have the flexibility to assign granular roles within a specific office, they can work more efficiently and effectively within the offices.
Ability to customize settings for a virtual assistant independent of and separate from settings for any other office within a single virtual assistant	Virtual Assistant Settings and “By Office” Features: Behavior Settings Look & Feel Settings	Partners can now configure several virtual assistant settings, such as behaviors and look and feel components, on a per-office basis to accommodate individual office needs and preferences. For example, these are some of the settings that can be adjusted: Live Assistant First Communication Opportunities Behavior by Office Custom Welcome Message Launcher Settings by Office
Ability to set and adjust settings from within the admin portal, aka “self- service”	Virtual Assistant Settings and “By Office” Features: Behavior Settings Look & Feel Settings	The Behavior and Look and Feel pages host several options that the admin users can configure.
Ability to control where on a partner’s website these settings/behavior present	Virtual Assistant Settings and “By Office” Features: Behavior Settings Look & Feel Settings	URL Matching is the vehicle that will deliver all of the office-specific features, such as custom Communication Opportunities and Welcome Messages, Live Assistant First, and Launcher settings, and office-level reporting, which includes analytics and transcripts.
Ability to share content from a parent virtual assistant to a child virtual assistant	Content Sharing	It allows administrators to manage knowledge base content for multiple virtual assistants in one centralized location. This prevents the need to create and edit virtual assistant content in each virtual assistant. Administrators operating in a parent assistant can configure knowledge base content to be shared, which pushes that content to the children assistants. The content is then added to each child assistant’s knowledge base. In this first version of content sharing, all shared content is locked, and children cannot edit this content.
Allow a user from one virtual assistant to participate in live assistant conversations originating from other virtual assistant	Live Assistant Conversation Management	This allows live agents to operate in a parent virtual assistant and manage conversations originating from child virtual assistant
Partners want the ability to provide multiple responses to the same question based on items such as population, program, and campus. Example: A virtual assistant user might ask, “How do I apply?” This is a vague question. They can refer to different things, such as colleges, financial aid, and housing.	Clarifying Questions	When released, partners can create and attach one or multiple clarifying questions to a question in the virtual assistant. This provides specific responses based on customizable items such as population, programs, and campus.
Partners want to see or know about conversations happening around topics that are relevant only to their office.	Analytics By Transcript/Office	Partners can filter transcripts based on where the virtual assistant user engages with the virtual assistant. In most cases, we can equate where a user is on the website with the context of their questions. This will give individual offices a better idea of whether or not their content is meeting the needs of their users. URL matching is utilized to achieve this goal.
Partners want data to show ROI for their specific office	Analytics By Transcript/Office	Partners can review dashboard analytics based on where the virtual assistant user engages with the virtual assistant. In most cases, we can equate where a virtual assistant user is on the website with the context of their questions. This will give individual offices a better idea of whether or not their content is meeting the needs of their users. URL matching is utilized to achieve this goal.
Partners expanding virtual assistant support by adding new departmental learning models want a way to edit and create new content for the new departmental learning model without it being live in the virtual assistant	Staging Departmental Learning Models	Partners can add departmental learning models to the virtual assistant setup that only exposes the content within the Partner's admin portal. This will allow them to make the content for their departmental learning model live in the virtual assistant when they are ready.