What is it?


The Scalable Communications Framework offers our customers 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 Libraries - Control library and category exposure while editing content

    • Integrations -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 Chatbot knowledge base content for multiple chatbots in one centralized location.

    • Content Locking - Lock chatbot knowledge base content so standard users cannot edit content

    • Multibot Live Chat Conversation Management - Live Chat agents can operate in the parent chatbot and manage conversations originating from child chatbots and the parent chatbot

    • Clarifying Questions - Create custom questions to clarify an answer where there might be overlapping content that has multiple possible answers 

  • Insight 

    • Multibot/By Office Analytics - Provides a consolidated view of platform analytics for multiple offices and platforms with the ability to filter data

    • Multibot/By Office Transcripts - Provides a consolidated view of AI chatbot, live chat, and text conversations with the ability to filter and export transcripts for multiple offices and platforms

    • Multibot/By Office Interactions - Provides a consolidated view for reviewing individual messages with your chatbots to identify areas for improvement with the ability to filter for multiple offices and chatbots.


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, better meeting 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 libraries
  • Integrations
  • Content locking
  • Clarifying questions

One platform, multiple offices
  • Roles
  • Permissions
  • Platform configuration
  • Staging libraries
  • Integrations
  • Content locking
  • Clarifying questions
  • By office analytics
  • By office transcripts
  • By office interactions
Multiple platforms, one office
  • Roles
  • Permissions
  • Platform configuration
  • Staging libraries
  • Integrations
  • Content sharing
  • Content locking
  • Live chat conversation management
  • Clarifying questions
  • Multibot analytics
  • Multibot transcripts
  • Multibot interactions
Multiple platforms, multiple offices
  • Roles
  • Permissions
  • Platform configuration
  • Staging libraries
  • Integrations
  • Content sharing
  • Content locking
  • Live chat conversation management
  • Clarifying questions
  • Multibot and by-office analytics
  • Multibot and by-office transcripts
  • Multibot 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.


Client Requests

Key Feature(s)

Key Benefit(s)

Clients 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 library access by user and dictate who can see and control specific features within the admin portal for chatbot, live chat, and texting.

Clients want to know that nobody else can change their content

Roles & Permissions 

Content Locking 

The ability to assign office and library access by users removes the worry about other offices impacting their content.
 
Content locking allows chatbot admins to lock chatbot knowledge base content so that standard users cannot edit it. However, standard users still retain the ability to edit unlocked content. This gives chatbot admins more control of their content and provides a solution to ensure accurate and consistent messaging within a chatbot.

Clients want varying levels of permissions within their office to align with the roles their staff play

Roles & Permissions



Because clients 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 chatbot independent of and separate from settings for any other office within a single chatbot

Chatbot Settings and “By Office” Features:

Behavior Settings

Look & Feel Settings



Clients can now configure several chatbot 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 Chat First
  • IDK Behavior by Office
  • Custom Welcome Message
  • Launcher Settings by Office

Ability to set and adjust settings from within the admin portal, aka “self- service”

Chatbot 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 client’s website these settings/behavior present

Chatbot 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 IDK and Welcome MessagesLive Chat First, and Launcher settings, and office-level reporting, which includes analytics and transcripts.

Ability to share content from a parent chatbot to a child chatbot

Content Sharing



It allows administrators to manage knowledge base content for multiple bots in one centralized location. This prevents the need to create and edit chatbot content in each chatbot. Administrators operating in a parent bot can configure knowledge base content to be shared, which pushes that content to the children bots. The content is then added to each child bot’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 bot to participate in live chat conversations originating from other bots  

Live Chat Conversation Management 

This allows live chat agents to operate in a parent bot and manage conversations originating from child bots. 

Clients want the ability to provide multiple responses to the same question based on items such as population, program, and campus.


Example: A chatbot 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, clients can create and attach one or multiple clarifying questions to a question in the chatbot. This provides specific responses based on customizable items such as population, programs, and campus.    

Clients want to see or know about conversations happening around topics that are relevant only to their office.

Analytics By Transcript/Office 


Clients can filter transcripts based on where the chatbot user engages with the bot. In most cases, we can equate where a chatbot 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.


Clients want data to show ROI for their specific office

Analytics By Transcript/Office 

Clients can review dashboard analytics based on where the chatbot user engages with the bot. In most cases, we can equate where a chatbot 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.

Clients expanding chatbot support by adding new libraries want a way to edit and create new content for the new library without it being live in the chatbot

Staging Libraries 



Clients can add libraries to the chatbot setup that only exposes the library content within the Client’s admin portal. This will allow them to make the content for their library live in the chatbot when they are ready.