How To Use Contact Controls

Collect! Credit and Collection Software™

How To Use Contact Controls

Contact Controls allow you to implement rules to prevent over-contacting an account. You can create controls for Calling, Texting, Emailing, and Lettering. You can set generic controls for all regions, and then you can, optionally, set controls based on the State or Country fields.

Contact Controls apply to Debtors and Debtor Cosigners.

Contact Control Form

Click Here to View this Form.

Click Here to Close this Form.

The Contact Control window is used to setup rules for contact management. You can specify calling, texting, printing, and emailing rules to control how often those contact types can occur.

Contact Control - Phone

Type

The type of Contact that this control applies to. The options are Letter, Phone, Email, and Text.

Description

This is a user-defined field for giving the control a description.

State

The State that the control applies to. You must use the same values that you put into the Debtor or Cosigner state.

Leave this field blank if you want this control to apply to all States.

Useful Note If you use a picklist, you can put the same picklist on this field.

Useful Note If you have controls that are national and some parts that are State specific, you can create a control for each State with only the information that applies to that state, with the exception of MAX TOTAL CONTACTS as that is a required field and must be filled in on all Contact Controls.

Country

The Country that the control applies to. You must use the same values that you put into the Debtor or Cosigner country.

Leave this field blank if you want this control to apply to all Countries.

Useful Note If you use a picklist, you can put the same picklist on this field.

Max Total Contacts

This is the maximum number of contacts that can appear in the period before the User receives notifications about too many Contacts.

Period

The period that this control applies to. The options are Week or Month.

Apply To Group

When checked, this control will factor in all Contacts on the Debtor's group when calculating the total Contacts; otherwise, only the current record is considered.

Useful Note With Cosigners, this option will try to match Cosigners on other group members by SSN, Phones, or Emails.

Fields Only Visible With Type Phone

Hold For

If you have calling restrictions that require you to hold off calling a Debtor or Cosigner after you have made a Right Party Contact, then enter here the number of days that you must wait before you can call them again.

Call Attempt

This is a comma separate list of Call Results that you consider to be Attempts.

Useful Note The default list is below for the Call Result field on the Contact record. If you have a custom picklist on the Call Result field, you will need to refer to your picklist for the values to enter in this field. The values you are looking for are stored in the Key field of the Pick List Entries. Please refer to the Help document How To Use Pick Lists for more information.

Call RPC

This is a comma separate list of Call Results that you consider to be Right Party Contacts.

Default Call Results On Contact Form

0 : None specified
1 : Left Message on Machine
2 : Left message with person
3 : Debtor not in - call back. No message.
4 : Spoke to debtor. Verified right party.
5 : Wrong number / debtor unknown.
6 : NIS
101: Manual dial: right party contact
102: Manual dial: pick up, hung up
103: Manual dial: debtor in, unavailable
104: Manual dial: debtor not in, call back
105: Manual dial: machine answer, left msg
106: Manual dial: machine answer, no message
107: Manual dial: left message with person
108: Manual dial: no answer
109: Manual dial: busy
110: Manual dial: call did not go through
111: Manual dial: wrong number/debtor unknown
112: Manual dial: not in service
113: Dialer: transfer to operator
114: Dialer: unknown call result
115: Dialer: transfer-operator, wrong number
116: Dialer: answered, hung up
117: Dialer: answered, system terminated
118: Dialer: answered, voice mail
119: Dialer: no answer
120: Dialer: busy, no machine
121: Dialer: machine, delivered
122: Dialer: machine, not delivered
123: Dialer: fax machine detected
124: Dialer: cancelled, incomplete number
125: Dialer: cancelled, compliance reasons
126: Dialer: cancelled, do not call
127: Dialer: call failed, technical reasons
128: Dialer: cancelled broadcast or blank num

Call From

The earliest time you can make a call, based on the Debtor's or Cosigner's time zone.

Useful Note For roaming phone numbers, Collect! will use the Time Zone of the consumer record that was opened or initiated the call (Debtor, Cosigner, or Phone), then check against the time zone on the Address record that matches the active address and determine the highest and lowest possible time for the consumer.

Call To

The latest time you can make a call, based on the Debtor's or Cosigner's time zone.

Fields Only Visible With Type Letter, Text, Or Email

Contact Control - Letter, Text, and Email

Validation Report

If you have specified a Validation Report here or in a Company Details record, then when a letter is sent to a Debtor (Contact marked done via print, email, or text), Collect! will update the Validation Date on the Debtor form with the send date plus the number of business and calendar days specified below or the Contact Control record.

Useful Note Example, if you specify Letter 1 for the Validation Report, 5 business days, and 30 calendar days, then when Letter 1 is printed, Collect! will take the current date, add 5 days (excluding Saturday, Sunday, and holidays), then add 30 days (including weekends and holidays).

Useful Note Collect! will use a near match on the name in order to accommodate cosigner and language variants of the notice. Please refer to the Help topic How To Send The Validation Notice for more information.

Validation Business Days

The number of business days (excluding Saturday, Sunday, and holidays) to use when calculating the Validation End date.

Validation Calendar Days

The number of calendar days (including weekends and holidays) to use when calculating the Validation End date.

Fields Only Visible With Type Text

SMS Reauth

The number of days where a texting number will expire. The last re-authorization date for texting numbers is stored on the phone record. When that date goes beyond the number of days in this field, users will be notified that the the number needs to be re-authorized.

Create A Contact Control

Contact Control - Phone

Navigate to System -> Contact Management Settings -> Contact Controls.
Click NEW.
Select the Contact Type that the control will apply to.
Optional: fill in a Description. This is useful if you have multiple rules for the same type.
Optional: fill in the State. A Blank state will assume the rule applies to all states.
Optional: fill in the Country. A Blank country will assume the rule applies to all countries.
Fill in the Maximum Number of Times an account can be contacted by this type.
Select the Period that the maximum applies to.
Check the Apply to Group box, if this control should factor in all group members.

Useful Note For Cosigners, Collect! will check for Cosigners within the Debtor Group that either match on SSN or match on Phone or Email.

Phone Type

Fill in the Legal Calling Times, if applicable.
Fill in the Hold for, if applicable.

Useful Note For calling, this refers to Right Party Contact. If you make contact with the Debtor or Cosigner, and this field is populated, then the control will warn you if you try to make another call with the number of days specified. For example, if you enter 7, then when you make an RPC, then you will warnings until after 7 days have passed to prevent calling too early.

Fill in the Call Attempt Types and the Call RPC Types.

Useful Note These are a comma-separated list of the numeric pick list values on the Call Result field.

Default Call Results On Contact Form

0  : None specified
1  : Left Message on Machine
2  : Left message with person
3  : Debtor not in - call back. No message.
4  : Spoke to debtor. Verified right party.
5  : Wrong number / debtor unknown.
6  : NIS
101: Manual dial: right party contact
102: Manual dial: pick up, hung up
103: Manual dial: debtor in, unavailable
104: Manual dial: debtor not in, call back
105: Manual dial: machine answer, left msg
106: Manual dial: machine answer, no message
107: Manual dial: left message with person
108: Manual dial: no answer
109: Manual dial: busy
110: Manual dial: call did not go through
111: Manual dial: wrong number/debtor unknown
112: Manual dial: not in service
113: Dialer: transfer to operator
114: Dialer: unknown call result
115: Dialer: transfer-operator, wrong number
116: Dialer: answered, hung up
117: Dialer: answered, system terminated
118: Dialer: answered, voice mail
119: Dialer: no answer
120: Dialer: busy, no machine
121: Dialer: machine, delivered
122: Dialer: machine, not delivered
123: Dialer: fax machine detected
124: Dialer: cancelled, incomplete number
125: Dialer: cancelled, compliance reasons
126: Dialer: cancelled, do not call
127: Dialer: call failed, technical reasons
128: Dialer: cancelled broadcast or blank num

All Other Contact Types Types

If applicable, fill in the Model Validation fields.

Warning Note WARNING: These are an override of the Company Detail form. You would only fill in here if you have different requirements on a state by-state-basis.

For texting, if applicable, fill in the SMS Reauth field. This links to a report writer command that you can put in a report to tell you when Texting numbers are coming due for renewal. This is useful if your region requires you to check that SMS numbers are still valid and not reassigned.

Using Contact Controls

After controls are created, Collect! will have some functionality based on the control's contact type.

Calling

When you open a Debtor or Cosigner:

If the account is not in violation of a control, then the number of attempts and number of RPCs will populate with the applicable counts, based on the Call Result types specified above.
If the account is about to be in violation, the number of attempts and number of RPC fields will change to the warning color.
If the account is in violation of a control, then the operator will receive a popup warning to let them know that the account is out of compliance. A note line is also written to the account stating that the operator was notified. This is for auditing purposes.

Useful Note If you have Operators who should not receive the compliance warnings, then you can go to their operator profile and on the Operator Detail tab, select the applicable Exclude Contact Control boxes.

If the account is in violation of a control, and you try to use the Autodialer module to do a Click to Dial, then you will receive a Yes/No prompt asking if you want to proceed with the call.
If the account has explicitly requested a call back, then you can open the applicable phone record and Click the RPC Override button. This will prompt you for the call back date. Once done, Collect! will create a Phone contact on the account with a flag that will disable the contact controls until the call is made.

Lettering And Emailing

When batch letters are being printed or emailed, any accounts that are out of compliance will automatically be skipped.

Manually printed/emailed letters will give the user a popup message indicating that the letter is being skipped due to compliance.

Texting

At present, all texting from Collect! is done via 3rd Party tools and Collect! reports. To enable contact control checking for SMS, we recommend adding @CCTEXTOK to your reports. See below for more information.

Contact Controls In The Report Writer

Several Report Writer commands exist for compliance checking that needs to be done in processes that are outside the Collect! programming. For example: texting, dialer lists to external dialers, custom letter service exports.

Below is a list of the commands and a description for each of them. For syntax and implementation, please refer to the Help topic How To Use The Report Writer Commands for more Information.

@CCCALLOK enables you to populate a variable with either a 0 (FALSE) or 1 (TRUE) on whether or not the record passed in can be called.

@CCTEXTOK enables you to populate a variable with either a 0 (FALSE) or 1 (TRUE) on whether or not the record passed in can be texted.

@CCLETTEROK enables you to populate a variable with either a 0 (FALSE) or 1 (TRUE) on whether or not the record passed in can be lettered.

@CCEMAILOK enables you to populate a variable with either a 0 (FALSE) or 1 (TRUE) on whether or not the record passed in can be emailed.

@CCSMS enables you to populate a variable with either a 0 (FALSE) or 1 (TRUE) on whether or not the record passed in is compliant with the SMS Reauth value on the Contact Control record as of the Date that was passed in. This function is not to determine if an account can be Texted, rather it is to determine if the phone number was Authorized for texting at that point.

@CCTZCALL enables you to populate a variable with either a 0 (FALSE) or 1 (TRUE) on whether or not the record that is active is within the Legal Calling Times.

Useful Note This command is requires the Debtor or Cosigner to be Active, so it cannot be used with SQL unless the result loop as a @de or @dc loop embedded in it. This command is useful for Control Files where you want to add extra proceses than the prompt and note line that is built-in to Collect!.

@CCVALDATE enables you to populate a variable with the date of the end of the Validation Period. This command is used in the stock Model Validation notice.

@CCATTEMPTS enables you to populate a variable with the number of attempts if the as of the date that is passed in.

@CCRPCS enables you to populate a variable with the number of RPCs if the as of the date that is passed in.

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