Dynamics 365 Customer Service plus third-party CCaaS provider

In this architecture, a third-party Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) provider supplies the core contact center functionality and all engagement channels. This architecture is intended for contact centers that currently use an existing third-party solution. It also applies to customers that consider solutions that integrate with Microsoft products such as Dynamics 365 and Teams. There is a unified experience in Dynamics 365 Customer Service for agents that integrates the third-party CCaaS provider's functionality using the Channel Integration Framework. Supervisors use Dynamics 365 Customer Service and supervisor functions provided by the third-party CCaaS provider. Other employees can be engaged in Microsoft Teams through Microsoft's Context IQ approach, and through features provided by the third-party CCaaS provider.

Potential use cases include the following examples:

• Customers with existing CCaaS solutions seeking to integrate more deeply with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams

• Retailers providing online sales and support

• Healthcare providers offering support for patient questions

• Financial Services companies providing help and advice for banking, investments, mortgages, and so on

• Internally facing help desks for employees

Architecture

The following diagram illustrates the architecture. Choose the magnifier icon for a more detailed view.

Dataflow

1. Customers engage through the channel of their choice. Support for Microsoft Teams as a channel for internally facing contact centers, such as employee help desks, depends on the third-party CCaaS provider's capabilities.

2. The third-party CCaaS provider's self-service automation features handle customer engagements from any/all channels they support.

3. The Channel Integration Framework, provided by Microsoft, enables third-party CCaaS providers to integrate into Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

4. Agents use the customer service workspace within Dynamics 365 Customer Service and tools provided by the third-party CCaaS provider.

5. Both the agent experience and the supervisor experience are built upon and integrated with the Power Platform. Dataverse stores all core data and events to for the customer data platform. However, other data is likely to reside in other data stores used by the third-party CCaaS provider.

6. Supervisors interact with the built-in capabilities of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, including insights, forecasting, and scheduling. Other supervisor and admin tools provided by the third-party CCaaS provider will also be used.

7. Using Context IQ, Teams collaboration is enabled between Dynamics users and Teams users, including the ability to collaborate one-on-one or through swarms. Other features provided by the third-party CCaaS provider may also be used to integrate with Microsoft Teams.

Components

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service documentation

  • Overview of collaboration in Dynamics 365 Customer Service

  • Enable voice consult with Microsoft Teams user for the voice channel

  • Overview of unified routing

  • Overview of the Customer Service workspace application for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

  • Customer Service Insights

  • Forecast agent, case, and conversation volumes in Customer Service

  • Overview of the Scheduling Service

• Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework guide

• Microsoft Power Platform documentation

• What is Microsoft Dataverse?

• Meet Context IQ—A new way to collaborate in a hyperconnected business - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog

• Teams Contact Center

Related resources

• Digital Contact Center Platform guidance overview

Assumptions

In all Digital Contact Center Platform architectures, wherever possible, we assume that all or most solution components use the core capabilities of Microsoft Azure, including, but not limited to, compute, storage, identity, security, management, and compliance.