Host multiple participants on an ongoing customer service call in the Contact Control Panel (CCP)

You can add up to four additional participants to an ongoing customer service call, for a total of six participants: you, the caller, and four other people. You can use quick connects or your number pad to add participants.

For example, to help close a mortgage transaction, an agent at a financial services company can add a mortgage broker, the customer's spouse, a translator, and a supervisor to the call to help resolve any issues quickly.

For information about how multi-party calls differ from the default three-party calls, see Comparison: Three-party and multi-party calls.

Prerequisites

• This feature is only available in CCPv2 and custom CCP using Amazon Connect Streams.js.

  • IT administrators:

    • Before enabling the multi-party calls feature, if you are using Contact Lens or planning to do so in the future, see Multi-party calls and conversational analytics. Contact Lens supports calls with up to 2 participants. We recommend that you disable Contact Lens in the Set recording and analytics behavior block for contacts that are expected to have 3 and more participants.

    • By default, calls can have three participants, such as two agents and a caller, or an agent, a caller, and an external party. Before enabling multi-party calling, see Comparison: Three-party and multi-party calls. To enable agents to connect up to six parties on a call, see Update telephony options.

  • Developers: In custom CCPs, use the updated Amazon Connect Streams API to enable multi-party calling, up to six parties. See the Amazon Connect Streams documentation on GitHub. Before enabling multi-party calling, see Comparison: Three-party and multi-party calls.

• AWS GovCloud (US-West): You can't enable this feature using the console user interface. Instead, use the UpdateInstanceAttribute API or contact AWS Support.

Important things to know

• If the primary agent leaves the call, you must have at least three participants on the call in order to add more participants.

• When you have multiple agents on the call, such as three agents and a caller, all agents on the call can view all parties and have the option to put any participant or another agent on hold, mute, and disconnect participants from the call.

  

• Every time you add a new participant to the call, you are prompted to greet and talk to them before adding them to the call. Choose Join to take all parties off hold.

  

Telephony: Multi-party calls

You can enable Amazon Connect to allow up to six parties on a call: the agent, the caller, and four more participants. By default, Amazon Connect allows agents to have up to three parties on a call: the agent, and caller, and another participant. For more information, see Update instance settings.

For information about new functionality in the existing Connection and Contact API in Amazon Connect Streams, see the Amazon Connect Streams Readme.

The following sections describe how managing multi-party calls differs from managing three-party calls.

New behavior with multi-party calls

• All agents see all of the connections in a call.

• All agents have exactly the same capabilities as any other agent on the call. This takes into affect the moment an agent accepts the invitation to join the call.

• Before a warm transfer is complete, an agent can start talking to the caller as well as disconnect any other agent on the call.

Note

When calls have three or more participants, agents can add participants to the call even after a caller drops.

The following example illustrates how previous and next contact IDs are mapped when an agent performs series of consults followed by a transfer.

The following example illustrates how previous and next contact IDs are mapped in a scenario where agents perform a series of transfers.

Comparison: Three-party and multi-party calls

The following table summarizes the differences between the agent's experience using the Contact Control Panel (CCP) for three-party calls and multi-party calls.

• Primary agent: the first agent on the call.

• Secondary agent: any agent other than the primary agent.

Three-party calls	Multi-party calls
Agent can control hold, resume, and disconnect only the parties they add.	All agents are have the same call control capabilities.
Agent can add one other participant to an existing call, for a total of three participants (the agent, the caller, and another participant).	Any agent on the call can add additional participants, as long as the total number of participants on the call, including themselves, does not exceed six. Note When calls have three or more participants, agents can add participants to the call even after a caller drops.
Agent can put only the party they added on hold.	Any agent on the call can put any party on hold.
When a primary agent places a secondary agent on hold, the secondary agent can't take themselves off hold.	Any agent on the call can take themselves off hold.
Secondary agent can talk to the primary agent during hold.	Secondary agents cannot talk to each other until they are taken off hold.
Primary agent can only mute themselves. Secondary agent can only mute themselves.	Any agent on the call can mute any other participant on the call.
An agent can only unmute themselves, not another agent.	An agent can only unmute themselves, not another agent.
When an agent disconnects (leaves or is disconnected), call control continues to be available to the remaining agent(s) on the call.	When an agent disconnects, control of the call is transferred to the remaining agents.
Only the primary agent can disconnect a party on the call. The secondary agent can disconnect the caller only if the primary agent has disconnected.	All agents have the capability to disconnect any other party.
The primary agent can see two connections (caller and another party), while a secondary agent sees only the transfer connection.	All agents can see all connections.
An agent only sees internal transfer for another agent on the call.	An agent sees the quick connect ID for other agents, instead of just internal transfer.
Not applicable.	When an party is being dialed, an agent on a multi-party call cannot add another party until the prior dial operation is completed (party added or call leg terminated).

How to add participants to a multi-party call

The following image shows the contact and you (the agent) on a call. The customer always appears at the top.

To add participants

1. While you're connected to the caller, choose Quick connects to add another agent or the Number pad to make an external call. The caller is put on hold while you do this.

   When you add the third participant to the call, you can greet and talk to them before adding them to the call. For example, you can tell explain why you're adding them to the call.

   The following image shows the CCP after you add a third participant to the call. The contact is on hold, and you're talking to the third party.

   

2. Choose Join to take all parties off hold.

   –OR–

   Choose Swap to toggle between the parties on hold and the party you just called.

   Note

   Swap is only available for three-party calls, such as you, the caller, and another agent or external party. It is not available when you have more than three parties on the call.

How to manage participants

Every agent on a call can mute, hold, or disconnect individual participants.

You can transfer a multi-party call to another agent, or disconnect yourself from the ongoing call.

To transfer or disconnect

• Choose the More button to open the number pad and to create a task:

  

When do multi-party calls end?

A multi-party call stays up as long as the caller or the agent is on the call. For example, add an external party to a call and then you disconnect. The caller and external party continue the call.

If only third-parties are left on the line, the contact is terminated. However, as the agent you can choose to disconnect and allow only the caller and the third-party participants to remain on the call.