Retrieve an agent's address from Amazon Connect when they call 911
To retrieve an agent's validated address from the Amazon Connect, create an outbound whisper flow that calls a Lambda function. Code the Lambda function to retrieve the address from the agent's customer profile, as shown in the following illustration:
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Create an AWS Lambda function that uses the SearchProfiles API to retrieve the physical address for a given agent from Customer Profiles.
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Create an outbound whisper flow that relays this physical address as part of the emergency out dial.
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Add a task that sends notifications when an E911 call is placed.
Create an outbound whisper flow that relays the physical address
For outbound voice calls within Amazon Connect, an outbound whisper flow usually specifies the whisper to be played to customer. However, in this case you need to configure an outbound whisper flow to do the following:
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Inspect the outbound call string from an agent.
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If the string equals 911 (or 933 in a test environment), then retrieve the agent's stored location/physical address from Customer Profiles by using a Lambda function to call the SearchProfiles API .
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Attach the physical address to a contact attribute and proceed with the 911 (or 933) outbound call.
The following illustration shows an example outbound whisper flow. It is configured to inspect the outbound call string from an agent, and retrieve the stored physical address for that agent by using a Lambda function. It includes the following blocks in sequence: Invoke AWS Lambda function, Set contact attributes, and Call phone number.
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Step 1: Call a Lambda function that retrieves the location for an agent (Input parameter = Agent User Name). The following image shows how to configure an Invoke AWS Lambda function block is so the agent username is passed to the Lambda function.
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Step 2: Attach the location received to a contact attribute (see Format a physical address for E911 to pass to Amazon Connect for the required format).
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Step 3: Update the call origination to the agent's phone number and continue with the outbound call.
Note
The origination number is the caller ID that is passed along with the 911 outbound call. If the origination phone number supports inbound calls, emergency responders will be able to call back the agent in case the initial phone call was disconnected.
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The 911 call is specific to United States. As a result, the origination phone number must be a valid US phone number.
For example, when an agent places an outbound call, if an invalid US phone number is passed to the carrier network, the carrier can reject the call. To avoid this situation, if the agent uses an invalid number from Amazon Connect, Amazon Connect defaults to the Caller ID that is assigned to the queue in the agent's routing profile.
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The capability does not place any other rules on this number. For example, the origination number can the phone number of the security front desk.
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Add a task that sends notifications when an E911 call is placed
When an agent calls 911 it is important to notify in real time the appropriate people in your organization, such as corporate security or a human resources administrator, that someone from the contact center has placed an E911 call. To do this, create an Amazon Connect task in the outbound whisper flow. Then add custom notification logic to the task.
The following image shows an example of a Create task block in an outbound whisper flow. It is located after the Set contact attributes block and before the Call phone number block.
The following image shows the Properties page for a Create task block. It is configured to notify corporate security that an agent from the contact center has placed an E911 call.
