Guidance for Deploying Amazon Connect with Infrastructure as Code on AWS

Table of Contents

1. Overview
   • Cost
2. Prerequisites
3. Solution Overview and Architecture
4. Deployment Steps
5. Deployment Validation
6. Running the Guidance
7. Next Steps
8. Cleanup

Overview

This Guidance shows you how to deploy and manage Amazon Connect using Infrastructure as Code on AWS, enabling rapid contact center setup and optimization. The solution uses AWS CloudFormation templates to automate the provisioning of Amazon Connect instances, along with integrated AWS services for a complete contact center solution. By implementing this Infrastructure as Code approach, you gain consistent, repeatable deployments while reducing manual configuration errors and streamlining your operational processes.

This Guidance is designed to be adaptable, allowing you to customize the deployment to meet your specific business requirements while maintaining operational excellence. This solution provides a foundation for delivering exceptional customer experiences at scale.

Cost

You are responsible for the cost of the AWS services used while running this Guidance. The cost for running this Guidance with the default settings in the US East (N. Virginia) is approximately $47.27 per month for 1000 mins of inbound calls per month, with all calls analyzed by Contact Lens and getting recorded.

The following table provides a sample cost breakdown for deploying this Guidance with the default parameters in the US East (N. Virginia) Region for one month.

AWS service	Dimensions	Cost [USD]
Amazon Connect Voice Inbound	1000 minutes	18
Amazon Connect Voice Inbound (Telephony)	1000 minutes	12
Amazon Connect Voice Inbound (Number)	1 toll-free number	1.83
Amazon Connect Contact Lens (Conversational Analytics)	1000 minutes	15
Amazon Connect Contact Lens (Conversational Analytics)	1000 minutes	15
Call Recordings (S3 Standard Storage)	1000 minutes	0.04
AWS Secrets Manager	1 Secret	0.40

Prerequisites

For this guidance, it is assumed you have the following prerequisites:

1. An AWS account with administrator access to following services - Amazon Connect, AWS Lambda, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS AWS CloudFormation, Amazon S3.

Solution overview and architecture

Figure 1: Solution architecture

1. Customer calls the Amazon Connect contact center phone number
2. Agent gets the call on the Agent workspace and answers the call
3. The call recordings get stored in Amazon S3 bucket
4. For management, the performance logs are saved in Amazon CloudWatch and audit logs are saved in AWS CloudTrail
5. S3 bucket data is encrypted using AWS KMS Key

The above solution deploys the required resources and follow the pattern:

1. Amazon Connect Instance
2. User stored in Amazon Connect
3. Secrets manager to store user password
4. Unique instance alias with Amazon Connect Agent Workspace URL
5. Toll free number
6. Amazon Connect Contact Flow
7. Amazon S3 bucket for Connect call recordings.
8. KMS keys for Connect data

Deployment Steps

1. Download the amazonconnect.yaml file from the deployment folder in the repository. After downloading, access your AWS console and navigate to CloudFormation. Click on Create stack, keeping the default selection for Prepare template. For the Specify template section, select Upload a template file and upload the YAML file you just downloaded to your local machine. Once the file is uploaded, click on Next.
2. Provide the required parameters:
   • Stack name

3. Proceed with the stack creation steps.

Note: It will take few minutes for the stack to complete the deployment.

Deployment Validation

1. Open CloudFormation console and verify the status of the template with the stack name created in deployment steps

Running the Guidance

1. Once the stack is deployed, get the Password from Secrets manager for AdminUsername and in the cloudformation Output tab, note the value of the AdminUsername, and TollFreeNumber. Login to the ConnectInstanceUrl with these credentials.

2. Navigate to the ConnectInstanceUrl. Log in to the application with the AdminUsername and Password collected in previous step. Make sure you allow microphone to access this URL and allow notifications if this pop up in your browser.

3. Set agent status as available in the agent workspace to take the first call.

4. Call the TollFreeNumber for your first call experience and accept the call from Agent workspace.

Next Steps

Here are some suggestions and recommendation about how you can modify the components of this guidance to further enhance it according to your requirements.

1. Contact Flow Customization:

• Modify the default Contact Flow to add more complex routing rules
• Implement additional IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menus
• Add custom prompts and messages

3. Monitoring, Reporting and Analytics:

• Expand the CloudWatch logging capabilities
• Create real-time/historical metrics and reporting dashboards
• Explore Contact lens for speech analytics

4. Storage Configuration:

• Modify S3 bucket lifecycle policies for call recordings
• Implement different storage classes for cost optimization
• Add additional backup and retention policies

5. Agent Management:

• Set up additional agent hierarchies
• Configure more detailed routing profiles
• Implement custom agent scheduling

6. Integration Possibilities:

• Add integration with other AWS services
• Connect with external CRM systems
• Implement additional Lambda functions for custom business logic

Cleanup

1. Select the CloudFormation stack created earlier.
2. Click on Delete. This will delete all the resources created as part of this CloudFormation stack.