Implementation guide for partners

A runbook for an integrator or consultancy deploying Arena for a client. It assumes you know Amazon Connect and have deployed CloudFormation before. A first team is live in about half a day; the hours below are for one implementer.

Before the engagement (1 hour)

Ask the client:

• Which Connect instance and region, and who holds admin on it.
• Which routing profiles map to the teams they want on leaderboards. Arena uses routing profile names as team names.
• Whether they have Contact Lens evaluations and conversational analytics, and which S3 bucket and prefix those write to. Without them Arena scores contacts, kudos, streaks and surveys only.
• Whether they use Connect scheduling. If so, adherence can be a point source.
• Their time zone and what hour a daily digest should arrive.
• Who the supervisors are and whether sign-in should use the stack's Cognito pool or their identity provider (OIDC).
• Whether they want Slack or Microsoft Teams notifications, and who can create an incoming webhook.
• Whether this is a Marketplace subscription or a pilot outside Marketplace (same stack, billing settings left empty).

Have the client's security team read security and your data early. It answers the questions they will ask.

1. Subscribe or prepare a pilot (15 minutes)

Marketplace: the client subscribes to Arena, chooses Set up your account, and the registration page gives a launch link with their subscription prefilled. Follow getting started. Pilot: launch the public template directly in CloudFormation with the Marketplace settings empty; the release notes name the current template URL.

2. Launch the stack (30 minutes, mostly waiting)

On the launch page set, at minimum:

• Timezone, for example America/Chicago.
• ConnectInstanceArn and leave BackfillDays at 90, so the first screen is not empty and every user appears in the console.
• EvaluationsBucket and AnalysisBucket if Contact Lens is on, with their prefixes.
• ScheduleAdherence enabled if the client schedules in Connect.
• AlarmEmail for operational alarms and DigestEmail if the daily digest should go by email.
• WallboardNames to first or initials if screens are in a public area.

Tick all three acknowledgement boxes, then create the stack. Every setting is explained in the settings reference and can be changed later by updating the stack.

3. Connect the data (30 minutes)

1. In the Connect console, Data streaming, set the agent event stream to the StreamArn output. Optionally send contact records to the same stream for survey scores from a contact attribute.
2. If Contact Lens is on, enable EventBridge notifications on the evaluations and analysis buckets. The stack's rules do the rest.
3. Within the hour, the backfill job loads up to 90 days of history. Check the console: every agent should be listed, with points on past days.

4. Put the panel in the agent workspace (20 minutes)

Register <SiteUrl>/agent-panel.html as a third-party application in Connect and grant it on the agents' security profiles. See getting started step 3. For a custom contact control panel, the panel opens in a browser tab instead.

5. Sign-ins (30 minutes)

Cognito, the default: open the console as the stack's first supervisor (created by the sync script or the Cognito console), then use People to add the rest, picking each Connect agent so names and teams fill in. Agents without email get a temporary password shown once. For a large instance, run the sync script once. External identity provider: see users and sign-in.

6. Configure with the client's supervisor (1 hour)

Sit with the supervisor who will own Arena and do these together, so they can repeat them:

• Scoring mix per team, if a team should weight quality or productivity differently. Default is fine for most.
• Reward catalog and balance period from the Catalog button; the default catalog is a placeholder.
• A monthly reward budget if finance wants a cap.
• Notifications: paste the Slack or Teams webhook, pick the digest hour, send a test.
• Brand: company name, colours and logo.
• Start one challenge from the suggestions, so the floor sees something on day one.
• Mint a TV link for the wallboard and set its size and contrast on the screen.

7. Handover (30 minutes)

Give the client:

• The stack name and region, the site URL, and the console, report and wallboard links.
• The help center link and the troubleshooting article.
• Where the alarms go and what each means.
• How to update: update the stack to the template URL in the newest release notes.
• Who to contact: [email protected], one business day.

Other platforms

For a client not on Amazon Connect, the stack still deploys into their AWS account and events arrive through the ingest endpoint from middleware you build against the platform's APIs. Budget a week for the middleware the first time.

Common questions from clients

• Can agents game it? Scores come only from platform data; kudos are capped and self-kudos refused; races have minimum qualifiers. See how scoring works.
• What leaves our account? One number a day for billing. See security and your data.
• Can we get the data? Nightly files to a bucket and a read API. See warehouse export.
• What does it cost beyond the subscription? About $15 a month of AWS resources for a 500-agent centre.

Current as of version 0.16.0. See the release notes for what changed since.