V3 Queues

Owned by XCALLY Knowledge (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Aug 12, 2024 by Product Knowledge
9 min read

What’s about

A Voice Queue is a way to route incoming calls to a group of agents.
Callers waiting in the queue can hear an announcement, informing them of their waiting time and their position in the queue.

Requirements

  • You must have admin role or user role with voice queues permission to be able to manage voice queues in XCALLY Motion

  • Note that users can only see the voice queues assigned to them

Voice Queues section

You can find the Voice Queues section under the Voice menu.

image (3)-20240723-091242.jpg

 

Create a Voice Queue

To create a Queue, click the New button 

image-20240701-143415.png

 

Enter the Queue's details:

After the voice queue is created, you can view the queue in the list of voice queues. You can edit the queue, add agents to a queue or add a team to a queue.

Voice Queue Strategy

Queue Strategy

Queue Strategy defines how incoming calls are divided between agents in a queue. You can set one of the following strategies:

  • Ringall: ring all agents until one answers

  • RRMemory (Round Robin Memory): ring the agent succeeding the agent contacted during last call

  • Least recent: ring the agent who was least recently called by this queue

  • Fewest calls: ring the agent who has recently answered to the minimum number of calls in the queue

  • Random: randomly routes calls to agents

  • Linear: ring agents according to the order they are listed in the configuration file

  • Weight random: randomly routes calls to agents but uses the agent’s penalty as a weight.

Edit/Modify a Voice Queue

To edit a voice queue find the queue from the voice queue list (you can use the search box on the top-right of the page to filter) and click on the three dots button to make the available commands appear:

 

When you edit a Voice Queue you can insert all the configuration parameters in these tabs:

 

 

Settings

In the Queue General Settings form you can edit and modify the following queue parameters:

  • Strategy: choose among the proposed list the proper strategy (see above for the list of them)

  • Timeout: how long (in seconds) the devices receiving calls from this queue must ring (Default value=15)

  • Maximum Length: insert here the maximum number of callers allowed to wait in the queue (0=unlimited)

  • Retry: insert here the time in seconds to wait before passing a call to another agent, after a previous agent timeout expiration (Default=2)

  • Wrapup Time: set here the time in seconds a queue member must be unavailable after completing a call (default=0)

  • Weight: insert here a value to associate to the queue weight, in case an Agent belongs to several queues (numeric value from 1 to 10 | default=0). The higher the weight, the more priority the queue has over the others, so when multiple incoming calls arrive on different queues, the one related to the queue with higher weight takes precedence

  • Join when empty: leave the default value "yes" if you want a caller is passed to a queue even if no member is available to answer (otherwise insert "no")

  • Leave when empty: insert "yes" if you want the callers are moved from the queue if no member is available to take the call (otherwise leave the default value "no")

  • Music on Hold: click on this field to choose one of the available sounds to be played to the caller while waiting to be connected to a queue member

  • Announce to Agent: click on this field to choose one of the available sounds to be played to the agent just before answering the call

  • Description


Announcements

If you want to play announcements to callers waiting in your Queue go to the Announcement tab (for example, you might want to announce the caller’s position in the queue, the average wait time, or make periodic announcements, for instance thanking your callers for waiting):

It is important to tune the values that control when these announcements are played to the callers. In fact, announcing their position, thanking them for waiting, and telling them the average hold time too often may annoy them!

Please note that while the announcements play the call is not routed to the Agent!

Advanced

In the Advanced Section you can set the Queue Parameters:

 

  • After Call Work (default=NO): If enabled, the agent will be set on Pause after completing a call on the queue (the pause duration must be inserted in the field displayed).

  • Mandatory Disposition (default=NO): if you select this feature the Agents will be forced to dispose the interactions managed before closing them. Insert in the field displayed the automatic pause status the Agents will be set during this operation (this field is mandatory, choose a value from the list of those available)

You can’t set both ACW and Mandatory Disposition. If Mandatory Disposition is enabled, ACW is not taken into consideration and you can’t enable it or change after call work duration

  • Auto Pause: set this value to YES if you want to pause the member who fails to answer a call; this will work on all queues the Agent is a member of (Default=NO)

  • Ring in Use: enables/disables delivering a call to the Agents already engaged in a conversation

  • Member Delay: here you can specify the number of seconds to add as a delay before the call is passed to the Agent

 

  • Timeout Restart: if yes, this resets the timeout for an agent to answer when either a BUSY or CONGESTION status is received from the channel (Default=YES)

  • Recording Format: specify here the file format to use when recording (choose a value from the list). If the value is inactive, calls will not be recorded. About the Recording Format
    Please consider that the recording file size depends on its format. For example, recording one minute conversation will issue a file approximately of the following size:
    - WAV: 944 KB; - WAV49: 97 KB; - GSM: 98 KB

  • Context: Allows a caller to exit the queue by pressing a single DTMF digit. If a context is specified and the caller enters a number, the digit will be matched in the context specified and, if it is found, the dialplan execution will continue there

  • Set Interface Variables: If set to yes, just prior to the caller being bridged with a queue member; the following variables will be set on the caller and queue member channels (see Asterisk docs for more information):

    • MEMBERINTERFACE is the interface name (eg. Agent/1234),

    • MEMBERNAME is the member name (eg. Joe Soap),

    • MEMBERCALLS is the number of calls that interface has taken,

    • MEMBERLASTCALL is the last time the member took a call,

    • MEMBERPENALTY is the penalty of the member,

    • MEMBERDYNAMIC indicates if a member is dynamic or not,

    • MEMBERREALTIME indicates if a member is realtime or not

  • Set Queue Variables: if this value is set to yes, just before the caller being bridged with a queue member (set on the caller and queue member channels) and just before the caller leaves the queue (see Asterisk wiki for more information)

    • QUEUENAME name of the queue,

    • QUEUEMAX maximum number of calls allowed,

    • QUEUESTRATEGY the strategy of the queue,

    • QUEUECALLS number of calls currently in the queue,

    • QUEUEHOLDTIME current average hold time,

    • QUEUECOMPLETED number of completed calls for the queue,

    • QUEUEABANDONED number of abandoned calls,

    • QUEUESRVLEVEL queue service level,

    • QUEUESRVLEVELPERF current service level performance

  • Set Queue Entry Variables: If set to yes, just before the caller being bridged with a queue member; the following variables will be set on the caller and queue member channels:

    • QUEUEHOLDTIME callers hold time,

    • QUEUEORIGINALPOS original position of the caller in the queue

  • Service Level:  Second settings for service level (default=0, no SL). Used for service level statistics (calls answered within service level time frame)

Inbound/Internal Routes

From these sections, it’s possible to see inbound/internal routes associated to the specific voice queue

You can see Phone number route, description, company and alias. Moreover clicking on the arrow icon you will be able to open directly the route configuration

Add Agent/Team to a Voice Queue

Administrators or users with the right permission must add an agent or a team to a queue to enable them to handle calls in the queue. You can also define the Agent Penalty to set his priority in the queue (low penalty value means high priority in receiving interactions).

To add an agent to a voice queue:

  • Use the quick menu command associated to the queue itself:

 

 

  • Find the queue from the voice queue list (you can use the search box on the top-right of the page to filter), edit it and use the Add Agent button

 

Now on pop-up screen, search for the agent you want to add to the queue and click on it:

If you want to change the penalty (default is 0), set the penalty and then add the agent to the queue: the Agents with a higher penalty will receive the call notification only if those with a lower penalty refuse to accept the call.

You can add more than one agent or click on image-20240328-132942.png  to add all agents to the queue.

Remember all changes are automatically effective!

To add all the members of a Team to the queue at once and to enable them to handle calls in the queue:

  • use the quick menu command associated to the queue itself:

 

 

  • Find the queue from the voice queue list (you can use the search box on the top-right of the page to filter), edit it and click the Add Team button 

 

On pop-up screen, use the search box to find the team you want to add to the queue and click on it. 

Use the search box to find the team you want to add to the queue and click on it. 

You can add more than one team or click on image-20240328-133407.png  to add all teams to the queue.

You can also define the Agent Penalty that would be applied to all agents in the team in this queue.

Penalty sets agent’s priority in the queue (low penalty value means high priority)

 

Add Voice Queue to Profile

Administrators or users with the right permission can add voice queue to a specific profile, also defining penalty.
To do this action, you can:

  • Use the quick menu command associated to the queue itself:

  • Find the queue from the voice queue list (you can use the search box on the top-right of the page to filter), edit it and click the red icon to add Voice queue to a profile (if you want you can also indicate a penalty)

 

 

Add Voice Queue to Queues Groups

Administrators or users with the right permission can add voice queue to queues groups, also defining Priority and timeout.

To add it you can:

  • Use the quick menu command associated to the queue itself:

  • Find the queue from the voice queue list (you can use the search box on the top-right of the page to filter), edit it and click the green icon to add Voice queue to Queue Groups, inserting if you want a specific priority and timeout

 

 

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