Datasets:
Squidnutz
/
extractedtest

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
152
In a typical queue (one in which you have a group of people responsible for answer‐
ing calls), you will find that defining the members in the queue_members table might
not serve you well. Human agents usually need to be able to log in and out (and not
be automatically logged in whenever the queue is reloaded). We do not recommend
defining members in the queue_members table unless they have some other purpose
(such as a bank of devices that answer calls, where you want to use the queue to load-
balance calls to the device pool, or a ring group, where all phones ring for all calls all
the time regardless of whether anyone is sitting near the phone).
Controlling Queue Members with Dialplan Logic
In a call center staffed by live agents, it is most common to have the agents themselves
log in and log out at the start and end of their shifts (or whenever they go for lunch,
or to the bathroom, or are otherwise not available to the queue).
To enable this, we will make use of the following dialplan applications:
• AddQueueMember()
• RemoveQueueMember()
While logged into a queue, it may be that an agent needs to put themself into a state
where they are temporarily unavailable to take calls. The following applications will
allow this:
• PauseQueueMember()
• UnpauseQueueMember()
The Add/Remove applications are used to log in and log out, and Pause/Unpause are
used for short periods of agent unavailability. The difference is simply that Pause and
Unpause set the member as unavailable/available without actually removing them
from the queue. This is mostly useful for reporting purposes (if a member is paused,
the queue supervisor can see that they are logged into the queue, but simply not avail‐
able to take calls at that moment). If you’re not sure which one to use, we recommend
that the agents use Add/Remove whenever they are not physically at their phone, and
Pause/Unpause when they are at their desk, but temporarily not available.
If in doubt, it’s usually better to have your agents log out.
Using Pause and Unpause
In some environments, Pause and Unpause are used for all activities during the day
that render an agent unavailable (such as during the lunch hour and when perform‐
ing work that is not queue-related). In most call centers, however, if an agent is not
218
|
Chapter 12: Automatic Call Distribution Queues
beside the phone and ready to take a call at that moment, they should not be logged in
at all, even if they are only going to be away from their desk for a few minutes (such as
for a bathroom break).
Some supervisors like to use the Pause/Unpause settings as a sort of punch clock, so
that they can track when their staff arrive for work and leave at the end of the day, and
how long they spend at their desks and on breaks. This may not be a sound practice,
since the purpose of these applications is to inform the queue as to agent availability,
with activity tracking a secondary function.
An important thing to note here relates to the joinempty setting in the aster
isk.queues table, which was discussed earlier. If an agent is paused, they are still log‐
ged into the queue. Let’s say it is near the end of the day, and one agent put themself
into pause a few hours earlier to work on a project. All the other agents have logged
out and gone home. A call comes in. The queue will note that an agent is logged into
the queue, and will therefore queue the call, even though the reality is that there are
no people actually staffing that queue at that time. This caller may end up holding in
an unstaffed queue indefinitely.
In short, agents who are not sitting at their desks and planning to be available to take
calls in the next few minutes should log out. Pause/Unpause should only be used for
brief moments of unavailability (if at all). If you want to use your phone system as a
punch clock, there are lots of great ways to do that using Asterisk, but the queue
member applications are not the way we would recommend.
Let’s build some simple dialplan logic that will allow our agents to indicate their avail‐
ability to the queue. We are going to use the CUT() dialplan function to extract the
name of our channel from our call to the system, so that the queue will know which
channel to log into the queue.
We have built this dialplan to show a simple process for logging into and out of a
queue, and changing the paused status of a member in a queue. We are doing this
only for a single queue that we previously defined in the queues.conf file. The status
channel variables that the AddQueueMember(), RemoveQueueMember(), PauseQueueMem
ber(), and UnpauseQueueMember() applications set might be used to Playback()
announcements to the queue members after they’ve performed certain functions to
let them know whether they have successfully logged in/out or paused/unpaused:
exten => *731,1,Page(${PAGELIST},i,120)
exten => *732,1,Verbose(2,Logging In Queue Member)
same => n,Set(MemberChannel=${CHANNEL(channeltype)}/${CHANNEL(endpoint)})
same => n,AddQueueMember(support,${MemberChannel})
same => n,Verbose(1,${AQMSTATUS}) ; ADDED, MEMBERALREADY, NOSUCHQUEUE
same => n,Playback(agent-loginok)
same => n,Hangup()
exten => *733,1,Verbose(2,Logging Out Queue Member)
Queue Members
|