Calling Queues
From VoIP.ms Wiki
| Article en Français | Artículo en Español |
|---|---|
| Français |
Contents |
Update
- As of 2024-06-25, **11 and **12 are now supported to enter/leave queues. These 2 codes are now supported so that users with Microsoft Teams can now login and logout of queues.
Concept
If you want a solution to manage your incoming calls and have your customer(s) waiting on the line until an agent picks up the call, you can create a Calling Queue entry. This will permit you to have many calls on hold, queued calls in First In, First Out order until agents become available.
Queues consist of:
- Incoming calls being placed in the queue
- Members that answer the queue (extensions or users that login as agents)
- A strategy for how to handle the queue and divide calls between members
- Music played while waiting in the queue
- Announcements for members and callers
Agents are the people (or person) that answers the call(s) that have been placed into a specific Queue. An agent logs in indicating that they are now ready to take calls. An inbound call is sent to a queue, which is then in turn transferred to an available agent.
The members in the queue can be static or dynamic. The Static Members are those that are always connected to the queue and the Dynamic members are those that need to log in to the queue in order to take calls.
Please note that once a call is in the queue, it'll start being billed.
Log in or log out to the queue as Dynamic Member
If you want to get access to your Calling Queue, dial *11 then at the prompt dial the queue ID and password if you set one. e.g. If I want log in to the "call queue 1" I dial *11 >> Option 1 >> Password (optional).
If you want to log out from the call queue, dial *12 then at the prompt dial the queue ID. e.g. If I want to log out to the "call queue 1" I dial *12 >> Option 1.
Configuration
Go in to your Customer Portal >> DID Numbers >> Calling Queues
.jpg)
And then go to "Create New Call Queue"
Now you are going to start a new configuration:
Queue Information
- Queue Number: The number of our Queue, e.g I have my company and I want to select the Queue 1 for my sales department, my Queue 2 for my support department. In this way you are sure that your agents receive the calls properly.
- Queue Name: Enter the name of your Call Queue 1, e.g. "Sales Team".
- Queue Language: The language of system announcements.
- Queue Password: An optional setting - you can preset a password to access this queue and be sure that only the people authorized for this queue enter it.
- Caller ID Prefix: Optional: You can optionally prefix the Caller ID.
- Join Announcement: If you have a recording for your queue you can set it here. This recording plays when a member enters the queue. e.g. Having a queue for the company sales department and while the customers wait, they hear a recording of all the products and discounts.
- Priority / Weight: Weight of queue, compared to other queues. If an agent is logged in to more than 1 queue, the higher weighted queue calls that agent.
Queue Options
- Agent Announcement: Optionally, you can set a recording to be played to the agent. The caller will be connected to the agent immediately after the announcement.
- Report Hold time to agent: If you wish to report the caller's hold time to the agent, set this to yes.
- Member Delay: If you wish to have a delay before the agent is connected to the caller, set this to the number of seconds to delay.
- Maximum Wait Time: The maximum time that a caller can wait in queue before being sent to the "Failover" Destination.
- Join when empty:
-Yes: Callers can join a queue with no members or only unavailable members.
-Strict: Callers cannot join a queue without members or only unavailable members.
-No: Callers cannot join a queue without members.
- Leave when empty:
-Yes: Callers are sent to the failover when there are no members.
-Strict: Callers are sent to failover if there are members but none of them are available. This applies to Static members that are not currently registered.
-No: Callers will remain in the queue even if there are no members.
- Ring Strategy
Calls are distributed among the members handling a queue with one of several strategies, defined in queues.conf
-Ringall:: ring all available channels until one answers. -Leastrecent:: ring interface which was least recently called by this queue -Fewestcalls:: ring the one with fewest completed calls from this queue -Random:: ring random interface -Round Robin Memory:: round robin with memory, remember where we left off last ring pass
- Ring in-use: This setting lets you avoid sending a call to an agent whose device is currently in use.
Note: Currently only a device with the SIP protocol is able to report his status as 'in use'.
- Agent Ring Timeout: Number of seconds in which the call will remain in ringing state before being considered as 'timeout'.
- Retry Timer: How long the system will wait before trying with all the members again.
- Wrap-up Time: After a successful call, this setting lets you set the amount of minutes the system will wait before sending the call to a free agent.
Music
The following options for music are available:
| Music on Hold | ||
|---|---|---|
| Test Code | Name | Description |
| ***89 | Away in the Tropics | From Hawaii to the Caribbean, these tracks deliver sounds of ukulele, steel drums, and steel guitars. |
| ***90 | Coffee and Sunrise | Uplifting without being perky, and positive without being too smiley. |
| ***91 | Coffee Shop Acoustic | Soothing, acoustic guitar tracks makes for a relaxed feel and sets a great atmosphere. |
| ***92 | Easy Listening | Smooth, casual tunes. |
| ***93 | Guitar Alchemy | Clever harmonics and progressive chord sequences to create a joyful and warming musical experience. |
| ***94 | Happy Endings | Uplifting, commercial style. Guitar, drums, ukulele, harmonica and bells. |
| ***95 | Light and Casual | Soothing and peaceful songs with a light, positive feeling. |
| ***96 | Orchestral Moods | Emotional and dramatic tales spun by violins, pianos and full orchestras. |
| ***97 | Piano Mix | Smooth Piano |
| ***98 | Rock me Easy | Feel-good music to create a relaxing atmosphere. |
| ***99 | Spa Sounds | Soft, slow and serene instrumentals. |
| ***100 | Aucune musique, bip intermittent | Silent, but with a subtle intermittent bleep sound to let your callers know that they are still on the line while they hold. |
Announcements and Fail Over
Periodic Voice Announcements
Voice Announcement: This is an optional setting, you can choose which recording will be played to the callers of this queue.
Frequency of announcement: Select the periodic interval to play the recording to the callers.
Periodic Hold Position, Estimated Hold-time announcements and Thank you for your patience announcement.
Announce Position frequency: This setting let's you know how often to make any periodic announcement. Optional setting.
Announce Round Seconds: Here you can choose if you want to announce the number of seconds or round to the minute. If you want to announce seconds, select the amount to round to.
If Announce position is enabled, do you also want to report estimated hold-time?: Either yes, no or only once. Hold time will be announced as the estimated time, or less than 2 minutes when appropriate.
Thank you for your patience: This is an optional setting. Your callers will hear "Thank you for your patience", after announcing the Queue Position and Estimated Hold time left.
Fail Over Destinations
Here you can choose the destination for the follow failover options:
- Timeout: If the call reaches the maximum wait time.
- FULL: If the queue reaches the maximum number of callers.
- JOINEMPTY: A call was sent to the queue but the queue had no members (Only works when Join when empty is set to No)
- LEAVEEMPTY: The last agent was removed form the queue before all calls were handled (Only works when Leave when empty is set to Yes).
- JOINUNAVAIL: Same as JOINEMPTY, except that there were still queue members, but all were with status unavailable (SIP Phone logged out for example)
- LEAVEUNAVAIL: Same as LEAVEEMPTY,except that there were still queue members, but all were with status unavailable (SIP Phone logged out for example)
Click on the Save Queue when finished.
Static Members
Static Members are the predefined and permanently assigned members responsible for answering incoming calls to a queue. You can add as many members as you wish to any given queue.
Advantages
The advantage of the static members is that your members do not have to login or logout from the queue using the *11 and *12 commands. The only thing your members have to do is register or unregister their accounts from the VoIP.ms servers.
Disadvantages
One of the disadvantages of the static members is that your members are unable to log out of the queue, they are permanently assigned instead. Another disadvantage is that your members need to use their account or sub account to be in the queue, this could mean that they wouldn't be able to change devices and log into the queue without using their same credentials.
Add a Static Member
First you need to access the Calling Queue page that is under the DID Numbers menu in your Customer Portal.
From there, you need only to click on the yellow Edit Static Members icon, that will bring you to the next screen:
To add a new static member, you only need to fill out the following information:
Description: Here you can assign a description to easily identify each member of the queue.
Account: Here you select the account or sub account that is going to be assigned as a member for this queue.
Priority: This value can be equal or greater than zero. Available members with lower priority will get the calls first. You can have more than one member with the same priority.
How to use your Queue
Once you have created a Queue, you can assign it to as many DID numbers as you want without needing to create it again. You need to go to your Customer Portal >> DID Numbers >> Manage DID(s). And from there you can route the DID numbers to go directly to the Queue, using an IVR, through a time condition or even as a failover option for your DID number.
Calling Queue using the Reseller Interface
The feature is available for your client through the Reseller interface. You must enable this feature in your package in order to give them the ability to leverage this.
Go under the navigation bar on [Reseller] then click on [Manage Rates & Packages]
Click on the Edit button to edit your package, or click on [Create a new package] to create a new one.
Go under the [Reseller System Configuration] Tab, and on the section "Type of configuration" select: [Package Configuration],
Then scroll down and find the feature "Calling Queue", and enable it.
1) To add a new Calling Queue for your client, or to help your client adding one. Go under the [Services] at the left navigation bar, then on [Calling Queue].
2) Once on the page, click on [Add new Calling Queue] tab. You will need to enter some basic information, such as the Name, and all others settings you would like to use. In the "Queue options" tab, you will have more configuration about the Calling Queue. As well as the Failovers Routing depending your calling queue options.
3) Click [Save Calling Queue]
Your Calling Queue has been created successfully... You can select this Calling Queue in your DID Routing, Failover options, IVR, Time Conditions, Queue etc.
