Ad Hoc Routing Changes - Affect on Target Routing...

[tony]

Hello everyone!

I'm having a "healthy debate" around what would happen if you were to unoad and re-load a Delivery Strategy onto a Route Point, as there are calls Queueing against that Strategy?

Here's what I mean;

A Delivery Strategy is loaded onto a Route Point.  The Strategy contains the details for call Delivery, including an expanded set of Agents as Targets and a Queue Name is associated with the Target. There are 50 callers waiting in the Target Queue, since no Agents are available, at that time.  So - there are 30 Agents in the Target Group but they are all Busy.

Next, a User unloads the Strategy in IRD, updates it to include an expanded set of Targets (10 more Agents) and then re-loads the Strategy.  What happens to the the 30 callers waiting in the Queue?  Do they;

A. Become "stale", as the Routing Engine is no longer applied to them? (This would imply that any new calls arriving on the Route Point would be processed with the new Target Group of 40 Agents, whilst the original callers become "stale" and would not be answered, even if Agents in the Target Group become Available.)
B. Continue Queueing with the original Target Group of 30 Agents?  (This would imply that any new calls would be processed against the [i]new [/i] Target Group of 40 Agents and any original/old callers would continue to Queue against the [i]original [/i] Target Group of 30 Agents).
C. Continue Queueing with the new, expanded Target Group of 40 Agents? (This would imply that any original/old calls [b]and [/b] any new calls would be re-Targetted, against the [i]new [/i] Target Group of 40 Agents).
D. Something else would happen...?

The "correct" answer is worth a coffee from the coffee machine... which is free anyway... oh - and half a kit-kat...

Thanks guys!

Tony

[cavagnaro]

Hi Tony,
As far as I understand and have tested what happens is that each call that loads into URS has the strategy on memory for it. So if you receive one call with strategy A then unloads and load strategy B and a second call arrives, the first call will complete all what strategy A said it to do, and second call with follow what strategy B says it to do.
So the calls that were waiting in queue for 30 agents will keep waiting for those 30 agents, and only new calls with new strategy will wait for the 40 agents.

[tony]

Thank you cav - this is the same as I thought it would be.

I believe this might be considered "probable cause" of CCPulse+ displaying Inbound calls in a Queue, where Agents who are Targets of the Queue are in "Available" - but the calls are not connecting because the Agents are the "extra" 10 Targets.  However, [b]new[/b] Inbound calls Entering the Queue would be routed to the "extra" Targets...

Do you think this sounds feasible...?

Tony

[cavagnaro]

Yes, completely probable. I had similar issue on customer side were they kept changing the targets constantly. I ended up configuring virtual group agents.

[Fra]

Tony,

I definetly agree with Cav, some time ago I also had this thing confirmed by Genesys; old calls have already had their target infos, so they will keep queuing, while new calls hitting the RP will trigger URS to invoke the new strategy (and hence the new target).

Can we share half a kit-kat, Cav? 

Fra

[tony]

...hang on, before you claim the prize..

Another aspect of this "conundrum" is updates to Agents Skills.  We already understand that "on the fly" updates to Delivery Strategies may cause CCPulse+ to display Agents Available whilst Calls are Queueing but what about if a User updates a series of SkillNames for a group of Agents, in an attempt to meet Calls that are Queueing?

Again, in my opinion, adding Skills to Agents to address an issue of calls [i]already [/i] Queueing would have almost the same effect as updating the Target Routing; Agents (with new Skills just added) would only be available to take calls which arrived on the RP [i]after [/i] their new Skills were added.  This also means that some calls would continue to Queue against the "old" Target Group and newer calls would be Delivered to Agents with the new Skills (just added).

- So, as before with the update to a Strategy, CCPulse+ may display Agents in Available (new Skills added) whilst Calls are Queuing, since those calls that are queueing using a Target Group that does not include the Agents with the new Skills added...

Am I right, again..?

I've upgrade the prize to a [b]whole [/b] kit-kat now - I'm sure that will get a quick response!

Thanks you guys!

Tony

[cmcshane]

Hi Tony,

Adding the required skill to agents will affect the calls that are already queueing. The config server or proxy will broadcast out the changes to URS, who will then add the agents who meet the skill expression to it's list of targets.

I've tested this and verified.

Hope this helps

Colin

[tony]

Thanks Colin,

That does not appear to be the case at present.  Are there any pre-requisties for this to happen?  Options in the URS...?

Tony

[Fra]

Gosh, these newbies are getting quicker and quicker! 
And he is even right!
In fact, from URS version 7.0, extracted from release notes:
[i]
URS dynamically adjusts the target list for interactions already in the queue when an agent profile change occurs in the Configuration Layer; for example, when agent Skills change or the content of a real or virtual Agent Group changes.
[/i]
That means that if your calls are queueing up for a target with a skill > 5 and you update some agents' skill from let's say 3 to 7, URS will be notified by the change and route the calls out to them.

[tony]

Okay... I'll accept that - thank you!

I guess then that there are changes being applied to the Target Routing (to include new Skill(s) or Agent Group(s)), [i]as well as [/i] updates being made to Agents Skills, to address the Queue demand.  As long as [i]one [/i] of those processes isn't working the way our User intended, then I have a Root Cause for the CCPulse+ showing Agents Available whilst Calls are Queuing...

Again - thanks very much!

Tony

[cmcshane]

If changes are made to the strategy or a new strategy is loaded this will not affect calls that are already queueing. URS pulls the strategy logic from memory when processing an Event RouteRequest and this remains constant for the duration of the call, regardless of whether it's changed in IRD or not. The calls that follow after the strategy change will obviously pull the updated logic.

This sounds like the most likely cause that calls will remain queueing in CCPulse when there are readily skilled agents available.

You can always check the 'Loaded' and 'Updated' times for the strategy in IRD to see when it was last modified or loaded.

Hope this helps

p.s Liked your article in The Wire by the way :-)

Colin

[cavagnaro]

lol I guess we will have to share between 3! And Fra drink mine, I doubt it arrives to Peru lol.

[Fra]

LOL
yeah, thanks Cav, I'm in London, I guess Tony is pretty close, I'll be off chasing him in a couple of hours 

[cavagnaro]

I'm sure Tony is a man of his word, so he will accomplish his reward including a biscuit 

[tony]

Thank you all for your input...!

I'm not sure who has worked the hardest on this issue so; the Kit-Kat is awaiting collection, at my desk - any of you can pick it up, whenever you are passing... First come, first served...

Tony