Virtual Queue preference routing based on priorty

[mduran22]

We are trying to modify a routing strategy that has two targets, Gold and Silver with the virtual queues being the same name. Certain calls will come into the Gold target first, wait 10 seconds, and then overflow to the Silver target without clearing and wait in both targets to be answered. Other calls will go directly into the Silver target without going through the Gold target first. In our scenario we have agent A who is skilled for both gold and silver calls, however we would like agent A to have a preference of taking any call that went through the Gold target first regardless of other factors. In our scenario call A comes in at 9:00am and goes directly to the Silver target and call B comes in at 9:02am and routes through the Gold target first and after 10 seconds overflows to the silver target. Agent A can handle both types of calls, but since the call B is a Gold call we want agent A to have a preference for and answer this call first even though it came in two minutes after the Silver call.

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In the scenario we have tried using the function setVQpriorty to have the VQ in the target determine the priority of the call but have not been successful in testing this.  Has anyone accomplished this before using priority or another function that would make Agent A prefer calls from the Gold target over the silver target regardless of the age of the call? This is similar to what Avaya does with skill level (or preference) in Avaya ACD routing.

The reasoning behind this is that we have certain agents trained to handle Gold calls, however the volume of gold calls is low and there is not enough to always keep Gold trained agents busy. So we supplement the Gold agents with the Silver skills allowing them to take Silver calls but only if there are no calls in the Gold target when the agent goes ready. Any ideas are appreciated.

Mike

[Jezza]

This can be done but you need to use agent skill levels to set target priority. If you would like more details on this please drop me an email and I will send a presentation that I did for a previous company on exactly this type of thing.

[kubikle]

Not clear why gold call need to have different prioritoes for different tasks - the described scenario looks like can be addressed by just having Gold call (one that will go thorugh both targets) higher priority then silver call so if any agent becomes aavailable and 2 types of calls (Gold and Silver) happen to wait it the Gold will always be preferable.

In any case to have call wait differnt targets with differnt priorities just enough to call Priority[] function before corresponding target selection object:
Priority[2]
Wait for targets set 1 for 10 sec
Priority[1]      //not gouing to affect call priority for target set 1 - it affect only call priority in "future" target selection objects
Wait for targets set 2  //here target set 1will be waired with priority 2 and target set 2 wityh prioprity 1

[mduran22]

Kubikle,

I want gold agents to prefer gold calls more then silver calls, but for silver agents to prefer gold and silver calls the same. In the specific client scenario the gold agents have special training and the gold calls would ideally be routed to only gold agents, however it is acceptable to have silver agents answer the gold calls as they can handle them as well but do not posses the special training that the gold agents do. Also there is not enough gold calls at certain random times to keep all gold agents occupied at the level the business would like them at. So the solution was to have gold agents take silver calls to supplement the gold calls and help the occupancy. However if there are both gold and silver calls waiting and a gold agent goes ready, the gold agent takes the oldest call waiting from the gold queue/target over any call waiting in the silver queue (even if it is much older). However when there are both gold calls and silver calls, and a silver agent becomes available, the silver agent should take the oldest waiting call (FIFO) of both the gold queue and the silver queue. In other call routing systems this is called skill preference or skill level, where when an agent goes ready the system first looks at an agent skill level or preference and checks calls in queues, and priorities, within those queues to determine which call should be distributed to the agent. So if the agent had a skill of gold with a skill level of 1 and a skill of silver with the skill level of 2 (lowest level is most preferred), and that agent goes ready, the systems looks at priority levels and wait times for the gold queue first before even considering any calls from the silver queue for the agent.

I believe that the priority function sets the global priority of the interaction throughout the routing process and that if you set it a second time in your strategy that it will affect the priority of the any target/queue the call is waiting in. I will have to test that scenario. I also need to look into all of the priority tuning functions as well; I was just hoping to make it as easy as setting priorities by target or virtual queue level.

Mike

[kubikle]

Ok, its clear, I've understand the orignal task a little different.
Then I think using function Priority[] should help.
I mean that it is for sure that Priority set no global call priority - it set effecftivelly nothing - just store provided value for future usage in special place.
When you make call to wait new target then priroty to wait with is either provided explicetly as fucntion parameter (SelectDN function) or if not (target selection object for example) then the value stored in this special place is used.

[mduran22]

Hi All,

I wanted to post the results. So it appears the priority function will work for what I am trying to accomplish. I thought that the priority set a global priority and changed it for previous and future targets. As it turns out, calling the priority after exiting from a target function with a different priority does not change the priority in the previous target. I do believe this was the case in previous releases, but in the version I am testing with (7.6) it does not affect the previous target. This does allow me to program to have a different priority on different targets, for the same interaction, which matches the business functionality that is being requested.

It would be cool if you could prioritize based on target number or even skill level.

I tried to post a call flow of what I accomplished but I receive a message that the server was full. If it gets hungry again I will feed it some call flow.

Mike