[Asterisk-Users] queue questions: max time in queue; customer option to drop out of queue

[Ken Alker]

I am considering switching to Asterisk for my ISP.

I currently use a NorTel ICS with a NAM II (standard voicemail and Minuet 
ACD software).

I have a technical support center staffed by a max of 5 agents at one time.

I am wondering if it is possible to do these things with a queue:

1) When a customer enters a queue, they are only left in the queue for x 
seconds (say, 30 seconds) while waiting for an agent to become available. 
If the agent does not become available, they are transferred to a global 
technical support mailbox.

The time limit is necessary because a) we pay for the incoming calls and I 
don't want people sitting in the queue racking up my phone bill, and b) I 
don't have a lot of CO lines and I don't want to tie them all up with 
people holding in a queue.

2) While a customer is in a queue, they are given the option to push a 
certain DTMF digit to drop to voice mail, instead of holding.  I'd like to 
play a message describing this option at regular intervals while the 
customer is in the queue.  (This would be used if I decided to allow long 
or infinite queue times and probably not used in a situation with a short 
max queue time, as described above).

3) When the global technical support mailbox has a message, it signals 
message waiting indicators of all agents who belong to the queue (even if 
they are not logged in to the queue), not just one phone (as happens on my 
NorTel ICS).


/**************************************************************
 Ken Alker         ken at impulse.net            ham radio: KA6SDU
 Impulse Internet Services               http://www.impulse.net
 Santa Barbara,  San Luis Obispo,  Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange
 T-3 / T-1 / ADSL / ISDN / 56K / web hosting / wireless / co-lo
***************************************************************/