[Asterisk-Users] Queue and Agent functionality

[John Congdon]

Here is my resolution to the problem, I use AgentLogin vs 
AgentCallBackLogin.
This is a long post, but I think it is very useful... :)

Call comes in via DID, queueable is a macro I wrote.  ty_voice and 
voice are
two sound files.  The first one is used to play a Thank you for calling 
XXX.
The second is what the agent will here so they know what number was 
dialed.

//Agents Dial 7100 to login
exten => 7100,1,Answer()
exten => 7100,2,AGI,SetAgent.agi
exten => 7100,3,AgentLogin(${AgentID})

//My AGI just gets the AgentID, verifies it exists and
//then adds it to the queue.  This is done through an
//AGI because I add every agent to multiple queues
//
// I then have a script in my timeclock programming that when
// our employees "Clock out" they are removed from all queues.
//
// I did have it set so that when the employee clocked in, they were
// added to the queues automatically, but this causes problems when
// they are supposed to clock in but not get on the phones right away.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Asterisk::AGI;
use Asterisk::Manager;

$AGI = new Asterisk::AGI;

open (F, "</etc/asterisk/agents.conf");
while (<F>) {
  if ($_ =~ /^agent => (\d*),(\d*),(.*)/) {
     $Agent{$1} = 1;
  }
}
close(F);

my %input = $AGI->ReadParse();

$ID = $AGI->get_data("agent-user", "3000", "3");
$ID =~ s/#//g;
while ((!$Agent{$ID}) && ($Count < 5)) {
  $AGI->stream_file("agent-incorrect");
$ID = $AGI->get_data("agent-user", "3000", "3");
$ID =~ s/#//g;
   $Count++;
}
if (!$Agent{$ID}) {
  $AGI->stream_file("agent-incorrect");
  exit;
}

$AGI->set_variable('AgentID', $ID);
$AGI->exec('AddQueueMember', 'PlaceOrders|Agent/'.$ID);



// This sets up for incoming calls, and passing them to a queue
exten => 1022,1,Macro(queueable,ty_voice, voice)

[macro-queueable]
exten => s,1,answer
exten => s,2,Wait(2)
exten => s,3,Playback(${ARG1})
exten => s,4,SetVar(Announce=${ARG2})
exten => s,5,Goto(MainMenu|s|1)

[MainMenu]
All s, extensions are used to play the menu
exten => s,1,Playback(MayBeRecorded)
exten => s,2,BackGround(Orders)
exten => s,3,BackGround(digits/1)
...
exten => s,18,WaitExten(15)
exten => s,19,Goto,2
# If 1 is pressed
exten => 1,1,PlayBack,hold_pcs     # Play a please hold message
exten => 1,2,Queue(PlaceOrders|t||${Announce})
exten => 1,3,Goto(9|2)



On Saturday, September 25, 2004, at 05:43  PM, Marco Nicolayevsky wrote:

> Chris,
>
> I agree with your assessment of asterisk's queues. I took Robert's 
> reply to
> my original post, and came up with a way to tackle your first scenario 
> (no
> agents in queue=caller in limbo) with his idea of setting variables. 
> My idea
> deals with setting global variable states for each agent. I only have 4
> agents, so it should work for me fairly easily. In the extensions.conf 
> file
> I would have something like this:
>
> [globals]
> GCSR1=off
> GCSR2=off
> GCSR3=off
> GCSR4=off
>
> Then, in the context where my agents log in/out of queue, I set the 
> global
> variable to on/off depending on their action. When the agent dials 800,
> GCSR1 becomes 'on'. When they dial 801##, GCSR1 becomes 'off'.
>
> [fromcsr1]
> exten=> 800,1,AgentCallbackLogin(101|101 at dispatchlogin)
> exten=> 800,2,SetGlobalVar(GCSR1=on)
> exten=> 800,3,Hangup
> exten=> 801,1,AgentCallBackLogin(101)
> exten=> 801,2,SetGlobalVar(GCSR1=off)
> exten=> 801,3,Hangup
>
>
> Then, in my queue, I check for the value of GCSR1 before dumping them 
> to the
> queue. Otherwise, dump them to VM. Obviously, the GotoIf would have to 
> check
> if GCSR1 = on | GCSR2 = on | GCSR3 = on | etc... For my testing, I was 
> just
> using GCSR1.
>
> [queue]
> exten => 1,1,DigitTimeout,1
> exten => 1,2,ResponseTimeout,1
> exten => 1,3,GotoIf($[${GCSR1} = on]?4:5)
> exten => 1,4,Queue(order|tT)
> exten => 1,5,Goto(generalvm|s|1)
>
>
> While this idea seems to make sense (in my head), I am unable to make 
> it
> work. For example, my GotoIF command does work, so the value of GCSR1 
> will
> determine which path the caller takes. The part that doesn't work is 
> in the
> [fromcsr] context. My SetGlobalVar(GCSR1=on) seems to have no effect,
> therefore, making my solution not work.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Marco
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Chris 
> Icide
> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 1:34 PM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Queue and Agent functionality
>
> I've seen alot of posts lately on Queue and Agent functionality, and 
> alot of
> hacks to make them do different things that most call center managers 
> want.
>
> In the sake of doing this one time, I'd like to develop a single list 
> of
> request so we can consolidate a feature request for the Queue/Agent 
> system.
>
> Here are the ones that I run into the most:
>
> 1.  Queue should know the status of agents assigned to a queue and act
> accordingly.
>
>  Here are a couple examples of the problem.
>
> A queue has no agents logged in and handling the queue, a call comes 
> in for
> the queue, the call remains in the queue until either an agent logs 
> in, or
> the queue reaches it's timeout.  What it should do is immediately time 
> out
> setting priority +101.  Normal timeout (caller in busy queue with 
> agents
> active) should exit with priority set +1.
>
> A Queue has active agents in a prioritized fashion.  Agent 1 is 
> priority 1,
> 2 is 2, 3 is 3, and 4 is 4.  Agent 1 needs to make an outbound call as 
> does
> agent 2.  Both are now 'busy'.  The Queue still attempts to call agent 
> 1,
> gets 'busy' back from the sip device (i've only tried this with sip), 
> and
> then the system appears to wait for something like 7-8 seconds before 
> trying
> the next agent in line.
>
> 2. The queue system should allow a set of messages to be played at 
> specific
> times.  For example, a message that is played upon entry into the 
> queue and
> no other time, the current set of messages played every frequency=XX, a
> message played to the caller when the call is accepted by an agent (eg
> "transfering"), finally, a set of messages played to the user based 
> upon a
> predefined period int he config file.. see example below
>
> message1-time=<time in seconds>
> message1-frequency=<never|once|always>
> message1=<message1-file-loc>
>
> message2-time=<time in seconds>
> message2-frequency=<never|once|always>
> message2=<message2-file-loc>
>
> Where a message <messageX-file-loc> is played <never|once|always> every
> <time in seconds>.
>
> if time is set to 0, or freqency is set to never, the message is not 
> played.
>
> If time is set to >0, and frequency is set to once, message is played 
> at
> messagex-time, and never again.
>
> if time is set to >0 and frequency is set to always, message is played 
> every
> messagex-time in seconds.
>
> 3.  Agent timeout (logs the agent off if they do not respond to a ring 
> in a
> defined about of time) does not track across calls.  For example, if an
> agent steps away and forgets to log out, then thier phone will ring 
> based
> upon whatever call strategy is used.  If the agent timeout is set 
> higher
> than the time the queue polls a set of agents they will never be 
> logged out.
> The timer needs to increment per agent across multiple polls.  So if my
> queue poll timer is 20 secons, but the agent timeout is set to 60 
> seconds,
> the preferred function would be to log the agent out of the queue if 
> they
> completely miss three poll events.
>
> 4. If a caller empties a handled queue (active agents) with no 
> callers, the
> caller will still hear messages (you are first in queue, etc.).  This 
> should
> not occur.  Someone posted a 2-line patch on -dev list recently to fix 
> this
> issue.
>
>
>
> -Chris
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