[Asterisk-Users] ACD/queues question

[Tom Rymes]

On Oct 12, 2005, at 1:30 PM, Pedro Nunes wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Does anyone know how to setup an overflow queue? When a call rings  
> on the queue A, if all agents were busy, the call goes to the queue B.
>
> If all agents in queue B were busy, then the call stays on both  
> queues until somebody answers it.
>
> I think this is a basic ACD feature available on most PBX that  
> support ACD functionality.
>
> Does anybody knows how to do it with asterisk??
>
> Thanks in advance
>
>  Pedro Nunes
What we have done is to set up a single queue that all calls come  
into. For the agents that we want to be our "Front Line" (i.e.:  
Customer Service Reps), we give them a penalty of 0. Our "Overflow"  
group (i.e.: Customer service reps who are also dealing with walk-in  
customers and therefore should not be bothered unless we're really  
busy) gets a penalty of 1, and our "Last Resort" (i.e.: Everyone  
else) people get a penalty of 2.

That way, all of the calls are answered by our front line people,  
unless they are all busy/unavailable. Then, and only then, the calls  
start going to our overflow people, and if they are also all  
unavailable, the calls go to our last resort people. Seeing as how we  
have more than 23 people between the three groups, there should  
technically be no waiting on hold in the queue, even with the PRI  
saturated.

I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but it works  
extremely well for us. To whomever coded this feature, THANK YOU!

To set this up, just edit the queues.conf file and add the penalty to  
each agent's  "member =>" line like this:

; Front-line - Penalty of 0
member => 100,0
; Overflow - Penalty of 1
member => 101,1
;Last Resort - Penalty of 2
member => 102,2

Hope that proves useful to someone....

Tom