OOnce a conversation has been queued, the routing system finds the most-suitable agent eligible to answer the conversation. Then it sends the conversation assignment notification to the agent tool to indicate the selected agent.
If an error is received after notification, it unassigns the agent and repeats the process until the conversation is successfully assigned to an agent.
If the conversation isn’t successfully assigned after a specified time, it cancels the conversation and stops search for the agent.
Agents must meet the following requirements to be eligible for a conversation:
The routing engine takes into account the following before it routes a conversation to an agent:
Agent occupancy is the number of conversations that an agent is assigned to at any given moment compared to the agent's capacity. The occupancy can be represented as a percent or a number.
Capacity is the maximum number of conversations that an agent can handle at any given time. This is used mostly for offline channels, such as email, where an agent can handle more than one conversations comfortably. However this can be enabled for the chat channel.
The voice channel is an exception, where an agent can only be on a single conversation at any given time. Typically an agent's capacity is determined by their role.
Agent presence indicates an agent's current availability in the routing system. It is also known as the agent's state (e.g. Ready, Not-Ready). Agent presence determines whether an agent should be considered for queued conversations. Additionally, a presence can also indicate whether an agent should not be considered for a conversation, but still be considered productive (e.g. offline work).
An agent changes their presence in routing system via an agent tool (e.g. Voyager Next). Agents can change their presence while handling a currently assigned conversation. This is typically done by the agent before going on break or ending their shift.
Queue proficiency allows you to configure which queues will be answered before others within the group assigned to the agent. Queues are given a priority within a queue group. A delay timer can also be associated with each queue in group.
After a conversation has been in queue for a specified amount of time the priority of the queue is dropped and conversation is answered based on first come first serve basis.
Once a conversation has been queued, the routing strategy drives the logic to find most-suitable agent eligible to be assigned to the conversation. The routing strategy is chosen by examining the conversation attributes.
The most suitable is determined using one of the strategies below:
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| Longest Idle | If none of the eligible agents has a conversation assigned, then the agent who has been Ready for the longest time is selected. If some agents have conversations assigned and some don't, the agent who has been Ready for the longest time is selected. If every eligible agent has a conversation assigned, then the least occupied (lowest value of %, where % is calculated as (NumberOfAssignedConversations / Capacity) * 100 is selected. If there are two or more Agents with same % value, the Agent who has been Ready for the longest time is selected. |
| Requested Agent | In some cases the conversation itself has information about which specific agent is it for. That conversation can’t be assigned to any other agent. The agent doesn’t need to be in a Ready state to receive this conversation. |