Overview

ACD queues (Automatic Call Distribution) are a more advanced version of Groups that allow your company's users to handle calls one at a time while new callers wait in line for the next available agent. Call queues are great for businesses that experience high volume customer calls, as they allow your representatives to effectively deal with each incoming call without losing other callers to busy signals or unanswered phones.

Your users, or agents, which want to handle incoming calls from the queue must log in to the queue to begin receiving calls. When your agents have finished for the day, or no longer wish to continue receiving calls from the queue they must log out of the queue. Logging in and out of the queue is done by dialing the queue's login extension.

 

Simple vs Enhanced Queues

OnSIP now offers two (2) types of queues, Simple or Enhanced Queues.  Pricing for queues is based on the available slots for agents.  The default number of agents is set at 5, meaning 5 agents can log into the queue at one time.

 

Simple Queue

Standard queue functionality with HD voice, 5 ring strategies and the ability for callers waiting in the queue to failover to a voice mailbox at any time.
Cost per Agent seat = $9.95

 

Enhanced Queue

Offers the Simple Queue feature set plus a reporting dashboard accessed in the OnSIP app.  Upon creation of a Enhanced Queue, the Account Admin will be granted a new role called "Queue Supervisor", which will make reports available in the OnSIP app.  Account Admins will have the ability to grant this "Queue Supervisor" role to other users on their OnSIP Account.  This dashboard offers in-depth statistics and reports on the following:

• Real-time Overview - Showing a snapshot of the queue within the hour (how many calls are waiting in the queue, a list of agent(s) currently logged into the queue and their status (on a call, available, logged out).
• Historical Reports - Customers will be able to run detailed reports on the queue by selecting the time period to review ranging from the last day to the last month(s), etc. (includes average call wait time, longest call wait time, busiest time of day) and download as CSV files.

For more information on the Enhanced Queue Dashboard, please see this Knowledgebase article.

 

Enhanced Queues also offer call recording capabilities in conjunction with a 3rd party Storage Service Provider (SSP). OnSIP currently supports the following three SSPs for call recording:

1. Amazon Web Services (AWS)

1. Google Cloud

1. Rackspace

Call recording is included in Enhanced Queues pricing, however there may be additional costs incurred by the external storage provider and due to the provider directly- see their products for more details.

Cost per Agent seat = $14.95

 

Creating an ACD Queue

 

Under "Administrators" tab, click "Inbound call Settings” then select "ACD Queue" >“Add ACD Queue".

Select a queue type to begin setup. Basic or Enhanced. 

 

Basic ACD Queue

Queue Name

Enter the name for your queue, something descriptive like "Tech Support Queue" or "Billing Queue" is generally best.

Max Callers in Queue

This is the maximum number of callers that can be in a queue at one time.  All additional callers will immediately go to the queue failover.

Login Password

The universal PIN/password for agents to use to enter the queue after entering the Login Extension.

Max Agents

This is the number of seats available for agents to log into. Default is set at 5 agents, meaning you can have up to 5 agents log into the queue at any given time.

 

Agent Settings

Ring Strategy

This determines the manner in which your agents will be delivered calls from the queue. OnSIP offers five (5) ring strategies:

• Roundrobin Memory: each agent is rung in succession beginning with the last agent succeeding the last agent to answer a call.  Example: Three agents logged into queue.  First call to first agent logged into queue, second call to next agent logged in, third call to next agent logged into queue, fourth call will loop to ring first agent and ring specified "Ring Each agent for" time and then call will move to next agent.

• Fewest Calls: rings the agents who has received the fewest calls from callers
• Least Recent: rings the agents who has waited the longest since receiving a caller.
• Ringall: rings all agents simultaneously
• Random: randomly selects agents to send the next call

 

Ring Duration

When the queue routes caller to an agent, if the agent(s) does/do not answer within the amount of time specified, the call will be routed to the next agent, based on the "Ring Strategy".

 

Connection Delay

Use this to allow an agent to accept a call from the queue, but still give them a few moments to prepare before connecting them with the caller.

 

Post Call WrapUp

This value, when set, will be sure that the agent does not begin receiving new calls from the queue for this amount of time. If agents require a few moments to record notes or other final tasks, then this value is useful.

 

Caller Settings

Announce Hold Time

If the Caller Hears music option is selected, you may optionally specify how often the caller will be played status messages regarding their position in the queue (On Pickup).

Recording Announcement

Selecting a Recording Announcement will play a recording before every call, stating to the caller that their call may be monitored or recorded.

Caller Hears

Choose whether the caller will hear music or ringing:

• Ringing - the queue will act like a ring Group and no announcements will be played
• Music - MoH (music on hold) Choose from the music sources available. (Enhanced MoH not needed)

Your callers in queue will be played status messages regarding their position in the queue.

Caller Timeout

This is the maximum amount of time you would like any caller to stay in queue before being automatically routed to the Failover Voice Mailbox.

Failover Address

This is the location to which timed-out callers will be automatically routed. Also, if no agent(s) happens to be logged into the queue, then this again serves as a failover destination.

Escape Voice Mailbox

If an escape address is enabled, the caller gets a menu option to manually leave the queue and go to the escape voice mailbox.

Queue Extension

An extension is a 4-digit extension, created by you, to allow for blind transferring to your queue from other users.

Login Extension

This is the extension your agents use to log in and out of the queue.

Enhanced Queue

By placing a checkmark in the box, you are enabling reporting data that lets you view real-time caller/agent events and historical aggregated statistics at an additional cost of $5.00 per agent seat configured for queue.

Recording

By placing a checkmark in the box, you are enabling call recording for all calls on your Enhanced Queue. Before enabling call recording on your queue, you must set up an account with one of the 3 supported SSPs. See the following articles for setup instructions:

• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud
• Rackspace

Storage Service

When you’ve created an account with a SSP, enter the credentials of that account in the Resources tab of your OnSIP account. Once that has been done, choose the name of the Storage Service (created in the Resources tab) here.

Recording Tone

By placing a checkmark in the box, a tone will play periodically during a call, notifying the caller that the call is being recorded.

Report Hold Time

This announces to agent the length of time caller was on hold.

Send Email

By checking this box you are setting an email address to have the voicemail to be sent as a WAV file notification.

Escape Settings

Send Email

By checking this box you are setting an email address to have the voicemail be sent as a WAV file notification.

Advanced Settings

SIP Address:

This is created by you to be used to directly call into the queue as a caller.

Login SIP Address:

This is the SIP Address that agents can directly call to reach the login/logout prompt.

 

Logging Into the Queue:

To login to the queue, an agent must dial the login extension from a phone registered with OnSIP. Important: logging into the queue from an outside phone like a cell phone will NOT work. Once the agent has dialed the login extension, they will be prompted to enter the login password, this may be found in the ACD queue details under "Login Details". Upon successfully entering the PIN the agent will be logged in and the queue will hangup the call. Now when callers begin entering the queue, the agent will receive calls.

 

Logging Out of the Queue:

Simply dial the queue login extension again from the phone that is logged in. If you are already logged in you will hear a message to the effect of 'agent logged off', at which point the queue will hang up the call.

 

Important Notes and Suggestions:

• Unless all your agents log out of the queue at the end of the business day, all callers calling into the queue will be waiting in line for the full caller timeout duration before failing over to the timeout destination. To avoid this please be sure that all agents log out when they are not answering calls
• When deleting/editing a user, be sure the user is logged out of any ACD queue.  Failure to do so will result in the user still appearing in queue reports, with no way of removing them once they have been deleted/edited.