Queue Contact

The Queue Contact activity places a contact in a queue. When you use this activity in the Main Flow, you expose the following events in the Event Flows tab:

  • AgentAnswered: This event is triggered when an agent answers an inbound call and interrupts the contact's experience in a queue.

  • PhoneContactEnded: This event is triggered when a live call is disconnected, and all participants are removed. The event is available if you use selected call handling activities in a flow, such as Screen Pop and Feedback. This event doesn't require escalation to an agent.

    Note

    When you create a flow, don’t add any IVR activity after the PhoneContactEnded event. During the flow execution, the flow may get stuck when you add an activity after the contact ends.

  • AgentDisconnected: This event is triggered when the last agent disconnects from a live call, leaving the customer alone on the line.

The following sections enable you to configure the Queue Contact activity:

General Settings

Parameter

Description

Activity Label

Enter a name for the activity.

Activity Description

(Optional) Enter a description for the activity.
Note

If you don't see the fields such as Static Queue, Variable Queue, Variable Priority, Variable Skill Value, Set Contact Priority, and Variable Agent Availability Check, contact Cisco Support to enable the corresponding feature flag.

Contact Handling

Use the Contact Handling section to choose if all contacts should go to a single queue, or if queue selection should change based on the value of a flow variable.

Contact Handling
Parameter Description

Static Queue

Click the Static Queue radio button to route contacts to the single queue chosen in the Queue drop-down list. All contacts coming from the Entry Point associated with the configured workflow route to the chosen queue.

Queue

Choose a queue from the Queue drop-down list to route the contacts coming from the Entry Point associated to the workflow.

Note

You can manage queues in the Management Portal.

Variable Queue

Click the Variable Queue radio button to use a Queue Variable to dynamically select a queue to route contacts. You can also choose a Fallback Queue in case the Queue Variable fails during the flow execution.

Queue Variable

Choose a flow variable from the Queue Variable drop-down list that yields a valid Queue ID.

The flow variable indicates which queue should be dynamically selected during the flow execution. The Fallback queue is used only if the Queue Variable fails to return a valid Queue ID.

This field appears when you click the Variable Queue radio button.

Fallback Queue

Choose the Queue ID from the Fallback Queue drop-down list. In case the Queue Variable returns an invalid Queue ID, the contacts are queued to the selected Fallback Queue.

If you click the Variable Queue radio button, you can’t input the skill requirements for the queue that uses skill-based routing. In such case, the contacts are routed to the Longest Available Agent overriding the selected queue routing algorithm.

This field appears only when you click the Variable Queue radio button.

Check Agent Availability

Enable the Check Agent Availability toggle button to exclude teams with no available agents from routing as time in the queue progresses. The Call Distribution Group of the selected queue may skip to find an agent sooner.

By default, this toggle button is disabled.

Always Check Agent Availability

Click the Always Check Agent Availability radio button to enable agent availability checking. By default, the radio button is enabled.

This option appears only if you enable the Check Agent Availability toggle button.

Variable Agent Availability Check

Click the Variable Check Agent Availability radio button to select a flow variable from the Check Agent Availability Variable drop-down list that returns a Boolean. The Boolean determines whether to check the agent availability in the variable queue.

This option appears only if you enable the Check Agent Availability toggle button.

Set Contact Priority

Enable the Set Contact Priority toggle button if you want to assign a priority to the contacts waiting in the queue. By default, this toggle button is disabled.

The contacts are handled as follows:

  • If no priority is assigned to the contact, then the default priority is 10.

  • Contacts with higher priority are handled first.

  • If two contacts have the same priority, then the contact waiting in the queue for the longest duration is handled first.

  • If the agent transfers the call to an entry point, the contact priority changes to the priority assigned to a Queue Contact activity in the new flow. For more information, see Transfer a Call to an Entry Point.

Static Priority

Set the Static Priority if you want to assign a priority before publishing the flow. You can see this field only when the Set Contact Priority toggle button is enabled.

Choose a priority from the Static Priority Level drop-down list. You can set a priority from P1 to P9, where P1 is the highest and P9 is the lowest.

Variable Priority

Choose Variable Priority if the contact priority should change dynamically with each flow execution. This field appears only when the Set Contact Priority toggle button is enabled.

Skill Requirements

If the selected queue uses Skill-based Routing, another sections display to configure skill requirements and skill relaxation.

You can add one or more skill requirements to assign to a contact in this queue based on the selected queue.

Note

If you don’t specify any skills, all the available agents in the selected queue are eligible to receive contacts.

Skill Settings

Parameter

Description

Skill

Choose the desired skill from the drop-down list. You configure the skill definitions in the Management Portal.

Condition

Choose the desired condition from the drop-down list. The condition options are based on the chosen skill type.

Note

Skill types such as, Boolean and Enum don’t need a Condition.

The available conditions are: IS, IS NOT, >= , <=

Value

Click the Static Skill Value radio button to select the static skill values specified in the Skill Value field.

Click the Variable Skill Value radio button to select the skill value from a flow variable listed in the Variable drop-down list.

If the skill value is invalid, all skill requirements and relaxations that are associated with the contact that came through the QueueContactActivity are dropped.

Skill Relaxation

Use the Skill-relaxation settings to reduce or remove the assigned skill requirements to a flow in response to excessive customer wait times. This setting enables you to expand the pool of agents available to serve contacts.

Note

Use common time intervals to align Skill Relaxation with queue logic in the flow and with Call Distribution settings configured for teams in the queue.

To configure skill relaxation:

  1. Enable the Enable Skill Relaxation toggle button to configure skill relaxation.

    Enable this toggle button to copy and display the initial Skill Requirements by default. This allows you to configure the skill relaxation with an ideal set of skills.

    Set the After waiting in the queue for field to the duration in seconds that must exceed before the skill relaxation applies in the queue. The default wait time is 60 seconds.

  2. You can add, edit, or delete the skill relaxation requirements.

    • Click Add Skill Requirement to add a new skill relaxation requirement.

    • Click Delete to delete the skill relaxation requirement.

    • Click Edit to edit the skill relaxation requirement.

  3. Click Add Skill Relaxation Step to add a new skill relaxation group.

    The default skill requirements that appear in step 1 make it easier to set the skill relaxation requirements.