Priority Queueing Explanation 1

[scottyjohn]

Hi all,
Can someone shed any light for me on how the algorithms work in relation to a call being queued in a vector with the priority set to m, h, or t. I have a manager who is pushing me for a scientific explanation of how this actually works and the avaya admin docs dont seem to explain it very well. Also how is this impacted by the agents being set to "skill level" or "greatest need" call handling.
Any help would be great!

John
ski_69@hotmail.com

 

[nknook]

Hi,

The priority handles the client (caller) side of things. Medium and High priority speak for themselves I guess, if two calls come in simultaneously, one gets queued with M and the other with H, guess who's answered first (if you leave out other factors)??
But now a call comes in 1 minute after the two previous calls have been queued, and it gets queued with prio Top. Now the new caller is in the top (hence the name) of the queue, and will be answered first, regardless of the fact the two other callers have been in the queue for a longer time. Be very carefull with assigning Top prio's in queues!

The second part of your question is about the agent/callcenter side of the game, and determine when a caller gets to speak to which agent.
For instance skill-level routes the call to an agent with the highest expertise (indicated by it's skill level on the agent form) available. Agents with the same skill, but a lower level, will get fewer calls on that topic. Greatest need on the other hand, makes an agent get a call that really needs to be answered (based on several variables). So it may be the case that there's a call queued that matches the agents highest level skill exactly, but another caller has been waiting for a longer (too long - service level!) time, so the agent gets this call (even if his skill-level for this call/skill is lower than the other). In a black and white world that is, in reality it can be quite complex to predict where calls are going, and who's gonna answer them.

Hope this helps, it's quite hard to explain without drawings and so..

Cheers,
Nico

 

[scottyjohn]

Cheers,
We have done some testing and it appears to kind of go against what you say above Nico,
The priority level doesnt seem to make any difference if the agent is set to handle calls on a skill-level basis. But if you change it to greatest need it does affect the outcome. Any further help would be great

John
ski_69@hotmail.com

 

[nknook]

I don't know why your test didn't give the expected results, but it is very hard to test when you have a small number of agents, calls & skills.

Try this:

Set the agents on after-call (so all calls that go in get queued, not answered right away), prefferably simultaneously, so they've been on after-call for the same amount of time.
If you now make two calls (one to VDN 1, prio M; the other to VDN 2, prio H), also simultaneously, and one agents changes it's state to available, the caller from VDN 2 should be routed to that agent (wait 30-40 seconds to correct the slight differences that will occur if you dial by hand).
If you next give 1 agent a higher skill-level than the others, and you let all agents be available, the first caller should be routed to that agent (assuming they've all handled the same amount of calls, and have been available for about the same lenght of time).

But as said, it's hard to predict/test, there's a lot of options that have their influence on how calls are routed, specifically if you combine them (which happens in most cases, f.i. priority in the queue, skill-level at the agent, and handling type on the skill).

Cheers,
Nico

 

[SF0751]

There are a lot of different factors that go into deciding which call gets answered first, such as your call selection and agent selection choices. You may have already gone through this, but check out the Avaya Call Center Little Instruction Book for Advanced Administration - Chapter 7 (Call and agent selection methods).

See

http://tinyurl.com/iqin

if you don't already have a copy.



Susan
^{Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. - Mark Twain}

 

[shelliep]

First question I would ask is "are you utilizing a true EAS environment? If you're set up for EAD-MIA then priority and level mean everything to getting the calls answered appropriately. Calls will be delivered to the login ID with the highest priority highest level on medium and low calls. Calls with delivery priority H will go to first available no matter what the priority or level, which means it doesn't matter if this is the 15th skill on the login profile with the 15th level, if that agent becomes free, that agent gets the call. As far as top, it can be misleading. Top means top priority or TOP MEASURED SKILL which may NOT be the primary or priority one skill. This would be especially detrimental in environments where call surplus exists frequently.

As to setting up skill level or greatest need: Skill level considers the priority and level (also known as attribute and ability). Works best in an EAS setup. Greatest need is best managed with fewer hunt groups or call types. Greatest need services First in First Out.

Hope I could help.

Shelliep

 

[marcell55]

Also be aware that Low, Medium, High and Top are only true for that skill. It does not go across skills. Here is an example.
We're using skill 10 and skill 11. Skill 10 and 11 are set us as EAD-MIA.
We queue one call in skill 10 at priority medium.
We queue one call in skill 11 at priority high.

An agent becomes available. That agent has skill level as the call selection method. That agent is assigned skill 10 with a level of 1 and skill 11 with a level of 2. The agent will always get a call waiting for skill 10 before skill 11 because they are better skilled to answer calls for skill 10, even though the skill 11 call was queued at a high priority.

The low, medium, high, and top queue priorities only determine that callers place in that particular queue. It will not change the queue that the agents will receive calls from... as long as you're in a true EAS environment, meaning hunt groups set at EAD-MIA and agents set a skilled call handling (Not Greatest Need).

 

[avayaman]

Another thing to remember is the effect they have when routing calls based on number queued (among other things, but this example illustrates the point). EG. If you wish a call to interflow based on a calls queued threshold, the priorities have an effect on which calls in Q are counted. For example a line like "goto step 3 if calls queued in skill 1 pri m > 5". Only calls queued in skill 1 at medium or higher priority will be counted, those at low priority will not.

Paul Beddows
Avaya Implementation
Telus
Vancouver, Canada
E-mail via

http://www.vancouver.hm/email.html