Two Queues Handle Each Other's Calls (But Only Sometimes)

[Turtlepuke]

I know there are a few ways to do things in Avaya, but this one is a little tough to get my head around. Here's the scenario.

Group A Agents Are Assigned To Skill 1

Group B Agents Are Assigned To Skill 2


Group A wants to be able to handle some of Group B's calls from time to time when they have availability.

Group B also wants to help out with some of Group A's call from time to time.

But these two groups don't want to do it all the time. They are insistent that they want some sort manual trigger they can do to turn this off and on.

I would probably skill the two groups at different skill levels so each receives their own calls before they get the other team's calls.

But the part that get's me is figuring out what manual intervention to set up. I had thought about setting up a variable that they'd have to set by dialing into a vector that collects a digit for the variable.

I also thought about having the trigger be that they log a specific agent into certain "trigger" skill (999 or something)

Is anyone doing anything like this where your group can revert back to just taking their own calls using a manual intervention on their end? If so, do you have a vector I could look at?

I'm wondering if a 1st skill, 2nd skill on the VDN settings could be helpful......My mind is having difficulty wrapping around this.

 

[ZeroZeroOne]

You could try having four skill sets:

Skill 1 Group A Only
Skill 2 Group B Only
Skill 3 Group A Primary, Group B Secondary
Skill 4 Group B Primary, Group A Secondary

Assign Group A Agents Skills 1 with Skill Level 1, Skill 3 with Skill Level 1, and Skill 4 with Skill Level 5
Assign Group B Agents Skills 2 with Skill Level 1, Skill 3 with Skill Level 5, and Skill 4 with Skill Level 1

You could have a global variable set as a flag with a VDN/Vector that sets the value, say 0 for normal and 1 for overflow.

For the normal call flows you would queue to skills 1 and 2 only for their respective teams. If the Variable value is 1 then queue to the shared queues

...
13 goto step 17 if CC = 1
14 # Normal Queue
15 queue to skill 1 priority m
16 goto step 19 if unconditionally
17 # Shared Queue
18 queue to skill 3 priority m
19 wait 2 minutes blah blah blah
...

During normal call flow, only Team A gets calls (Skill 1). Team B only gets calls (Skill 2).

When the flag is set, Calls go to Skills 3 and 4. For these Skills, the Primary Group gets the calls first (Skill Level 1) and the Secondary Group only gets calls if the Primary group is busy (Skill Level 5).

 

[Turtlepuke]

This is a good idea. Thanks for this.
I'm still not sure that the company would go along with the reporting complexity of 4 skills.
Any creative way to do it with just 2 skills? I'm guessing not.

 

[Stinney]

Do you have CMS? If so, the supervisors could add he agents to the skill to take calls and then unskill them when they don't want them to take calls. You can still do the priorities so that the primary agents take a call first if available.

- Stinney

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.” - Confucius

 

[ZeroZeroOne]

CMS or Taske provide managers the ability to dynamically assign skills to Agents. When Group B needs to assist Group A, the Manager can assign the appropriate skill.

The 4 skill suggestion allows you to set Group A and Group B independently of each other if you want Group B to cover A but not A to cover B. It also keeps the calls separate so that you would know "this is a Group A call" when answered by a Group B Agent.

You could get away with three skills.

Skill 1 Group A Only
Skill 2 Group B Only
Skill 3 Group A and B

Assign Group A Skills 1 and 3 (Skill Level 1)
Assign Group B Skills 2 and 3 (Skill Level 1)

When the Flag variable is set to 1, all calls queue to skill 3 and will be answered by any available Agent in either group. Both groups would have an equal chance of answering and would not know if the call was originally a "Group A" or "Group B" call.

 

[Turtlepuke]

Thanks guys!!!Can a supervisor unskill all their agents in one fell swoop? or does it have to be done one by one?

 

[Stinney]

Yes, you can apply one agent's profile to multiple agents all at once.

They can do this 2 ways.

1: Change one agent, then apply that agent's skilling profile to all other agents.

2: You setup 2 agents in CM. One will have just their primary skill and the other will have their primary and secondary skills assigned. The supervisor can then use that to change the agent's skills.

The only issue with 2 is that the supervisor can accidentally modify the agent template.

- Stinney

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.” - Confucius