[This is pre-release documentation and subject to change in future releases. This topic's current status is: Milestone-Ready]

Topic Last Modified: 2010-07-14

Queues hold callers until an agent answers the call. When the Response Group application searches for an available agent, it searches agent groups in the order that you list them. You can select the agent groups that are assigned to the queue and specify queue behavior, such as limiting the number of calls that the queue can hold and the period of time that a call waits until an agent answers the call.

To create a queue

  1. Open Communications Server Control Panel.

  2. Click Response Groups, and then click the Queue tab.

  3. On the Queue page, click New.

  4. In the Select a Service dialog box, select the ApplicationServer service for which you want to add the queue, and then click OK.

  5. On the New Queue page, in the Name field, type a descriptive name for the queue.

  6. In the Description field, type a description for the queue.

  7. In the Groups section, click Select. In the Select Groups dialog box, click one or more agent groups that you want to assign to the queue, and then click OK.

    Note:
    When the server searches for an available agent in the queue, it uses group order. That is, the first group in the list is searched first, followed by the second group in the list, and so on. To change the order of the groups in the Groups list, click a group, and then click the up arrow or down arrow button.

  8. To specify a maximum period of time for a caller to wait on hold before an agent answers the call, select Enable queue timeout, and then do the following:

    1. In the Time-out period (seconds) field, specify the maximum number of seconds a caller waits for an agent to answer the call.

    2. In the Call Target field, select the action that occurs when a call times out as follows:

      • To disconnect the call after the timeout, click Disconnect.

      • To forward the call to voice mail, click Forward to voice mail, and then in the SIP address field, type a voice mail address in the format sip:username@domainname (for example, sip:bob@contoso.com).

      • To forward the call to another telephone number, click Forward to telephone number, and then in the SIP address field, type the telephone number in the format sip:number@domainname (for example, sip:+14255550121@contoso.com).

      • To forward the call to another user, click Forward to SIP address, and then in the SIP address field, type the URI for the user in the format sip:username@domainname.

      • To forward the call to another queue, click Forward to another queue, and then browse to the queue that you want to use.

  9. To specify a maximum number of calls that the queue can hold, select Enable queue overflow, and then do the following:

    1. In the Maximum number of calls field, select the maximum number of calls that you want the queue to hold.

    2. In the Forward the call field, select which call is to be forwarded when the queue is full: Newest Call or Oldest Call.

    3. Select the action that occurs when the overflow threshold is met as follows:

      • To disconnect the call after the timeout, click Disconnect.

      • To forward the call to voice mail, click Forward to voice mail, and then in the SIP address field, type a voice mail address in the format sip:username@domainname (for example, sip:bob@contoso.com).

      • To forward the call to another telephone number, click Forward to telephone number, and then in the SIP address field, type the telephone number in the format sip:number@domainname (for example, sip:+14255550121@contoso.com).

      • To forward the call to another user, click Forward to SIP address, and then in the SIP address field, type the URI for the user in the format sip:username@domainname.

      • To forward the call to another queue, click Forward to another queue, and then browse to the queue that you want to use.

  10. Click Commit.

See Also