QM lets each agent have his/her own page, where they can see the current flow of calls they have just answered and launch external CRM web apps.
This is quite useful, because:
- Each agent can see their own status, i.e. whether they’re logged on or they’ve been disconnected;
- Each agent can see their last calls, including information like Caller ID, duration and waiting times;
- Each agent can see from which queue the call is coming, even if they lost the announcement message;
- Each agent can launch external web apps - like CRM software - that might be automatically linked to the Caller*ID or other information input by the caller;
- Each agent can read the messages broadcasted to him.
- Each agent can start a new conversation calling a phone number
- Each agent can have a subset of AGAW information
Also, it is possible to use this page in order to:
- Log the agent on and off to Asterisk and/or a specific queue
- Pause and un-pause the agent, entering the pause activity code if needed
- Set the outcome code for each call
To avoid excessive consumption of system resources on big centres, only the most recent part of the log file is processed and so only a few calls are shown.
In order to use this feature, a user must be configured as having the same login as the Asterisk agent string (e.g., "Agent/101") and it must hold the key AGENT. Our suggestion is to use the same set of credentials the agent uses to login to the Asterisk system.
When the agent logs on - you can try this by using the demo account Agent/101, password 999 - s/he sees a reduced home page like the following one:
By clicking on "Show inbound calls", the agent is led to the inbound calls page:
This page tells the agent that he’s logged on and shows the last calls he has handled. This page lists also a subset of AGAW information related to the logged agent. In this case we see that there is an ongoing conversation and many previous calls.
On top of the page a field tells the agent whether s/he is:
- Logged on: ready and able to take or make calls;
- Logged on queues: followed by the list of queues the agent is dynamically logged on through the Add Member button;
- Logged off: the agent has voluntarily left or has forcibly been disconnected by the queue system;
- On pause: the agent has asked for a pause from the queue system;
- Undetermined: whether there is no relevant information to tell the agent status in the last part of the log file.
The fields the agent can find in the call list are as follows:
- Entering at is the date and time the call entered the queue system;
- Waiting is the waiting time before being connected to the agent;
- Talking is the talking time for that call. If the call is ongoing, the time will be estimated and written in red.;
- Caller ID is the call’s identification, if available;
- Queue is the queue handling the call;
- URL is a clickable link that opens a third party CRM app. The agent opens the third party CRM app by clicking on it, or QM can open it up automatically the first time the URL is presented. If the URL contains bracketed placeholder sequences, they are expanded (see below)
- Status is whether the call is ongoing or terminated;
- Transfer is the extension the call was transferred to (if any).
- Outcome is the call outcome that the agent can set for this call
After the call list table, if enabled by configuration as explained in Section 18.12, “Configuring system preferences”, a table lists the AGAW information related to the atomic queues the agent is working on. For more information about the AGAW subsystem, please refer to Section 9, “The Agent Awareness subsystem (AGAW)”.
To avoid hammering the QM server with excessive work, only the last 60k or so of the log are analyzed. This parameter can be fine tuned by the system administrator in order to maximise usefulness without creating an excessive server load (see Section 18.12, “Configuring system preferences”).
Whenever an agent receives a call, s/he should press the "Reload" button on the page in order to see the incoming call.
The page reloads automatically every two minutes in order tomaintain the user logged on in QM.
Each time the call history changes, and if there is an URL associated to the call shown on top of the list, a new window will automatically be opened pointing to the specifig URL. This feature could be disabled modifying the value associated to the configuration key realtime.agent_autoopenurl as specified in Section 18.12, “Configuring system preferences”.
URLs are passed to the Queue() command in Asterisk, or - if missing - they can defined in the QueueMetrics queue configuration as a default. They can include a set of placeholders that are expanded with the details of the call being handled, as in the following table.
| Placeholder | Meaning |
|---|---|
[A] | The agent’s numeric code, e.g. 101 for Agent/101 |
[U] | The call’s Asterisk UniqueId |
[S] | The Server ID (for clusters) |
[Q] | The name of the queue |
[T] | The timestamp of the call |
[C] | The caller-id, if present |
The buttons on the agent’s page can be used to log agents on and off, to dynamically add or remove them to one or more queues, to dial a phone number, to pause and unpause them and set the call status. Each button could independently be enabled or disabled changing the associated key value in the configuration. When pressed, each button will open up a pop-up window asking for details:
Once the user clicks on Run, the command will be sent to the Asterisk server and the page will be reloaded. It is possible that on very busy machines the commands may be delayed a few seconds, so that it is necessary to reload the page manually in order to check that the command has run successfully.
Please note that for this to work it is necessary that Asterisk has been configured to manage Agent actions - it will NOT work on an Asterisk server that’s not been specifically configured to work with it!
See section Section 20.10, “Enabling Agent’s page actions” in order to set up this feature.
If you want to have agents logging on, it is mandatory that the underlying Asterisk agents are defined without a password.
It’s possibile to have at maximum four buttons fully customizable in the realtime agent’s page. These buttons could be used to:
- Open a new browser page
- Dial a predefined extension.
By changing some configuration settings, each button can be:
- Enabled/Disabled globally
- Have a custom label assigned
- Have an URL specified. If [A] or [U] are specified inside the URL, QueueMetrics will expand it with the numeric Agent code or with the Unique Call ID of the last call processed (if present, otherwise Unspecified will be used).
- As an alternative to the URL, have two Asterisk call legs specified that will be dialed when the button is pressed. The placeholder [A] is exanded - if present - with the numeric Agent code.
The image below shows the buttons in action.
To have more details on the configuration settings involved, please read the Appendix D, System preferences.
In the following example, the first two buttons will open an external web page; the third one is disabled and the fourth could be used to start a call to the secretary. When a button is associated to a dial action, when pressed, it will be highlight in yellow as shown in the picture below.
Please note that buttons will be hidden if there is not at least one button enabled. To have more details on the configuration key details, please read Appendix D, System preferences.