asterisk users - Feb 2006 - Call queue design issues and suggestions

Greetings to all.

I am currently implementing call queues for a customer and have come across
several "problems".

The customer is an airline representative, and will be using call queues for
different airline reservations. The customer requires that any agent be able
to login to any number of queues. This means that queue members have to be
dynamic, not using "member => agent/101" for example.

I am not sure of the best way to accomplish this.

I initially just setup agentcallback, and hard coded the agents in each
queue, but this means that when an agent logs in he/she will be in all
queues where member => agent/xxx.

My next thought was to use a combination of agentcallback and addQueueMember
to add SIP extensions to particular queues. I currently have a mechanism by
which the user can dial a number, enter the two letter airline code, mysql
translates this airline code into a real queue name, and the user is then
added to this queue. Of course the two letter airline code could be used for
the queue name to avoid the mysql lookup, something like queue-xx. Along
these lines, does anyone know if it is possible to use AddQueueMember with
Agent/xxx, or just with real extensions? The main problem with this is that
there would be no way to globally logoff agents (if real extensions had to
be used) from all the queues they are logged in to.

My current idea is to use agentcallback in combination with a php/mysl
interface. This of course would require realtime queue configuration. The
user would use agentcallback to login, and the web interface to choose the
queues he/she wanted to join.

The customer also wants a way of seeing which queues the agents are logged
into. This could also be run from mysql backend. I would also like to some
how integrate this into the Cisco 7940 xml capabilities.

Would love to hear form anyone regarding these issues.

Regards,
Joe

I don't know if this works for you, but I use the following mechanism. I
don't use the agent call back stuff, just the (Add|Remove)QueueMember stuff.

For each queue, dialing the extension (XXXX), puts the caller into the queue
(ie, a customer calling for reservations). I use **XXXX to sign a phone into
the queue and *XXXX to sign out of a queue.

You can use the manager to see who is currently logged into a port. It
doesn't take much to write a cgi script that outputs the Cisco XML for the
phones. I've built a few apps that do interesting things. It would be quite
easy to write an app that:

   - displays what queues a phone is signed into
   - globally sign out of all queues
   - sign into or out of individual queues

Thanks.

On 2/21/06, Joe <jrothstein@comcentrixs.com>
wrote:
>
> Greetings to all.
>
> I am currently implementing call queues for a customer and have come
> across
> several "problems".
>
> The customer is an airline representative, and will be using call queues
> for
> different airline reservations. The customer requires that any agent be
> able
> to login to any number of queues. This means that queue members have to be
> dynamic, not using "member => agent/101" for example.
>
> I am not sure of the best way to accomplish this.
>
> I initially just setup agentcallback, and hard coded the agents in each
> queue, but this means that when an agent logs in he/she will be in all
> queues where member => agent/xxx.
>
> My next thought was to use a combination of agentcallback and
> addQueueMember
> to add SIP extensions to particular queues. I currently have a mechanism
> by
> which the user can dial a number, enter the two letter airline code, mysql
> translates this airline code into a real queue name, and the user is then
> added to this queue. Of course the two letter airline code could be used
> for
> the queue name to avoid the mysql lookup, something like queue-xx. Along
> these lines, does anyone know if it is possible to use AddQueueMember with
> Agent/xxx, or just with real extensions? The main problem with this is
> that
> there would be no way to globally logoff agents (if real extensions had to
> be used) from all the queues they are logged in to.
>
> My current idea is to use agentcallback in combination with a php/mysl
> interface. This of course would require realtime queue configuration. The
> user would use agentcallback to login, and the web interface to choose the
> queues he/she wanted to join.
>
> The customer also wants a way of seeing which queues the agents are logged
> into. This could also be run from mysql backend. I would also like to some
> how integrate this into the Cisco 7940 xml capabilities.
>
> Would love to hear form anyone regarding these issues.
>
> Regards,
> Joe
>
>
>
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In article <be2921990602211309s4ca346b0n448c8fde8451a9b4@mail.gmail.com>,
gary.richardson@gmail.com says...
> I don't know if this works for you, but I use the following mechanism.
I
> don't use the agent call back stuff, just the (Add|Remove)QueueMember
stuff.
> 
> For each queue, dialing the extension (XXXX), puts the caller into the
queue
> (ie, a customer calling for reservations). I use **XXXX to sign a phone
into
> the queue and *XXXX to sign out of a queue.
Good idea, maybe sometimes I'll need it.
> You can use the manager to see who is currently logged into a port. It
> doesn't take much to write a cgi script that outputs the Cisco XML for
the
> phones. I've built a few apps that do interesting things. It would be
quite
> easy to write an app that:
It could be easy for someone with experience, but if you have never done it
before (like me) it isn't like that. Can you send us what you have done?


-- 

Tomislav Parcina
name.surname@email.t-com.hr