Resourse Group Selection Criteria - Circular

[mohammadchowdhury]

Hello,

Can anyone tell what does following mean

"Circular—Selects the next available agent with the highest priority, based on the last agent selected and the agent order in the Resources list"

I can't figure out what does it mean by " Selects the next available agent with the highest priority" , does it mean an agent is slecetd based on the priority of their skill set. what priority is it talking about.

Regards

Mohammad Chowdhury

[Anthony Holloway]

I am answering this question assuming you're talking about UCCX.

It simply means that you rank your Agents in the list: highest to lowest (that becomes their priority within the list).

So if I had three Agents: agent1, agent2, and agent3 and I wanted to drop them into the resource group in a specific order:

1. agent3
2. agent2
3. agent1

Therefore, agent3's priority within the list is higher than agent2.  Make sense?

And the circular part is simply saying it will start at the next agent after the last agent to take a call, then go down the list in order of priority, to the next available agent.

Example:  All three agents are in the Ready state.  agent3 took the last call.  The next call will go to agent2.

This is similar to, but different than, Linear.  Linear is more like skills based routing, where you rank your agents in the list (like I did above), and it always starts at the top of the list looking for an available agent.

I hope that helps explain it for you.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

[mohammadchowdhury]

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for your reply. these algorithms are now clear to me.

If you have time , i would like to ask your help with following issue we have in our call centre regarding resource allocation.

The issue is with our current CSQ setup and available resource pool selection criteria. Just for your record here is how its currently configured.

We have five languages based CSQ’s operating in our call centre and following is how they are currently configured.

• I. English
  • Contains all agents in the call centre
    
  • Resource pool selection mode – Resource Group
    
  • Resource Selection Criteria – Circular
    

• II. Italian / French / German / Spanish
  
  • Resource pool selection mode – Resource Skills
    
  • Resource Selection Criteria – Most Skilled
    
  • Minimum Competence Level - 5 for respective CSQ
    
  • Agents skill ratings are set currently in following manner
    

• Italian Agents – Italian (10), German (5), French (5), Spanish (5)
  
• French Agents – French (10), German (5), Italian (5), Spanish (5)
  
• German Agents – German (10), French (5), Italian (5), Spanish (5)
  
• Spanish Agents – Spanish (10), French (5), Italian (5), German (5)
  

Now , all non- English CSQ are setup based on “Resource Skills” and “ Most Skilled” algorithm being set as resource selection criteria. Which currently defaults to “ Longest Available” if two or more agents have equal competency level. Things are nice and smooth until calls routed to Longest Available agent and they go for shorter smoke or toilet breaks. Calls then get routed to the next longest available agent who in our case have already answered the previous call coming to same CSQ. So what’s happening here is, agents who doesn’t go for these shorter breaks get punished with more calls.

We don’t have this problem on English CSQ as we have different resource pool selection set in there. Which is Set as Resource group with “Circular” as resource selection criteria. This works fine because there’s no fall-back to “ Longest Available”. We have tried every other selection criteria but none works for us unfortunately. Raising this with you hoping you can advise different technique or guide us to the right path to re-design our non-English CSQs. Can you tell if we can create additional resource selection criteria other than the default ones? Can we add something like followings

• •1. Lowest total talk time
  
• •2. Least Handled contacts
  
• •3. Circular ( like you can select when agents are in recourse group )
  

Also , is there a way to change the default selection criteria “ Longest Available” to something else. E.g. Shortest Average Handle Time or anything else.

Any help would be highly appriciated.

Thanks

mschowdhury

[Anthony Holloway]

So what’s happening here is, agents who doesn’t go for these shorter breaks get punished with more calls.

Isn't that the case with any job?  Set a schedule for breaks and make everyone take a break.  As for the "toilet breaks", well, that's just something you have to manage on a case by case basis.  You wouldn't want to limit someone's ability to relieve themselves, but you also wouldn't want an employee spending 30% of the work day in the restroom either.

Maybe give incentives for taking more calls.  Such as holding a contest at the end of each day, where the winner doesn't have to take calls for 30 minutes after lunch, and the weekly winner get a full hour.

We have tried every other selection criteria but none works for us unfortunately. 

Unfortunately, how you route calls around to your agents is a business related problem, and that's just not something I can solve for you.  Are you the IT/Telecom person, or are you in the business (I.e., supervisor, analyst, etc.)?  Either way, their are company's who make their living on offering consulting services for people just like you, and in your exact situation.  Perhaps you could consult with them on how to streamline your contact center.

Also , is there a way to change the default selection criteria “ Longest Available” to something else

I am assuming you mean the default behavior of most skilled with two or more agents with the same skill level.  And no, you cannot change that behavior.

Your available agent selection options are listed in the admin guide on page 8-21:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/crs/express_8_5/configuration/guide/uccx851ag.pdf

Since we're on the topic, one thing I see confused a lot is the separation of Contact and Agent when discussing CSQ/Resource Group routing algorithms.

Contacts are always queued up in First In First Out (FIFO) order, within each of the 10 priority queues.  All Contacts are assigned a default priority of 1.  You can change the Contact's priority with the Set Priority step.

Agents are the ones subjected to the CSQ or Resource Group routing algorithm.

So, the system first looks at the next Contact in line, and then looks at the pool of possible Agents to serve him or her, and then connects them together.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

[mohammadchowdhury]

Hi Anthony,

Really appriciate your reply. Its been so helpful to get our head clear on this issue. I actually have another question for you.

Currently we have one script for each CSQ. is there a way to call 2 or more CSQ within a script?

In more detail

i. we have 5 laguages based CSQ. Spanish, Italian, French, English, Danish, German. Different lines setup for each CSQ.

ii. Each language have one script in teh system which takes care of the call and assign teh call to agent based.

Can you tell if a spanish call can be routed first to spanish CSQ and then to another one if no one is available to handle the call in Spanish CSQ. so for example can we route the call to English CSQ.

Regards

Mohammad Chowdhury

[Anthony Holloway]

Yes you can, but it hurts your ability to report on metrics with the built in standard reports.

A better option might be to convert English to a Skill/CSQ and add the skill to your Spanish CSQ.

Example:

Spanish Agents – Spanish (10), French (5), Italian (5), German (5), English (3)

This way, your Spanish Agents get picked first, followed by French, Italian and German, and finally English.

It works because you have Most Skilled routing on these language CSQ's.  I don't know that there's any reason for you to have English in a Resource Group with all the others in CSQ's anyway.  Just make them all Skill/CSQ, and you can accomplish the above.

To explain the queuing thing you asked about though, it's called nested queuing, and you simply use a second Select Resource step in your script.  The system keeps track of which queue(s) the caller is in, and routes them to the appropriate Agent.  Again, it messes up your reporting, and it's tricky to explain to supervisor.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.