Idle Timer Profiles

Idle Timers Overview

When incoming calls to a queue are configured to be delivered using the round-robin method, Idle Timers help to determine which agent should receive the inbound call if more than one agent is available at the time.

Callers in a queue will wait on hold until an agent becomes available.  However, if more than one agent is available, the agent with the longest idle time will receive the call. As a general rule of thumb, the agent with the longest idle time will always be first in line to get a call from a call queue.

General Idle Timer Behavior

• Conquer Voice open and has Inbound Ready enabled: Idle timers only start accruing once these conditions are met. Turning off Inbound Ready will reset accrued idle time to 0.
• Accept an inbound call: Accrued idle time is reset to 0 and paused (also true for outbound calls if profile 1 is selected).
• Connecting or disconnecting an Agent Session: Accrued Idle time is not affected by this action.
• Fully completed wrap-up:  Required that agent both ends and dispositions a call to begin accruing idle time after being on a call.
• Closing Conquer Voice with Inbound Ready enabled : Agent's idle time accrual is paused.
• Closing Conquer Voice with Inbound Ready disabled : Agent's accrued idle time is reset to 0 and will not accrue until Inbound Ready is enabled again.
• Maximum number of strikes:  Agent's accrued idle time will reset to 0 and Inbound Ready will be disabled.  Idle time only starts accruing after Inbound Ready is enabled again.

Profiles

Idle Timer Profiles adjust the way that idle time is influence by the idle timer triggers based on your organizations preference.  There are 3 to consider.

1.  Global Idle Timer

Both receiving an inbound call and making an outbound call will reset the agent's accrued idle time to 0.  Accrued idle time for each queue that an agent is participating in will be reset.  Once the call has completed wrap-up by saving a disposition for the call, idle time will begin to accrue again.

This profile is the closest to the original, default inbound idle behavior, but under the old system virtually every action reset a user's idle timer. It's important to understand the general idle time behavior as outlined above that applies to all profiles so that users and managers will be prepared for the difference. For an in-depth discussion of what changes to expect, your Customer Success Manager can give you the details. 

2. Global Inbound Idle Timer

Only receiving an inbound call will will reset the agent's idle time to 0.  Accrued idle time for each queue that an agent is participating in will be reset.  Once the inbound call has completed wrap-up by saving a disposition for the call, idle time will begin to accrue again.

3. Separate Idle Timer per Queue

Rather than resetting idle time for each queue that an agent is participating in, this profile will reset accrued idle time only for the queue from which the specific call was delivered.  Once an agent accepts an inbound call from a queue,  idle time in their other queues will continue to accrue.  The result is that an agent will move down to the bottom of this single queue while still maintaining their availability in other queues even while they are on the call.

Note:  Optionally, this profile can also be configured to pause idle time accrual, rather than continue accruing, when an agent receives an incoming call.

This is the recommended option for organizations with Call Waiting enabled.  If call waiting is enabled while the idle timer is set to global, agents that seem to be at the bottom of queues could receive call waiting calls, simply because of their position in a different queue. In addition, if an agent has multiple active calls, all calls must be completed and dispositioned before idle times begin to accrue.

Additional Features

If you wish to enable any of these features for your organization, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Pause Queue

With this feature enabled, Agents will have the ability to pause each queue individually within the Queue Position Dashboard. The Agent will be unavailable in any queues they have paused, similar to toggling Inbound Ready off, but will remain available in unpaused queues. The following options are available for Idle Time accrual when they pause a queue and your organization will select the preferred method when the feature is enabled:

1. Reset Idle Time (Default)
2. Pause accrual 
3. Continue accrual 

The Pause Queue feature is only available for Separate Inbound Idle Timer per Queue, and custom profiles using that base method. When requesting this feature, please indicate which of the above is the preferred configuration.

Revert Idle Time

When this feature is enabled on your Idle Timer Profile by Conquer, it allows your organization to set a minimum call duration (in seconds) for a call to "count" as an accepted call, resulting in an Agent's idle time to be reset. If an inbound call from a queue is shorter than the specified duration, the Agent's idle time will reset back to its previous value when the call ends. This can ensure that short calls which were misdirected, calls to wrong numbers, or similar situations with invalid calls to queues do not cause Agents to drop to the bottom of the queue.

The Revert Idle Time feature is enable for all Idle Timer profiles.