Queue handling when no agents are logged in

[daes]

Hi everyone,


I’m running into a limitation with 3CX queues. At the moment, if no agents are logged in or available, calls don’t even enter the queue. Instead, they’re immediately flagged as “unanswered” and pushed to the failover destination.

From a customer perspective, this feels wrong: people expect to always reach the queue, hear the music on hold and wait out the maximum configured time, regardless of whether an agent is currently logged in or not. From a reporting perspective it’s also problematic, since in many environments the SLA clock starts when the call enters the queue, not when an agent becomes available.

Other platforms (Avaya, Cisco, Asterisk-based systems, etc.) handle this by allowing callers into the queue unconditionally. 3CX on the other hand seems to block them unless at least one agent is active.

Am I missing a setting that would make this possible in 3CX? Or is this simply not supported at the moment? I’m aware of the dummy-agent workaround or wrapping things in a CFD app, but those come with their own downsides and don’t feel like clean solutions.

I’m using the 3CX Enterprise Hosted edition with 24 concurrent call licenses.


Thanks in advance for any pointers!

Regards
daes

 

[Alphabetic]

The only workaround that previously worked (Dont know if it does now) is to have a dummy agent in the queue with the option on the extension to "Dial mobile simultaneously" which keeps the extension "available"

 

[VoIPTools]

There is no built-in solution. As you noted, both the dummy extension work-around and front-end CFD creates/hides issues in reporting. I can see two reasonable solutions:

1. Send assertive notifications (phone, paging, email, SMS, and desktop alerts) when there is nobody logged into the queue during office hours. The hope is that notifications can push a manager to get someone logged into the queue before a contact tries to enter the queue.
   
   
2. Programmatically force queue agents into the queue by automatically changing their presence status to Available and logging them into the queue.

We have an add-on 3CX Queue Notifier that allows you to set queue thresholds for max hold and max contacts, and optionally when anyone joins the queue. We send auditable notifications by "chime" or "text-to-speech", by email, SMS and desktop client.


It would be straightforward to add a notification when nobody is logged into the queue.