When a new message arrives to a queue, it is normally offered to the next agent. However if that agent is already too busy, the message can be offered to a different agent, or can be held in the queue until an agent is available to handle it.
The capacity rules are what defines if an agent is "too busy".
Importantly, these rules can be defined separately for each type of message. Two webchat conversations require more immediate attention than several emails, so the rules handle them differently.
- For more background on the subject see Managing agent capacity.
- Once you have defined rules, they can be applied to agent groups or agents. See Applying agent capacity rules.
How the definitions work
Before creating a rule, it is important to understand how they are defined.
- The Call section is included for completeness only, it cannot be changed. The agent can only have one call; if they have a call active, they will not be offered a second one.
- For each other section, Email, SMS and so forth, we define what would make the agent too busy to be offered a message of that type.
Importantly, the rules are checked for the type of message arriving.
So, when considering if an email can be offered to an agent, the capacity rule only considers the criteria you defined in the Email section. This is true, even if a number of emails are mentioned in the SMS section, say.
Creating capacity rules
To define a new capacity rule, in your Admin account:
- Go to the Inbound page.
- Go to the Agent capacity subpage.
- Click the Create button.
In Create agent capacity, go to the General Settings section:
- Type a Name for this rule.
- It is recommended, but not mandatory, to write a short Description of this rule to remind yourself what it is used for.
- If you want this rule to only be selectable for agents or groups associated with a specific office, click the Office drop-down list and select the appropriate option.
For example, if the rule is intended for your Paris office only, selecting the office will prevent it being available to apply to agents in the Madrid office.
Defining a rule
To understand this, consider the Email section (though the same approach works for each of the sections).
- Decide what scenarios would make the agent too busy to be offered another email (as mentioned in Managing agent capacity it can be very useful to plan this before building it!).
- In the Maximum emails agents can have field, type the upper limit for how many emails an agent following this rule can work on simultaneously.
If you set the maximum to 5, an agent who already has five active emails will not be offered another until they drop below the maximum.
If there are other circumstances you would consider the agent to be too busy to be offered an email:
- Click the Add condition link.
This will expand the section to include Agents also don't receive emails if they are busy with. For example, if we don't want to distract the agent with an email if they are already busy with two webchats:
- Type the number of messages for another message type, in this case 2.
- Click the drop-down to select the type of message, in this case, Webchat.
If you provide customer service over Facebook, you might consider those to need a similar limit to the webchats. If so:
- Click the Add group link.
- Click the drop-down and select OR.
- Type the number of messages for another message type, in this case 2.
- Click the drop-down to select the type of message, in this case, Facebook chat.
How you define your capacity rules is up to you. Looking at a rule at a glance can be daunting, but you can always read the rule from top to bottom. So far our rule is:
Maximum emails an agent can have, 5. Agents also don't receive emails if they are busy with 2 webchats or 2 Facebook chats.
Multiple channels in a rule
The examples so far only consider one type of message at a time. Emails OR webchats OR Facebook chats. If you want to define an agent as busy if they are dealing with one email AND one SMS, we need to consider two channels.
- Click the Add group link.
- Type the number of messages for another message type, in this case 1.
- Click the drop-down to select the type of message, in this case, Email.
- Click the Add channel link.
Note the operator for the new channel defaults to AND.
- Type the number of messages for another message type, in this case 1.
- Click the drop-down to select the type of message, in this case, SMS.
When creating a group of multiple channels, each channel must be different. If you try to include the same channel twice, you will not be able to save the rule.
Again, reading the rule top-to bottom, it is now:
Maximum emails an agent can have, 5. Agents also don't receive emails if they are busy with 2 webchats or 2 Facebook chats. Or if they have both 1 email and 1 SMS.
It is possible to be extremely precise about exactly what makes an agent "too busy", but the complexity of the rules is set by you when you build them.
Further sections
Once you are happy with the rules you have defined for the Email section, you can continue to other sections.
Important: Remember to raise the limits for a message type if you have used that channel in other sections.
That is to say, following the example above:
- In the Email section, we have said the agent will not get emails if they have 2 webchats.
- If do not change the Webchat section, the default rule Maximum webchats agents can have is 1
- This means the agent will never have more than one webchat, and the rule in the Email section will never trigger.
Saving the rule
Once you have defined rules for each section:
- Click the Save button in the top-right.
Remember, if one of your groups is trying to use the same channel twice, you will not be able to save the rule!