In Group Welcome Message / Queue

[timsavage]

Hello-

I have a feature request, or perhaps there is already a way to configure vicidial for this.

I would like the Calls in Queue display to show calls that are listening to the welcome message. We have an installation where the In Group welcome message is approximately 10 minutes long, and we would like to be able to see the calls that are listening, and also see when somebody hangs up before the welcome message finishes.

Thanks,

Tim Savage

[mflorell]

WOW, a 10 minute welcome message!?

One way of doing this would be to use a Call Menu to play the message, because those can show up separately in the real-time screen, then once they listen to the message the call would go to the queue.

[timsavage]

Thanks for the quick reply, Matt.

I realize that the welcome message feature was designed with the intent of a short message to be played, like "please hold for next available agent".

The way it is being used here is for fronters to take calls from the dialer, and then transfer them to an inbound closer group after qualifying the lead. The message is a pitch tape that explains the product, and then the lead is transferred to a closer after listening to the pitch.

I considered the IVR route, and will probably give that a try for a quick fix. At least being able to see a count would be helpful.

Having it display in the Call Queue would be the ultimate solution for this particular application, though. Then the closers would be able to see the calls that haven't hung up, and who they are and what fronter they are coming from, as well as the elapsed time, so they know when somebody is about to come off the recording.

I've poked around a bit, and realize this is more than trivial. I was hoping that the calls that are listening to the recording were being put into the vicidial_auto_calls table, so I could just modify the select statement to include the status that is assigned to such a call.

Anyhow, thanks again!

[mflorell]

Have you tried the "Agent View Calls in Queue" feature in Campaigns?

This shows agents what the in-group, fronter, elapsed time, phone number, etc... for calls in the queue and it shows up in the agent interface. This is available in 2.2.0.

[williamconley]

And actually this sounds a lot like something for a standard Asterisk Queue with MOH. If I recall, MOH can be set to begin fresh for each new caller. And there are already controls and viewers for "how long they have been there", etc..

Of course, the Queue can be set to failover after XX minutes and drop to the closer's inbound. Queues even have their own log file for specialized tracking.

If the vicidial stuff doesn't quite fit, linking with an asterisk queue could work nicely.

[timsavage]

Yes, I have the agent view calls in queue enabled. Unfortunately, the calls don't appear until after the welcome message is finished. Showing them before the recording starts instead of after it ends is the only change that would be needed for this feature. And again, I realize nobody envisioned such a lengthy welcome message.

Other than that, it is working exactly how I need it to. The message begins new for each caller transferred, and after the message plays, it is sent to the next available agent that is logged into the inbound group. The only hitch I had encountered was that I needed to set the drop timer to longer than the recording.

It's mostly just a convenience feature, to be able to see people who are still listening to the recording, and how long they've been on, so agents can anticipate a call coming when the recording finishes.

Another nicety would be to have the calls that hung up on the tape moved into a dedicated list, so that they could be managed independently from the other leads. Then you could have a dedicated campaign for calling back those that hung up during the recording.

I've encountered a few call centers that use this fronter -> recording -> closer methodology before, and it has always been the challenge to know if a caller has hung up during the recording or not.

[williamconley]

have you looked at the information available in the real-time screen? i believe this shows the caller much sooner.

[timsavage]

I've looked through all the reports and real-time screens, but haven't been able to find even a count of calls that are listening to the welcome message for an inbound group.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

I think it will take modifying vicidial to insert a record into a mysql table when a call goes to the recording, just as it does now when a call is placed in the inbound queue, and then displaying that record in the calls in queue display.

So now I am wondering if I am going to break anything if I were to insert this record into the vicidial_auto_calls table, just like the calls that are waiting in an inbound queue? If the record was in this table, it would be easy to modify the SELECT statement that is used for the calls in queue display.

Or is it possible to change the point when vicidial inserts this record into the vicidial_auto_calls table to before the recording begins, rather than after it finishes?

Thanks for your help in trying to solve this. It's a fairly small feature, but is a big deal to those who are using this installation.

[williamconley]

donot play with the autocalls table. trust me.

[timsavage]

Ok, thanks for the warning!