th queue priority in campaigns for inbound vs outbound broke

[bobbymc]

i tested it queue_priority for campaigns have no effect is that true?

[mflorell]

Please ask your question in more detail and with examples and then maybe we can answer it.

[bobbymc]

my question is, does that option in campaings work? as far as i see it does not give inbound calls any priority

[mflorell]

Yes it does work, we have many clients using it.

[bobbymc]

does it work in 2.0.5rc5 ? if so can you point me out which file sets the priority because in agi-VDAD_ALL_outbound.agi or agi-VDAD_ALL_inbound.agi i couldn't find any reference to that column

[bobbymc]

i get outbound calls made with dial level 1 method ratio and also send in a inbound call.. int he vicidial_auto_calls i see the queue_priority for inbound call is 10 and for the outbound call is 0.. when i resume i always get the outboud call no matter what first. once i hang up on that the second call i get is the inbound.. what am i doing wrong?

[bobbymc]

in agi-VDAD_ALL_outbound.agi there is nothing in consideration to the calls in queue that are live that are for inbound that state they should get priority first.

How would a outbound call know now to update the vicidial)live_agent with the outbound call if it does not even consider the inbound calls that are pending? unless this feature works not as i expect it to work?

[williamconley]

i would expect it to be in the queue (priority only matters if there is a "line", right?) otherwise, if there is no line, the call goes to an agent. after all the system could not possibly know a call will come in "soon" and so hold off on this call. it only works when there are calls "in line", and the priority then enables them to be "farther up" in the line instead of "first come, first served".

so: no "calls waiting"=priority is not used.

and you REALLY should upgrade to the 2.2.X using SVN, it's really easy and has a bunch of cool "stuff" that OTHER PEOPLE have paid good money for. Don't let that investment go to waste!

takes 5 minutes, a few lines of code and a reboot.

[mflorell]

I am always curious why you would want an inbound call to take priority over an outbound call that you placed?

[bobbymc]

because you might be making outbound marketing on not so hot leads while at the same time you might do quality advertising on TV and you preffer to get those leads over the crappy outbound first..

So can someone in lames terms please explain what the purpose of the campaign queue setting is for?

[williamconley]

? seriously?

an inbound call has a SIGNIFICANTLY higher likelihood of sale than an oubound cold call

even if it is just a callback from a callerid

so of course, any sales person wants THOSE calls much sooner than an outbound (it's about the money, man!)

[williamconley]

because you might be making outbound marketing on not so hot leads while at the same time you might do quality advertising on TV and you preffer to get those leads over the crappy outbound first..

So can someone in lames terms please explain what the purpose of the campaign queue setting is for?

if you have 10 calls waiting for agents, that setting will decide which one gets the next agent.

[mflorell]

Does nobody really care about Drop call regulations?

Setting inbound above outbound basically means you have no chance of being compliant in any country that has these reuglations.

[bobbymc]

because you might be making outbound marketing on not so hot leads while at the same time you might do quality advertising on TV and you preffer to get those leads over the crappy outbound first..

So can someone in lames terms please explain what the purpose of the campaign queue setting is for?

if you have 10 calls waiting for agents, that setting will decide which one gets the next agent.

i dont understand what do you mean which one get the next agent?

sorry which what gets the next agent? from what i red this setting has to do with inbound and outbound. can you please give me a full scenario so i can understand it better?

This is from the help file next to the setting:
Queue Priority - This setting is used to define the order in which the calls from this outbound campaign should be answered in relation to the inbound calls if this campaign is in blended mode.

[williamconley]

Perhaps it should be changed to say IF THEY ARE STUCK IN THE QUEUE FOR ANY AMOUNT OF TIME. Because if there are no calls in the Queue, waiting for an agent, it has no effect.

Although Matt has a point, that if you made an outbound call it should not be possible to have a lower priority than an inbound ... i tend to disagree (or at least I don't think that's an absolute).

More like the guys that make the equipment can not anticipate EVERY need, and we want the tools purely neutral (instead of trying to avoid people getting themselves in trouble with the law, which I'm pretty sure is what launched this program in the first place).

So the concept is (Matt): What if someone has an outbound campaign that only "fires" a few calls a day (callbacks auto-generated from SugarCRM for those "60-day callbacks" for instance ... not in danger of triggering any drop call limits). At the moment one of those calls triggers, if we have 3 or 4 inbounds pop into the queue at the same time (callbacks from callerid returns on another campaign, which WE believe to be possible sales, certainly worth more than our 60-day "go away now!" callbacks) ... and we want to have the INBOUNDS outweight the OUTBOUNDS in this campaign for that purpose ... there should be no problem with that.

Another scenario: We have "Drop" set to 3 seconds and drop the calls to a campaign with LOTS of "Newbie" agents, but THIS campaign is for the Old Pros (who we ALWAYS keep on calls!). The Old Pros handle all the Inbounds and any Outbounds that will fit in (just to keep them busy). So all the outbounds route through here, and then drop to the alternate campaign with the newbie sales agents on it. Obviously that only works if the OUTBOUNDS have a much lower priority than the Inbounds.

So ... if it works "neutral" these things are all possible. But if it forces Outbound to be High Priority ... we can't set our business model up any way we like.

i dont understand what do you mean which one get the next agent?

Bobbymc: which "INBOUND OR OUTBOUND CALL Stuck in the Queue" gets the next agent. Prioritizing these is helpful if you know the value of each caller. Especially for rooms with a lot of inbound.

[mflorell]

The client we added the original Queue Prioritization for was mostly an outbound shop that needed a way of prioritizing inbound calls over each other and behind outbound calls. It really shouldn't be that difficult to add the prioritization function to the outbound script, but it's not going to happen very soon because it will be unfunded. Please post a detailed report in the issue tracker and link it from this ticket.

[williamconley]

or request it be added to the Projects list and see if there are a bunch of other rooms that want this functionality activated.

[mflorell]

It would have to be added to Issue Tracker first, since this is existing functionality and it would not be adding a new function.

[williamconley]

Oops, sorry said it wrong. I meant: "AND THEN" see if ...

[bobbymc]

ok im being very stupid and i know it.. but again can someone give me a step by step scenario how this function falls into play? i still cant explain to my customer properly what the functionality is as i still dont understand it.

Sorry for not understanding this

[bobbymc]

looking at the agi scritps none of them use the queue_priority columns in the vicidial_campaigns table.

[williamconley]

apparently the priority for OUTBOUND calls is ALWAYS highest the way the system is constructed presently. So outbound will always get to an agent BEFORE an inbound call. I've not tested it, so I cannot confirm.

but if you place the appropriate ticket in the system, it will get changed eventually to allow OUTBOUND calls to have a priority which can be compared to the existing inbound calls priority.

in addition to that, if you pledge some $$ and/or ask it to be created as a project, it may get done sooner. all depends on how important this feature is.

all begins with placing the details in the issue tracker.

[mflorell]

queue_priority is used heavily in the agi-VDAD_ALL_inbound.agi script.

[bobbymc]

so i am right when i say that queue_priority column in the campaign section has no effect or play on the system currently correct? and if thats the case i have no problem programming it into outbound agi script so it has a accrual meaning because as far as i can tell the campaign columns queue_priority does absolutely nothing

[williamconley]

according to the posts in this thread so far (matt is not known to be "wrong" about this sort of thing!) and your own observation, you are correct

[mflorell]

no, it does not do absolutely nothing. It is used in the inbound script, if there are outbound calls with a higher priority, the inbound script will not route inbound calls to an agent.

[williamconley]

It would have to be added to Issue Tracker first, since this is existing functionality and it would not be adding a new function.

i'm confused then. if it works, what would be added to the tracker? i thought bobbymc tested it and the outbounds ignored priority and took precedence over inbound (but inbound would arrive in order of priority if there were no outbound ready to land). maybe i forgot how to read between the lines again. i need better glasses.

[mflorell]

The outbound side will ignore the inbound priority, the inbound side will take into account both the inbound and outbound calls' priority. What would need to be added is only on the outbound AGI side.

[bobbymc]

matt im sorry but inside the file: agi-VDAD_ALL_inbound.agi the column queue_priority is retrieved from the vicidial_inbound_groups table not from the vicidial_campaigns table. nowhere int he system does it use the variable from vicidial_campaigns.queue_priority

[williamconley]

if you have a solution (corrected code?) posting it would be most helpful. i'm pretty sure i have a client or two for whom this may help (some day). noone has ever requested it, but that won't last forever. it would be cool if it "just worked" when the day came.

[mflorell]

the vicidial_auto_calls table is the one that is important in reference to the queue_priority field as far as the call routing AGI scripts are concerned, not the campaigns table.

[bobbymc]

i guess my question is which part of the system looks for the data in queue_priority column in the vicidial_campaigns table?

[mflorell]

AST_VDauto_dial.pl and _FILL

[mflorell]

OK, I went ahead and added full queue_priority compatibility to the outbound side, it was not as involved as I had thought it would be once I actually started doing it. Please use with caution.

I just committed it to SVN/trunk and the SVN 2.2 branch

Testing went well, but please test on your systems and confirm everything is running properly.

[bobbymc]

matt you truly rock.. which scritps were effectedby this change??

[mflorell]

Just the ALL_outbound AGI script

[bobbymc]

matt you rock!!! works like a charm =) good job