Forward Calls without being limited to line count

[CallCenter702]

VERSION: 2.6-373a
BUILD: 120810-1018

I am not sure if this is possible but I have been trying for weeks and can't figure a way around it.

Here is the scenario.

I receive about 500 calls in 2 hours from a television commercial. I have 4 call centers that field these calls. My Vici box acts as the gateway, the other call centers are not on my box.

Here is my current set up.
I have 4 different remote agents with 4 different forwarding numbers each with 25 lines allocated each. When the calls come in goes to an in-group then disperses the calls (via random) to the 4 remote agents ( the other call centers).

Here is the issue. That is just for 1 Toll Free number. I have 700 of them. Every time I make a remote agent and allocate 25 lines it seems that it uses the system resources as if I just added 25 real agents to the box. Needless to say after 1000 allocated lines my box is getting overloaded. Another issues this causes is I have small stations that only get about 100 calls in a day but get a burst of up to 20 calls at once. So I have to put the Remote agent lines at 20 (the max lines I could use). Even though it will only use those 20 lines maybe once in a day, and the rest of the day 1 line every 30 minutes. But with this set up I have 20 agents/lines dedicated 24 hours a day taking up resources... .

I notice that if I just forward via a drop to an Extension that the box is okay, but I lose 2 things I need. The ability for reporting and the ability for multiple agent overflowing (can't rotate the calls to 4 extensions at once).

I think there is a simple solution... Make the remote agent act the same as the Extension forward... Not sure why you have to choose the number of lines, maybe if you want them limited to the amount of calls they can take...? but can there just be an unlimited check box? If it worked like the extension forwarding and sent the calls as they come in, it would be perfect.

Any suggestions you can give me on this would be great. Or contact me with the cost of adding this feature. Thank you.

[mflorell]

Remote Agents create actual agent entries that the system keeps active as if they were real agents, you can't set it to unlimited.

Have you tried using one Remote Agent entry with remote agent extension groups?

[CallCenter702]

Thanks for the quick response.

I have thought about using that, but that didn't seem like it fixed my issue. Wouldn't I still be required to choose the number of remote agents I would need at one time? IE if I expect up to 100 calls at one time I still need 100 agents allocated right? Thus tying up resources? Plus they all point to one number in the extension group and I need to diversify my calls over 4 different centers.

Here is how I am set up. DID points to In-group 1 If no agents logged in drop to In-group 2. I have 4 remote agents in this group. Each are allocated a different number of lines (for proportioning the calls) and each have a different extension.

I have found that if I use a "drop to" extension I drop 10% less calls then when using the remote agents. I get a lot of "noagent" 0 time drops even though I have at least 100% more allocated than what I need. (I have also tried allocating the exact amount with same results). It seems the system doesn't like to forward so many calls over those multiple agents. The one good thing though is that with multiple agents and line allocation I can fraction the calls proportionality to the other call centers. IE if I get 100 calls I know I can set remote agent 1, to 10 lines and they will receive 10% of the calls, remote agent 2, to 25 line, 25%, etc.

In a perfect world I guess I would need remote agents that act as "drop to" extension (where you don't have to allocate the number of lines) but also be able to chose the percentage of calls that agent will receive.

Or a setting like this on the in-group

No agent no queue Action: Multiple Extensions
Extension 1 _________ call % 10
Extension 2 _________ Call % 50
Extension 3 _________ Call % 35
Extension 4 _________ Call % 5%
Etc.

But this would also need to show in the reporting. I notice if I do drop to extension everything becomes a transfer. And I can't load up the drops to call them back. But with the remote agents I do get all the system statuses, but then I incur the large % of drops and system load issues.

Let me know if you think there is an option around this or what you think this would cost to be implemented. Thanks!

[mflorell]

Yes you do need the number of remote agent lines for the amount of concurrent calls you expect to handle at any one time, but no, they do not all point to the same number if you use remote agent extension groups:

Extension Group - If set to something other than NONE or empty this will override the External Extension field and use the Extension Group entries that have the same extension group ID. Default is NONE for deactivated.

[CallCenter702]

Got it. Sorry, I didn't realize that was saying you can make extension groups with the same name .Thought it was saying you can point multiple remote agents to the same extension group. That is pretty close actually, it would cut down on a lot of duplicate remote agents. Is there a way to proportion the calls out to each agent? I made 3 of them, made one rank 10, one 3 and one 1, but it didn't seem to have an effect.

[mflorell]

It wasn't really designed for proportionality, it was designed for round-robin operation.

[CallCenter702]

Thanks for the help. It's still a very good feature. I will use it for my equally divided centers.

[williamconley]

Come on, somebody sponsor proportional agent ranking. That sounds like a great feature to me.