Cisco Finesse - Direct call from customer puts agent at back of the queue

[CDH76]

Our company is running Cisco Finesse for their inbound calls. Currently the way it is set up, if I'm waiting on a inbound call to come to me and if someone calls me directly while I'm waiting it will reset my position in the inbound queue and put me at the back of the line. Is there a way to stop this from happening so the agent does not lose their position in line when their line is directly dialed?

[bill.king1]

Sounds like you're dealing with agent call avoidance (on purpose or not). Same idea of if an agent switches their state from ready to not ready and back again so that one of their peers gets the call first since their peer is the longest available?

We typically recommend to not allow agents to receive direct calls; if nothing else, have it come through CCE/CVP so that you can track/report on it.

[CDH76]

Hello, no that is not the case. We work in a sales environment so giving out our direct lines is a must. I believe there is a solution to fix this as I'm pretty sure my previous company used Cisco systems and these events did not happen there. I think there is a configuration issue that needs tweaked.

Here is an example of what is happening. Let's say there is 10 people in queue waiting on a call to come in. Let's say I've been waiting the longest at around 15 minutes and I'm up next for the next call that comes in. If one of my clients that has my direct line calls me and I do not answer it then I should keep my place in the queue, and get the next call. However that is not happening. If a direct call comes to my line (rather I answer it or not) it puts me back at the end of the line. To be clear this is not a inbound queue call. I'm aware if a inbound queue call is missed it will put me in Not Ready. 

Is there a configuration with Cisco Finesse to stop this from occurring?

[bill.king1]

So your issue may be that your previous systems were set to only monitor the ACD line. In other words, if an agent picked up their personal line, they could remain available and not "reset their clock".

It may be that your current system monitors both lines, so that when the agent takes the personal call, their timer is reset.

There's some information on it here, but there's no right or wrong setting for this, as there are business reasons on both sides while you may or may not want to set it up this way. There are also some requirements that you may run into depending on the version of the phone that you have.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/icm_enterprise/icm_enterprise_11_5_1/Configuration/Guide/UCCE_BK_C328FAD9_00_config-guide-icm-cce-115/UCCE_BK_C328FAD9_00_config-guide-icm-cce-115_chapter_0111.html#UCCE_...

[iptuser55]

We have the similar  issue. Agents Ddi calls via ucce, no answer overflows to an overflow  PQ. The agent who answers the overflow  call then isnt the longest idle so does not "next" call which is for them in their sales PQ so hurts the pq agent sales revenue for answering an overflow call. 

Is agent state related to the agents phone or does it take into account their PQ. So an agent could longest next in line for PQ 1 because the overflow call isn't delivered to pq1 but to a dedicated overflow pq when they answer the overflow call which is say pq2 then for this pq they are no longer longest idle - I think it isnt the case but I can only hope but if anyone has any experience, knowledge work around 

[bill.king1]

Like I wrote above, you may (or may not, depending on what you're trying to do/business justification), have the calls come in on their direct line and have that line be unmonitored. In this way, the agent can answer the calls on their direct line without impacting their ready time counter for ACD calls. Again, there are drawbacks to doing it this way (reporting, an agent not really being ready who gets the ACD call while they're already on the DID line, etc.), but definitely doable from a technical perspective if that's what you want.

[Roger Kallberg]

From what I know longest idle time is calculated for the system, not per queue. So if an agent answer any queue call it would set a new start time for the idle state for that agent. I hope this clarifies your question.