Tenant Resource Configuration

Campaigns & Queues

The Campaigns and Queues tab lists

Campaigns and Queues Tab

Fig. 1 - Campaigns and Queues

When New or edit is clicked, the campaign properties window is displayed (Fig. 2).

Repository Campaign EditingRepository Campaign Editing (V10.7.1576)

Fig. 2 - Repository Campaign Editing - (right) from V10.7.1576

Repository offers only a very limited set of campaign properties for editing. Many others are available via Softdial Campaign Manager™ . See Using the Client.

Campaign properties are organised into the following areas:


Setting Description
Name This is set on campaign creation
Stations nailed up on logon See Station Nailup on Login.

In the Campaigns pane, this property is indicated by the NLD column.
Record all calls for this campaign If checked, all calls for all agents on this campaign will be recorded.

In the Campaigns pane, this property is indicated by the BKT (blanket recording) column.
Number of Robot Agents for Outbound IVR From V10.7.1576 - Sets the number of robot IVR agents to be used for this campaign

Setting Description
Abandon Greeting Defines the action to take once the decision to abandon has been made. By default, this is set to Drop Call (i.e. don't play a message, just drop the call, and requeue to the configured queue (see below).

To select a message to be played on abandon, select a configured sound from the dropdown.

To reset to the default Drop Call action, click on the X to remove the selected greeting.
Requeue to inbound queue Enabled if Drop Call is selected. Type the name of the inbound queue to which abandoned calls will be requeued.

The sound played for every call where the agent hangs up but the other party is still on the line.

Select a configured sound from the dropdown.

From V 10.7.1429 - This section allows the user to show/ hide, per campaign, session controls within Softdial Agent Desktop™.

The section contains 2 lists:

  1. The Available list shows all controls currently showing for this campaign. By default, all controls appear in this list
  2. The Selected list shows all controls currently hidden for this campaign

To hide a control, drag it from the Available list to the Selected list.

To show a control, drag it from the Selected the list to the Available list.

End Session also shows/ hides the Select Outcome control

Agent Desktop - hidden settings

Fig. 3 - Agent Desktop - hidden settings

Fig. 3 shows Agent Desktop running where the only controls shown are:

  • Accept Session
  • Ad-hoc Call
  • Answer Machine
  • End Session (with Select Outcome)

The New and Delete options should not normally be used. Campaigns are automatically added to the Repository when they are opened by the campaign layer application e.g. Softdial Campaign Manager™. They should be deleted from the same application.

To show all queues associated with a campaign, click on a campaign. The Queues pane displays a list of all configured queues for that campaign (Fig. 4).

Repository Campaigns and Queues

Fig. 4 - Campaigns and Queues

When New or Edit is clicked, the queue properties dialogue is shown (Fig. 5):

Repository Queue Editing

Fig. 5 - Queue Properties

Queue properties are organised into the following areas:


Setting Description
Campaign Displays the campaign name to which this queue belongs
Name (Enabled when first adding a queue) Type a name for this queue, unique for this campaign
Media Type A queue can be of one media type only, specified here. Select from
  • Chat
  • Email
  • SMS
  • Video
  • Voice (default)
  • Workflow
Description A short description to aid identification in the Queues list

Setting Description
Offer Timeout The Offer Timeout is the time after which the call will be passed to another agent registered with this queue.

Maximum value is 99999 seconds.
Overflow Time This is the time the call is allowed to remain in this queue before being passed to another queue, or dropped.

Maximum value is 99999 seconds.
Queue Time Warning Threshold These fields are used to trigger alerts and errors that are displayed in the Alert Monitor when a call remains in a queue longer than the specified times. This will also generate notifications via the Group Data [GZ] message Resource Status (RS) parameter. RS11 notifies that the call has exceeded the warning threshold time and RS12 notifies that the call has exceeded the error threshold time.

Maximum value is 99999 seconds.
Queue Time Error Threshold

Timed Replay Interval

This sets the interval between replaying the Queue Timed Reminder Greeting (e.g. 'Thank you for waiting ...').

If set to between 1 and 10 seconds, defaults to 60 seconds and raises an alert, to prevent thrashing the queue of greetings.

If the character string '##' is entered in the Queue Timed Reminder Greeting field and the Timed Replay Interval value is set to > 0, a TTS greeting: "You are number X in the queue." will be played.

The In-Queue Messaging fields are used to specify recorded messages to be played on entry into the queue, at timed intervals (as specified in the Timers > Timed replay interval field) and when the caller is put on hold.

Setting Description
Queue entry mandatory A mandatory recorded message to acknowledge that the caller has connected to a queue. This greeting cannot be interrupted for dequeue.
Queue busy on entry greeting A recorded message to alert the caller to a delay in their call being answered.
  • This will be interrupted for dequeue.
  • Should an agent become available during this, the offer will cut short the greeting.
Queue hold music loop A sound resource to be played on loop, between greetings, while the caller is in the queue
Queue timed reminder greeting A recorded message to be played every Timed replay interval e.g. 'Sorry for the delay. An agent will be with you as soon as possible'.
  • This will be interrupted for dequeue.
  • Should an agent become available during this, the offer will cut short the greeting.

The decision on whether to play a sound is made at the point the sound is to start playing.

The Queue entry mandatory, Queue busy on entry and Queue timed reminder greetings can be scripted to string together a sequence of recorded and TTS prompts.

To specify one or more prompts, each prompt is delimited by the # character start and end. Values can be:

  • #SP:<speech># (plays <speech> thru TTS)
  • #SN:<symbolic name># (plays sound from <symbolic name>)
  • #QP# (plays queue position, in English only, in the default TTS voice)
  • #AW# (plays average wait time, in English only, in the default TTS voice)

These can be strung together, separated by one or more space characters between, eg:

  • #SP:Thank you for your call. You are number#  #QP#  #SP:in the queue and we should answer your call in#  #AW#  #SN:miranda#

The maximum length of these is 1024 characters.

Any value in these fields without any '#' character is treated as a symbolic name

Used to pass the routing decision-making process to an external service. See External Routing.

Setting Description
Allow app to determine route Enable, to allow an external router to make the routing decision
App route timeout The number of seconds allowed for a decision to be returned, before a timeout is triggered

This area is the same as the Members area of the Groups tab.

Number of Robot Agents: used to add IVR (virtual) agents to the queue. See Agent Work Flow. Type a number or use the field's up/ down arrows to iterate.

From V10.7.1206:

Setting Description
Use campaign's Maximum Wrap Time

Maximum Wrap Time

Maximum Wrap Time sets the maximum time (in seconds) an agent can spend in the wrap state after handling a call.

These settings determine which value to use:

  • checked - as set in the Softdial Campaign Manager™Dialing Tuning tab/ page
  • unchecked - as set in the Maximum Wrap Time field
Maximum Wrap Outcome Sets the outcome value to use in the Number Back [NB] message when an agent exceeds the maximum wrap time as set at campaign level, or by the Maximum Wrap Time field above. Choices are:
  • Live call
  • Reschedule
  • Refusal
  • Commitment
  • Other Live
  • Use campaign settings - as set in the Softdial Campaign Manager™ Dialing Tuning tab/ page
Maximum Wrap Data

Sets the Data (DT) string to use in the Number Back [NB] message when an agent exceeds the maximum wrap time as set at campaign level, or by the Maximum Wrap Time field above.

For a larger area in which to edit text, click Edit icon

For more details, see Dialing Tuning.


Setting Description
Overflow Address This is the queue the call will be passed to after the Overflow Time has expired. If no Overflow Address is specified the call will be dropped after the Overflow Time . If no agents are logged into the queue the call will overflow immediately.

It is not possible to set recursive queue overflow, i.e. if the parent queue is selected as the Overflow Address, overflow is disabled..
Out of Service Overflow Address This is the address to which calls are routed when the queue has been taken Out of Service with the Group Out Of Service [OG] message.
Queue Selection Mode Note these apply to call distribution to agents logged in as ACD available. For control of calls to blended agents, see the Blend fairness control below.
  • If Round-Robin is selected, calls are served to each agent in an order that aims to evenly distribute calls in such a way that over a shift, each agent will receive the same number of calls.
  • If Ordered mode is selected, calls are served to the agents in order of Group Order (queue order), or, if Group Order is not set, in order of agent log on to the queue.
  • When Longest Idle is selected, calls will be connected to agents who have been in the 'waiting' state in the queue for the longest period.
  • Ring Groups only work on the Systemcampaign (i.e. on-hook) agents. If a ring group is specified on an ACD queue, the queue type will default to Ordered. If there is one or more calls in queue, all agents who are active members of the queue will be rung at the same time. The first agent to pick up gets the first call in queue. Ring timeouts are as per other queue types. In the event that nobody in the group picks up on a ringing call within the ring timeout period, the call is re-offered to all active members of the group.
Blend Fairness This is an enhanced form of blending where agents handling inbound calls are swapped around with waiting outbound agents such that all agents get a fair distribution of the inbound calls.

The blend fairness property allows blended agents to rotate into an inbound campaign. The demand algorithm for blending keeps blended agents on an inbound campaign whilst there is continuing inbound demand.

In environments that place a high value on inbound calls (such as collections) this can leave some agents at a financial disadvantage if they don't happen to be waiting at a time when an inbound demand peak occurs. The blend fairness option allows agents to be moved between inbound and outbound queues to provide even distribution of inbound calls across the whole agent pool.

Options are:

  • None (default) - the existing behaviour is retained
  • Last Offer - the agent who has been waiting the longest for an inbound offer in a specific queue may be moved from an outbound campaign to handle an inbound call
Queue Priority This field sets the priority order for the queue. This is used where agents are logged into multiple queues. The default setting is 0.

Queues are prioritised using 3 criteria in order:

  1. Outside/ inside SLA target (outside first)
  2. Queue priority (highest first)
  3. For queues of equal priority, SLA performance (worst first)
SLA Time to Answer These settings are used in Reporting and optionally to define call routing based on performance against the specified SLA settings.

The maximum value for SLA Time to Answer is 86400 seconds (1 day)
SLA Percentage Answer
Overflow on Group Busy If checked, this overrides the overflow time setting such that if no agents are available to handle the call in the current queue, the call will overflow to the queue specified in the Overflow Address setting.
Force connect Softdial Telephony Gateway™ does not automatically give an answer signal to incoming calls in queue. An answer signal is sent either as a result of the call being dequeued to an agent, or on timer expiry (as set in the Softdial Telephony Gateway™ configuration).

This property is necessary for regulatory approval in some markets and to resolve some user billing issues for SIP trunking configurations.

It is checked by default so users will not experience any change in behaviour unless a deferred connection is required for a particular queue.
Keep queued If checked, calls will remain in the queue for the Overflow Time duration even if there are no agents active on the queue.

In this case, calls can be assigned to the queue and will be not be dropped. If there are still no active agents or valid overflow at the end of the overflow period, the call will then be dropped.
Allow Immediate blend/ transfer If checked, this allows agents on an outbound campaign to be made available (blended) to take an inbound call as soon as the current call is completed. This may result in an abandoned call on the outbound campaign.

See also Automated Call Blending.