Howto:IQM Agent Hot-desking

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This article describe how free seating can be realized using iQM.

“Free seating” basically means that an Agent can work from any Phone. That is the simple interpretation.

The extended one is that each agent should be able to work form every phone and on each WQ.

So if you have just a couple of agents and only one WQ probably this is not really an issue; but if the scenario is more extended and complex … read this article.

Applies To

This information applies to

innovaphone PBX version 9

innovaphone iQM server and iQM client 1.70 or higher (Build 8105)


More information

iQM can realize free seating in two ways:

The “classic” one (works even with earlier versions of iQM):

An agent has to do a login in Windows on the iQM agent PC. After that, he has to activate the user on the phone or register the phone.

Advantage: setup of the Agent is stored in the user directory and so individual.

Disadvantages:

The user has to do two operations: log in at the PC and register the phone.

Logging into a Windows PC is boring and for some customer too boring and slow.

Huge setup work has to be done in larger installations: Imagine a scenario with 3 WQ’s and 20 agents. On each of the 20 PC, 20 Windows user must be activated. If the customer wants that each of the 20 agents should be able to work with each of the 3 WQ’s, there are 60 user setups necessary on each PC. 60 users from a Windows point of view and also 60 setups for the individual iQM Agents, so 120 setups x 20 PC = 2400 setups. OK you can copy the setup files, still it is a lot.

It is possible to run just one iQM Agent session on a PC. While that is normally good and not a problem, it could be necessary to run more iQM Agent sessions because the supervisor wants more than one wallboard on one single PC (remember that a wallboard is just a iQM Agent with a particular setup).


The “Hot-desking” way.

The user is doing a registration on the phone, the iQM client will automatically log in with this user.

Advantage:

Just one operation for the Agent (on the phone).

Small setup work: just one profile for each phone and each WQ. Compared with the example (3 WQ and 20 Agents) this means 60 setups (20 PC x 3 Setups per WQ on each PC),a reasonable amount(remember that you can even copy setup files).

Disadvantage: Individual Setup is possible just for each WQ, not for each single Agent.


Remember that you can combine the classic and the Hot-desking method, so both ways are possible at the same time in the same scenario.


Individual free seating setup

You just have to activate for each agent on each PC a Windows user. When an agent is doing a login in the PC and starts the iQM Agent software (automatically with auto start or manually) he will find his setup, name, logged WQ etc. This is so because the setup of the iQM is stored as default in the Windows user directory (directory “user\userxxx\AppData\Roaming\iQMagent”, file “iQMagents_Setup”, it is a XML file but can be read and modify with each text editor). Please note that you have to enable in your PC the file explorer option “view hide files” to see this directory.

If you have more than one WQ and an agent should be able to work on all of them (normally this is not so in a CC, but some customer like that. For example one day an agent works on the Queue “Sales” and the next day on the queue “Marketing”) you have to create profiles for all queues. Therefore a agent “Bill” will have a profile “Bill_Sales” and “Bill_Marketing” and by that he can choose in which WQ to log in.

From the phone point of view there are two possibilities: switch the active user or work with registrations.

Switch user: simple, just press menu and select the active user. But remember that form a PBX point of view you must first exit from the queue (with the functionkey on the phone or with the client), than switch the user and log in. Disadvantage: just 7 user possible, in larger scenarios not enough.

Registration: you deregister the actual user and register your user. You must put in a password also in the phone. The default user on the phone can also be an agent, however this is not recommended, in most cases it is better that the basic registration has nothing to do with the iQM.

Now if an agent came to a workplace, he will have to do the following things: logout from the actual user on the PC and phone (typically that is already done be the previous agent). Login to Windows, the client will start automatically, select the registration at the phone, done.

“Hot-desking” free seating

If Hot-desking is activated the agent has just to do the registration on the phone, the running iQM client will work now automatically with the name of the agent. No Windows login necessary, if there is more than one WQ and the agent should work with each WQ he has to activate the desired one.

To enable that kind of operation you have to switch on options in the iQM Agent Setup.

In the Agent Setup there is a flag “Save setup local”. If checked the iQM Agent setup is not stored in the user directory but in the directory where the software is running. Therefore it is possible to create more directories and start more than one iQM Agent software on a single PC. The individual setup will be stored in the relative directories. In this way on one single PC can be started more than one iQM Agents. This is useful just if there is more than one WQ and one PC should be able to work with all the WQ’s or if you run more iQM Agent programs at the same time (for example to show more dashboards). If there is just one WQ this flag has no sense and Hot-desking is working also without that.

The second parameter to needed for Hot-desking is the IP-Address of the phone. While in normal iQM Agent operation the Common Name indicated in the setup is the “ID” for the client, in Hot-desking scenarios the IP-Address of the phone is the link to the Phone.


IQM219.png


So the IP address of the phone has to be known and indicated, if IP address is in the setup automatically the indicated name is skipped (and will be modified form the iQM Agent software). If the user registers an agent at this phone = IP-address, the name of this agent will be automatically activated in the iQM Agent client. If this user unregisters, the client will blank the user name and the agent client window will not display the keys to control the phone.

Remember that a client works always just with one iQM server and that one iQM server will work with just one WQ. Therefore if you have more queues and therefore more iQM servers and each should run one iQM Agent on the client PC; doing this the Agent has just to activate the right window and is immediately online. As an alternative you can also create more links from the desktop and start the relative iQM Agent client if a user has to work on another WQ.

Confused? Let’s do an example.

You have 2 WQ’s: “Sales” and “Marketing” and 10 Agents. Each Agent should be able to work on each of the 10 Workplace and on each WQ. Agent 1 is “Bill” and has the extension “201”, Agent 2 is “Sara” and has the extension “202”, Agent 3 is “Joe” and he has the extension “203”. Bill and Joe work for Sales while Sara operates for Marketing.

You have done a setup that if a PC of a workplace is starting up, automatically he will start up also the iQM agent software for the Sales and Marketing WQ. So you will see 2 open iQM Agent windows, in the Top line of each window the name of the Queue is indicated. On the desktop there are 2 icons names “Sales” and “Marketing”; if a user stops a client because of an error - he can start it up again double clicking the icon. Bill and Joe will minimize the iQM Agent Marketing window; Sara will do this with the Sales window. Now Sara will login as extension 203 on the IP-phone, the client will automatically be named “Sara” and work on her phone (wherever it is).

Bill is doing the same with extension 201 and his client will be named Bill. At a certain point Bill is going to lunch and Joe should work on his workplace. Bill will unregister the extension (pressing just one key on the phone, see setup), the iQM client now is blank. Joe register extension 203 on the same phone and the client will be named and become active with Joe.

Now also Sara is leaving and checks out the phone. Bill returns from lunch and wants to continue working form Sara’s workplace: he registers the phone with his extension, but has to open (maximize or start-up) the client of the Sales queue (remember, Sara has the marketing View open).

Note: If an extension is doing a registration he will find the user unlogged. Login to the group can be done lift and hangup the handset or by pressing the relative key on the phone or client.

Setup

While the setup of the iQM Agent for hot-desking is simple (just the IP address…) the setup in the innovaphone PBX is more complex and has to be done like described.

Create the user in the PBX, remember that you must give them a password for login and activate the “store phone config” flag in the user form. This is necessary because the setup of that user should be activated from every workplace. Now assign the group to the user like normally done in iQM. Open the config template in the PBX and assign the keys. You must assign the keys “login” and “logout” from the group (dynamic, not static), see relative iQM article. But remember also to assign a key with the function “Delete Registration”: pressing this key the user will logout.

In the main registration you have also to configure a key “Hot-desking” for logging in again when logged out. See relative Wiki articles.

Unreg warnings

If Hot-desking is active there will be always user not registered and therefore the warning triangle in the iQM server main form will be always on. In the setup of the iQM server you can flag the option “No Unreg Warning”; in this way the warning triangle will not be switched on and no logfile entry will be written while in the Agent status table the Unreg status is indicated.

Automatic log in/out if iQM Server is stopped

(build 80078 or higher)

In the setup can be flagged the option “logout at Stop” and “login at Start-Up”. If flagged the Agent will be logged out from the group if the iQM agent application is stopped and logged in automatically when the application starts-up.

Login/out if registrations changes

(build 80078 or higher)

Some customer wants an automatic logout if an agent is no more registered in the PBX and an automatic login to the agent group when the user is online again. In the Setup of the Agent you will find the options “Logout if not registered” and Login if registered again”.

Note: If a user deregister (unregistering his phone or switch of this phone) and the option “logout if not registered” is not switched on, from the PBX point of view no more calls are forwarded to this user. On the other hand for the iQM Server this user is in the group and therefore the display will show a number of user in the group never “ready”. In fact the ready counter will never show that users, anyway it is confusing for an admin.

Following myPBX

If a myPBX is installed on that PC (installed version, not web-based) it is possible to log automatically to the new user. Each time the user changes the actual myPBX will be terminated and a new myPBX with the new user be launched.

There is no way for a SOAP application to read out the password from the PBX or a user. Therefore as password the display name is used while the credential for the user is the name. Therefore Hotdesking users must have as password the name in the PBX.

Known Problems

- On a phone the first registration (user-1) cannot be used for hot-desking because this user cannot be deregistered. So toggling from one user to another is possible for example from user-2 to user-3.

- Note that hot-desking operation will fail or produce unforeseeable results if more users have the same number. - Windows has a problem with clearing unused icons in the taskbar. Therefore if the feature “Following myPBX” is used icons are display, passing with the mouse all except the active one will be deleted.


Howto:Queue_Monitor_-_Overview