Reference9:Concept iQM QueueMonitor

The innovaphone PBX-Queue Monitor (iQM) is an application to monitor a Waiting Queue (WQ) and agents in a innovaphone PBX. Many real time indicators and counters are combined with statistic counters, threshold alarm and warnings and also the status of the agents are displayed to give an overview of the actives around a waiting queue. On top wrap-up time (known also as “Post Call Processing Time”) can be set individual for each agent. iQM supervise one WQ but many agents on it; anyway it is possible to view also many WQs on the same PC starting more iQM sessions.

Applies To

iQM is a SOAP application and communicate with the innovaphone PBX. The PBX-Queue Monitor runs on a PC with windows OS. The software has to be licensed and run without license for 20 minutes (evaluation mode), after that period iQM can be started again for a trial period. The license is stored in the innovaphone PBX, each iQM require one license, innovaphone article number 02-00028-004. Demo license for the PBX can be created in myinnovaphone and downloaded as usual. Developed and tested on Version 9 and Win7, should work also with Version 8 and on Windows XP.

More Information

Features

The following list describes some features; all details are described further on:

• About indication with software version
• Alarm counter for abandoned calls
• Alarm counter for number of calls
• Alarm counter for waiting time
• Counters panel for counters
  • of the actual hour
  • of the actual day
  • of the actual month
  • from last reset
  • from startup (total)
• Settable character separated value for fields in the log file
• Directory for logging configurable
• Display of last abandoned alarm event (Date, Time, Optical, Acoustical)
• Display of last call alarm event (Date, Time, Optical, Acoustical)
• Display of last waiting alarm event (Date, Time, Optical, Acoustical)
• Agent Real time display of
  • agents in the PBX
  • number of agent logged to the service
  • number of agent ready (free)
  • number of agent busy
  • number of agent in ring status
  • number of agent in wrap-up status
• Restore of window position on the screen after shut down
• General wrap-up time for all agents, switchable
• Indication of the data link to the PBX and name of queue monitored
• Individual wrap-up time for each agent
• Integrated acoustic alarm, switchable
• License stored in the PBX, demo mode for 20 minutes, demo license in myinnovaphone
• Log-file for hourly data, switchable
• Log-file for alarms (time, calls, abandoned)
• Log-file for daily data
• Log-file for system events
• Monitor label configurable
• Manual override of individual wrap-up time
• WQ Real time counter for
  • longest waiting time of actual calls in queue
  • number of calls in the queue
  • number of abandoned calls in queue
  • average waiting time
  • average calls
  • average abandoned calls
  • longest (peak) waiting time
  • highest (peak) number of calls
  • highest (peak) number of abandoned calls
• Saving of data and restore in case of shut down
• Statistic counters for past hour, day and month
• System uptime counter
• Tooltips
• Warning and alarm threshold for abandoned calls
• Warning and alarm threshold for number of calls
• Warning and alarm threshold for waiting time

Basics

The innovaphone PBX can handle Waiting Queues (WQs). Those WQs are used for many different innovaphone scenarios, but to understand the basic idea let’s see how the “normal” usage works for a contact center works. But remember that this manual describes the iQM and not the possibilities of the innovaphone PBX and the WQ in it, there are a lot of articled about that. In order to understand better the argument some preliminary basic items have to be cleared.

In the figure below you see a new call coming in a WQ of the innovaphone PBX. The WQ distribute all calls to the agents, typically in a round robin mode. iQM supervises the WQ and the agent activities.

“Agent” is normal a PBX-user but in the same group than the WQ and so called if available. Therefore the system is very flexible and every size will fit.

The common basic operating questions for a supervisor (and/or the agents) are:

• How many calls are in the Queue?
• How long is waiting the “oldest” call?
• How many callers give up, typically because annoyed waiting?

Depending on those parameters agents will hurry up or not and a supervisor can add agent ore shorten the wrap-up time. So the parameters “waiting time of the oldest call”, “number of calls waiting” and “number of abandoned calls” are important and displayed in real time.

Next interesting questions are:

• How many agents are in the system and how many of them are logged to the service?
• How many agents are free/busy and ringing?
• How many agents are in wrap-up time and so available soon?

Depending in those parameters additional agents can be logged or wrap-up time modified. Observing the real-time indicators a supervisor will see instantly if a situation becomes critical.

In managing agents statistical counters are even an important issue:

• How many call where processed this hour/today/ this month?
• How long did the caller wait this hour/day/month
• How many calls are abandoned this hour/day/month

And it would also be interesting to know the peak and average value of all that. A supervisor could also have the problem to measure those values in a defined time period. All this real time questions are of cause interesting if comparable with stored periods. Therefore iQM displays always also the stored values, so for example the counters of the last hour, day and month. Historic counters allowed to see immediately how the contact center is working compared to previous periods.

In some cases the requests are not so stressed and real time depending. For example a customer want just understand if and when calls are going lost or if and when there are a lot of calls. This can be done using warning and alarming thresholds.

And of cause all those counters and events should be stored even in a file for post-processing. Post processing of stored call data could be done with any external tool like Excel or Access.

As jet mentioned beside the WQ also the agent Status is important to see in real time at a glance. Please remember that single agent supervision is not allowed in many countries or is at least very limited. Just two keywords about that: “privacy” and “syndicate”. Therefore iQM shows and log just summary data (of course if you have just one agent or you monitor nested Queues pointing in just one agent…..).