Understanding Queues

General Help
#1

I am a PHP/MySQL application developer and I am just learning how the FreePBX works. A phone guy here in the company where I work setup the default installation for FreePBX. There are two queues we are trying to understand: “Call Center” and “Overflow” queue. Why are are these two setup, they both have the same agents, but the settings are somewhat different. So my questions are:

  1. Why do these two queues exist? Why not just one?
  2. What are queues for?
  3. Where can I learn more about queues?
    Here are the two queues setting below:
    Queue: 4455
    Used as Destination by 11 Objects:
    Edit Queue
    Queue Name: Call Center
    Queue Password:
    CID Name Prefix:
    Wait Time Prefix: No
    Alert Info:
    Static Agents:
    Extension Quick Pick
    Dynamic Members: 300,0 310,0 332,0 348,0 349,0
    Extension Quick Pick
    Restrict Dynamic Agents Yes
    Agent Restrictions Call as Dialed

Queue Options
Agent Announcement: None
Join Announcement: None
Music on Hold Class: lieye
Ringing Instead of MoH:
Max Wait Time: 2 minutes, 30 seconds
Max Callers: 0
Join Empty: No
Leave When Empty: Yes
Ring Strategy: leastrecent
Agent Timeout: 18 seconds
Retry: 5 seconds
Wrap-Up-Time: 1 seconds
Call Recording: No
Event When Called: No
Member Status: Yes
Skip Busy Agents: Yes
Queue Weight: 0
Autofill: Yes
Agent Regex Filter
Report Hold Time: No
Service Level: 60 seconds
Caller Position Announcements
Frequency: 1 minute
Announce Position: Yes
Announce Hold Time: No
Periodic Announcements
IVR Break Out Menu: None
Repeat Frequency: 0 seconds
Fail Over Destination
Queues Overflow <4456>

Queue: 4456
Used as Destination by 1 Object:
Edit Queue
Queue Name: Overflow
Queue Password:
CID Name Prefix:
Wait Time Prefix: No
Alert Info:
Static Agents: 300,0 310,0 332,0 348,0 349,0
Extension Quick Pick
Dynamic Members:
Extension Quick Pick
Restrict Dynamic Agents No
Agent Restrictions Call as Dialed
Queue Options
Agent Announcement: None
Join Announcement: en/queue-periodic-announce
Music on Hold Class: inherit
Ringing Instead of MoH:
Max Wait Time: 2 minutes
Max Callers: 0
Join Empty: Yes
Leave When Empty: No
Ring Strategy: ringall
Agent Timeout: 15 seconds
Retry: 5 seconds
Wrap-Up-Time: 0 seconds
Call Recording: No
Event When Called: No
Member Status: No
Skip Busy Agents: No
Queue Weight: 0
Autofill: No
Agent Regex Filter
Report Hold Time: No
Service Level: 60 seconds
Caller Position Announcements
Frequency: 0 seconds
Announce Position: No
Announce Hold Time: No
Periodic Announcements
IVR Break Out Menu: None
Repeat Frequency: 0 seconds
Fail Over Destination
Extensions <7204> 9192387204

Thanks.

#2

Those two queues exist because someone built them, you will have to ask them why :wink: .

As to “how can I learn”, have you visited the wiki here yet? Many find it a good place to styart

http://wiki.freepbx.org/

#3

Thank you for your response.

Besides the link you gave me which I will read, is there a pdf manual where I can learn Theory and Application of Queues?

#4

Have you tried google yet?

If you are having trouble reading the html in the wiki then maybe

curl http://wiki.freepbx.org/|html2ps|ps2pdf - out.pdf

will make it easier for you :wink:

#5

Some reasons are you want different agents in the queue or different on hold announcements or any number of other reasons.

Exactly why he used 2 queues I can’t tell you. I have an idea but it is pure speculation on my part.

One thing I did notice is that the first queue has only dynamic members, the members have to be logged into the queue to have calls sent to them. If there are no members logged into the queue the calls will not get answered because there is nobody to answer them. The will just sit there until the queue times out and fails over to the second queue.

The second queue has all static members, they will always get calls sent to them from the queue. There is no need for them to be logged in because they are static and always logged in.

Based on all the info I provided why are there 2 queues? BTW there are probably 2 reasons you have 2 queues. Bonus points if you guess both.

PS. Now you are learning something. :wink:

#6

Thank you for all your help.

#7