Live Chat With Multiple Queues

Chat queues help you strike the right balance between wait times and internal resources. They prevent chat overload for agents while keeping your waiting customers updated. They also help you streamline the customer service; if the agents in a live chat with a customer need information from agents in a different department, they can easily transfer the live chat call to the queue specifically defined for that department.

This section provides you with the procedure for configuring Live Chat with multiple queues.

Step 1: Add agents

Note: Before defining agents, first add agents as users (Administration > Users) and assign them the Helpdesk Agent security role. For future reporting purposes, if you need specific managers to oversee agents' activity, make sure to add them as well (Administration > Users) and assign them the Manager security role.

To add an agent, follow these steps:

Select the bot and solution and on the main menu, click Live Chat Agents. The Agents list displays.
At the top-right corner of the page, click the Create new agent button. The Create new agent page appears.
Select the User. Optionally, select the Manager who will oversee the agent's activity.

Click the Save & Close button. The agent will be saved to the agents list.

Hint: You can set a custom working schedule for every agent. For more information, see Automatically Logging Out Helpdesk Agents.

Following the procedure above, add as many agents as you need.

Once you add all agents, you can start add queues and assign agents to queues to accommodate your support department structure.

Hint: You can assign an agent to multiple queues. Based on your use case, you can also create individual queues for agents if you want to provide them with the possibility to transfer live chat to specific agents.

Step 2: Define queues and assign agents

Hint: If you don't define queues, all agents will be automatically assigned to the global queue.

On the main menu, click Live Chat Queues. The Queues list page appears.
At the top-right corner of the page, click the Create new queue button. The Create new queue page appears.
In the Code field, type a queue code. It is language independent and you will use it in flow steps.
In the Name field, type a queue name in the language of choice.

Note: By default, Send sound notifications is enabled, which means that the browser sends sound notifications when the agent web page is not in focus (agent navigates to another tab / browser). If you do not want to send sound notifications to agents, disable it. For agents who are members of several queues, if at least one queue has this option enabled, then that agent will receive notifications. This setting is available in DRUID 1.73 and higher.

Note: You have three options for sending sound notifications:

Never - sound notifications are disabled, no sound notifications are sent to agents.
Only when out of focus - the browser sends sound notifications when the agent web page is not in focus (agent navigates to another tab / browser).
Always - the browser always sends sound notifications when users send messages in the chat, regardless if the agent web page is in focus or not.

By default, agents in a queue can handle maximum 5 active sessions in parallel (handle 5 live chat sessions at the same time). To change the maximum number of active sessions agents assigned to that queue can handle, from the Max number of active sessions drop-down, select a value between 1 and 5.

Note:

If Max number of active sessions is set on both bot level and queue level, DRUID takes into consideration the minimum value when automatically allocating clients to agents. If an agent is allocated to multiple queues with different maximum active sessions set, DRUID takes into consideration the smallest value of them.

Example: Queue A has the Max number of active sessions set to 2 and Queue B has the Max number of active sessions set to 3. The Max number of active sessions on the bot level is set to 4. If an agent is allocated to both Queue A and Queue B, the agent will be automatically allocated maximum 2 sessions in parallel for both queues; for Queue B having the possibility to manually take 2 more clients (to reach the maximum number of active sessions set on Queue B).

Important! For agent pages installed on your infrastructure, you need to upgrade the agent page to version 5.10 or higher.

Select the Display Connect Button at Queue Level option to enable agents to connect to the oldest client waiting in any queue, regardless of the order in which the clients joined or their priority. This is especially useful when agents are assigned to multiple active queues.

Note: This parameter s available in DRUID 8.7 and higher.

Hint: When a client is transferred to another agent or queue, they are moved to the end of the new queue. However, to provide agents with the option to connect to transferred clients regardless their position in the queue, go to the transfer flow and add the following parameter to the TransferHelpdeskCall internal action: "DisplayConnectButton": true. The Connect button will appear next to the transferred client, signaling their priority status due to prior waiting time in another queue.

Click the Save button. The queue is added to the Queues list and the Edit queue page appears on the General tab.

Click the Agents tab and click the Add agent button.

A pop-up listing all agents appears.

Select the desired agent(s) from the list and click Save. If one of the agents you selected has a working schedule set on another queue, you will be prompted to choose if you want to keep that schedule on the current queue as well. If so, select the agent whose working schedule you want to apply on the current queue and click Continue.
The pop-up closes and the selected agent(s) display in the queue's agents list.

Click Saveto save and stay on the page or click Save & Close to save and close the Edit queue page. The selected agents have been assigned to the queue.

Following the procedure above, create as many queues as you need and assign agents per queue.

Hint: For DRUID version 1.62 and higher, you can set the working schedule of a queue and apply it to all /some agents assigned to the queue. For more information, see Automatically Logging Out Helpdesk Agents.

Step 3: Put clients to a specific waiting queue

If you want to place live chat calls to a specific waiting queue, you can do so by editing the live-chat-connect-to-agent flow. Add an action step and in the Pre / PostActions section, add the internal action ConnectToHelpdeskAgent and enter the queue code (not the queue name).

Hint: In DRUID 5.10 and higher, you can prevent users from sending files when in a live chat session with an agent by setting [[ChatUser]].BlockFileUpload to "true". If Hide Upload Button (hideUploadButton) is set on the bot (BF4 parameters, Hide Upload Button is checked), that overwrites the value of [[ChatUser]].BlockFileUpload, which means that file upload is not available on the bot.

Automatically allocate clients to agents

For DRUID version 1.51 or higher, you can automatically allocate clients to agents by adding the following additional parameter to internal action ConnectToHelpdeskAgent: "AutomaticAllocation" : true (in JSON format).

For example:

Copy

Example - Automatic allocation to [[MyEntity]].CodeOfTheQueue

{
    "QueueCode" : "[[MyEntity]].CodeOfTheQueue",
    "AutomaticAllocation" : true
}

Hint: For backwards compatibility, you can put clients in a specific waiting queue by specifying the queue code either from a DRUID entity field ( [[<Entity>]].<QueueCodefield>), or a DRUID local variable (@queue_code) or directly as a string (e.g., "Loans").

Place clients in the queue based on the selected priority

For DRUID version 1.60 or higher, you can provide clients with the option to choose the priority of their live chat conversation, share it in a local variable or entity field and then place them in the queue based on the selected priority. To do so, add the following additional parameter to internal action ConnectToHelpdeskAgent: "PriorityLevel":"@priority" in JSON format. For priority, use formats like @localVariable or [[EntityField]].

For example:

Copy

Example - Place clients in ITHelpdesk queue based on chosen priority

{
    "QueueCode" : "ITHelpdesk",
    "PriorityLevel":"@priority",        
    "AutomaticAllocation" : true
}

There are three levels of priority available: Normal, Medium and High; where the default priority is Normal.

If an agent is member of multiple queues, and there are high priority clients in some or all of agent’s queues, then all those clients will be added on top of the normal priority clients, in the First In First Out (FIFO) order.

For example, in queue A there are 3 clients with High priority and 2 with normal priority and a new client with High priority wants to connect to an agent, this client will be placed in queue A at the bottom of the High priority clients, on top of the clients with Normal priority.

Step 4: Define the transfer flow

In order to provide agents with the possibility to transfer live chat calls to another agent, you need to define the transfer flow. The agents tell the chatbot assistant that they would like to transfer live chat to another queue or agent and the assistant executes the transfer flow.

Create a new flow and assign the Helpdesk Agent role. Make sure that you provide the flow utterance (training phrases) which will be used by the chatbot to identify the transfer request.

The transfer flow should have at least these two steps:

This section describes the two required steps. You can add additional steps to the transfer flow based on your needs.

Step 4.1. Give agents the possibility to choose the queue to which the live chat call will be transferred to

Add a step to provide the agents with the available queues (e.g., Choice step) by making the following settings in the Flow Step editor:

General settings

Field	Value
Step name	choose-queue-transfer. You can set another name for this step.
Type	Choice
Step message	Where would you like to transfer [[HelpdeskClient]].ClientName?
Input mapping	@queue, (“queue_code”) or [[Entity]].QueueCode.By configuring the step this way, you give agents the possibility to choose from a list of queues.

Metadata settings

Add all queues as choice options on the step and make sure to tap on BlockUserInput.

Step 4.2. Transfer the live chat call to the selected queue

Add a flow step of type Message and configure it as described below.

In the Flow Step Editor, click on General and enter the following Step message: "Client is transferred to @queue queue.".

In the PreActions or PostActions section, add the internal action TransferHelpdeskCall and specify either the code of a live chat queue, or the AgentId of an agent, to transfer the call to a specific agent (Ex: [[HelpdeskAgent]].AgentId).

When the agent will choose a specific queue at step 4.1, the call will be transferred to the selected queue / agent.

Automatically allocate transferred clients to agents

For DRUID version 1.51 or higher, when transferring clients to another queue, you can automatically allocate clients to agents by adding the following additional parameter to internal action TransferHelpdeskCall: "AutomaticAllocation" : true (in JSON format).

For example:

Copy

Example - Automatic allocation to [[MyEntity]].CodeOfTheQueue

{
    "QueueCode" : "[[MyEntity]].CodeOfTheQueue",
    "AutomaticAllocation" : true
}

For backwards compatibility, you can transfer clients to a queue by specifying the queue code either from a DRUID entity field ( [[<Entity>]].<QueueCodefield>), or a DRUID local variable (@queue_code) or directly as a string (e.g., "Loans").

Place transferred clients in the queue based on the selected priority

To do so, add the following additional parameter to internal action TransferHelpdeskCall: "PriorityLevel":"@priority" in JSON format. For priority, use formats like @localVariable or [[EntityField]].

For example:

Copy

Example - Place clients in Support queue based on chosen priority

{
    "QueueCode" : "Support",
    "PriorityLevel":"@priority",        
    "AutomaticAllocation" : true
}

There are three levels of priority available: Normal, Medium and High; where the default priority is Normal.

Click Save.

Getting the list of online agents before transferring live chat calls

You might want to get the list of online agents before transferring clients to another queue. To do so, add as a first flow step, a step of type Action which gets the list of online helpdesk agents. In the PostActions section, add the internal action GetOnlineHelpdeskAgents.

You can get the list of online agents from a specific queue by specifying the queue code in one of the following formats: [[Entity]].QueueCode, @queueCode, or "<queueCode> ". If you do not specify a queue code, you will get the list of all online agents.

Step 5: Add the EndLiveConversation internal action

If you're using Live Chat DRUID Starter, as last step on the agent side, the chatbot triggers a backchannel event for removing the client from the agent’s live chats list.

To properly log all activities of a live chat session, we recommend you to update the live-chat-agent-disconnect flow (LiveChatAgentDisconnected special flow) by adding as last step a step of type Action which in the PreActions or PostActions section calls the internal action EndLiveConversation.

Note: Remove the DisableChat BackChannel step if it exists from former configurations. Its functionality has been replaced by the EndLiveConversation internal action.

Step 6. Enable Agents to take a break

Note: The Break feature is available for DRUID version 1.51 or above.

To enable the Break functionality, you need to upgrade the Live Chat Advanced solution template (Solutions Library). For information about upgrading solution templates, see Upgrading Solution Templates.

After the solution upgrade, make sure that the following four flows exist on the solution:

Important! Do not change the utterance of these four flows; otherwise, the Break functionality will not work.

Step 7. Set the LiveChatPauseKeyword in bot additional languages

Note: In DRUID versions prior 5.6, the LiveChatPauseKeyword is set by default to Romanian (ro).

In DRUID 5.6 and higher, you can set the LiveChatPauseKeyword in all bot additional languages.

To add the LiveChatPauseKeyword on the bot you can either provide keyword in additional bot languages and the keyword is automatically added to the bot or first add it on the bot by clicking the plus icon and then provide the keyword in bot additional languages.

Whenever the agent pauses the conversation (clicks the Pause button), the LiveChatPauseKeyword is sent in the chat in the conversation language, if keyword value was set in that language on the bot, otherwise the value in EN is provided.

Step 8. Perform additional automation prior to actually connecting the helpdesk agent with the client (Optional)

In DRUID version 1.55 or higher, additional data is available in [[HelpdeskClient]] on the ConnectToHelpdeskClientMultichat flow. You can use this data to perform additional automation prior to actually connecting the helpdesk agent with the client (e.g., changing the agent name, salutation, etc.), based on some client information (for example client type, or client queue).

The following fields are now available in [[HelpdeskClient]]:

Subject ([[ChatUser]].HelpdeskSubject from client conversation context)
ClientName ([[ChatUser]].Name from client conversation context)
QueueCode
EnqueuedAt
DruidActivityId ([[ChatUser]].ActivityId from client conversation context)
TenantUserId