Unified Routing – Improved Overflow Routing

Whilst using Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Contact Center (and other Dynamics apps) we use Unified Routing to route conversations to agents. When the selected queue is “busy” overflow logic can be used to decide how to route work items. Recently Microsoft have made some improvements to the overflow feature, I will discuss these in this post.

Overflow is an important feature, as in a bust contact center you’ll want to manage how conversations are handled as queues grow.

I have blogged about the overflow logic before! You can read those posts here and here.

Overflow logic is great but until now a limitation has existed.

To explain …. Let’s consider when Overflow happens. Say you create an overflow rule that will be applied if the average wait time on a queue is 10 minutes. The overflow logic applies when new conversations are added to the queue. So, imagine that the average wait time is currently 9 minutes and 30 seconds, then a new conversation will join the queue. But during that 9 minute (ish) wait the queue could grow. Meaning some customers could get “stuck” in the queue.

We now have a feature to help resolve this problem!

Note: As of November 2024, the improved overflow routing is a preview feature. It is therefore not (yet) recommended for production use. And could be subject to change.

Below you can see that I have added multiple overflow rules to the queue I use for Inbound voice calls.

I have deliberately added multiple combinations to illustrate the art of the possible.

Firstly, I have my “regular” overflow conditions. These are applied before work items are queued. For my test I created two condition / action pairs. One of which will trigger a direct call back if the average wait time exceeds 10 minutes. And another that will simply end calls outside of operating hours.

This logic demonstrates some of the current capabilities of overflow. But please be aware (as shown below) that other combinations exist. Supporting direct calls back, ending calls, transferring calls and voicemail.

So, plenty of options for deciding how to handle calls as they join the queue. But what about calls already in the queue? For this we have the new ability to add a condition / action for work items that are already queued. In my example I decided to route calls to a different queue if they had been “stuck” in the queue for more than 2 minutes.

As mentioned, this is a preview feature! And as such we can expect some limitations. The main limitation with this feature is that currently the only action available is to “transfer to a different queue”. Plus we can only add one condition / action pair.

Don’t get me wrong here, this is useful and a step forward. But I hope to see more actions in the future. For example, if someone has been stuck in a queue for 2 minutes I would like to offer them a callback option. And then maybe offer it again after 4 minutes.

OK this feature (being a preview) has limitations! But I do think it represents an important step forward in queue management. As Microsoft add additional actions I will blog about those future improvements. Enjoy.

Original Post https://neilparkhurst.com/2024/11/12/unified-routing-improved-overflow-routing/