Agent Queue Operations

Agent Queue campaigns put your licensed agents on the phone while careCycle handles dialing, pacing, routing, follow-up, and reporting. Use them when a conversation needs a person but your team still needs a managed queue and a repeatable workflow.

Create an Agent Queue Campaign

From Campaigns > New Campaign, enter a name, choose Agent Queue, then choose Inbound or Outbound. That direction cannot change after creation. The campaign opens as a draft in Configuration. Inbound queues prioritize routing, fallback, and incoming numbers; outbound queues also prioritize enrollment, calling numbers, dialing, and Pulse. Use Campaign Types and Configuration for the full setup walkthrough. Publish the reviewed Pulse draft before activating proactive outreach.

During operating hours, select a ready team destination. After hours, incoming calls use unavailable handling in ordinary new setup. New AI selection is marked Coming soon; existing saved AI handling can remain. An incoming AI policy does not convert Pulse calls to AI calls. Agent Queue configuration does not expose after-hours dialing or concurrency controls.

Routing and Destination Ownership

The attached softphone routing group supplies the campaign's agents. It owns the agents, routing strategy, ring timers, agent screen, handoff settings, inbound and outbound callback offers, and inbound unavailable messages. The campaign does not keep separate copies of those settings.

Destinations can be shared. Editing one changes every campaign and Receptionist behavior that references it. See Routing Groups before changing a shared pool.

Only agents who are online, Available, active in agent routing, on the air for this campaign, and eligible under any state-licensing filter enter the routing sequence. Attributed inbound and outbound calls also apply campaign source restrictions. Priority overrides can put the customer's assigned agent or most recent softphone agent first. The remaining agents are ordered by one of these strategies:

Agents always ring one at a time in the resulting sequence. Balanced does not ring everyone simultaneously.

Ring duration per agent accepts 5 through 30 whole seconds. Max wait time accepts 10 through 120 whole seconds. The overall wait limit can stop the sequence before every eligible agent is tried. If no eligible agent exists, fallback starts immediately.

When an agent has Auto Answer enabled, or your organization enforces it, the softphone joins the routed call without waiting for the agent to select Answer or Claim. The ring timers do not delay an auto-answered call. Only Available agents receive a route. See Agent Availability and Auto-Answer.

Configure Ratio Dialing

Open Campaigns, select your Agent Queue campaign, and go to Configuration > Dialing > Dialing ratio. Choose Dials per ready agent, then select Save in the campaign Configuration header.

The control configures proactive Pulse calls. The ratio belongs to the campaign; configure it here rather than in the shared routing group.

Higher ratios compensate for unanswered calls so agents spend less time waiting for a conversation. They increase the number of customer calls that can be in progress, not the number of conversations an agent handles at once.

How Capacity Is Calculated

careCycle multiplies the number of ready agents eligible for the customer by the current effective ratio, then rounds down to a whole number of lines. For example, five ready agents at 1.5x allow up to seven lines before other limits apply. At 2.0x, those five agents allow up to ten.

Calls already using shared-pool capacity and any configured campaign concurrency limit still constrain new dials. Campaigns sharing a destination also share its pool capacity. Zero ready agents means zero new dials, even at 3.0x. A higher ratio does not bypass availability, on-air status, state-licensing filters, or source restrictions.

Automatic Pacing Governor

The configured ratio is the maximum you request. careCycle can temporarily use a lower effective ratio based on the measured abandon rate: abandoned live-person calls divided by live-person answers, rather than all dials.

The governor uses a rolling 30-minute window shared across your organization's Agent Queue dial-first campaigns. It begins adjusting once that window contains at least 20 answered calls or 3 abandoned calls:

• At or below 2.5%, the configured ratio applies.
• Above 2.5% and below 3.0%, the effective ratio progressively decreases.
• At 3.0% or higher, the effective ratio returns to 1.0x.

The ratio recovers automatically as the rate falls, returning to the configured value at or below 2.5%. Your saved setting does not change.

After you save a ratio above 1.0x, the Dialing ratio section displays the measured rate and abandoned/answered counts, refreshing every 30 seconds. When it shows Governor active, it also displays the effective ratio alongside your configured ratio. Activity in another Agent Queue campaign can affect this status because the measurement window is shared.

Ratio dialing keeps the dial-first AMD and routing flow below. Incoming calls and requested callbacks do not use this over-dialing flow: requested callbacks still reserve an agent before dialing the customer.

Pulse Calls Are Dial-First

Normal Agent Queue Pulse calls always use dial-first answering-machine detection (AMD), including follow-up calls from an inbound desk campaign:

If the agent joins but the phone bridge cannot be established, careCycle keeps the customer parked, releases the failed offer, and continues through the eligible agent sequence. The platform records the bridge failure as an infrastructure outcome rather than attributing it to the customer. Agents do not need to interpret provider or connection errors.

If no agent is available before the customer is dialed, the attempt waits and is retried instead of consuming the customer's place in the cadence. If a live-person call reaches the no-agent abandonment path, careCycle records the abandonment and returns the customer to the queue. The destination's Outgoing calls setting can offer an eligible customer a callback before the call ends. Otherwise careCycle's system-managed no-agent message plays. Technical setup failures can use a separate failure message.

The destination's inbound unavailable message is unrelated to answering-machine handling on Pulse calls. Open Pulse to configure global and per-attempt voicemail; a Pulse call step can inherit the campaign default, override it, or choose silent hangup.

The agent's wrap-up disposition maps to an outcome type such as Contacted, No Contact, Voicemail, Sale, No Sale, Callback, or Do Not Call. Pulse routes the customer's next step from that outcome.

The reason for placing the call is separate from its disposition. Campaign stage, tasks, requirements, and inquiries explain why the customer needs contact before the call. The disposition records the result after the call.

Agent Queue Fallbacks

Start with one question: who placed this call?

• The customer called your team: use Incoming calls.
• Your dialer called the customer: use Outgoing calls if a person answers but no agent can take the call.

Find both options on the routing group under Fallback Handling > Human-agent call fallback. They apply when an agent cannot take the call. They do not change calls that connect successfully.

Incoming Calls: The Customer Calls You

During business hours, careCycle tries the agents assigned to the destination. Under If no agent answers, choose:

When after-hours unavailable handling is selected, careCycle skips agents and callback offers and plays the after-hours message. Existing configured AI answering follows its saved policy instead. See Inbound Handling for message defaults and operating-hours behavior.

Examples: Calls Can Go Both Ways

An outbound campaign mainly calls customers, but customers can call its number too. An inbound desk mainly receives calls, but its team can also follow up through an outbound Pulse workflow. The campaign's name or creation mode does not decide who placed a particular call.

Example: a customer returns a missed call. Your dialer called Jordan this morning. Jordan sees the number and calls it back. Jordan placed this new call, so Incoming calls applies, even though the number belongs to an outbound campaign.

Example: your team follows up after an incoming call. Taylor called your inbound desk yesterday. Today, a configured Pulse follow-up calls Taylor. Your dialer placed today's call, so Outgoing calls applies if Taylor answers and no agent can connect.

Example: a customer accepts a callback offer. Whether the offer was made during an incoming or outgoing call, pressing 1 creates a requested callback. That later call follows the shared Callback policy: careCycle reserves an agent before dialing the customer.

Voice AI transfer fallback on the same destination applies to a different path: a Voice AI campaign's attempt to transfer its live conversation to that destination. Its appointment and phone-number actions are not Agent Queue fallbacks.

Outbound No-Agent Callback Offer

Under Outgoing calls, enable Offer a callback to let an eligible answered customer press 1 for a callback. This has its own switch, independent of the inbound callback option. It applies after the dialer reaches a person, not when the customer fails to answer or AMD detects an answering machine.

If no callback is scheduled, the no-agent path plays careCycle's system-managed no-agent message and hangs up. This fixed message says: “We're sorry, all of our agents are currently busy. We'll call you back shortly. Goodbye.” It is not campaign-configurable.

The campaign's outbound voicemail setting, available in Pulse, instead controls what is left on an answering machine. Pulse call steps can inherit or override that message. Neither that campaign setting nor the destination's inbound unavailable messages change the live-person no-agent message.

The default outbound callback offer apologizes to the customer; the inbound offer explains that agents are still helping other callers. The editor shows the applicable scripts separately.

Which Message Can I Edit?

Three different situations can sound like a "fallback message," but they have different owners:

Changing the campaign's voicemail message does not change what a live person hears when no agent can connect. Changing an inbound unavailable message does not change what your dialer leaves on an answering machine.

Inbound Handling

Agent Queue campaigns can receive calls on their dedicated campaign numbers, including callbacks to numbers used by an outbound dialer.

• During business hours, the attached destination's eligible agents ring in sequence.
• Outside business hours, agents do not ring. Incoming calls use the configured AI employee or unavailable handling. If unavailable is selected, careCycle speaks the after-hours unavailable message and hangs up.
• If the in-hours agent sequence is exhausted, careCycle offers the destination's callback IVR when it is enabled and the caller is eligible. If no callback is scheduled, it speaks the business-hours unavailable message and hangs up.

Inbound unavailable messages are text-to-speech announcements followed by hangup. No caller message is recorded. Empty destination fields inherit the matching message from Settings > Organization > Softphone Settings > Unavailable messages, then the system default for that time window. The business-hours default asks callers to try again shortly; the after-hours default explains that the office is closed.

An inbound desk call is a reactive touch and does not automatically enter Pulse. When a normal Pulse follow-up is scheduled for that customer and campaign, careCycle links the outbound call to that exact Pulse event and uses the dial-first flow above. The requested-callback flow below remains separate. Open Pulse in Configuration or its inbound follow-up disclosure to review the sequence. The inbound follow-up disclosure retains access to configured work; publication and enrollment remain explicit operations.

Requested Callbacks: Accept-First

An eligible inbound caller or outbound no-agent customer can press 1 to request a callback. Configure the two entry points independently in the attached destination's Incoming calls and Outgoing calls sections. Both use the same callback timing policy and accept-first callback process.

If the caller does not accept or becomes ineligible, careCycle ends the original call with the inbound unavailable message or system-managed outbound no-agent message, according to its direction. Calling again while a callback is pending does not create a duplicate request. If the caller reaches an agent before callback dialing starts, the pending request is canceled.

Callback settings have these bounds and defaults:

The window must be at least the number of attempts multiplied by the retry delay. Actual expiry is the earlier of the configured window or the end of the closing buffer. A customer no-answer retries after the configured delay until the attempt limit or expiry. If agents become unavailable again after dispatch, careCycle re-arms the request after 60 seconds, still bounded by expiry. A request that cannot be completed in time expires without dialing again.

Managers can monitor both outbound customers waiting for Agent Queue calls and inbound callback promises under Calls > Queues & Callbacks. Campaign rows drill into the filtered Customers list, while callback reporting shows queue age, attempts, fulfillment, and expiry risk without exposing customer contact details on the wallboard itself.