Flexible Routing and Queuing

The multichannel software architecture provides flexible routing and queuing.  ICM software has been enhanced to manage routing and queuing services for the Cisco Collaboration Server and Cisco E-Mail Manager applications, and Collaboration Server and E-Mail Manager have been enhanced for routing and queuing as well.

Routing Application Requests

The Collaboration Server and E-Mail Manager applications route requests to the ICM MR-PG.  The Media Routing Peripheral Interface Manager (MR-PIM) on the MR-PG provides a generic interface to queue and route requests.  The MR-PIM communicates with the ICM CallRouter, which runs a routing script to determine how best to handle the request.  

 

ICM software uses a media class ID to identify the type of media or channel.  A media class is a communication channel that is correlated to an application. The media class ID is on the Collaboration Server call form submitted by the caller.  There are five predefined media classes in ICM:

 

 

Each media class has at least one media routing domain (MRD), which is a collection of skill groups and services associated with a medium.  ICM software uses the MRD to route a task to an agent who is associated with a skill group and a particular medium.  Each MRD requires an ICM script, but it is possible to route requests from different MRDs using one script.  

 

Universal Queue

When you use IPCC or SoftACD, you can configure the multichannel software to manage a single universal work queue for all requests. You can configure agents to handle all media types, switching media on a task-by-task basis.  For example, you would configure an agent as a member of three skill groups if the agent handles voice, e-mail, and chat, and the agent would log into the Softphone, E-Mail Manager, and Collaboration Server.  The agent is assigned the longest waiting request from any of the three skill groups, but you can choose to prioritize the requests using the multichannel software scripting environment.  

 

Agents who work from a universal queue need skills in handling the various types of media and applications.

 

Independent Media Queues

You can also configure the multichannel software to route all media through independent queues defined by media class.  Agents can be configured to log into only one media type to take either e-mail, text chat, blended collaboration, or voice.  In this configuration, requests are queued only to agents who have logged into the corresponding media application.  

 

Agents who work from an independent queue need skills in handling only one type of media and application.