Agent and Supervisor Reporting

Agent States

Agent states are determined from an agent's activity within a skill group or precision queue. Agent state is recorded in numerous database tables and is presented in reports as both a number (Not Ready) and as a percentage (% Not Ready).

You can monitor agent states in real time to view current agent activity. You can also review past performance data to identify trends in agent states. For example, historical reports can show how much time an agent spends in Not Ready state, which indicates whether the agent is adhering to the schedule.

Information for some states is different when an agent is configured to handle multiple concurrent tasks in a Media Routing Domain (MRD). This table highlights these differences.

Table 1. Agent States That Appear in Reports

State in Skill Group or Precision Queue

Description for single-session MRDs

Description for multisession MRDs

Active or Talking

The agent is working on a task or a call in this skill group or precision queue.

For agents who handle nonvoice tasks, this state is reported as Active.

For agents who handle voice tasks, this state is reported as Talking.

The agent is working on one or more tasks associated with this skill group or precision queue. For these agents, the state is reported as Active.

Work Ready

The agent is performing wrap-up work for a call or task in this skill group or precision queue.

If the agent is handling a voice call, the agent enters Ready state when wrap-up is complete.

If the agent is handling a nonvoice task, the agent may enter Not Active or Not Ready state when wrap-up is complete.

The agent is performing wrap-up work for a task associated with this skill group or precision queue. The agent is not in the Active state for a task associated with this skill group.

Work Not Ready

The agent is performing wrap-up work for a call in this skill group or precision queue. The agent enters Not Ready state when wrap-up is complete.

This state is not used for agents signed into Enterprise Chat and Email skill groups or precision queues.

This state is used during failover for agents signed into skill groups or precision queues for third-party multichannel applications that use the Task Routing APIs.

This state is used during failover for agents signed in to skill groups or precision queues for third-party multichannel applications that use the Task Routing APIs.

Paused or Hold

For agents who handle nonvoice tasks, the state is reported as Paused.

For agents who handle voice tasks, the state is reported as Hold.

For agents handling Outbound Option calls, the Hold state indicates that the agent has been reserved for a call because the Outbound Dialer puts the agent on hold while connecting the call.

The agent is Paused for a task associated with this skill group or precision queue.

Reserved

The agent has been offered a call or task associated with the skill group or precision queue.

For voice calls, agents are Reserved when their phones are ringing.

Agents handling Outbound Option calls are never placed in Reserved state; the Outbound Option Dialer puts the agent on hold when reserving the agent for a call.

The agent is not in Active, Work Ready, or Paused state in this skill group or precision queue. The agent has been offered one or more tasks associated with this skill group or precision queue.

Busy Other

Busy Other is a state in which the agent handling calls is assigned to other skill groups during the interval.

For example, an agent could be talking on an inbound call in one skill group while simultaneously logged on to, and ready to accept calls from, other skill groups.

The agent can be active (talking on or handling calls) in only one skill group at a time. Therefore, while active in one skill group, for the other skill group the agent is considered to be in the Busy Other state.

The agent is Active, Work Ready, Reserved, or on Hold/Paused in another skill group or precision queue in the same MRD.

The agent is not in Active, Work Ready, Reserved, or Paused state for a task associated with this skill group or precision queue. The agent is in Active, Work Ready, Reserved, or Paused in another skill group or precision queue in the same MRD.

Not Active or Ready

The agent is not working on a task or call associated with this skill group or precision queue.

Same as single-session MRD.

Interrupted

The agent has been interrupted by a task from another MRD. If an agent is Interrupted in one skill group or precision queue, the agent is Interrupted in all skill groups or precision queues within the same MRD.

Voice calls cannot be interrupted.

This state is not used for agents signed in to Enterprise Chat and Email skill groups or precision queues.

This state is used for agents signed in to skill groups or precision queues for third-party multichannel applications that use the Task Routing APIs, if the agents are configured to accept interrupts.

Same as single-session MRD

Not Ready

The agent is not available to be assigned a call or task. If an agent is Not Ready in one skill group or precision queue, the agent is Not Ready in all skill groups or precision queues within the same MRD.

Same as single-session MRD

Agent States, Skill Groups, and Precision Queues

Agents can belong to multiple skill groups or precision queues in a Media Routing Domain (MRD). When an agent is handling a task that was routed to a skill group or precision queue, the agent is Active in that skill group or precision queue.

  • For direct incoming calls or transferred routed calls that do not use the dialed number, the active skill group is the default or first skill group defined for the agent.

  • For new outgoing calls (AgentOutCalls or InternalCalls) or transferred outbound calls, the active skill group is the first skill group defined for the agent.

Agents can be configured to work on more than one task at a time, such as multiple chat sessions. When reporting on these agents, gather state information from both the Available in MRD and Agent State columns.

The agents' state in the active skill group or precision queue determines the state in the other skill groups or precision queues in the MRD, as follows:

  • If the agent is Not Ready in one skill group or precision queue in the MRD, the agent is Not Ready in all skill groups or precision queues in the MRD.

  • If the agent is Active, Work Ready, Reserved, or Hold/Paused in one skill group or precision queue in the MRD, the agent state is Busy Other for all other skill groups or precision queues in the MRD.

Agent State and Task State Relationship

Agent state times are reported on interval boundaries regardless of whether the call or task is finished. Call and task state times are reported only when the task ends. The call or task ends when wrap-up is complete.

The following figure illustrates the correlation between agent state and call state for a voice call. The agent reserve time includes network time and offer/ring time. Network time is the time it took the call to arrive at the agent’s phone or desktop. Offering/ring time is the amount of time that the call rang on the agent’s phone or waited on the agent’s desktop.

Figure 1. Agent State and Task State Relationship
  1. Call Arrives and queues against SG1 (A) after 33 seconds the call also queues for agents in SG2 (B).
  2. The call remains queued to SG1 and SG2 for an additional 12 seconds, until it is routed to an agent who goes ready in SG2 (C).
  3. Call rings on the agent’s phone (C) and is then answered by the agent (D), who talks on the call for 10 seconds before putting the call on hold (E).
  4. After 12 seconds, the agent retrieves the call (F) and talks for another 20 seconds.

  5. At (G) the call is dropped which results in the agent going into Wrap state to perform after after-call work for 20 seconds at which time the agent becomes ready (H).

  6. If the interval boundary ends when the call is ringing on the agent's phone, the reserved time for the agent includes the network time and part of the ring time. At the next interval, the remaining ring time is reported in the reserved time of the agent. However, the call’s time does not appear on a report until wrap-up has been completed on the call.

Agent Logout Reason Codes

Agent logout reason codes are defined in the agent desktop software and appear in historical reports as their numeric equivalent, with no text code. For example, if reason code 1 equals "end of shift" and the agent selects that reason for logging out, the report displays "1".

In addition to the codes configured at the desktop, some codes are generated automatically when the agent is logged out by the software. The following table describes these built-in logout reason codes.

Table 2. Agent Logout Reason Codes

Built-in Logout Reason Code

Description

-1

The agent reinitialized due to peripheral restart.

-2

The PG reset the agent, normally due to a PG failure.

-3

An administrator modified the agent's extension while the agent was logged in.

999

The agent was logged out by from Finesse by a supervisor.

50002

A CTI OS component failed, causing the agent to be logged out. This could be due to closing the agent desktop application, heartbeat time out, a CTI OS Server failure, or a CTI OS failure.

50004

The agent was logged out due to agent inactivity as configured in agent desk settings.

50020

The agent was logged out when the agent's skill group assignment dynamically changed.

50030

The agent was logged out when the agent's skill group assignment dynamically changed on the Administration & DataServer.

50040

The mobile agent was logged out because the call failed.

50042

The mobile agent was logged out because the phone line disconnected when using nailed connection mode.

20001—applicable if you are using Cisco Agent Desktop

The agent's state was changed to NOT READY.

20002—applicable if you are using Cisco Agent Desktop

Forces the logout request; for example, when Agent A attempts to login to Cisco Agent Desktop and Agent B is already logged in under that agent ID, Agent A is asked whether or not to force the login.

If Agent A answers yes, Agent B is logged out and Agent A is logged in. Reports would then show that Agent B logged out at a certain time with a reason code of 20002 (Agent B was forcibly logged out).

Note

 
Cisco Unified Mobile Agent is the only exception, where CAD will not allow you to log out a login name/ID that is already in use.

20003—applicable if you are using Cisco Agent Desktop

Not Ready for logout.

Agent Not Ready Reason Codes

There are reports that show the codes agents select when entering Not Ready state, that calculate the percentage of time spent in the Not Ready state, and that show specific Not Ready reasons based on the time range you specify.

These reports help you identify whether agents are taking the appropriate number of breaks and whether their breaks are the appropriate length.

Some reports display both the text of the reason code (if configured) and the corresponding number. For example, if an agent enters Not Ready state and selects "Break" as the reason code, and if you have configured text for this code, reports display "Break [1]". Other reports display the numeric Not Ready reason code only.

In addition to Not Ready reason codes that you define, there are built-in Not Ready reason codes for situations in which the software automatically makes the agent Not Ready. The following table describes these built-in Not Ready reason codes.

Table 3. Built-In Not Ready Reason Codes

Built-in Not Ready Reason Code

Description

-1

Agent reinitialized (used if peripheral restarts).

-2

PG reset the agent, normally due to a PG failure.

-3

An administrator modified the agent's extension while the agent was logged in.

999

A Finesse supervisor changed the agent state.

50001

The CTI OS client disconnected, logging out the agent.

Note

 

This reason code is converted to a 50002, so 50001 does not display in the agent log out records.

50002

A CTI OS component failed, causing the agent to be logged out. This could be due to closing the agent desktop application, heartbeat time-out, a CTI OS Server failure, or a CTI OS failure.

50003

Agent was logged out because Unified CM reported the device out of service.

50004

Agent was logged out due to agent inactivity as configured in agent desk settings.

50005

For a deployment where the Multi-line Agent Control is enabled in the peripheral, and the Multi-line Agent Behavior is configured to impact agent state, the Agent is set to Not Ready with this code while talking on a call on the Non-ACD line.

50010

The agent did not receive multiple consecutive routed calls. The system makes the agent Not Ready automatically so that additional calls are not routed to the agent. By default, the number of consecutive calls missed before the agent is made Not Ready is 2.

50020

Agent was logged out when the agent's skill group dynamically changed on the Administration & Data Server.

50030

Agent was logged out because the agent was logged in to a dynamic device target that is using the same dialed number (DN) as the PG static device target.

50040

Mobile agent was logged out because the call failed.

50041

Mobile agent state changed to Not Ready because the call failed when the mobile agent's phone line rang busy.

50042

Mobile agent was logged out because the phone line disconnected while using nailed connection mode.

50041

The agent's state was changed to Not Ready because the agent's phone line rang busy and a call failed.

32767

The agent's state was changed to Not Ready because the agent did not answer a call and the call was redirected to a different agent or skill group.

20001 - applicable if you are using Cisco Agent Desktop

Places the agent in the Not Ready state first before forcibly logging off the agent.

20002 - applicable if you are using Cisco Agent Desktop

Forces the logout request. For example, when Agent A attempts to log in to Cisco Agent Desktop and Agent B is already logged in under that agent ID, Agent A is asked whether to force the login.

If Agent A answers yes, Agent B is logged out and Agent A is logged in. Reports would then show that Agent B logged out at a certain time with a reason code of 20002 (Agent B was forcibly logged out).

20003 - applicable if you are using Cisco Agent Desktop

Not Ready for logout.

If agent is not already in the Logout state, request is made to place agent in the Not Ready state. Then logout request is made to log out the agent.

By default, built-in Not Ready reason codes do not have associated textual reason codes. They appear as numbers in reports. To see a textual code for these Not Ready reason codes, enter the built-in Not Ready reason code into the Reason Code tool with the related text. For example, you can label the 32767 Not Ready reason code "Redirection on No Answer."

Agent Task Handling

Agents can receive and initiate many different types of tasks. There are reports that show you what kind of tasks agents are handling and how well they are handling them. For example, there are reports that display statistics for calls placed, received, transferred, and conferenced, and there are reports that indicate how many calls were rerouted when the agent failed to answer the call.

Tasks can be internal or external, and incoming or outgoing, as follows:

  • Internal tasks are calls made to an agent from another person or from another agent on Packaged CCE.

  • External tasks are calls that are placed off the Packaged CCE, tasks that come in via CVP, or tasks that are routed to an agent from a person outside Packaged CCE. For example, calls from the call center to customers are considered external.

  • Incoming tasks are tasks that an agent receives. Multichannel tasks are always incoming.

  • Outgoing tasks are calls that an agent places. For example, if a customer calls an agent, the call is incoming for the agent. If an agent calls a supervisor, the call is outgoing for the agent.

For voice calls only, agents can place consultative calls and engage in conference calls.

Agents can transfer voice calls and nonvoice tasks that were routed to CCE from third-party multichannel applications that use the Task Routing APIs. Agents cannot transfer nonvoice Enterprise Chat and Email tasks.

For each type of task that an agent can initiate, the amount of time that the agent spent working on that task is recorded in the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval database table.

The following table describes the tasks that an agent can receive and initiate, how the time for each task is determined, and how those tasks are reported.

Table 4. Types of Tasks

Type of task

Description

Reported as

Incoming direct/internal

 Incoming Direct Tasks are tasks that come directly to the agent's extension.

Examples of this kind of call include calls that are directly transferred by another agent without going through a script and calls that resulted from agent-to-agent calling.

Data for these calls are stored in the InternalCallsRcvd fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent answers the task and ends when the task disconnects. The time is stored in the InternalCallsRcvdTime field.

Internal In

Outgoing external

These are calls initiated by agents from their extension that are placed outside the contact center. Outgoing External Tasks are always voice tasks.

Consultative, conference out, and transfer out calls are counted as outgoing external calls if they are placed outside the contact center or to remote agent extensions at another site.

Agent-to-Agent dialing is outgoing external for the agent initiating the call if the call has to be placed outside the contact center to get to the destination agent.

Data for these calls are stored in the AgentOutCalls fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent initiates the task and ends when the task disconnects. The time is stored in the AgentOutCallsTime field.

External Out Tasks

Outgoing internal

These are calls initiated by agents from their extension to another extension within the contact center. Outgoing Internal Tasks are always voice tasks.

Consultative, conference out, and transfer out calls are counted as outgoing internal calls if they are placed to another CVP.

Agent-to-Agent calls are outgoing internal for the agent initiating the call.

Data for these calls are stored in the InternalCalls fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent initiates the task and ends when the task disconnects. The time is stored in the InternalCallsTime field.

Internal Out Tasks

CCE–routed calls

All calls that are routed to the agent.

Outbound Option calls are consideredCCE–routed/incoming calls.

Data for these calls are stored in the CallsHandled fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent answers the task and ends when the agent completes wrap-up. The time is stored in the HandledCallsTime field.

Tasks Handled

Tasks Handled includes all calls, including calls that are transferred and conferenced, and consultative calls. Tasks Handled provides a high level view of routed tasks. Other report columns such as Transfer In and Conf Out provide more details about how the task was handled.

Transferred in

Calls transferred to an agent from another agent. Calls that are blind transferred by one agent to CVP for re-routing are counted in this column for the agent who receives the rerouted call.

Nonvoice Task Routing tasks that are blind transferred are also counted in this column for the agent who receives the rerouted task.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent answers the transferred task and ends when the task disconnects. The time is stored in the TransferredInCallsTime field.

Data for these calls are stored in the TransferredIn fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

Transfer In

Transferred out

Calls that are transferred from an agent. An agent can transfer both incoming and outgoing calls.

Nonvoice Task Routing tasks that are transferred from an agent are also counted in this column.

Data for these calls are stored in the TransferredOut fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent activates the transfer button and ends when the transfer is complete. The time is stored in the TransferredOutCallsTime field.

Transfer Out

Consultative

Calls in which an agent consulted with another agent or supervisor while having another call on hold.

Data for these calls are stored in the ConsultativeCalls fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent activates the transfer button and ends when the target agent answers and the held task is restored (drop consultative call) or consult party drops. The time is stored in the ConsultativeCallsTime field.

Cons Out

Conference in

Incoming calls that are conferenced.

Data for these calls are stored in the ConferencedInCalls fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent answers the task and ends when the task disconnects. The time is stored in the ConferenceInCallsTime field.

Conf In

Conference out

Outgoing calls that are conferenced.

Data for these calls are stored in the ConferencedOutCalls fields of the Agent_Skill_Group_Interval historical database table.

The time for these tasks begins when the agent activates the conference button and ends when the agent disconnects from the conference call and the supervisor drops out of the call. The time is stored in the ConferenceOutCallsTime field.

Conf Out

You might notice overlapping data in your reports for the amount of time for different types of calls. This happens because incoming tasks, such as CCE-routed tasks and calls made directly to an agent, can be Transferred In and Conferenced In. Both incoming calls and outgoing calls placed by agents can be Transferred Out and Conferenced Out. The total time for the incoming or outgoing call includes transfer and conference time.


Note
Agents can transfer and conference incoming calls both in and out. However, they can transfer and conference outgoing calls out only. This difference means that if an agent transfers an outgoing task to another agent, it is still considered an outgoing task.

Agent Utilization: Full-Time Equivalents and Percent Utilization

Because agents can work on multiple media and in multiple skill groups, they typically do not spend all of their time handling tasks for a single skill group. Determining staffing needs based on agents whose time is divided among skill groups and media can be difficult.

Report templates provide two types of statistics that give you a improved view of how agents are being utilized and how many full-time agents would be required to handle the amount of work performed during an interval for a particular skill group.

These statistics are:

  • % Utilization (percent utilization)

  • FTE (full-time equivalent)

Percent utilization (% Utilization in reports) shows you how well agents are being utilized within a skill group. This metric is computed in reports by dividing the total time agents spend handling calls in a skill group by the total time agents were ready to handle tasks. To calculate the time that an agent was ready, the system subtracts the Not Ready time from the total time that agents were logged on. For example, if the agent spent 20 minutes of the log on duration handling calls and was available to handle calls for 40 minutes, the percent utilization is 50%.

The full-time equivalent (FTE in reports) is the number of full-time agents that would be required to perform the work done during that interval for a skill group. To calculate the FTE, the system divides the total time that work was performed by the total time in the interval. For example, if agents spent a total of 3 hours handling tasks during a 30-minute interval, the FTE for task handling during the interval is 3 hours / 0.5 hours, which equals 6 full-time persons. This means that if all agents handled tasks full-time, the work could have been done by 6 agents.


Note
If you select a report interval that is less than 8 hours, the resulting value will be lower than expected.

Supervisor Activity

Agent team supervisors can take advantage of supervisory features available on their desktops. Use reports to see when agents requested assistance and when supervisors had to use the Barge-In and Intercept features.


Note
These supervisory features are not available to agents using MRDs other than Voice.

Supervisor Assist and Emergency Assist for Existing Call

Agents can activate supervisor assist or emergency assist buttons on their desktop when they need special assistance from the primary or secondary supervisor assigned to their team.

Follow these guidelines to ensure that you can obtain accurate and useful data from these features:

  • Configure skill groups for supervisors handling Supervisor Assist and Emergency Assist requests. For example, you can configure one skill group for all the supervisors of an agent team. This way, you can direct requests to these skill groups and report on Supervisor and Emergency Assist call activity for these skill groups.

  • Create call types and configure dialed numbers that map to the created call type.

  • Configure scripts to direct the requests to the supervisor skill group.

You can select consult as an option on the agent desktop settings for supervisor or emergency assist. If the agent is on a call when the agent activates either the Supervisor or Emergency Assist desktop feature, the CTI software activates the conference key on behalf of the agent's phone and calls the supervisor using the Supervisor or Emergency Assist script. This example assumes that the emergency or supervisor assist script has an Agent-to-Agent node to find a supervisor. The supervisor answers the call and consults privately with the agent. The following fields are incremented within the Agent Skill Group and Skill group tables.

Table 5. Existing Call: Consultative

Fields incremented for agent's skill group to which the call was routed

Fields incremented for supervisor's default skill group

CallsHandled, InternalCall, SupervisorAssistCalls/EmergencyAssist

InternalCallsRcvd

For the agent, the call is reported in Tasks Handled and either Sup Assist or Emergency report fields. For the supervisor, the call is reported in Tasks Handled report fields.


Note
During the consultation, the supervisor can decide to barge-in to the call using the supervisor desktop Barge-In feature.

Barge-In

When the supervisor activates the Barge-In desktop feature, the agent's desktop completes a conference to the supervisor so that the supervisor can join into the conversation with the call. The following fields increment for both the agent and the supervisor in the agent skill group and skill group tables.

Table 6. Supervisor Barge-In

Fields incremented for agent's skill group to which the call was routed

Fields incremented for supervisor's default skill group

CallsHandled, InternalCalls, BargeInCalls

BargeInCalls, InternalCallsRcvd

For the agent, the call is reported in Tasks Handled and Barge-In report fields. For the supervisor, the call is reported in Tasks Handled and Barge-In report fields.

Intercept

If the supervisor decides to intercept (take over) the call, the supervisor activates the Intercept desktop button. This interception drops the agent out of the conference, which allows the supervisor to take over the call. The following fields are incremented during the intercept operation for both the agent skill group and skill group tables.

Table 7. Supervisor Intercept

Fields incremented for agent's skill group to which the call was routed

Fields incremented for supervisor's default skill group

InterceptCalls

InterceptCalls

For the agent, the call is reported in the Intercept report field. For the supervisor, the call is reported in the Intercept report field.