Queuing

Last Updated : Aug 30, 2026 |
Navigation: Call ManagementGroupAdd/Edit GroupQueuing
Prolog information
Metadata
Keywords:
Resource Id: group102
Any calls waiting to be answered at a hunt group are regarded as being queued. The Normalise Queue Length control allows selection of whether features that are triggered by the queue length should include or exclude ringing calls. Once one call is queued, any further calls are also queued. When an available hunt group member becomes idle, the first call in the queue is presented. Calls are added to the queue until the hunt group's Queue Limit, if set, is reached.
  • When the queue limit is reached, any further calls are redirected to the hunt group's voicemail if available.
  • If voicemail is not available excess calls receive busy tone. An exception to this are analog trunk and T1 CAS trunk calls which will remain queued regardless of the queue limit if no alternate destination is available.
  • If an existing queued call is displaced by a higher priority call, the displaced call will remain queued even if it now exceeds the queue limit.  
Hunt group announcements are separate from queuing. Announcements can be used even if queuing is turned off and are applied to ringing and queued calls. See Hunt Group | Announcements.
There are several methods of displaying a hunt group queue.
  • Group Button: On phones, with programmable buttons, the Group function can be assigned to monitor a specified group. The button indicates when there are calls ringing within the group and also when there are calls queued. The button can be used to answer the longest waiting call.
  • SoftConsole: The SoftConsole applications can display queue monitors for up to 7 selected hunt groups. This requires the hunt group to have queuing enabled. These queues can be used by the SoftConsole user to answer calls.
When a hunt group member becomes available, the first call in the queue is presented to that member. If several members become available, the first call in the queue is simultaneously presented to all the free members.
Overflow Calls Calls that overflow are counted in the queue of the original hunt group from which they overflow and not that of the hunt group to which they overflow. This affects the Queue Limit and Calls in Queue Threshold.
These settings can be edited online. Changes to these settings do not require a reboot of the system.
Field
Description
Queuing On
Default = On
If enabled, calls to the hunt group are queued.
Queue Length
Default = No Limit. Range = No Limit, 1 to 99 calls.
This setting can be used to limit the number of calls that can be queued. Calls exceeding this limit are passed to voicemail if available or otherwise receive busy tone. This value is affected by Normalize Queue Length setting.
  • If voicemail is not available excess calls receive busy tone. An exception to this is analog trunk and T1 CAS trunk calls which will remain queued regardless of the queue limit if no alternate destination is available. This is due to the limited call status signalling supported by those trunks which would otherwise create scenarios where the caller has received ringing from the local line provider and then suddenly gets busy from the system, creating the impression that the call was answered and then hung up.
  • If priority is being used with incoming call routes, high priority calls are place ahead of lower priority calls. If this would exceed the queue limit the limit is temporarily increased by 1.
  • If an existing queued call is displaced by a higher priority call, the displaced call will remain queued even if it now exceeds the queue limit.  
Normalize Queue Length
Default = On.
Calls both waiting to ring and ringing are regarded as being queued. This therefore affects the use of the Queue Limit and Calls in Queue Alarm thresholds. If Normalize Queue Length is enabled, the number of hunt group members logged in and not on DND is added to those thresholds.
For example, a customer has two products that it is selling through a call center with 10 available agents; one product with a $10 margin and one with a $100 margin. Separate hunt groups with the same 10 members are created for each product.
  • The $100 product has a Queue Limit of 5 and Normalize Queue Length is on. The maximum number of $100 calls that can be waiting to be answered will be 15 (10 ringing/connected + 5 waiting to ring).
  • The $10 product has a Queue Limit of 5 and Normalize Queue Length is off. The maximum number of $10 calls that can be waiting to be answered is 5 (5 ringing/connected).
Queue Type
Default = Assign Call On Agent Answer.  
When queuing is being used, the call that the agent receives when they answer can be assigned in one of two ways:
  • Assign Call On Agent Answer In this mode the call answered by the hunt group member will always be the longest waiting call of the highest priority. The same call will be shown on all ringing phones in the group. At the moment of answering that may not necessarily be the same call as was shown by the call details at the start of ringing.
  • Assign Call on Agent Alert In this mode, once a call has been presented to a hunt group member, that is the call they will answer if they go off hook. This mode should be used when calls are being presented to applications which use the call details such as a fax server, CTI or TAPI.
Calls In Queue Alarm
The system can be set to send an alert to a analog specified extension when the number of calls queued for the hunt group reaches the specified threshold.
Calls In Queue Threshold
Default = Off. Range = 1 to 99.  
Alerting is triggered when the number of queued calls reaches this threshold. Alerting will stop only when the number of queued calls drops back below this threshold. This value is affected by Normalize Queue Length setting above.
Analog Extension to Notify
Default = <None>.
This should be set to the extension number of a user associated with an analog extension. The intention is that this analog extension port should be connected to a loud ringer or other alerting device and so is not used for making or receiving calls. The list will only shown analog extensions that are not members of any hunt group or the queuing alarm target for any other hunt group queue. The alert does not follow user settings such as forwarding, follow me, DND, call coverage, etc or receive ICLID information.

Group Queue Controls

Group Queue Settings
Manager
Hunt group queuing is enabled using the
Controls
The following short code features/button programming actions can be used:
SoftConsole
SoftConsole can display up to 7 hunt group queues (an eighth queue is reserved for recall calls). They are configured by clicking and selecting the Queue Mode tab.
  • Within the displayed queues, the number of queued calls is indicated and the time of the longest queued call is shown. Exceeding an alarm threshold is indicated by the queue icons changing from white to red. The longest waiting call in a queue can be answered by clicking on the adjacent button.
  • For each queue, an alarm threshold can be set based on number of queued calls and longest queued call time. Actions can then be selected for when a queue exceeds its alarm threshold; Automatically Restore SoftConsole, Ask me whether to restore SoftConsole or Ignore the Alarm.
Related links
Groups