Configuring agent and agent group presence settings

Agents can be assigned to multiple agent groups, which are associated with different queues. When agent groups are created, an employee’s agents are assigned a default group presence, either Present or Absent. Employees whose agents’ default presence is Absent, in all agent groups, will be set in the Logged In Not Present state when they log in to the system. To handle interactions the employees can make themselves present in their agent groups using either Contact Center Client or Ignite. Employees whose agents' default presence is Present are put in an Idle state when they log in and are able to receive interactions.

The Mitel 3300 ICP enables agents to be placed in or removed from multiple agent groups (up to 16 on the Mitel 3300 MXe II Controller and up to 30 on the Mitel 3300 MXe server). Agents can be added and removed from agent groups using Feature Access Codes (FAC), a Feature Access Key (FAK) programmed on their set, or using Interactive Contact Center or Ignite.

The agent group presence option is controlled by Class of Service. Once the appropriate Class of Service has been set, the agent group presence status can be changed in the following ways.

Feature Access Keys can be programmed on a Mitel multiline phone set. One button would be used to join or leave each agent group to which the agent is a member.
Supervisors and agents can dial a feature access code followed by the group number to change their status for that group or to change their status for all groups to which they are a member.
The desktop tool in the embedded system management can be used to make status changes.
MiTAI controls are also available to make status changes.

Agent Group Presence has several licensing and configuration prerequisites:

For agents to use Agent Group Presence, Group Presence Control must be enabled for all agents on the Class of Service Options Assignment form on the Mitel 3300 ICP.
For supervisors or system administrators to use Agent Group Presence, they must log into Contact Center Client as a non-administrative user. They also require a valid employee license and an associated device with Group Presence Control and Group Presence Third Party Control enabled on the Class of Service Options Assignment form on the Mitel 3300 ICP.
For supervisors to control Agent Group Presence in Interactive Contact Center, the agent and at least one of the agent's dialable numbers must be enabled for Real-time monitoring. See "Adding agents". For information on enabling Real-time monitoring for multimedia agents, see the Multimedia Contact Center Installation and Deployment Guide.

Agent Group Presence requires that specific security roles be enabled:

To control employee and extension presence status in Interactive Contact Center, you must enable 'May change the real-time presence states of devices in Interactive Contact Center'.
To control your own presence status in Interactive Contact Center, you must enable 'May control my real-time presence status in Interactive Contact Center'.

For more information, see "Configuring security Roles".

If the ACD Logout Agent No Answer Timer Class of Service option is enabled on your Mitel 3300 ACD routing system, when an agent in an agent group fails to answer a call offered to them after the logout time expires, the agent is removed by the ACD routing system from their agent group.

Agent group presence best practices

It is important to note that agents may join or leave agent groups but not queues. Agents become absent from a queue indirectly if they leave all agent groups associated with that queue. An agent who is present in an agent group which is associated to all queues would be disassociated from all queues simultaneously if they became absent in their agent group. Since the goal of agent group presence is to provide a dynamic response to varying queue activity, allowing agents to become absent from all queues simultaneously is counterproductive.

As a best practice, we recommend you associate agent groups to queues based on business groups within your organization. A unique agent group to business group queue association allows agents who leave an agent group associated to a particular business group to remain present in an agent group associated to another business group.