Introducing the Queues app: Enabling customer engagement in Microsoft Teams

We're using Queues app for managing inbound tech support calls and here's my 1 week initial feedback

Problems

• Important
• No wrap-up time
• No gap between calls, fatiguing and no time to finish a ticket on our ITSM, needing to prep in opting out when on a call that sometimes still allows a call to be delivered to the agent
• Audio bug
• If you're talking to a worker on an inbound call via Queues App but need them to share their screen to you, the audio stops/pauses until they stop sharing.
• Moderate
• Clearer Call Recipient Availability
• We need to see more easily who's ready to take a call
• For clarity on who's actually ready to take a call, the agent looking for their own status doesn't see themselves in the list of "opted in" staff, only their own status
• On top of this, it appears that those workers who are designated "Leads" also don't appear in the "opted in" list
• this list simply needs to show all staff available, if there's a need to itemise whose a Lead or not etc, this should be in addition and not at the expense of visibility as the Lead worker is obscured on whether they're opted in or not
• Blocking calls
• Unknowingly and without warning, if you choose a status other than available, you will not take a call even if you're "opted in"
• Or if your calendar syncs to your teams status and "in a meeting", it will do the same thing.
• Inadvertent availability
• If you forget to opt-out, you will start taking calls the next day until a senior changes your status
• Lack of Agents warning
• Other systems offer a pop-up if it transpires anytime there are no Agents available to take a call; more specifically, no-one on "Ready" or no-one Signed in
• You're not available to take a call
• If you've forgotten to Opt-in, there's no ongoing persistent indication of this status unless you drill into the App; that because there's not pop-out option for a more easily accessible way to view the App, you can lose track you're not "on the phones"
• Minor

Questions

• Calls can be recorded and it's announced to each party; but where are the recordings?

Feature enhancement suggestions

• Major
• Add Agent specific stats
• Seems unless someone downloads all the stats and uses Power BI, a worker is going to have to wait a while to have their performance made visible
• We need real-time dynamic stats
• Priority: average handling time, "AHT" as it were; other telephony solutions provide this by default, especially useful for managing performance and metric/KPI's. Show daily time as a minimum; add weekly/hourly if possible.
• Moderate
• Add ability to pop the App out in its own instance
• Other Apps (like "Shifts") allow this and would make faster navigation amongst all other taskbar items much easier
• For visibility on the reason why you're not "opted in" there should be some Queues specific categories for choosing so this broadcasts the reason; e.g. "Comfort break", "Admin", "Outbound calls", "Escalation work" etc or any other task - allow bespoke ones on top of any "by default" choices.
• Minor
• DDI accessibility
• Add option to automatically put the inbound DDI into clipboard, or add a button next to the caller's number to copy to clipboard
• For easier importing into ITSM etc
• Salutation
• Have a visible indication if there is a current (possible major incident related) IVR greeting active, and then allow any agent to play it rather than having to call their service desk number to listen
• Who's taking the next call?
• We can't see this and was a useful feature on our previous telephony solution
• When opening the App, it defaults to the "Calls" tab which is never what you need, you always want to go to "People" , so either to default to this or an option to configure a preference would be less jarring.
• Especially useful as you can't pop the app out for a more persistent view so have to reset to the "people" view every time you go away from it and return.

(i'll now submit this as feedback into Teams)

Since the roadmap has announced that the Queues App is generally available, shouldn't I be able to install it? I mean, Microsoft does understand what generally available means, right?

Will there be integration with CRMs (salesforce or ServiceNow)? And will it be part of the initial release ?

For historical reporting on queues, you may want to look at a product from ISI Analytics, a Microsoft partner.  https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/isitelemanagementsolutionsllc.isi_infortel?tab=Overview

Here is mentioned this: "Currently, call history includes the past calls that you have picked up or calls that you have missed that have a voicemail."

Can anyone tell me if this will be also available for any missed call? As stated above in Europe voicemail is not used that much.

We need this to be implemented please, I was waiting on this for a year already!

I have access to the Preview and the Real-Time dashboard does not seem very "Real-time" as the message showing "Since 12:00AM, updated [INSERT TIMESTAMP HERE] does NOT update in Real-Time and there is no way for the end-user to trigger a manual refresh of the app/Queues dashboard. This app must auto-refresh every 30 seconds (at min) and reflect this refresh in the top-right corner's timestamp. Also, this timestamp MUST show in Local Device time zone. UTC in an end-user interface is great for testing but should NEVER be included in a production application. If Microsoft is unable to accommodate this request on Auto-Refresh every 30 seconds, then the user MUST be given an option to manually refresh their dashboard within the Queues app. 

Should be basic functionality, included in existing phone enabled licenses.

I agree that this show just be included when released but i do disagree with people saying these capabilities have been included in PBXs for years. In my experience with a few PBX systems and other cloud VoIP providers, none included capabilities out of the box unless you paid more for "enterprise" and "call center reporting" at sometimes a substantial price increase. I have one client that is switching to Teams voice because their current cloud viop provider cant even give basic reporting for inbound calls to certain numbers. They say they need the calling center licensing for any reporting capabilities.

Also I didnt see in this article if only the managers/supervisors would need to higher licensing for this are all call queue members.

our company is part of the pilot project for the “queues app” we already have users for whom it works and we'd like to add 2 new ones. Can you tell me how to add 2 new users to this application?
thank you