Working with agent presence in babelforce

Agent presence indicates whether agents are ready to receive calls or if they are currently occupied. Agents can manipulate their presence state via the babelConnect app.

With babelforce, you have versatile options to mange agent presence and therefore agents' availability to handle calls. You can customize and create multiple presence options according to your requirements. To add a new presence or rename an existing one, follow these steps:

Global settings > Agent presence

By default, babelforce offers two basic presence options: "Available" and "Busy." When an agent is marked as "Available," the platform will attempt to connect incoming calls to that agent (provided the agent's Line state is also marked as "Available" - if you are unsure about the difference between Presence and Line state we suggest you read this article). 

This article introduces four different ways to manipulate and monitor agent presence.

1. babelConnect
2. Agent view in the babelforce Manager app
3. babelDesk
4. Via API

1. Using babelConnect

Agents can change their presence status from within the babelConnect app after they logged in.

Presence can be selected in the top right corner individually by the user. Whenever agents change their presence to "Available", they are ready to take calls, as long as the Line state is also on "Available".

Agents must update their presence state before leaving their workspaces. It is crucial to avoid leaving the presence state as "Available" since babelforce will continue forwarding calls to them, even if their computer is switched off.
In such cases, the agent's status will transition to an "Unreachable" line state, resulting in immediate call rejection. While this process ensures no inconvenience to the caller, it is not ideal from a monitoring standpoint. Therefore, agents should switch their presence state to any relevant presence option that has been created, or alternatively, log out of babelConnect.

Besides this local setting, team leads also have the ability to monitor and change agent availability.

2. Agent view in the manager app

To view and change presence state in babelforce Manager app, in the side bar, navigate to

Routing & Queuing > Agents

Upon accessing the Agents section, you will be presented with a comprehensive list of all your agents. The Agents table provides various details, including the agents' Presence status.

As visible in the screenshot below, you can adjust an agent's Presence very easily by clicking on the drop down field and selecting the relevant presence option that aligns with the agent's status or availability. This change will be presented to the agent immediately. 

Please exercise caution when setting an agent to "Available" if you are uncertain whether the agent is present at their desk.

3. babelDesk

Besides viewing and editing agents in the Agents section, managers can also create a babelDesk which allows them to monitor agent and call activity. To get started, we suggest you review this article.

One of the available widgets (Agent activity) also allows you to not only view Presence states but also adjust the Presence state.

4. Using the babelforce API

Advanced users can also utilize the rich babelforce API and adjust agent presence based on any business relevant process via the relevant API endpoint

/api/v2/agents/:agentId/status

This feature can be used by any custom application. However, this is not an out-of-the-box feature and needs to be configured by technical staff. 

You can find details on the babelforce api here or just get in touch with our team success@babelforce.com.