How does the default queue work?

If you have enabled Omnichannel, there's a ready-to-use queue named Default. You can set the Default queue to manual or automatic, depending on your company's requirement.

Be aware that the Default queue contains work items that you can't place in any other queue because they don't match any of the defined assignment rules. You can add agents and teams to the Default queue and also modify the queue properties, but you can't disable or delete this queue.

Note:

• SRs that don't match any rules are assigned to the Default queue only when Omnichannel is enabled. When Omnichannel is enabled, here's what happens:

  • If you set the Default queue to automatic, then the work items are automatically assigned to the agents who are available and have free capacity.

  • If you set the Default queue to manual, then the agents must manually assign the work items to themselves. But you must remember that chats can't be assigned manually. So if chats are routed, then you must set the Default queue to automatic.

Here's what Oracle recommends:

• The preferred way of assigning an SR to a queue is by using Omnichannel assignment. Lets' say you have enabled Omnichannel for SR assignments. And you may be assigning SRs to the Default queue either manually or automatically by using assignment rules or groovy scripts. Either way, it's important and highly recommended that you assign active agents to the Default queue, so that SRs can be assigned to the agents.

• If you set the Default queue to automatic and you don't assign agents to it, SRs assigned to the Default queue could remain unattended and eventually impact performance. You could miss the SLAs and your customers don't get responses on time.

• If you don't assign any agents to the Default queue, then you must set the Default queue to manual. But if you set it to manual, you must ensure that the SRs are answered.

• Let's say you assign agents to the Default queue, but you prefer to use it as a catch-all queue and not for automatic assignment of SRs to agents. In such cases, you can set the default queue to manual. This would depend on your company's requirement.

• If you enable chat, it's absolutely necessary that you set the Default queue to automatic and assign agents to the queue. When the Default queue is automatic, all those chats that don't match any rules or they match a manual queue, are assigned to the Default queue. If you set the Default queue to manual, such chats aren't routed to any agent, and nobody would respond to those chats.