Add an estimated wait time action to a task

Add the Play Estimated Wait Time action to an in-queue flow’s task sequence to make educated estimates on wait time based on historical data, and play the wait time back to the caller.

Notes:
  • Estimated wait time (EWT) uses these metrics from analytics for the previous week down to the half hour interval from the current queue: tHandle, tAcd, tAbandon, tTalk, nOffered. Conversation service is used to determine position in queue.
  • If no agents are active on the queue, EWT looks to conversation service for any interactions currently waiting in front of it, and uses the longest time waiting in the calculation.
  • If no ASA stats exist for the interval queried (one week prior to the current half hour interval), there is no threshold on the returned maximum EWT.
  • For more information about how Genesys Cloud calculates estimated wait time, see Overview of Estimated Wait Time.

  • Approximate. The caller hears, “Your estimated time is about [five minutes]”, replacing [five minutes] with the appropriate wait time as specified by the Round Up interval.
  • Less Than. The caller hears, “Your estimated wait time is less than [five minutes]”, replacing [five minutes] with the appropriate wait time as specified by the Round Up interval.
  • Padded. The caller hears “Your estimated wait time is [four to five minutes]”, replacing [four to five minutes] with the appropriate wait time as specified by the Padding interval.
  • Precise: The caller hears, “Your estimated wait time is [four minutes and thirty-one seconds]”, replacing [four minutes and thirty-one seconds] with the exact time.

  • If a computed duration in the range is less than 1 minute, Architect treats the duration as 1 minute.
    Example: A duration of -5 minutes with a 2 minute padding returns a calculated range of -7 to -3 minutes. Architect treats both negative numbers as 1.
  • If you use the ToAudioTimeRange expression and both the lower and upper bound values are the same, the expression reads only the value.
    Example: ToAudioRange(1,1,Format.TimePart.minutes) is read as 1 minute, not 1 to 1 minutes.

Note: This action is only available for in-queue flows and is only intended to play the estimated wait time for customers. It should not be used to make routing decisions. Additionally, to provide good customer service, this value never increases. For example, if a customer hears the wait time is two minutes, they will not hear that it will be five minutes 60 seconds later.  The number for this variable only potentially decreases for a particular flow; it never increases, even when the real value increases. The real value is not exposed in Architect.
  1. From the Architect home page, click or hover over the Flows menu and select the desired flow type.
  2. Create a new flow or select an existing one. The flow’s configuration page opens.
  3. Select the task and click Click to open to open the task editor.
  4. From the task editor Toolbox, drag a Play Estimated Wait Time action to the appropriate location in the task editor.
  5. In the Name text box, type a descriptive name or use the default Position In Queue title.
  6. In the Estimated Wait Time (EWT) field, do one of the following:In the Playback Mode area, select one of the following:
    • If you do not want to configure your own value, leave the default Call.EstimatedWaitTime variable unchanged. 
    • If you want to set your own variable, expression, or literal value, select the Open large expression editor button and configure your value.
  7. In the Playback Mode area, select one of the following:
    • Approximate. Plays the amount of time closest to, but lower than, the actual estimated wait time in non-specific terms. 
    • Less Than. Plays the amount of time closest to, but lower than, the actual estimated wait time. However, in contrast to Approximate playback this setting returns the wait time in more specific terms.
    • Padded. Plays a range of time to describe the estimated wait time.
    • Precise: Plays the exact estimated wait time.
  8. If you selected Approximate or Less Than playback mode,
    • In the Round Up Interval area select the amount of time in which to calculate estimated wait time and return approximate or less than calculations rounded up in even minutes.
    • In the Specific Round Up Intervals area, optionally select additional round up intervals. If specified, Architect rounds up the EWT to the smallest interval greater than the EWT. Otherwise, Architect uses the previously specified Round Up Interval.
    • To add additional round up intervals, select the Add Specific Round Up Interval button and set up the interval times.
  9. If you selected Padded playback mode, in the Padding Interval area select the amount of time in which to return the estimated wait time range, rounded up in even minutes.
  10. Continue building the task per your flow design.