Who to try first, and sending a call to an engineer

The dispatch board shows who to try first for the next call, with one plain sentence per person, and lets a dispatcher send a live call or a callback to the best available engineer or to a named one.

Last updated 18 days ago

A dispatcher with a caller on the line usually does not know who is free. Who to try first is a live list on the dispatch board that says, for each engineer, whether a call would reach a person who can take it, and why in one plain sentence. Send a call hands the call to the first person on that list, or to one engineer you name, as a high-priority card on that engineer's screen. This page is for dispatchers, service desk managers and administrators who use the dispatch board in the browser extension.

Before you start. Your organization must have call routing turned on; an administrator does that on the Call Routing tab of Q-Director Settings. You need a dispatch role (Administrator, Service Desk Manager, Dispatcher or Customer Success) and extension version 0.27 or later. Engineers receive the offer on extension version 0.27 or later too; see Call offers from dispatch. Where call routing is off, none of what this page describes appears on the board, and the board works as before.

The Who to try first bar

The bar sits between the board's header and its canvas, so it stays in view on every rail tab and every view. Closed, it is one line:

The top people, three by default (an administrator can show between one and ten). Each has a dot for the state of their phone, their name and their sentence.
Send a call, which opens the send dialog. The shortcut is the C key.
The calls you have sent that still need you, for example Ringing Sam Agent, 0:21.

Select Who to try first at the left of the bar to open the whole list. It shows everyone who could take a call, best first, and then a second list titled Cannot take a call now, with each person's reason and, when it is known, when they are free again. The bar remembers whether you left it open. When a source of information is down, the open list says so once at the top instead of on every row, for example The phone system is not answering, so who is on a call is unknown. A source that is down never makes someone look free.

What a sentence says

The sentence is built from fixed wording, with no AI in it, and it is kept current while you look: lunch in 9 min counts down on its own. The order is the same for everyone and the score behind it is never shown.

You read	What it means
Free	Nothing on the phone, the calendar, the lunch plan or the shift rules this person out.
last call 42 min ago, no calls yet today	How long since the person last took a call. A longer rest ranks higher, so calls spread evenly.
knows Acme (14 tickets)	The call has a client and this person has worked for it. It appears only when the call has a client.
owns ticket 123	The call is about a ticket this person already owns; they go first when your administrator keeps that rule on.
6 open tickets (2 urgent)	Their workload. Fewer open tickets ranks higher.
lunch in 9 min, appointment in 12 min, shift ends in 15 min	Someone about to be away ranks lower. The wording turns to a block when it starts.
At lunch until 13:05, In an appointment until 15:00, On leave until 14:30, Off shift	Not taken by Best available, and listed under Cannot take a call now with when they are free. The subject of an appointment is never shown.
On a call (7 min), Phone ringing, Do not disturb on the phone	Read from the phone system.
Deciding on another call (0:12 left)	They already hold a live offer. Nobody holds two.
Offered a call 3 min ago, Several offers in the last 10 min	A cool-down and a limit that keep one person from being flooded. The words are neutral on purpose: they never say the person declined.
Not connected to QuantumOps	The person has no signed-in extension open, so a card may not reach them.

Which of these block someone, and how much each counts, is set by your administrator; see Call routing settings. A person you did not expect to see may be left out on purpose: the list covers the roles and teams the administrator chose (Agent, in every team, by default), only people who have signed in to the extension, and nobody on the administrator's exclusion list.

For a call with a client

When the board has a ticket selected, or when you open Send a call for a call that has a client, the list is worked out for that client. knows Acme and owns ticket 123 then appear and can change the order. On the Call tab of the side panel the same list sits in Send to an engineer, worked out for the caller's client; see Call tab.

Sort the Agents panel the same way

The Agents tab of the rail has a menu named Sort agents. Busiest first is the usual order. Who to try first puts the people in the list's order, then everyone it does not list. Your choice is kept in this browser. See Queue, tracked tickets, lists and agents.

Send a call

Select Send a call or press C. The dialog is titled Send a call to an engineer.

Field	What to enter
The call	Shown when a call is open in the side panel's Call tab: pick it, or choose No call: fill in the details. The call you pick fills in the caller, the ticket and the notes.
Send it to	Best available sends it to the first person who can take it and, if they decline or do not answer, to the next, until someone accepts or the limit is reached (three people by default). A person sends it to the one you pick. If they cannot take it, it comes back to you, unless your administrator chose to continue down the list.
The call is	Live when the caller is on hold. A callback when the caller was told someone will call back; the engineer gets longer to answer.
What do they need	Required, in a few words (3 to 200 characters). The engineer reads it first.
Caller and Phone	Optional. They appear on the card. The phone number is never put in a desktop alert.
Ticket (optional)	A ticket number. If the ticket has no owner, the person who accepts becomes its owner, unless your administrator turned that off. A ticket someone already owns is never reassigned.
Notes for them (optional)	Up to 1,000 characters for the engineer.

Select Send. The engineer's card shows VIP when the client is marked as a VIP client, and the partner's name when the call you picked under The call came in through a white-label partner. You do not mark either one.

When the person you picked cannot take it

If the person is at lunch, in an appointment or on a call, the dialog tells you so under their name. Selecting Send then asks Name: At lunch until 13:05. Send anyway? and the button becomes Send anyway. Nothing is sent until you select it. Two cases are refused outright: a person who is already deciding another call, and a person who has reached the limit of offers in ten minutes. Pick someone else, or use Best available.

If the person you picked shows Not connected to QuantumOps, the dialog warns that the call may not reach them. It goes out anyway, waits a little longer for the card to appear, and then moves on as did not reach.

Follow the call

A call you sent appears in the bar, and selecting it opens its card, with what the engineer needs, the people it was offered to and what happened to each. A call stays there while it needs you.

The bar says	What is happening
Offering to Name	The offer is sent and has not appeared on the engineer's screen yet.
Ringing Name, 0:21	The card is on the engineer's screen and the clock is running.
Name accepted: transfer to 1042	The engineer took it. The extension number is the one on file for them. Transfer the caller on your phone, then select Mark transferred.
Came back: nobody took it	The limit was reached, or nobody was left. The call is yours again, and a call you sent plays a short chime when it comes back.
Canceled	You or a colleague canceled it.

On the card:

Next takes the offer back and offers it to the next person.
Extend gives the engineer 30 more seconds. Your administrator sets how many times you may do it (twice by default); the button turns off after that.
Cancel takes the offer back for good. The engineer's card closes and says dispatch took the call back.
A short chat with the engineer, whose first message gives them a little extra time. You can write back, and their lines appear in the open card as they send them. You can send up to 20 lines a minute.
When a call has come back: Try best available, or pick a person from the menu and select Send, or Cancel.

QuantumOps does not transfer calls. It carries the offer; the transfer is done on your phone after the engineer accepts.

Who sees the reason

The engineer's reason for declining and their note go to the dispatcher who sent the call and to every administrator and service desk manager, who read them on the board for any call. Nobody else on the dispatch team sees them. When someone answers, the sender gets a message such as Sam Agent cannot take it: On another call. followed by the note in quotes, or Sam Agent accepted the call., Sam Agent did not answer in time. or The call did not reach Sam Agent. An administrator or service desk manager who opens the same call sees every attempt as it was, with the reason, the note, any Note owed mark and the response time. Any other colleague who opens it sees neutral words only: Offered, Ringing, Accepted and, for every offer that ended without being accepted, just Moved on. They see no reason, no note, no Note owed mark and no response time, and nothing that tells a decline from a time-out. Administrators and service desk managers can also read the reasons and notes later in the call offer log, and see each person's declines and time-outs in Agent Performance. Dispatchers and Customer Success users see neither the log nor those figures.

If you close the board, the panel or the browser, the call carries on: the clocks run on the QuantumOps side, and a call that comes back stays on every dispatcher's bar marked as sent by someone who is away, so a colleague can pick it up with Try best available.

If something looks wrong

You see	Check
No Who to try first bar, no Send a call button	Call routing is off for your organization, your role is not a dispatch role, or the extension is older than 0.27.
Reading the ranking… stays on the bar	The server did not answer. The bar reads again by itself within half a minute.
Someone is missing from the list	They are outside the roles or teams the administrator chose, on the exclusion list, or have never signed in to the extension.
Everyone shows Not connected to QuantumOps	The engineers' extensions are not signed in, or the browser is closed. Ask them to open the browser.
Nobody is free right now.	Everyone is blocked. Open Cannot take a call now for when the first person is free, or use A person and Send anyway.

Call offers from dispatch: what the engineer sees and does.
Call routing settings: every number and switch behind the list.
The call offer log: every offer, who answered and why.
Board shortcuts, notices and troubleshooting: the C key and the rest.
Call tab: taking the call that you then send.

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