What Queue Priority does when agents handle calls and chats

Queue Priority on a VICIdial Chat Group decides the order chats from that group are answered against the calls and chats coming from every other group an agent is logged into. When an agent is taking both voice calls and website chats, something has to break the tie about which one gets handed to them next. Queue Priority is that tiebreaker, and the rule is blunt: a higher number wins, even by one digit.

Why priority exists

A blended agent can be logged into a campaign, several in-groups, and one or more chat groups at the same time. The moment two of those have someone waiting, VICIdial needs a rule for who goes first. Queue Priority gives every group a number, and the highest number in the agent's set of logins gets served before the rest. Without it, a busy agent could get handed work in an order that does not match what your business cares about most, which is exactly the situation this field exists to prevent.

One digit is enough

The key behavior: if this chat group's priority is set even one digit higher than the campaign, the in-groups, or the other chat groups the agent is logged into, this group will always take precedence. There is no weighting or fairness curve. A priority of 11 beats a priority of 10 every single time, so the field is effectively a strict ranking. That bluntness is useful once you understand it, because it means you never have to wonder how two queues will be balanced: the higher number simply wins, full stop.

flowchart TD
  A["Agent free, two items waiting"] --> B{"Compare queue priority"}
  B -->|Chat group higher| C["Chat handed to agent first"]
  B -->|Campaign or ingroup higher| D["Call handed to agent first"]
  B -->|Equal priority| E["Other queue rules decide"]

Planning your numbers

Treat priority like a deliberate ladder across every queue an agent touches, not a per-group afterthought. Decide up front whether voice or chat should win when both are waiting, then number your groups so the winner sits one step above the loser. Leave gaps between numbers so you can slide a new group in later without renumbering everything, the same way you would leave room when numbering rules in any ordered list. Because the comparison spans the campaign, the Ingroup queues, and the chat groups together, a change in one place ripples through the whole agent experience, so it is worth writing the ladder down somewhere before you touch the live groups.

Get the ladder right and your Agent always gets handed the contact you intended, whether that is a waiting call or a website chat, and each Lead reaches them in the order your business wants. The Queue priority field is small but it overrides everything else when two queues compete, so plan the numbers before you go live. For the other Chat Group fields, read how to modify an existing VICIdial Chat Group, and for the wider routing picture see the VICIdial inbound email and chat guide. If juggling blended priorities sounds like work you would rather skip, our managed VICIdial plans come tuned and ready.