No Agent No Queue Action: when nobody is logged in

Picture a caller dialing your support line at 7am, before anyone has clocked in. With no safeguard, the call drops into a queue and waits for an agent who is not there. The No Agents No Queueing setting exists to prevent that lonely wait: it decides whether to even bother queueing a call when nobody is around, and the No Agent No Queue Action decides where that call goes instead.

Deciding whether to queue at all

The first setting is the gatekeeper. By default it is set to N, which means calls will queue up even if no agents are logged in to take them. That is rarely what you want. The other choices are stricter:

• Y stops calls from queueing when no agents are logged in at all.
• NO_PAUSED also refuses to queue when the only agents present are paused.
• NO_READY refuses to queue when there is nobody actually ready to take the call.

The difference between logged in and ready matters. An Agent can be logged in but paused, on a break in a Not ready state, or wrapping up paperwork. NO_READY looks past mere presence and asks whether anyone can genuinely pick up right now. For most teams, Y or NO_READY is the sensible choice.

Where the call goes instead

Once the gatekeeper decides not to queue a call, the No Agent No Queue Action takes over. The default is to play a message and then hang up, but you have better options. You can send the caller to a voicemail box, route them to a Call menu, forward them to another in-group that is staffed, or simply hang up. A voicemail box is usually the kindest choice, since it lets the caller leave their details rather than getting a dead end.

There is also a small delay setting. It is the number of seconds the system waits after the call arrives before it runs the no-agent check. The default is zero, meaning the check is instant. A short delay can be useful if agents tend to log in right as the call lands, but for most setups instant is fine.

A close cousin worth knowing

No Agents No Queueing only fires at the moment a call arrives. But what about a caller who got into the queue while someone was logged in, only for that agent to log off a minute later? That is handled by a separate check, which you can read about in the In-Queue No Agents Check explainer. The two work as a pair: one guards the door, the other watches the room.

Setting both up well means a caller never waits on hold for an Ingroup that has nobody behind it. The full inbound call handling guide puts these queue safeguards in context, and if you are still choosing where to run your dialer, our plans page spells out the options.