Agent status commands

Agent status commands let you tell the team whether you are working, at lunch or away by typing a short command in Slack or Microsoft Teams, without opening QuantumOps. Your status feeds the team status that managers and dispatchers read, and your lunches and breaks are also recorded on your timeclock.

Before you start:

• An administrator must have mapped your Slack ID, or your Teams user, to your agent on Configuration → Q-Director Config → Messaging, or in Edit details in Team Management. Without that mapping the status commands answer "Agent not found in the system." See Q-Director: Slack, Teams and agent mapping.
• In Slack, an administrator must have added each command to your Slack app. See Setting up the Slack app. These commands work whether or not Qubit is switched on in Slack.
• In Teams, the classic commands answer only while the Qubit assistant is off for Teams. See Use the classic commands in Teams.

Set your status in Slack

Type the command in any channel or conversation where you can use slash commands.

Things to know about the commands:

• Lunch lasts one hour from the moment you run /lunch.
• /brb lasts until the return time you give. With no return time it lasts 15 minutes, and the confirmation says so.
• Times can be written as 1pm, 3:30pm, 13:00 or 1500. They are read in the time zone on your agent record. A time that has already passed today is taken as that time tomorrow. Your time zone is the Time zone field under Edit details in Team Management.
• Only you see the confirmation card. QuantumOps then posts a short line in the channel where you typed the command, for example "Jane is now Lunch • Expected back at 13:00", and everyone there sees it.

How away limits affect lunch and leave

An administrator sets two limits on the Messaging tab: Max Agents Allowed Away (2 unless changed) and Max Dispatchers Allowed Away (1 unless changed).

When you take lunch now or set yourself away in Slack, QuantumOps counts the people with your agent role who are already away, or who have a scheduled lunch or leave that overlaps yours. If your break would pass the limit, the command is declined with a message such as "Cannot take break - would exceed maximum allowed away (2)." The message then names the people you conflict with, or says how many are away.

• The limits are counted per agent role. Your agent role is the Agent role field under Edit details in Team Management. It is not the sign-in role, such as Dispatcher, that decides which screens you can open.
• The limits apply to people whose agent role is Agent or Dispatch. People whose agent role is SDM Primary or SDM Secondary are not limited.
• In Slack, someone whose agent role is not set, or is any other value, cannot take lunch now or go away until an administrator sets their agent role in Team Management.
• In Slack, a status changed for you with /sdm skips the check. In Teams the lunch check still applies when someone changes your status with @qops sdm.
• In Teams the limit is checked only when you take lunch now with @qops lunch, and only for people whose agent role is Agent or Dispatch. The message is "Cannot take lunch now - insufficient coverage. Please try again later."

Change another agent's status

People whose agent role is SDM Primary, SDM Secondary or Dispatch can set another agent's status with /sdm. Mention the person, then give a command:

/sdm @Jane online
/sdm @Jane lunch
/sdm @Jane brb doctor appointment 2pm
/sdm @Jane back

• The commands you can pass on are online, offline, lunch, brb (or leave) and back.
• The person you mention must be mapped to an agent too.
• The change is applied as if they had run the command themselves, and the reply is posted in the channel for everyone, with a line saying who made the change.
• Anyone else gets "Only SDMs and Dispatch can use this command."
• In Teams the same command is @qops sdm @Jane lunch. QuantumOps looks for an agent whose name contains what you typed, so if it cannot find the person, mention them again or type their full name.

Use the classic commands in Teams

In Teams you mention the bot, then type the command. In a one-to-one chat with the bot you can type the command on its own. The bot posts its answer in the conversation where you typed the command, so in a channel everyone there sees it.

Plan the switch before you turn on Qubit in Teams. These commands are answered only while the Qubit assistant is off for Teams. Once an administrator turns it on, every message sent to the bot goes to Qubit: lunch, brb or online become questions, and status and help show Qubit's own answers. The command menu in Teams keeps listing the classic commands after the switch, so tell your team first. See Channel Assistant settings.

Use the ! commands in a Slack channel

Some workspaces can also type commands as an ordinary message, with an exclamation mark instead of a slash. These work only where the Slack app still sends channel messages to the older events address that QuantumOps used before Qubit. If an administrator has pointed the app at the Qubit address, they do nothing, and the slash commands are the way to go.

The answer is posted through the incoming webhook set on the Messaging tab, so it appears in the channel that webhook posts to, which may not be the channel where you typed. !help lists more commands than these, including !onsite, !summary, !monitor, !research and !clientsummary. Only the commands in the table work as ! commands. For summaries, client monitoring and research, use the slash commands in Summary, client and Q-Notice commands.

What these commands record on your timeclock

Starting and ending lunch or leave with these commands also writes punches to your timeclock, with no extra step:

• /lunch records a Lunch Start punch and /brb records a Break Start punch.
• /back or /online right afterwards records the matching Lunch End or Break End punch. If your last punch was not a lunch or break start, nothing is recorded.
• /offline records no punch.
• The punch shows in Timeclock reports and exports with the device Slack or Teams, and a note such as "Created via Slack command". A change made with /sdm in Slack shows the device Slack/Override.

These commands never clock you in or out. Use Clocking in and out for that. For employees linked to an agent, payroll also reads lunches recorded through these commands, so a lunch is not lost if a punch is missing, and the same lunch is not counted twice.

When a command does not work

Related pages

• Summary, client and Q-Notice commands: the other Slack slash commands, and Q-Notices from chat.
• Q-Director: Slack, Teams and agent mapping: the mapping that lets these commands find you.
• Setting up the Slack app: how an administrator adds each command to the Slack app.
• Qubit in Slack and Teams: the assistant that shares the bot.