Call-centre board
What the board shows#
The board shows what is happening with your location's calls: how many people are waiting for an answer, which of your staff are available and which conversations are going on right now. Next to it are the day's totals — answered and missed calls, speed of answer and customer ratings.
Open it on the supervisor's computer, put it on a shared TV or check it from your phone. From the board in the console you can open a call, pause an available agent, call in reserve agents and see the history of a daily figure.
The board is useful not only to call centres: to delivery at peak hours, to a shop handling orders and returns, to a clinic or salon taking bookings, to a hotel — to any team that cannot afford to lose incoming calls.
What you need to get started#
- Your own Cenaly telephony on a dedicated PBX that supports the console and sends its state. An ordinary phone number does not turn the board on by itself. Connecting lines, extensions and routing is covered in the telephony overview.
- Console access for your account: the board is part of the Telephony section and is visible to staff with console rights.
- Queues or ring groups — optional. Without queues the board counts all of the location's incoming calls.
Where to open the board#
- In the panel, choose the location and open Telephony → Live board.
- Switch to Board. The address will contain
tab=board&view=board— you can bookmark this page. - For a big screen, press Full screen (TV). To return, press Exit full screen.
If the section is missing, check that telephony is enabled for the location and that you have console access. If the section opens but no data has arrived yet, the board says so: "The PBX has not sent its board yet." Dashes do not mean there are definitely no calls.
What each figure means#
The board has two rows: Now and Today. The first helps you act in the moment, the second shows how the day is going.
| Now | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Waiting | Incoming calls not answered yet: in a queue and outside one, while employees' phones are ringing. Outgoing and internal calls are not included |
| Longest wait | The longest current wait for an answer. The time keeps running between data updates |
| Available | Agents the board considers ready to take a call. One person is counted once, even if they belong to several queues |
In a queue, "Available 1/3" means one agent is ready to answer out of the three counted in that queue. The same employee can belong to different queues, so adding up their numbers across queues is not always correct.
| Today | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Answered | Incoming customer calls answered by an employee. The daily total grows from completed PBX log records; a conversation that has just started does not increase it yet |
| Missed | Incoming calls not answered by an employee. This may include calls the customer ended themselves |
| Abandoned | The customer hung up before being answered. Very short waits are excluded by a setting; by default, shorter than 5 seconds |
| Service level (SL) | The share of counted incoming calls answered within the set time. By default the time is 20 seconds and the target is 80% |
| Avg. wait (ASA) | The average time to answer across answered calls. It is not the average wait of everyone currently in the queue |
| Rating (CSAT) | The average call rating on a 1–5 scale, with the number of ratings next to it. If the PBX received no ratings, you will see a dash instead of a number |
SL is calculated like this: the number of calls answered within the set time is divided by the number of counted incoming calls minus short abandoned calls. For example, out of 10 incoming calls one customer hung up after 3 seconds and 8 were answered within 20 seconds. With a short-abandon threshold of 5 seconds, SL is 8/9, about 89%. While the base holds fewer than five calls, the board does not treat a low SL as a reliable reason for a threshold warning.
The day follows the location's time zone and the call's start time. A call that started before midnight belongs to that day even if it ended after midnight. Outgoing and internal calls, calls answered by automation and the service legs of transfers are not added to these incoming totals.
Queue figures refer to entries into that queue. If a call moved from one queue to another, it may be counted in both; the sum of the queues does not have to match the total for the whole location.
What the colours mean#
- Red draws attention to a crossed threshold or a low metric value. The exact reason is given as text in the Thresholds crossed block.
- Yellow marks a state worth noticing: callers are waiting, calls were missed or the PBX data is out of date. A yellow figure on its own does not mean a notification was sent.
- Green is used for a good value, such as a sufficient SL or rating. It does not guarantee that everything else is going well.
- A dash means there is no data for this figure. That is different from zero.
The rating has its own scale: 4 and above is green, 3 to 4 is yellow, below 3 is red. Agent statuses carry words as well as colours: "Available", "Talking", "Ringing", "Paused", "Wrap-up", "Offline".
Also watch the PBX data time in the board header. If the snapshot is older than three minutes, the board says "No fresh data from the PBX", and the thresholds block turns yellow. A timer that keeps ticking does not confirm that the PBX is online right now.
Thresholds and the sound signal#
In Board settings → Thresholds, set the conditions that matter to your team:
- how many calls may wait for an answer;
- the longest acceptable wait;
- the SL level below which you need to pay attention;
- how many available agents should remain;
- how many abandoned calls in the last 15 minutes count as an alarm.
Rules can be set for the whole location and for queues. An empty field turns the rule off. "More than 3" triggers at 4, and "fewer than 2" at 1 or 0; being equal to the threshold is not a breach.
For example, a location threshold of "waiting more than 1" raises a warning as soon as two calls are waiting — handy for a small team. Choose your threshold to fit the shift.
The red block appears on the board as soon as the data arrives. Alerts to supervisors wait until the breach has lasted the set time and are limited by a repeat interval. By default confirmation is 30 seconds and repeats come no more often than once every 15 minutes per rule. This helps you tell a short spike from a lasting problem.
The sound signal is for a new breach. Repeated updates of the same situation do not beep continuously. Sound is turned on and off with a button on the screen itself; the choice is remembered in this browser. If the browser has not allowed playback, press the sound button on the board first.
Queues#
In the Queues block, compare the load across lines of work — for example, "Sales" and "Support". For each queue you can see how many calls are waiting, how long the earliest caller has waited, how many agents are available and how the day went.
On a wide screen this is a table, on a narrow one — cards. The meaning and order of the figures stay the same. If calls go directly to employees or ring a group without a queue, they are included in the overall waiting count even when the queue table shows zero. With no queues at all, the board counts all incoming calls.
Agents#
The board shows each employee's name or extension, their status and how many calls they answered today.
| Status | What is happening |
|---|---|
| Available | The agent can take a call |
| Ringing | A call has been sent to the employee and not answered yet |
| Talking | A conversation is in progress |
| Wrap-up | The conversation has ended and the employee has time to finish work on the request |
| Paused | Taking calls is suspended; the console may show a reason such as "Lunch" and how long the pause has lasted |
| Offline | The agent is unavailable according to the PBX, for example not connected or off shift |
Wrap-up is shown if the PBX firmware supports it. If not, the board says: "Wrap-up appears once the PBX is updated." The absence of this status does not prove the employee is ready to answer straight away.
The pause timer in the console counts minutes. "Lunch · 0 min" right after a pause starts is normal. The TV view from the console shows the same reason and timer. The TV link shows only the general pause type (for example, "stepped away"), without the reason from the list or the timer: open the console to look into it.
"Waiting for an answer" and "Calls now"#
Waiting for an answer lists the specific incoming calls with no answer yet. For a call in a queue, the queue name is shown. For a call outside a queue, the console shows whose phones are ringing right now. This is useful with sequential or combined ringing. When an employee answers, the call disappears from this list.
Calls now in the console lists all active calls, including waiting ones: state, who is calling, who they are talking to, the wait and the conversation length. After an answer the row changes to a conversation; once the call ends it leaves the active list.
Wait time and conversation length are different intervals: conversation length is counted from the answer. If the PBX reported a conference or three-way call, the row shows who is in that conversation. For detailed actions press Open call.
The public TV page opened by link has no "Calls now" block. That is a limit of the public view, not a sign that there are no conversations.
Supervisor actions#
Open a call. Press Open call next to the call. The console opens with that conversation selected. Further actions such as listening in or whispering need separate rights and conditions; the board does not turn them on by itself.
Pause an agent. Press Pause next to an available employee. A paused employee gets a Resume button. The buttons depend on the supervisor's rights and on what the PBX supports. A pause stops incoming calls to the agent; a reason such as "Lunch" is set in the employee's own shift state and shown separately.
Call in reserve agents. Press More agents. The system sends a request to the reserve group through the work chat and a push in Cenaly Phone. It is a request to join: the board does not add people to a queue or change their status without them. You can call the reserve again no more often than once every two minutes per location. If no reserve group is set, first add it in Board settings → Reserve.
Open a figure's history. Press a figure in the "Today" row, a queue figure or an agent's answered count. The history for 7, 30 or 90 days opens as a chart and a table; days with no available history are marked as missing data. The live figures "Waiting", "Longest wait" and "Available" have no such history.
What happens in the recording
The board on a TV#
There are two different ways.
TV from the console. You are signed in to the panel and press Full screen (TV). A dark view with large figures opens. If needed, press Fill the screen to hide the browser controls. To take actions, return to the normal board view.
TV by a separate link. In Board settings → TV links, create a link, note where the screen hangs and choose whether to show agents' names. Open it on the TV or on a computer connected to it. No sign-in is needed on that device.
A public link is view only. Caller numbers are masked and customer names are not shown; agents' names depend on the link's checkbox. There are no control buttons, no click-through history and no list of active conversations. The page requests data about every two seconds, but how fresh it really is also depends on the PBX sending its state.
The link is shown only once — copy it right away. Share it only with people allowed to view the board. If you no longer need it or it got lost, revoke it in the settings: a screen showing that link goes dark within a few seconds. A location can have up to ten links.
Figures on a big screen are large, but a long board may need scrolling. Before mounting the TV, check which blocks your team can see from the intended distance.
The board on a smartphone#
Open the same section in your phone's browser. Figures and queues rearrange into cards; the page scrolls. Tapping a daily figure opens its history. Control actions keep the limits of your rights, just as on a computer.
You do not need "Desktop site" mode to read the cards. For a screen on the wall, use the TV view.
Board settings#
Open Board settings in the console.
| Tab | What to set |
|---|---|
| Service level | Answer time, target percentage and short-abandon length; location-wide values and separate figures for queues |
| Thresholds | Highlight conditions for the location and queues; an empty value turns a rule off |
| Alerts | Channels (work chat and push, email), the owner and supervisors who receive them, how long a breach must last, how often to repeat, sound on the board by default |
| TV links | Creating and revoking links, showing agents' names |
| Reserve | Extensions of the employees the "More agents" button asks to join |
Start from your real shift. Too strict an "available agents" threshold for a team of one or two people will trigger on almost every call. Compare the setting with your usual load and check it on the board.
Limitations#
- The board is in beta and works only with your own Cenaly telephony on a dedicated PBX.
- "Answered" and other daily totals grow from completed PBX log records, not at the moment of answer.
- "Missed" and "Abandoned" overlap — do not add them up.
- Wrap-up is shown only if the PBX firmware supports it.
- Daily figures have history; "Waiting", "Longest wait" and "Available" do not. Days without PBX data stay empty.
- A public TV link is view only: no buttons, no history and no "Calls now" list.
- The board does not change queue membership by itself: "More agents" is a request to people, not an automatic connection.
Troubleshooting#
The board is empty or shows dashes. Check that the location's telephony is connected and the PBX is online (the Server tab in Telephony). "The PBX has not sent its board yet" means there is no data, not that there are no calls.
"No fresh data from the PBX". Check the internet connection on this device and the state of the PBX. If the PBX information itself is out of date, reloading the browser will not create a new snapshot. The public page keeps trying to refresh; go by the freshness label.
No sound on a breach. Press the sound button on the board — browsers do not allow playback without a user action. Check the device volume.
The TV link says it was revoked or is invalid. The link was revoked in the settings or copied incompletely. Create a new one.
"More agents" notified nobody. The reserve group has no employees with an account, or no group is set — check Board settings → Reserve.
FAQ#
Why is nobody waiting in the queues while the overall counter shows a call? Because an incoming call can ring an employee or a group directly, without a queue. Find it under "Waiting for an answer".
Why was the customer answered but "Answered" has not gone up yet? The live call state and the daily total arrive as different data. The daily counter updates from completed PBX log records. Wait for the conversation to end and its result to arrive; also check the update time.
Why do SL and the rating show a dash? There may be no suitable calls for SL yet. A rating needs survey results recorded by the PBX. A dash is not zero percent and not a bad rating.
Why did the red block appear but no message has arrived? The highlight shows the breach immediately from the received state. Alerts have their own confirmation time, repeat interval, recipients and channels.
Why doesn't the sound repeat every second? It is meant for a new breach. A repeated update of the same event does not produce a new signal. Check the sound button and whether the browser allows playback.
Why does a pause show "0 min"? The pause timer in the console counts minutes: a pause that has just started shows 0 min, and a minute later 1 min.
Can I control agents from the TV link? No. Actions need a sign-in to the console with the right permissions.
How is TV from the console different from TV by link? TV from the console runs under your account and shows everything available to you. TV by link works without sign-in and is view only: numbers are hidden, agents' names depend on the checkbox, and there are no buttons or active conversations.
Why is there no history for an older date? History is limited to the PBX data available. A missing day is not a day without calls, and the "90 days" switch does not promise that all 90 days have been collected yet.
Is the board only for call centres? No. It is useful for delivery, shops, clinics, salons, hotels and any other team that needs to see incoming calls. You need your own Cenaly telephony and a supported PBX.
Related sections#
- Telephony: your own PBX — lines, extensions, ring groups and routing.
- Calls — call recordings, analysis and analytics after the call.
- Agent assist — hints for the employee during a conversation.
- Callback on your website — a "call me back" request from the website, before any call has come in.
- Your PBX API — call-centre metrics for your CRM and your own reports.