Task Queue Resource
Pagination is not supported under this resource. Please avoid usage of the page
query parameter.
TaskQueues allow you to categorize Tasks and describe which
Workers are eligible to handle those Tasks. As your Workflows process Tasks,
those Tasks will pass through one or more TaskQueues until the Task is assigned
and accepted by an eligible Worker.
TargetWorkers
expressions, described below, control which
Workers are eligible to receive Tasks from a given TaskQueue.
Task Assignment Precedence
A TaskQueue will distribute Tasks to any Worker in an 'available' activity that meets the TaskQueue's TargetWorkers
criteria. Tasks will be assigned in the following order:
- Higher priority tasks are always assigned before lower priority tasks, regardless of the age of the lower-priority tasks.
- Among tasks of the same priority, the oldest task will always be assigned first.
TaskQueues and Activities
In a multitasking Workspace, a Worker's status does not change as they are assigned and complete Tasks. A Worker's ability to accept a new Task is informed by their active capacity. For single-tasking Workspaces, a Worker is available for a Task based on their activity status. The AssignmentActivitySid
and ReservationActivitySid
properties can be used to control a Worker's availability during assignment.
When a TaskQueue reserves a Worker for a Task, it places the Worker in the ReservationActivitySid
status. If the Worker accepts the Task, the Worker is placed in the AssignmentActivitySid
status.
Note that in a single-tasking Workspace, when a Task completes, the Worker's activity does not change. This is because whether or not a Task's completion should change a Worker's activity is dependent on the workflow—the system needs confirmation of the Worker's availability before it will assign Tasks to them again. If this is the experience you want, the easiest way to achieve this is to capture the "task.completed" event and issue an update to the associated Worker's activity at that point.
Actions
List all TaskQueues
Resource URI
GET /v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues
Returns the list of TaskQueues in the workspace identified by {WorkspaceSid}.
Example
List all TaskQueues in a Workspace
List Filters
The following GET
query string parameters allow you to limit the list returned. Note, parameters are case-sensitive:
Field | Description |
---|---|
FriendlyName | Accepts a human-readable description of a TaskQueue (for example “Customer Support” or “2014 Election Campaign”) and returns the matching Queue. |
EvaluateWorkerAttributes | Accepts a Worker attribute expression and returns the list of TaskQueues that would distribute tasks to a worker with these attributes. |
WorkerSid | Accepts a Worker SID, and returns the list of TaskQueues matched by a given Worker. |
Note: By default, this will return the first 50 TaskQueues. Supply a PageSize parameter to fetch more than 50 TaskQueues. See paging for more information.
Required Parameters
Field | Description |
---|---|
FriendlyName | Human readable description of this TaskQueue (for example “Support – Tier 1”, “Sales” or “Escalation”) (📇 PII ) |
Optional Parameters
Field | Description |
---|---|
AssignmentActivitySid | ActivitySID to assign workers once a task is assigned for them (🏢 not PII ) |
MaxReservedWorkers | The maximum amount of workers to create reservations for the assignment of a task while in this queue. Defaults to 1, with a Maximum of 50. (🏢 not PII ) |
TargetWorkers | A string describing the Worker selection criteria for any Tasks that enter this TaskQueue. For example '"language" == "spanish"' . Additional details on Workers expressions below. Defaults to 1==1. (🏢 not PII ) |
TaskOrder | TaskOrder will determine which order the Tasks will be assigned to Workers. Set this parameter to LIFO to assign most recently created Task first or FIFO to assign the oldest Task. Default is FIFO. Click here to learn more. (🏢 not PII ) |
ReservationActivitySid | ActivitySID to assign workers once a task is reserved for them (🏢 not PII ) |
Note: The maximum amount of TaskQueues allowed for any given Workspace is 5,000. Please contact us if your use case will require more.
TargetWorkers: Describing Worker Selection Criteria
Do not use Personally Identifiable Information for Worker identity
Using TargetWorkers, you can target individual Workers. You should not use directly identifying information (aka personally identifiable information or PII) like a person's name, home address, email or phone number, etc., because the systems that will process these Queues assume there is no directly identifying information within the TargetWorkers expression.
Instead, you should use a GUID or other pseudonymized identifier for Worker identity. You can read more about how we process your data in our privacy policy.
TaskRouter binds Workers to TaskQueues using the TaskQueue's TargetWorkers
expression. TargetWorkers uses an SQL-like expression syntax to filter the Workers in the Workspace.
For example, let's say we have two agents. The first worker, Alice, speaks English and handles Support and Sales Tasks. This is modeled with the following attributes:
'{ "skills": ["support", "sales"], "languages":["english"]}'
The second worker, Bob, handles only Sales requests and speaks Spanish and English:
'{"skills": ["sales"], "languages": ["spanish", "english"]}'
Given these Workers, we can write a TargetWorkers
expression to route calls only to Workers with the Support skill who speak English:
(skills HAS "support") AND (languages HAS "english")'
Only Alice would receive tasks from this TaskQueue. We could create a second TaskQueue to route calls to anyone with the Spanish language skill with the TargetWorkers
expression:
(languages HAS "spanish")'
And only Bob would receive tasks from this TaskQueue.
Creating TaskQueues
To create TaskQueues with the TargetWorkers expressions explained above, you could issue the following requests:
For the English Support TaskQueue:
curl https://taskrouter.twilio.com/v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues \
-d FriendlyName=EnglishSupport \
-d TargetWorkers='(skills HAS "support") AND (languages HAS "english")' \
-d AssignmentActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-d ReservationActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-u {AccountSid}:{AuthToken}
For the Spanish TaskQueue:
curl https://taskrouter.twilio.com/v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues \
-d FriendlyName=SpanishDefault \
-d TargetWorkers='(languages HAS "spanish")' \
-d AssignmentActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-d ReservationActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-u {AccountSid}:{AuthToken}
Skills-based distribution models, where workers are assigned integer values reflecting their expertise in a given skill, are also possible. The TaskQueues created below use skills-based routing to choose the best worker based on a 'tech_support_skill'
attribute:
curl https://taskrouter.twilio.com/v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues \
-d FriendlyName="Tech Support – Tier 1" \
-d TargetWorkers="tech_support_skill < 5" \
-d AssignmentActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-d ReservationActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-u {AccountSid}:{AuthToken}
curl https://taskrouter.twilio.com/v1//Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues \
–d FriendlyName="Tech Support - Escalation" \
–d TargetWorkers="tech_support_skill > 5" \
-d AssignmentActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-d ReservationActivitySid={ActivitySid}
-u {AccountSid}:{AuthToken}
To distribute tasks to any Worker, provide an expression that always evaluates to true:
curl https://taskrouter.twilio.com/v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues \
–d FriendlyName="Everyone" \
–d TargetWorkers="1==1" \
-u {AccountSid}:{AuthToken}
TargetWorkers: Supported operators
Evaluating Worker Attributes
TaskQueue’s list resource EvaluateWorkerAttributes
parameter allows you to view which of your Workers will match a given TargetWorkers
expression.
The example below is a way to check which TaskQueues would be mapped to a worker with attributes of tech_support_skill
of 6. Using the above example, this should map to Tech Support – Escalation queue.
curl –XGET https://taskrouter.twilio.com/v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues \
--data-urlencode EvaluateWorkerAttributes='{"tech_support_skill": "6"}'
-u {AccountSid}:{AuthToken}
TargetWorkers Operators
You may use the following operators in your TargetWorkers expressions:
- Equality:
==
,=
- Inequality:
!=
- Greater than:
>
- Less than:
<
- Greater than or equal to:
>=
- Less than or equal to:
<=
- Use parentheses to indicate precedence of operations:
( )
- Use brackets to indicate lists/arrays:
[ ]
HAS
,>-
for determining whether the value of the Worker attribute on the left-hand side of the expression contains the string on the right side of the comparison.IN
,<-
for determining whether the value of the Worker attribute on the left-hand side of the expression is * contained in the list on the right-hand side.AND
if both the left and right subexpressions are true, resolves to true, otherwise falseOR
- if one or both of the left or right subexpressions are true, resolves to true, otherwise false
Multi-Reservation
A common request is the ability to create reservations for a set of workers in a given queue when a task comes in. You may configure a MaxReservedWorkers parameter on a queue to do just that. When a task routes to a particular queue through a workflow, TaskRouter will create reservations for all workers that are available up to the MaxReservedWorkers parameter. Once one worker accepts the reservation for the task, all other reservations will be rescinded. Any attempts to accept a rescinded reservation, the user will receive a 410 series response, indicating that the reservation can no longer accept the reservation of the task.
For example:
A Task becomes escalated to the "Tech Support - Escalation" TaskQueue, where there are 2 workers available and the MaxReservedWorkers parameter is configured to be 5. A Reservation will be created for each worker - 2 total. An Assignment Callback will be created for each Reservation. An Event Callback will be created for each Reservation creation.
Worker 1 accepts the reservation. Worker 2 will receive a notification that their Reservation is rescinded through the EventCallbackUrl and the JS SDK.
Retrieve a TaskQueue
Resource URI
GET /v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues/{TaskQueueSid}
Return a single TaskQueue resource identified by {TaskQueueSid}.
Example
Example for retreiving a single TaskQueue from a workspace
Resource Properties
A TaskQueue instance resource is represented by the following properties.
Field | Description |
---|---|
Sid | The unique ID of the TaskQueue |
AccountSid | The ID of the Account that owns this TaskQueue |
WorkspaceSid | The ID of the Workspace that owns this TaskQueue |
FriendlyName | Human readable description of the TaskQueue (for example “Customer Support” or “Sales”) |
TargetWorkers | The worker selection expressions associated with this TaskQueue. |
ReservationActivitySid | The Activity to assign a Worker when they are reserved for a Task from this TaskQueue. Defaults to 'Reserved for Task' |
AssignmentActivitySid | The Activity to assign a Worker when they accept a Task from this TaskQueue. Defaults to 'Unavailable for Assignment'. |
MaxReservedWorkers | The maximum amount of workers to create reservations for the assignment of a task while in this queue. |
Update a TaskQueue
Resource URI
POST /v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues/{TaskQueueSid}
Modifies the TaskQueue. If you modify a TaskQueue and alter its TargetWorkers expression, the Worker statistics associated with this TaskQueue will be reset to reflect the new TargetWorkers. Task statistics for this TaskQueue will remain unchanged.
Example
Example for updating TaskQueue
POST Parameters
You may post the parameters below when modifying a TaskQueue.
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
FriendlyName | Human readable description of this TaskQueue (for example “Support – Tier 1”, “Sales” or “Escalation”) (📇 PII ) |
TargetWorkers | A string describing the Worker selection criteria for any Tasks that enter this TaskQueue. For example '"language" == "spanish"' If no TargetWorkers parameter is provided, Tasks will wait in this queue until they are either deleted or moved to another queue. Additional examples on how to describing Worker selection criteria below. (🏢 not PII ) |
ReservationActivitySid | ActivitySID that will be assigned to Workers when they are reserved for a task from this TaskQueue. (🏢 not PII ) |
AssignmentActivitySid | ActivitySID that will be assigned to Workers when they are assigned a task from this TaskQueue. (🏢 not PII ) |
MaxReservedWorkers | The maximum amount of workers to create reservations for the assignment of a task while in this queue. Maximum of 50. (🏢 not PII ) |
TaskOrder | TaskOrder will determine which order the Tasks will be assigned to Workers. Set this parameter to LIFO to assign most recently created Task first or FIFO to assign the oldest Task. Default is FIFO. Click here to learn more. (🏢 not PII ) |
Delete a TaskQueue
Resource URI
DELETE /v1/Workspaces/{WorkspaceSid}/TaskQueues/{TaskQueueSid}
Removes the TaskQueue identified by {TaskQueueSid}.
If associated Workflows' routing logic has recently been updated, pending Tasks may still be processing against this queue, in which case the response will be a 400.
Example
Example for deleting a TaskQueue
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