Reserving resources for anticipated work items via simulated work items

Abstract

A workflow-manager ( ) reserves a resource for processing an anticipated real work item by sending a simulated, artificial, work item to the resource before the real work item becomes available. The resource does not process the simulated work item, but rather awaits the real work item. When the real work item becomes available, it is substituted for the simulated work item, and the resource processes it. For example, in an ACD system ( ) that processes various types of communications, it is anticipated on a per-type basis how many agents ( ) Will be needed ( ) versus how many are available ( ). Any shortfall is cured by generating ( ) tokens representing that many simulated communications of that type and enqueuing, dequeuing, and assigning the tokens to agents like any other arriving communications. Any excess is cured by canceling ( ) that many outstanding, pending, tokens of that type. When a real communication of that type arrives ( ), it is substituted ( ) for the oldest token of that type, either in queue or at an assigned agent. To be fair to all agents, an assigned token is periodically reassigned from one agent to an available another agent.