Limiting Capacity for Engage rooms
Use Queue Limit to control how many students can join a room’s queue at one time. This helps staff manage high-demand periods—such as after a communication asks students to meet with an advisor—and reduces the risk of accepting more students than the office can reasonably serve before the office closes.
When the queue reaches its configured capacity, students cannot begin a new sign-in. Instead, they see a configurable message explaining that the queue is full. The room automatically reopens once enough students have left the queue.
Overview
The Queue Limit is configured per room and can be found in Engage Room Settings.
A queue limit applies only while the room is otherwise available for sign-in. If a room is outside its hours of operation, students continue to see the room’s standard “closed” or “unavailable” message.
Configuring a Queue Limit
- Open the room you want to manage.
- Go to Room Settings.
- Scroll to the Queue Limit section, configure the applicable settings:
Setting
Description
Queue Capacity Limit The maximum number of students who can be in the queue at one time. Enter 0 or leave this field blank to allow an unlimited number of students to join the queue. Space Needed to Reopen Queue The number of students who must leave the queue after it becomes full before new sign-ins are allowed again. Enter 0, 1, or leave the field blank to reopen the queue as soon as the number of students drops below the Queue Capacity Limit. Queue is full text The message displayed to students when the queue has reached capacity. By default, this message is: “The queue is currently full, please try again later.” - Save your changes.
How Queue Limit Works
The system compares the number of students currently in the queue with the room’s Queue Capacity Limit.
- When the queue contains fewer students than the capacity limit, the room remains open for new sign-ins.
- When the queue contains as many students as the capacity limit—or more—the queue is considered full.
- When the queue is full, students who have not started signing in see the Queue is full text and cannot begin a new sign-in.
- The queue remains closed until the required number of students have left, as determined by the Space Needed to Reopen Queue setting.
- Once the queue reopens, new students can begin signing in again.
The Queue Limit does not prevent staff from managing or removing students who are already in the queue.
Example: Reopen After One Space Opens
Suppose a room has these settings:
|
Setting |
Value |
|---|---|
| Queue Capacity Limit | 10 |
| Space Needed to Reopen Queue | 1 |
When 10 students are in the queue, the room closes to new sign-ins. As soon as one student leaves the queue and the queue drops to 9 students, the room reopens.
Example: Reopen After Several Spaces Open
Suppose a room has these settings:
|
Setting |
Value |
|---|---|
| Queue Capacity Limit | 10 |
| Space Needed to Reopen Queue | 3 |
When 10 students are in the queue, the room closes to new sign-ins. The room remains closed until at least 3 students leave the queue. It reopens when the queue has 7 or fewer students.
This approach creates a more consistent sign-in window and helps prevent the queue from repeatedly opening and closing as individual students leave.
Student Sign-in Behavior
The sign-in page checks the queue’s current status at least every 30 seconds and updates automatically when the room opens or closes due to the Queue Limit.
- If the queue is full, students see the configured full-queue message before entering their sign-in information.
- If space becomes available, the sign-in page updates to allow new students to begin signing in.
- If the queue reaches capacity while a student is already completing sign-in, that student can continue. The system does not close the queue on a student who has already entered an email address and advanced to the next page.
- The queue closes for new students only after students already in progress either successfully join the queue or their sign-in sessions time-out normally.
Because multiple students may submit sign-ins at nearly the same time, the number of students in the queue may temporarily exceed its capacity. The queue limit is designed to prevent additional students from starting sign-in once the queue is known to be full; it does not block a student who has already started the sign-in process from joining the queue.
Tips for Using Queue Limit
- Set the Queue Capacity Limit based on the number of students your staff can realistically serve.
- Use a higher Space Needed to Reopen Queue value to reopen the queue only after several appointments have cleared, rather than after each individual student leaves.
- Customize the full-queue message to tell students when to return, where to find alternative support, or how to schedule an appointment.
- Review queue activity after high-volume communications to determine whether the capacity and reopening values need adjustment.