A review queue rota names who decides the AI agent's held actions in every shift, who covers them, which depth and limit each person may approve, and the response target they work to. This template lays it out week by week, with a certificate check so no shift relies on someone whose authority has lapsed.
What does the rota have to solve?
A review queue is where held actions wait for a person. If the queue is unstaffed for an hour, held payments, replies and changes sit still, and the business either misses customer deadlines or someone without authority clears the backlog. The rota prevents both. The concept is covered in what is a review queue?, and its relationship to ordinary work allocation in what is a work queue?.
An agent's queue differs from a human team's queue in one way that shapes the rota. Volumes can shift overnight. If an agent's certificate lapses or a run that clears no depth drops it to depth 1, work it used to complete at depth 3 lands back with people, and the rota needs slack for that day. Planning headcount is covered in how do you staff an AI agent review queue?.
How do you fill it in?
- Define the shifts that match the hours the agent runs, including any overnight window.
- Name a primary reviewer for each queue in each shift. One name per queue, not a team.
- Name the cover for each shift. Cover must hold the same certificate and limit.
- Record the depth and limit each person may approve, copied from the authority matrix.
- Record certificate expiry. If a person's certificate expires before the shift, they come off the rota for that queue.
- State the response target for each queue in that shift, taken from your targets. The method for setting them is in how to set response-time targets for an AI agent review queue.
- Set the handover: what the outgoing reviewer leaves, such as items opened but not decided, and anything they refused that may come back.
- Leave a surge line: who is called in if the agent drops to a lower depth.
The template
| Day | Shift and hours | Queue | Primary reviewer | Depth and limit | Certificate expires | Cover | Response target | Handover to | Surge contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Publish the rota at least a week ahead. Keep the certificate column live, so an expiring certificate is visible before the shift, not during it.
A worked example
A hypothetical insurer's claims operation runs two queues: held claim payments and held customer letters. One weekday looks like this. Names and figures are samples.
| Day | Shift | Queue | Primary reviewer | Depth and limit | Certificate expires | Cover | Response target | Handover to | Surge contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 08:00 to 13:00 | Claim payments | Reviewer A | Depth 4, 5,000 | Next March | Reviewer C | 1 hour | Reviewer B | Team lead |
| Tuesday | 08:00 to 13:00 | Customer letters | Reviewer D | Depth 2 | Next June | Reviewer E | 4 hours | Reviewer E | Team lead |
| Tuesday | 13:00 to 18:00 | Claim payments | Reviewer B | Depth 4, 5,000 | Next August | Reviewer C | 1 hour | On-call | Team lead |
| Tuesday | 13:00 to 18:00 | Customer letters | Reviewer E | Depth 2 | Next January | Reviewer D | 4 hours | Next morning | Team lead |
| Tuesday | 18:00 to 08:00 | Claim payments | On-call Reviewer F | Depth 4, 2,000 | Next May | Claims manager | Next core hours unless flagged urgent | Reviewer A | Claims manager |
Notice the overnight row. Reviewer F carries a lower limit than the day team, so larger payments wait for the morning unless a customer flags urgency. Notice also that Reviewer C covers payments in both day shifts: if C were absent the same day as A, the queue would rely on the team lead, so the team lead must hold a current operator certificate too.
For a contact-centre version with more shifts and higher volumes, see how to build a reviewer rota for a contact centre. The skills each reviewer needs are set out in AI agent skills by role.
Questions people ask
How many reviewers does each queue need?
At least two certified people per queue per day, so each can cover the other. Very low-volume queues can share reviewers, as long as the shared person holds the right certificate for both.
Should the same person review all day?
Avoid it for high-risk queues. Long stretches on held payments lead to approval fatigue. Split the day, or alternate between queues of different risk.
What happens if a reviewer's certificate expires mid-month?
Remove them from that queue from the expiry date and fill the gap from cover. Schedule renewal well before expiry so the rota is not disrupted.