Queues wait. Profiles decide who is eligible.

About five minutes of reading

A queue with nobody whose profile includes it is a silent parking lot.

You create a queue, attach hours, an outbound caller ID, and optional quick connects. Set working queue selects it. Transfer to queue places the contact. The default is 100 queues and 50 queue-channel combinations per routing profile.

Agent queues are for transfers to a person. The default cap is 10 contacts waiting on one agent queue.

• Priority is per profile, not a property of the queue alone.
• A contact can sit in a queue that is outside the hours if you never checked hours.
• Callbacks still occupy the queue's logic. They need a staffed profile.
• Name queues for the work, not for a person.

Number on this page: Queues 100. Default per instance

Picture from this room.

1. Hours. In or out.
2. Queue. Set, then transfer.
3. Profile. Who may receive it.
4. Wait. Customer queue flow.

What usually goes wrong: Building a queue per agent.

Standard queues and agent queues in your Connect Customer contact center - Amazon Connect Customer AWS docs. last checked 2026-10

The prose is a study paraphrase. The link is the source of the facts.

Glossary

• Working queue The queue selected by Set working queue. Transfer to queue uses it.
• Routing profile The list of queues an agent can receive, with channel concurrency, priority, and delay.
• Priority A number on a queue inside a routing profile. A lower number is served first.
• Delay Seconds a contact must wait before an agent with that profile can receive it.

Mind map

Open the Routing mind map

Sister technologies

Priority and delay decide who is offered the contact. The queue name does not.

Config and troubleshooting

Building a queue per agent.

Priority and delay live on the routing profile queue config, not on the queue name. Lower priority is offered first. Delay holds that queue back.

HoursOfOperation Queue RoutingProfile

Resources:
  OfficeHours:
    Type: AWS::Connect::HoursOfOperation
    Properties:
      InstanceArn: !GetAtt CampusInstance.Arn
      Name: OfficeHours
      TimeZone: America/Los_Angeles
      Config:
        - Day: MONDAY
          StartTime: { Hours: 8, Minutes: 0 }
          EndTime: { Hours: 18, Minutes: 0 }
  OrdersQueue:
    Type: AWS::Connect::Queue
    Properties:
      InstanceArn: !GetAtt CampusInstance.Arn
      Name: Orders
      HoursOfOperationArn: !GetAtt OfficeHours.HoursOfOperationArn
  BasicProfile:
    Type: AWS::Connect::RoutingProfile
    Properties:
      InstanceArn: !GetAtt CampusInstance.Arn
      Name: Basic
      DefaultOutboundQueueArn: !GetAtt OrdersQueue.QueueArn
      MediaConcurrencies:
        - Channel: VOICE
          Concurrency: 1
      QueueConfigs:
        - QueueReference: { QueueArn: !GetAtt OrdersQueue.QueueArn, Channel: VOICE }
          Priority: 1
          Delay: 0

Integration map

Join records on ContactId. The integration map room lists the seams.

Cross-platform bridges

A CUCM calling search space is not a routing profile, but the profile is the closest idea of 'who can receive what'. A partition is not a Connect object. A UCCX CSQ and a UCCE skill group map to a queue. Precision steps map to routing criteria. A script, an Architect flow, and an Avaya vector map to a contact flow.

Open the mapping room

Future hooks

Hooks you can adopt later: EventBridge contact events, the CTR stream, agent events, Kinesis Video, Customer Profiles events, Cases, Show view, data tables, External Tool, and the flow language JSON in your pipeline. Live Sync and Agentic CX are the 2026 hooks for guided and agentic experiences.