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office-hours-help-queue is a tool to help manage busy office hours.
To add a new course to the queue, a course instructor can email newcourse@eecs.help. The only requirement for students is an @umich.edu email [1].
Once your course is created, you may add other instructors via the Admin Panel link at the bottom of your course page.
You may also configure multiple queues, which can be useful for large courses with multiple sets of overlapping office hours. A common pattern is to configure queues per location, or per purpose, rather than per instructor. e.g. Central Campus/North Campus, Professor office hours, exam help, etc. There is no limit to the number of queues you may configure within your course.
Additionally, each course may configure a set of project groups (see [1]) and configure one or multiple queues to share that grouping.
Back on the course page, click into your new queue.
You will notice both an Instructor Panel and Student Panel. Students only see the latter, and instructors will spend most of their time in the former.
Click Go Online to open the queue, then head over to the Student Panel to request help. Both location and description are optional and can be edited by the student after they request help. Requests can also be cancelled.
Your "student" is now ready to be helped over in the Requests panel. You have several inline options for each queue entry: Resolve, Pin, and Ping. Resolve will immediately resolve the request. The student will be able to enqueue again should they need further assistance. The pin functionality is described here. Ping sends a configurable message to the student (useful if you cannot find them, etc.).
Resolve the request and head back over to the instructor panel to Go Offline. Your office hours are now closed. Students cannot enqueue, but existing requests will remain until they are resolved.
We're a few weeks into the semester, and back at the course page, course staff enjoys keeping an eye on engagement via the Statistics page.
[1]: instructors may enable group and exclusive mode to restrict who is allowed to enqueue.