The Out of Office v2 app is a tool for managing the availability of an agent in Zendesk Support, and ensuring that tickets assigned to unavailable agents are properly handled if updated by a customer.
This article covers the following topics to help you install, use, and extend the app:
- How the app works
- Installing the app
- Changing the app settings
- Using the app
- Understanding the 'agent_ooo' tag
- Known limitations
- Troubleshooting
How the app works
The Out of Office v2 app displays the availability status of the agent assigned to tickets in Zendesk Support.
For administrators, it also displays a list of agents and their availability.
The app prevents tickets from being accidentally assigned to an agent who is unavailable. When this occurs, a pop-up notification is displayed to the agent.
Installing the app
To install the Out of Office app
-
In Support, click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Apps > Marketplace.
- In the search bar, search for Out of Office, and select the app from the results list.
- Click Install in the upper-right corner.
- Select or unselect the Confirm status change checkbox. Unselecting this option disables the status change confirmation message. As a result, you cannot choose to unassign an agent's open tickets when marking them as unavailable.
- Select or unselect the Force unassign tickets checkbox. Enabling this setting unassigns an agent's open tickets automatically when their status is changed to unavailable. This option is disabled by default, allowing the unassign action to be run on a case-by-case basis.
- Select or unselect the Prevent assignment checkbox. Disabling this option allows tickets to be saved if they're assigned to an agent who's unavailable. A warning is still displayed that the assignee is unavailable, and agents can assign tickets to themselves regardless of their status.
- Select or unselect the Surface errors encountered
when bulk updating tickets? checkbox. Enabling this option causes the unassign process to take longer. Some tickets may still not get updated by Out of Office even with this setting turned on. This setting simply verifies the ticket updates and surfaces any errors encountered whilst updating tickets. - If required, select and configure role restrictions and group restrictions.
- Click Install to complete the setup.
Changing the app settings
You can modify the app's default behavior by changing the app settings.
To change the app settings
- In Support, click Admin (
), then select Apps > Manage.
-
In the Out of Office app icon, select Change Settings from the dropdown options menu.
- Modify your settings and click Update.
Using the app
An agent can modify their status using the app in the ticket sidebar or accessing their user profile.
To modify your availability
- In Support, click View, and double click on a ticket to open it. Alternatively, select your user profile icon the upper right, and then click View Profile.
- In the ticket app sidebar, under the Out of Office app, select the Availability toggle button. A confirmation dialog box opens to confirm the change.
- Click Set as Available to enable availability, or Set as Unavailable to set your status as unavailable.
An administrator can access the Out of Office dashboard to view the availability of agents and modify an agent's status.
To view and modify an agent's availability
- In Support, select the Out of Office icon in the left navigation bar. The dashboard opens.
- Click on the Availability toggle button next to agent. A confirmation dialog box opens to confirm the change.
- Click Set as Available to enable availability, or Set as Unavailable to set an agent's status as unavailable.
Changing the availability status either adds or removes a tag on tickets with a Pending, On-Hold, or Solved status, and optionally for all tickets with an Open status. For more information, see Understanding the agent_ooo tag below.
When a pending or on-hold ticket is reopened by an end user and the assignee is unavailable, a trigger fires that returns the ticket to the unassigned ticket queue.
The app checks the status of the assignee each time a ticket is saved. If the assignee is unavailable, the app warns the updater that the assignee is unavailable. If the Prevent assignment? setting is enabled, it also prevents tickets from being saved if the new assignee is unavailable.
The following functions and behaviour can occur when using the Out of Office app in Zendesk Support:
-
An agent can assign a ticket to themselves if they are unavailable. The following warning is displayed after the ticket is saved:
- An agent can update a ticket if they're not the assignee and the assignee is unavailable. A warning notification is displayed that the current assignee is unavailable:
- Tickets that are assigned to an unavailable agent with a Pending and On-Hold status, but are updated to Open, are reassigned to the respective ticket's parent group. However, the Assignee field becomes empty. Status changes from Pending or On-Hold occurs when an end-user replies to an email notification.
Understanding the agent_ooo tag
When the Out of Office app v2 is installed, it automatically creates in Zendesk Support the following items:
- A user field that applies an agent_ooo tag to users marked as unavailable
- A trigger to handle the unassign action on a ticket based on the agent_ooo tag
- A trigger to remove the agent_ooo tag from a ticket when it's assigned to a different agent
Note: These items are required for the app to work. Don't delete or modify them.
Changing the availability status either adds or removes an agent_ooo tag on tickets based on the following rules:
- When an agent marks themselves as unavailable, the agent_ooo tag is added to the agent's user profile in the Agent Out? user field
- When the agent changes their status to unavailable, the tag is added to all tickets with a Pending, On-Hold, or Solved status. When the agent changes their status to available, the tag is removed from these tickets
- Any open tickets with the tag are unassigned on update
- If the ticket assignee is changed, then the tag is removed
- If the tag is removed from a ticket, no other tags are removed
Limitations
The Out of Office app has the following limitations:
- If the Prevent assignment? setting is disabled and a ticket is assigned from one unavailable agent to another unavailable agent, the agent_ooo tag will be lost. This means that the ticket will not be unassigned if it is reopened
- Agents are able to assign a ticket to a group with only one agent even if the sole agent in that group is unavailable
- The message 'Error: Unable to get list of agents' is displayed for users if their role has the 'Cannot browse or search for users' permission set
- Agents without administrator rights can't change their status using the app dashboard in the left navigation bar of the agent interface. They can still change their status in their user profile or from one of their assigned tickets
- The agent_ooo tag is added to solved tickets. If the ticket is closed while the tag is applied, the tag will not be removable. This may be undesirable for reporting purposes. If so, the system automation that closes solved tickets can be modified to remove the agent_ooo tag
- When marking an agent as OOO and un-assigning all open tickets, only some of the tickets will actually get unassigned
- When a ticket assigned to an OOO agent gets updated, the ticket is assigned back to the parent group with a null Assignee value. The trigger working in the background during this action does not currently send an email notification to the agents in the group
- The app does not prevent assigning tickets unless the ticket is updated individually through the Zendesk interface. Triggers, Mail API, REST API, and bulk editing will be able to bypass the assignment restrictions
- In some instances, if an agent is downgraded to an end user while unavailable, they will retain the agent_ooo tag until it is removed manually. Any tickets that the end user creates also inherits the agent_ooo tag
- When updating a large amount of tickets API rate limits can be encountered causing the update process to take longer than usual. Please be patient and allow the app to finish the update process. The update process is finished when the app no longer displays "Updating..." in lieu of the agent's OOO status
- Updating 5000 assigned tickets can take up to 8 minutes
Troubleshooting
If you were previously using the Out of Office v1 app and have recently upgraded, please review the following steps if you are having issues with agent availability and tickets being assigned:
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Customers.
- Make sure that the Tags on users and organizations setting is enabled.
- Click Save tab to save your settings.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Apps > Manage.
- Select the Out of Office app. In the settings, toggle the Force unassign tickets setting on and then off, and finally set it according to your requirements.
- Click Update to save your changes.
Release notes
Version 2.8.5 — 2020-12-03
- Fixed an issue where it was possible to assign tickets to OOO agents.
Version 2.8.4 — 2020-09-01
- Allows only one installation of the App on an account
- Fixed an issue with the confirm change setting(dialog) not working
- Fixed some translations
Version 2.8.3 - 2020-02-18
-
Breaking changes: Removed support for IE11. For more information, see Removal of support for Internet Explorer 11
- Bug fixes:
- Fixed an issue where open tickets not un-assigning when the status is toggled from the ticket sidebar
- Fixed issues where a ticket prevented assignment
- Fixed an issue that now allows an update of tickets assigned to OOO agents
- Fixed an issue that prevented updates if changing ticket assignee to an agent that's OOO
- Fixed an issue that prevented assigning new or existing tickets to agents that are OOO
- Fixed an issue with a frozen availability toggle button upon error in changing an agent's status
- Improvements:
- Tickets are updated based on recent updated tickets assigned to the agent
- Light agents aren't displayed in the navigation bar since they can't be assigned tickets
- When "Surface errors encountered when bulk updating tickets?" is selected, it can take up to one minute to validate ticket updates. If validation takes longer than one minute, a warning is shown asking the agent to try again.
- Improved error handling and notifications. Notifications upon error will last for 10 seconds
- Minor CSS and user interface updates
- Known issues: There will occasionally be an issue where an agent's ticket may not get tagged properly. In such cases, the app will show an error. To resolve the error, toggle the agent's status back to the previous state, and then toggle the agent's status to the desired state.
Version 2.8.1 — 2019-11-11
- Fixed an issue with the navbar location not sorting agents in alphabetical order by default
- Fixed an issue where searching for agents is case sensitive
- Fixed an issue where the Out of Office toggle button was showing up in the sidebar for end user profiles
- Fixed an issue where the new ticket screen allowed an agent to assign a ticket to someone who was set to Out of Office
- Fixed an issue with the "Surface errors encountered
when bulk updating tickets?" feature and app setting, where tickets were not properly checked for successful updates or not.
190 Comments
How can I get the ooo tag to apply to open tickets? Those are the most critical tickets that we need to assign back to the group (when a requester replies to the ticket) to take care of while the agent is out.
@Paco The default behavior of the app is to unassign open tickets and send them back to the group if the 'Unassign All Open Tickets' option is checked. What is happening in the background here is those tickets are being tagged along with the pending/on-hold tickets and then the trigger that was added by the app ('Ticket: out-of-office app unassign trigger [System Trigger]') unassigns tickets which are open and have the tag added to them.
If this doesn't work for your workflow, you are welcome to turn on the app setting 'Force unassign tickets?'. This will cause status updates to tag all non-closed tickets. You can then modify the trigger to route the updated tickets appropriately when the end user updates them.
@Benjamin Thanks, I took your second suggestion and set the app to force unassigned tickets. Then modified the trigger that unassigns and added the criteria of when the requester updates a ticket. Works perfectly for our workflow!
jeeez. not sure if this was covered above. but one aspect that is preventing the use at the moment is how the open comments forces the re-assign. it would be great to be able to control what actions happen upon new comment. e.g. CC instead of full un-assign. thanks
Hello, it's a fantastic tool, i can't wait for the new functionalities scheduled. And i hope that it won't remain as a lab and will be fully implemented as standard
But right now i have just a little aesthetic recommendation: the left Icon is really too big regarding the others ones. Could you reduce it a little in order to be at the same size ? Thanks a lot :)
@Yann The icon change is definitely something that is planned as a fix for the next version. Sorry about the oversight :)
Hi there,
I recently installed the 'out-of-office' app and I did not enable the role restriction.
I have multiple roles, however only the administration role is able to change out-of-office statuses, all other roles can view the statuses but cannot make changes.
I've spoken to Zendesk Support and they confirmed they can see the error but they directed me your way for further help :)
Can you please look into this?
Many thanks,
Nathalie
Hi,
I wanted to see if there was a timeline for fixing the bugs with this app. We currently have it installed, but the tickets still do not automatically unassign when an agent is set to "Unavailable". Also, it would be great if tickets could be assigned to an OOO agent when submitting a ticket as a Solved status. Looking forward to hearing any updates!
@Nathalie Agents should be able to change their own status by going to their user profile and using the sidebar app there. Agents are not able to modify other agents, which prevents them from marking anyone but themselves as unavailable.
@Erica The default behavior of the app is to leave tickets assigned to an agent if they are in pending/on-hold status and have not be updated by an end-user. The app trigger can be modified to immediately unassign all tickets if you would prefer that behavior. If you decide to go that route I would encourage you to enable the option "Force unassign tickets?". This will ensure that open tickets as well as pending/on-hold are updated with the agent-ooo tag.
Great app! Will this be part of the Zendesk core some day?
We are having an issue where the agent_ooo tag isn't being applied consistently. Some pending tags are making it back into an OOO agent's queue. Can someone advise where I can get support on this app, since Zendesk's regular support team said they cannot help. Thank you!
@Kathryn - My team had the same issue until I was finally able to meet with someone at Zendesk about it. Essentially, the app tags every ticket for the agent when the status is set to "Unavailable". If you have very high ticket volume, then it will take awhile for the app to tag every ticket (ie 3-7 minutes in some cases). During this time, that page cannot be left otherwise the tagging terminates. The same goes for when you set the status to "Available", you will have to leave the page up while it untags every ticket. You can decrease the amount of time a ticket is in Solved before moving to Closed to speed things up. However, at this point you have to encourage people to wait for the second confirmation. You can also look at the developer tools to see how many "requests" (tickets tagged) have gone through. Hope that helps!
@Erica Thank you for the helpful response. This definitely is a known issue that I'm working on addressing, but in the meantime it is important to be patient and wait for the tickets to be updated.
The notification you are looking for is "Updated [x] Pending/On-Hold tickets with the agent status for Agent" Once that message appears, it is safe to navigate away from the page you were on when you changed the agent's status.
@Erica Thanks so much for sharing. This explains what is happening completely and I've shared the information with our team. It'd be great if someone were to add this information to this article, too.
We tried using it for our Zendesk deployment. Seems that it only tags solved/pending/onhold tickets with agent_ooo. All of the open tickets do not get tagged at all, which is not helpful at all. Our ticket volume is VERY low as we're a new customer that is in the middle of a migration so we have very few tickets.
Ticket opened for Zendesk to help us basically told us to go pound salt as it's an unsupported app.
Hi Everyone,
A new version of the app has just been released that solves a number of issues from the previous version. I've also reworked the interface design to help save space in the app sidebar. This version makes updating tickets with the agent_ooo tag significantly faster and more reliable.
You can review the full set of release notes here:
https://github.com/zendesklabs/out_of_office_app/releases/tag/v2.6.2
Hi Benjamin
First, thanks for the update. The icon looks much nicer haha..
But after this update, it shows a JavaScript error when I tried to change to unavailable. It only happens when I use IE 10...
"Unable to get property 'assignee' of undefined or null reference".
Any idea what this is about?
I also would like to report a bug of this app. It also happens in IE 10 only.
When I access it through the sidebar. It shows a list of agents who is available or not available. When I typed something in the search, the typing went backwards.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Helen,
Thank you for the bug report. I will take a look at it and see if a solution can be found. As a warning, I will be dropping support for IE 10 when it reaches end-of-support on consumer operating systems starting January 12, 2016. While I won't intentionally break compatibility I'd highly advise updating as soon as possible.
Hi Benjamin,
we just set some agents to unavailable and found that the tag wasn't added & the open tickets didn't get unassigned from the agents when ticking the "unassign all open tickets" checkbox.
This has worked before. Could you please look into this?
Thanks,
Antje
Hi Antje,
Thank you for the report. I'm investigating the issue.
Somehow I have a problem with [ui.js] line:
always returning false. To get around the issue I replaced it with:
and, in [app.js], I added
to
Hey Benjamin!
We'd love to be able to use this feature... but for some reason, the agent_ooo tag isn't being applied to tickets. It's showing in the agent profile, but when an incoming ticket is assigned to them, the tag (and resulting actions) don't get applied to the ticket...
I know main ZD support doesn't troubleshoot this, but is there a way for us to talk through this with you, perhaps? Thanks!
It would be great if this feature could update voice and live chat as well.
We often have agents who leave the office and forget to sign out of their phone/ live chat and to have the ability to turn everything (including assigning out their tickets) would be great!
Thanks
We've started using this app, but I can't get the unassignment of open tickets to work. The tagging of pending / on-hold / solved tickets is working, as is the trigger that tests for the existence of the tag, but the option to unassign all open tickets is not working. I am using the agent confirm dialog, where each agent can choose to unassign open tickets, and have tested with the force unassign global setting ticked and unticked. In all cases open tickets are left assigned to the agent immediately after they make themselves unavailable.
Am I doing something wrong? Is there a delay on the unassign action (automation)?
Hi David!
Based on what you're describing here (the tickets are unassigned and then re-assigned immediately), it sounds like there's another trigger that's basically un-doing the work of your OOO trigger.
If you click on the "See All Events" button at the top of the conversation thread in a ticket, it'll show you what triggers fired on the ticket, and what actions those triggers took. You can use that to identify the rogue trigger, and then update the conditions so that it doesn't fire when the OOO tags are present.
Let me know if you need more help!
Hi,
This app is awesome and I think should be a core part of Zendesk, not just Zendesk Labs. It's crucial functionality.
However, we're running into an issue that's making it hard to use for us. For whatever reason, when someone updates their Out of Office status in the ticket app, it doesn't always update their status. If we click on the Suitcase icon and check there, it'll still show as their old status.
Is anyone else running into this? We're hoping we can find a fix, because as of right now it's breaking the app for us. :(
Thanks,
Chilly
Hi All,
A new update to the app was just pushed with contains two minor updates, thanks to community contributions.
@Chris I've created a ticket so that we can discuss the details of the issue.
Hey all,
Can you anyone provide detail on what permissions admins have to override their own admin status? I've noticed that I'm able to assign/close tickets under my name even though I'm "out of office" and had a report from another admin that tickets they previously assigned to themselves were not bounced back to the parent queue when the end user responded, despite their also being marked out of office at the time.
If this is a deliberate feature, it'd be great to understand how it works so I can advise the admins on our team. I couldn't find any such information in the help articles.
Thanks!
Hi Jessie,
Sorry it has taken me a month to respond, I had forgotten about this and have been instructing my agents to ensure there are no tickets with a status of open assigned to them when they go unavailable. I've followed your advice and checked the all actions on open and pending tickets, and there is a difference. On open tickets the out of office app unassign trigger removes the agent_ooo tag - looking at this trigger that appears to be its designed function. I've attached screenshots which I hope will help you understand what I'm seeing.
Hi Kathryn,
As an admin, you have complete control over your own OOO status. Additionally, you are always allowed to update tickets to which you are currently assigned, even if you are OOO. The idea is that as the OOO agent, you are aware of your own status when making these changes and/or assigning tickets to yourself.
Now, regarding your agent's tickets not being reassigned - it's possible that somehow this agent_ooo tag is being removed from the ticket, which would then prevent it from following the business rules for the agent OOO app. Alternatively, tickets that are reopened when an agent is OOO are reassigned to the parent group - however, the assignee field becomes empty. Additionally, no notification is sent out to the group of this change. To send out this notification, you would create a trigger for this purpose. Details on how this is done can be found here: Extending the app
I'll reach out to you via ticket as well, to ensure that there aren't any account-specific settings that may be preventing the app from functioning. I'll see you in that ticket!
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