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.
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 3.8.1 — 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.
179 Comments
Chris Fellows Tiffany Green are we still on pace for this to launch tonight in the US? Just trying to figure out if I need a way for my team to function without this app or not
Hi Jackie Ordan,
The app was released this evening US time. You should have the new version in your account.
Thanks for your patience!
Chris
Agents are still getting new tickets after we unassign them, mostly reopened tickets. Also, even after marking them unavailable and checking the option to unassign all the open tickets, the tickets don't leave the queue and remain open in the agent's queue (Admins tries this also).
Chris Sos we're having the same problem Aditya described above. Anything my team can do to help your team debug this?
Hi Jackie and Aditya,
We are looking into this issue now. Thanks!
Chris
We experienced the same issue as described above. We also saw where agents that had been marked as unavailable were automatically defaulting back to available inexplicably. I tried uninstalling the app and the reinstalling but have been getting the following error message even though we have not modified any app settings:
I just tried installing this app and also encountered the error "Failed to install app: Error creating requirements" - the way to fix it is to go to Admin > User Fields and delete the field "Agent Out" (to delete, you need to click into the field and delete it from the right sidebar).
Mandy Ariana Tobias I ran into this issue as well — I had to manually delete the OOO triggers and the Agent Out user field and then I was able to complete the installation.
Ryker Daniel Thank you! That definitely helped with installation.
Zendesk, we are still experiencing issues with agents having tickets assigned to them after they have set themselves to "unavailable" and the app's inability to maintain the "unavailable" status and reverting back to available.
Hi Zendesk,
We're having the same issue of tickets being assigned back to a user that was set as unavailable. Can you please advise if there is an issue with the app?
When we set an agent back to "AVAILABLE" all his PENDING and SOLVED tickets get updated and show on the common view "Recently updated tickets" making the workflow of other agents really difficult, as all the real "Recently updated tickets" move to the end of the list (4pages down). See screenshot here: https://www.screencast.com/t/LKkEoo2eoxIM
How can we avoid this?
We are still dealing with OOO issues since the switch to V2 and have not received any updates from ZD support since 10/17. Agents are still receiving tickets after updating themselves to Unavailable. Are we able to switch back to V1? Can anyone provide an update?
I'm having the same issue. I tested the app in Sandbox and tickets seem to remain assigned to the agent even though they set their OOO to unavailable.
James Kwon If you haven't tried already, I would check to see if Users and Orgs tags are enabled in your settings. Admin-->Settings-->Customers. This seemed to fix the issue when I tested
Also, in the App settings if you toggle Force unassign tickets from on/off or off/on depending on the behavior you want, that will reset the value.
Chris Fellows Tags are enabled. I also toggled the Force unassign tickets from on back to off. I tested again and it still isn't working. I tested on an open and pending ticket that had the same assignee.
1. Set agent to unavailable via OOO app and checked off the Unassign All Open Tickets before saving.
2. Both tickets still show the same agent as the assignee.
3. Replied to pending ticket as end user.
4. Ticket that was replied to remained assigned to same agent.
I've the same issues that were already reported above from several persons:
Can you give me any hints what might help here? Or should I contact support directly for these issues?
Thanks a lot - as this app is very helpful for us,
Fabian
Fabian Trattnig We are seeing similar problems.
A workaround I am trying with our team is to:
Then when someone comes back into the office:
Hopefully that will help - I'll update here on how we find it.
Thanks
Richard Bates Thank you - I'll try that for a workaround, but seems reasonable.
We had a third issue yesterday as well - an agent was not able to remove the OOO-status with the app (neither with the icon in the left pane nor when accessing her user directly (and toggle the switch in the OOO tool)
We were able to solve it with removing the agent_ooo tag manually from her user
I'm curious if somebody at Zendesk is already working on fixes for these issues, as V1 was better (from my current perspective). Ben Evans maybe you can give us an update here - if a ticket for support is needed I'm happy to do that
I don't understand why Zendesk has not jumped on these issues. This is a simple App and provided by Zendesk. It would be nice if Zendesk would jump into this thread and provide an update on this App.
Especially since this App was updated by Zendesk on our system to V2.
+1 on a very frustrating Support ticket on this app. After numerous back and forths, I was given no troubleshooting steps at all, nor did the developer I was speaking to admit there was any issue with the app, despite the numerous public reports here - and Zendesk commenting publicly here on the issue.
Since I received no help, I tried re-installing the app. This caused an issue with the old ticket field conflicting with the new ticket field, which caused agents that were set to Unavailable to be stuck in this status. The only way to remedy this was to remove the OOO tag from every unavailable agent, then reapply it.
Alas, the issue persists.
This issue has caused countless hours of Admin support since the update, and it's disappointing to see no effort here from Zendesk to resolve it. Please give attention to this issue.
Hello,
Thanks for the comments! We have been reviewing them and have been working on updates when we find it’s an issue with the App. Some issues may also be due to triggers that were updated or modified while being used in V1 and affecting how V2 works, so we are looking at those use cases as well and may have created tickets on your behalf. Thanks!
Chris
We are having issues with this app ever since switching to V2. It no longer prevents assignment to agents when they are out of office. In looking at the tickets it appears that the tag isn't actually tagging the agents. We have not changed any of these settings, so I believe this is an issue with the app itself.
When do we have a timeline for when this will be resolved?
It appears many other users have left reviews and comments regarding the inability for non-administrators to toggle the availability status of other users. Are there any future release plans to allow this functionality? The Administrator should have the ability to select what roles (Team Leader for example) can toggle the availability status of agents.
I really hope this is planned for release soon.
I have been trying to understand when the agent_ooo tag is applied to open tickets. If I mark myself as unavailable, and the requester replies to an open ticket, nothing happens. No tag is applied and no reassignment occurs. Does anyone have any ideas?
My team of 300 people have been reporting tagging issues for weeks. The app doesn't tag all tickets so our agents walk in from their weekends with open client tickets. I've met with the support team to look at the issues. I've met with support about this to no avail. It's definitely not a trigger issue either.
Our solution has been to setup an automation that unassigns tickets that have been Open for 24+ hours as a safety net. Hope this is helpful as a short-term solution!
Hello,
The Out of Office App doesn't mark new/open tickets with the agent_ooo tag, only the pending, solved and on-hold tickets in case they are opened back up. When that happens the trigger then reassigns it up to the group of the agent. When an agent sets themselves out of office it asks whether to unassign the open tickets at that time, so if that's not selected or the App setting doesn't force it, then the open tickets will stay with that agent. There is an open issue that we are working on, where the open tickets sometimes don't get unassigned if the OOO toggle is done from the ticket sidebar. We are recommending to only set the toggle from the user or nav sidebar.
Thanks. It seems like this isn't quite what I want. I don't want to unassign the tickets. Many of our customers have dedicated agents and the agent will stay with a ticket throughout the lifecycle. I was hoping to use the tag to send an out of office bounceback to the requester.
EDIT: Although perhaps I can beat it into submission if I remove the two default triggers and add my own trigger that checks if the Unavailable field is checked.
Hi Kevin,
Gotcha, makes sense. I can certainly see how that use case would be useful. Let me dig into this further to see what options there may be.
Chris
Thanks for the insight and assist, Chris.
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