When you're signed into Zendesk Chat, you can configure a number of settings related to your availability to assist customers. The information in this article applies to both Chat Standalone and Chat + Support account agents.
This article includes the following sections:
Understanding availability status options
You can set your status to any of the following:
- Online: Indicates you're available to answer chats.
- Away: Indicates internally to other agents that you're away from your computer. You can still serve chat requests when your status is Away.
- Invisible: Allows you to sign in to the Chat dashboard but not be visible as Online. If incoming chats are broadcast to all agents, invisible agents can still see and accept chat requests. If incoming chats are assigned to agents, invisible agents cannot receive or accept chat requests. If all chat agents are invisible, the widget will not appear online to visitors and chat triggers will not fire. For information on broadcast and assigned chat routing, see Setting up chat routing.
Manually changing your availability status
You can change your status from the Chat dashboard.
- To change your status once you're already signed in, click the dropdown menu in the upper-left corner of the dashboard.
Setting your idle timeout preferences
You can set your status to automatically change from Online to Invisible or Away when you're away from your computer for set length of time. When your status changes, a window appears letting you know:
These settings affect only your status, not other agents' in your organization.
To set up idle timeout
- In the dashboard, select Settings > Personal.
- Select the Idle timeout tab.
- Click On to toggle on idle timeout.
- If you don't want your status to change when you have open chats, select the Ignore if chatting check box.
- Next to Idle status, select whether you want your status to change to Away or Offline when you're idle.
- Next to Inactivity period, enter how many minutes you should be idle before your status changes. The default value is 15 minutes.
- Click Save changes.
Viewing other agents' online statuses
You can see which other agents are currently signed in to your dashboard and online.
To view other agents' online statuses
- In the left pane, click Team.
- Click View all.
The Agents signed in window opens, which shows you a list of the agents currently logged in by department, as well as whether they have admin privileges and how many chats they currently have.
12 Comments
+1 for admins to change agents chat status!
There is no "idle timeout" tab in my chat dashboard settings > personal area. How do I change the idle timeout in the absence of that tab?
Hi there agree with what Kristin said 👆🏻
We can not change that as there is no option to set the idle time, what workaround would you suggest in this case?
Hi Paule,
This feature is available for chat team plans and up. Have you checked your account to verify if the same is part of your plan? If not yet, you may check your subscription by clicking the Zendesk Products icon () in the top bar, then select Admin Center. Click the Billing icon () in the left sidebar, then click Subscription to see a summary of your current plan.
Idle timeout is part of the personal settings of your chat account. As of the moment, there is no other option to set idle timeout besides from the chat dashboard
+1 for having admins be able to change agents' statuses.
This seems like a no-brainer and has been asked for a few years now.
Hi Ronen,
I'd recommend upvoting and adding a comment to this product feedback thread: Feature Request: Give Admins Ability to Change Agent Status. It's true that this has been something customers have been requesting for a long time, and while it's not on the roadmap yet, some necessary foundational work is being done (see the official comment and the links to further comments from Ramin and Amy there).
Idle timeout (one of the suggested workarounds) is not available in agent workspace (see Limitations in the Zendesk Agent Workspace), so setting Operating Hours as suggested by Ramin in the product feedback thread above is probably be best workaround at this time.
Hello guys,
I had a question about away versus invisible when it comes to routing. As I understand it, when an agent sets him/herself to invisible, they get out of the "virtual line" and are no longer considered the "longest agent without a chat". What if they are away? Does the same logic occur?
Thank you for messaging us.
Only agents with the status "online" are applied with the "longest agent without a chat". Invisible and away does not apply to this.
Hi, I've set my Idle Timeout to OFF but I just disappear from the list of available agents. This is being experienced by others in the team also. I wonder why? Is there a workaround for this?
Hello - I don't see these Settings > Personal and then Idle Timeout. Please advise.
Is there a way to customize this statues? For instance instead of Away I would like our agents to mark "lunch break" or "Meeting", or "training" etc.
My status is turning to Invisible even though my "Idle timeout" settings are set to "Off".
Any ideas on what the problem could be here?
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