This article describes how to activate and deactivate focus mode in the Zendesk Agent workspace. Focus mode enables admins to set conditional routing based on agent activity for voice and chat.
This article includes the following sections:
About focus mode
When activated with the Zendesk Agent Workspace, focus mode allows agents to be online for both voice and chat conversations but only serves the agent one channel at a time. For example, if an agent is on a call, they will not be offered chats until the call and call wrap-up has ended. If an agent is responding to a chat or handling multiple chats (up to the maximum chat limit), then no calls are offered to the agent until all their chats have ended.
By default, agents can get calls and chats at the same time.
When focus mode is activated, an agent working on chats will not receive calls until their chats have ended.
When focus mode is activated, an agent taking a call will not be offered chats until their call and call wrap-up has ended.
Focus mode is excluded for direct call and chat transfers between agents. Agents can transfer a call to another agent who is actively engaged in a chat. Similarly, agents can transfer a chat to another agent who is actively working on a call.
Focus mode is available only for customers using Zendesk Talk and Chat in the Agent Workspace. It is not supported for Talk Partner Edition, Zendesk messaging, or web and social messaging channels.
Activating and deactivating focus mode
The focus mode setting is visible for all the accounts that have the Zendesk Agent Workspace activated, but aren’t using omnichannel routing.
Focus mode is off by default. If you activate focus mode, then later deactivate the Zendesk Agent Workspace, focus mode is deactivated automatically.
To activate focus mode
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Agent interface. - In the Focus Mode section, select Enable focus mode for live
channels.
- Save your changes.
To disable focus mode
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Agent interface.
- In the Focus Mode section, deselect Enable focus mode for live channels.
- Save your changes.
33 Comments
The agent status is still "online" in Talk when the agent is in a chat session.
The status should be updated to away. This is problematic for team leaders who doesn't use chat (and since you also need a chat license to be able to see which agents are being served chats)
This is an exciting update, looking forward to trying it out.
That said, while it sounds great on paper, I am curious about the actual routing behavior.
Almost all of our agents are configured to take multiple concurrent chats. I assume this system still routes first in, first out, but what happens when all agents are on one or more chats and a call is sitting in queue?
Does the system ever stop routing chats to agents so that the call gets addressed next, or will it continue to route chats essentially locking agents into that skill?
Thanks for any clarification you can provide!
Are there any plans to have emails automatically served to agents? We have agents who work email, phone and chat, and would like an option for them to be served emails when in available status so we don't have to wait for our agents to go into guided mode and work emails.
Hi,
Is there any support for "overflow" in Focus Mode? Our incoming chat and call volume tends to be fairly low and so we want to ensure that contacts are routed to somebody who's not already handling a contact in a different channel, but if all of our agents are actively in chats what happens if a phone call comes in? Does the phone call get routed to voicemail due to all agents being ONLY routed chats while they're in a chat due to Focus Mode? Or is there any sort of override we can enable where if all agents are in one contact type then Focus Mode is suspended and they can handle both a call and a chat as needed?
Hi Victor. It only works for Talk and Chat, not Messaging. But you might be interested in signing up for our Agent statuses EAP.
Thank you so much for reaching out on this article! My name is Elias, Zendesk support technician and I will help you in this case. I understand that you would like to know if the Talk status is online even when the agent is on a call, is that it?
Hi,
We keep having problems with focus mode some agents are still receiving calls when they are dealing with inbound customer chat, is this a known issue?
We have attempted to clear cookies and catch but it has not resolved the problem.
Does this work with any voice integration or just Zendesk's Talk product?
Hi Rina,
To be clear, focus mode only supports live Chat and Talk channels. For now, you can set different priorities for incoming workload using Omnichannel Routing. In addition to that, "focus mode" like feature is on the roadmap for Omnichannel Routing across Support, Talk and Messaging by end of 2023.
Thanks,
Volkan
Good News~!!
When do you support for TPE(Talk Partner Edition) and Social Messaging via Sunshine Conversation?
When focus mode was first released it was fantastic, my team enjoyed the functionality of taking calls and chats. Fast forward to today and we have not be able to use focus mode for the past three months. When our agents log in depending on the first interaction, it locks them into that mode i.e. if they receive a call first they never get a chat routed to them and vice versa with chat first, no calls.
We have tried troubleshooting, clearing cache/cookies, and submitting tickets which we were told it was fixed. It still does not work. Is anyone else experiencing the same issues? It's sad because it really was a nice feature to the product.
Rachael Kolman did you ever find a solution to that problem? We're also looking for a way to route chats, calls, and emails right now.
Can someone guide me to documentation to show how we can implement a similar sort of 'focus mode' setting between inbound Talk and inbound Messaging? Thanks
Hi Rina,
You can use omnichannel routing feature in the Zendesk Agent Workspace to help manage agent workload for inbound calls and messages.
Hi,
As we don't use Talk for our support but a custom integration for incoming calls. Does Focus Mode will work with the custom integration ?
Hi Andrew,
Focus mode is available only for customers using Zendesk Talk and Chat in the Agent Workspace. Unfortunately, it does not work with custom integrations for incoming calls.
We've been trialling this feature, and whilst it sounds amazing, in practice it's not working for us.
Our specific problem is around the lack of consideration for transfers. We have a team who are all WFH so it's not easy to see the status of another agent quickly, and efficiently. As a result we'd want them to be able to transfer calls to another agent knowing if the agent's name shows as available that the agent is available to take the call - this isn't possible with Focus mode currently.
As a result we have had situations where an agent is on a live chat and had a call transferred to them (that understandably they're not in a position to take). And even a situation where an agent was on a live call, and 2nd call was transferred to them (which again they could not take).
Unfortunately these issues mean we can't use Focus mode in its current format. Any plans to introduce transfers into the functionality?
When will this be available to turn on for everyone? I have ZD Agent Workspace turned on but do not have the ability to enable focus mode.
You'll want to check out our Omnichannel routing and agent status open beta, although fyi it's not available if you're using live chat.
There are a couple of third-party apps that provide round-robin assignment capabilities, although I don't think either recognize Focus Mode or would take chat routing into account when assigning tickets -- see Routing and Round Robin in our Marketplace.
We too are having troubles using Focus mode with Messaging. Does it work only with legacy chat? Our agents still receive phone calls when in a Facebook or Whatsapp conversation
Are callback requests excluded from focus mode?
I have a couple questions as we contemplate our move to the new Agent Workspace.
1. We use Round Robin to assign out our incoming calls. Will Focus mode work with Round Robin? Seems like from what I have read we'd need to activate Onichannel Routing in ZD in order for things to route correctly but that also means turning on Messaging which is unaffecrted by the Focus setting. Do I have that right?
2. Assuming we don't turn on messaging and are using Talk and Chat, if we set the Chat limit to 3 and enable Focus mode and an agent has 1 chat (not the limit of 3) does that still shut off the talk channel? Since we are 70% chat, how do we configure this so we don't end up with agents always getting the next availble chat and never getting a call?
Nancy Orgill we are having the same issue in our account. Is it because of the switch to Messaging? I'm going to have to switch focus mode back off and go back to rostering staff off phones. Argh
@... we are using live chat - is there any option for auto-assigning emails on top of focus mode, or something similar to omnichannel routing that works with accounts that use live chat?
Elias Can you also help me with a better visibility option ? Focus mode is great, but now my team lead is having challenges on how to monitor who is on phones and who is on chats. We use Geockboard, but Geckoboard does not display the rep names for when they are status to available and I as the director personally use one computer screen mixed with ALL the Zendesk support channels open. Do you have a better solution ?
@... thanks that's actually what we're looking into right now.
Thanks,
Volkan
Hi Kaylin Bailey
As it mentions at the top of the article, the rollout begins on July 12, 2021 and should be complete on July 22, 2021. You should see it in your account by July 22 at the latest.
Lisa
Please sign in to leave a comment.