Turning on omnichannel routing

What's my plan?

Quick Look: Admin Center > Objects and rules > Omnichannel routing > Routing configuration

Omnichannel routing can be used to route new and open tickets from email (including web form, side conversations, and API), calls, and messaging. There are multiple considerations and steps required to activate and begin using omnichannel routing with unified agent status. This article explains how to activate and start using omnichannel routing.

It contains the following topics:

• Considerations before turning on omnichannel routing
• Turning on omnichannel routing
• Requirements for the routing trigger

Considerations before turning on omnichannel routing

To use omnichannel routing, the Agent Workspace must be activated for your account. If your account has a Chat subscription, native messaging or Sunshine Conversations must also be activated. See the omnichannel routing requirements and limitations.

Omnichannel routing works out of the box. That means it can start routing calls and messaging conversations as soon as it's turned on, and email tickets as soon as the auto-routing tag is added to them. To minimize the risk of disruptions, we recommend creating a plan for your routing configuration ahead of time and turning on omnichannel routing during off-hours or your least-busy time of day.

When you turn on omnichannel routing, the option to activate focus mode for live channels in the Zendesk Agent Workspace is hidden. Instead, you must use the focus mode option in your omnichannel routing configuration.

Additionally, you should also train your agents and team leads on the changes they'll experience when you turn on omnichannel routing:

• Unified agent statuses: Make sure they understand what will change. Specifically, the moment omnichannel routing is turned on, all agents will be set to offline. They'll be prompted to set a new status and they'll see new options in the status picker. The statuses then available to them will be unified agent statuses and apply across email, messaging, and talk channels. The idle timeout settings can help ensure agents stop receiving time-sensitive work when they're no longer active, but it's still best to encourage agents to set themselves to Away or Offline any time they step away from their computers. Team leads should also understand the real-time reporting that is available when the agents start using unified agent statuses. See About unified agent status.
• Omnichannel queue: Tickets are created for all channels as soon as they are received. With the standard omnichannel routing configuration, all tickets go into a single queue. However, it is possible for admins to create additional custom queues for omnichannel routing. It might help agents if they understand omnichannel routing queues and how tickets are ordered and assigned to agents.
• Auto-assignment of work: Email tickets (including web form, side conversations, and API) are automatically assigned to the most eligible agent when it reaches the front of the queue. With the standard omnichannel routing configuration, messaging and talk tickets are automatically offered to the most eligible agent when they reach the front of the queue, but the agent must accept the conversation or call. If they don't accept the conversation or call within a specified amount of time, it is automatically offered to the next most eligible agent first and then in a round-robin until it is accepted. If you'd like omnichannel routing to automatically assign messaging conversations, you can turn on auto-accept for messaging in your routing configuration.

Finally, if you have configured an IVR menu for calls, make sure to remove all non-primary groups from your IVR menu before turning on omnichannel routing. Failure to do so can cause confusing routing behavior.

Turning on omnichannel routing

When you turn on omnichannel routing, you also need to configure it with an auto-routing tag and trigger. The tag controls whether or not an email ticket is automatically routed. The tag isn’t required for messages and calls because they are automatically routed to an available agent.

To turn on omnichannel routing

1. In Admin Center, click Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Omnichannel routing > Routing configuration.
2. In the banner across the top of the page, click Turn on omnichannel routing.
3. On the Manage settings page, select Turn on omnichannel routing.

   

4. Under Auto-routing tag, enter a unique name for your auto-routing tag, then click Copy to copy it to your clipboard.
   This tag is used to indicate which tickets originating from email, web form, side conversations, and API you want to be routed by omnichannel routing through the standard queue.

   Note: The auto-routing tag isn't required for custom routing queues. Instead, all email tickets are automatically matched to queues, regardless of the presence of the auto-routing tag. When using custom queues, the auto-routing tag is only used if an email ticket doesn't match any custom queues and you want it to be routed through the standard omnichannel routing queue.
5. Next, click the trigger link and create at least one Support trigger that will be used to add the auto-routing tag to email tickets (including web form, side conversations, and API) you want to route. See Requirements for the routing triggers.
6. When you are done, close the triggers tab and then, on the Manage settings page, click Save.

   Now any tickets with the auto-routing tag will be automatically assigned to the group you selected and also be set to the priority you selected.

7. Finally, review and adjust your routing configuration as needed.

If you need to turn off omnichannel routing, see Disabling omnichannel routing.

Requirements for the routing trigger

With the standard omnichannel routing queue, tickets must be assigned to an appropriate group before it can be routed to an agent. Additionally, email tickets (including web form, side conversations, and API) must have the auto-routing tag to be routed and tickets must have skills if you want to route based on that. You can manually assign the group, skills, and add the routing tag, but triggers provide an automated way to accomplish this.

If you create custom queues, omnichannel routing automatically routes all email, call, and messaging conversation tickets, regardless of the present of the auto-routing tag, and use the queue's groups rather than the ticket's assigned group. The ticket's assigned group is ignored. However, tickets that don't match to any of your custom queues will still require a group assignment, and email tickets also require the auto-routing tag, before they can be routed by omnichannel routing through the standard queue.

Triggers that are used for standard omnichannel routing must have the following parameters:

• Conditions that define the tickets you want to route, such as a channel or tag. This includes tags added to calls from an IVR menu. See Building trigger condition statements.
• Actions to define the routing.
  • Required actions:
    • Assign a group (not required if using omnichannel routing queues, but good to have for tickets that don't match any of your custom queues)
    • Add the auto-routing tag (email tickets only)
  • Optional actions for Professional and Enterprise plans:
    • (Professional and Enterprise plans) Assign a priority
    • (Professional and Enterprise plans) If you're using skills with omnichannel routing, you can use triggers to add and update skills on tickets.

See Building trigger action statements.

Note: Triggers run only on new or updated tickets. Other tickets won’t be processed.

Example of adding the routing tag and groups

• You want email tickets that come in from the “Very important bank” organization to be assigned the routing tag and assigned to the “VIP” group:
  • Create a trigger with the condition Ticket > Organization > is > Very important bank.
  • Add an action Ticket > Add tags > AUTO_ROUTING_TAG.
  • Add an action Ticket > Group > VIP.