Omnichannel routing assigns tickets from email (including web form, side conversations, and API), calls, and messaging directly to agents based on agent availability and capacity and, on Professional plans and above, ticket priority and skills. The standard omnichannel routing configuration directs all eligible tickets into a single queue, assigning work to agents based on the ticket's assigned group. If a single queue is insufficient for your use case, you can create additional custom omnichannel routing queues. You must have the Agent Workspace to use omnichannel routing.
Essential facts about omnichannel routing queues
- The omnichannel routing configuration settings apply to all of your queues.
- There are two types of queues in omnichannel routing:
- Standard omnichannel routing queue: This is the default queue used by omnichannel routing when you turn on omnichannel routing and haven't created custom queues or when tickets don't meet the conditions of your custom queues but are otherwise eligible to be routed by omnichannel routing. Sometimes this is referred to as group-based omnichannel routing because tickets routed through the standard queue go to agents in the group specified in the ticket's group field. The standard queue isn't listed on the Queues page in Admin Center.
- Custom omnichannel routing queues: These are custom queues defined by admins. When using custom queues, tickets are inserted into the first queue they match the conditions for. Custom queues can route tickets to multiple primary and secondary groups. If a ticket is routed through a custom queue, omnichannel routing ignores the ticket's group field and uses the queue's primary and secondary groups.
- When new tickets are created, triggers fire first, and then omnichannel routing evaluates queues to find a match for the ticket.
- The auto-routing tag isn't used by custom queues. Regardless of the presence of the auto-routing tag, all email tickets, messaging conversations, and calls are automatically evaluated for matches to custom queues. However, email tickets that don't match any custom queues must have the auto-routing tag if you want them to be routed through the standard omnichannel routing queue.
- Omnichannel routing matches tickets to queues in the order the queues appear on the Queues page. Tickets are added to the first queue they meet the conditions for.
- Tickets that don't match the conditions for any of your custom queues are inserted into the standard omnichannel routing queue. However, omnichannel routing prioritizes all tickets routed through custom queues over those routed through the standard omnichannel routing queue, regardless of the ticket's priority.
- Within an omnichannel routing queue, tickets are ordered by priority first (Professional plans and above) and then by their routing eligibility timestamps.
- When an agent is eligible to receive work from multiple queues, tickets from the queue with the higher priority value are assigned before tickets from a queue with a lower priority value. A custom queue's priority value is considered only when an agent receives work from more than one queue.
- After a ticket has been assigned to an agent, it leaves the queue. Tickets can't re-enter a custom queue after being assigned to an agent. However, if a ticket becomes eligible for re-routing, it's inserted into the standard omnichannel routing queue based on its routing-eligibility timestamp and routed based on the ticket's assigned group.
Using custom queues with omnichannel routing
Omnichannel routing is Zendesk's most sophisticated and complete routing solution. It provides consistent routing logic across channels and considers many factors when assigning work to agents. For many use cases, the single, standard omnichannel routing queue that's activated when you turn on omnichannel routing is sufficient. When relying on the standard omnichannel routing queue, tickets must be assigned to a group to be routed to an agent with omnichannel routing, and email tickets must have the auto-routing tag. Think of this as group-based omnichannel routing.
In some cases, it's not realistic or desirable to have your tickets routed to the single group assigned to the ticket. Creating custom queues allows you to route work to multiple groups based on the queue the tickets are assigned to. Multiple queues also give you the option to define secondary or "overflow" groups that receive tickets through a queue only if all agents in the primary groups are unavailable. When you assign multiple primary and secondary groups to a queue, omnichannel routing treats all primary groups as a single pool of agents, and when necessary, expands it to include all agents in the secondary groups as well. When you use queue-based routing, omnichannel routing uses the queue's primary and secondary groups to assign the ticket to an agent, ignoring any group that might be specified on the ticket itself.
For more information, see Creating additional omnichannel routing queues.
Understanding how omnichannel routing orders tickets for assignment to agents
As soon as a ticket is eligible for routing, omnichannel routing attemps to assign it to an eligible and available agent. If it can't be assigned immediately, the ticket is inserted into a queue. When a new ticket is created or updated, ticket triggers automatically fire and then omnichannel routing evaluates how to insert it into a queue to be routed to an agent. If you've created custom queues, omnichannel routing evaluates queue conditions to find a match for the ticket and then inserts it; if a ticket doesn't match any of the custom queues, it's inserted into the standard omnichannel routing queue. If you haven't created custom queues or a ticket doesn't meet the conditions for any of your custom queues, it's inserted into the standard omnichannel routing queue.
Omnichannel routing orders eligible tickets from all channels within a queue based on ticket priority (Professional plans and above) and their eligible-for-routing timestamps. Continue reading to learn which tickets are eligible to be routed by omnichannel routing and what the routing timestamps are.
Considerations for ordering tickets within a queue
Ticket eligibility for routing
- Assigned to a group (not required if using custom omnichannel routing queues, but needed to route tickets that don't match any of your custom queues)
- In a status (or status category) of New or Open
- Unassigned
Additionally, email tickets must have the auto-routing tag to be routed through the standard omnichannel routing queue.
- The ticket isn't assigned to a group and you aren't using custom queues.
- The ticket is assigned to an agent.
- The ticket has a status (or status category) of Pending, On Hold, or Solved.
- The ticket has been soft deleted.
- (Email tickets only) The ticket doesn't have the auto-routing tag and you aren't using custom queues.
Routing ineligibility time
Omnichannel routing tracks the time tickets spend being ineligible for routing and uses this to determine which routing timestamp to use when inserting a ticket back into the routing queue. This is referred to as the routing ineligibility time. Checking ticket ineligibility for routing prevents performance issues caused by tracking an ever-growing number of timestamps and accounts for changes to the ticket's urgency as it ages in a queue.
Routing eligibility timestamps
- The initial eligible for routing timestamp is when a ticket becomes eligible for routing via omnichannel routing for the first time.
- A subsequent eligible for routing timestamp is when a ticket becomes eligible again for routing via omnichannel routing after having already been eligible and ineligible previously.