Zendesk released the feature to reassign open tickets through omnichannel routing (OCR). This allows businesses to fully replace the Out of Office app. This transition offers improved agent availability management and more advanced routing capabilities.

This article outlines a detailed comparison of Out of Office app features with omnichannel routing capabilities. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to transition from the Out of Office app to managing your agents' availability and their tickets with omnichannel routing.

This workflow article includes the sections below:

  • Prerequisites
  • Why replace the Out of Office app?
  • Feature comparison: Out of Office app vs omnichannel routing
  • Replacing the Out of Office app with omnichannel routing
  • Best practices

Prerequisites

  • Zendesk Suite (Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus) or Support (Professional or Enterprise) plan
  • Omnichannel routing activated and configured
  • Custom agent statuses

Why replace the Out of Office app?

The Out of Office app manages agent availability and ensures that tickets aren’t routed to agents who are away, as well as the reassignment of such agent's open tickets.

However, omnichannel routing now provides support for:

  • Agent status management across channels, such as email, messaging, chat and voice
  • Automatic ticket routing based on availability and capacity
  • Real-time control and visibility over agent workloads
  • Native experience to manage agent’s workload and ticket reassignment

These capabilities render the Out of Office app redundant and make omnichannel routing a more scalable and native alternative.

Feature comparison: Out of Office app vs omnichannel routing

Feature Out of Office app Omnichannel routing
Manually mark agents as out of office ✅

✅

through status change
Prevent the assignment of tickets to unavailable agents ✅

✅

doesn't block manual assignments
Integration with routing logic ❌ ✅
Auto-assignment based on availability and capacity ❌ ✅
Real-time visibility in Admin Center ❌ ✅
Reporting capabilities limited full analytics in Explore
API support for custom workflows ❌ ✅

Replacing the Out of Office app with omnichannel routing

Below are the steps required to achieve this transition.

Step 1: Define a custom unified agent status

  1. Create a custom status called Out of Office
  2. Configure the Channel routing for the Email, Messaging, and Talk channels to Offline. This prevents the assignment of tickets to agent when they are on this status.
  3. Configure the Groups that can make use of this status
  4. Click the Create agent status button to create this custom status
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    Screenshot 2025-06-15 at 1.41.14 PM.png

Step 2: Activate reassignment for reopened and open tickets

  1. Edit your omnichannel routing configuration
  2. Select Turn on reassignment for reopened tickets
  3. Choose the tickets you want omnichannel to handle, such as Email or Messaging, and specify the Out of Office custom unified agent status as the required status
  4. Select the Ticket priority that you want this applied to
  5. Scroll down and select Auto-reassign open tickets
  6. Choose the tickets you want omnichannel to handle, such as Email or Messaging, and specify the Out of Office custom unified agent status as the required status. Then, select the Ticket priority that you want this applied to. For our implementation, we applied this to all ticket priorities.
  7. Scroll down and select Reassign tickets through queues, then click Save. Omnichannel routing will re-route reassigned tickets through queues.
    Reassign reopened and open tickets - 1Reassign reopened and open tickets - 1

Step 3: Train your agents to use the Out of Office unified agent status

Ensure agents know how to set their own status and the implication of setting their status:

  • From the Zendesk Agent Workspace, agents can click their profile picture and choose the appropriate status
  • Status persists across sessions but can also be set automatically via API or business rules

Step 4: Deactivate and remove the Out of Office app

Once OCR is fully configured and tested, deactivate and remove the Out of Office app.

Best practices

  • Encourage agents to update their unified status at the start and end of each shift to maintain accurate availability data
  • Monitor the agent status logs to ensure alignment with expectations
  • Update internal documentation and notify your support team of the changeover
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