Omni-Channel routing

Omni-Channel routing sends new cases to your agents instead of leaving them in a list to be picked from. The most urgent case goes to the online agent with the most room, who accepts it with one click. Cases and live chats share each agent’s capacity, so nobody is overloaded and nothing waits unnoticed.

At a glance

• Pushed, not pulled. New cases from the channels you choose are offered to agents who are Online, one at a time.
• Most urgent first. Cases are offered by priority, then oldest first.
• Fair load. Each case goes to the agent with the most spare capacity. Cases and chats both count.
• Off until you turn it on. Until then, cases are assigned the way they are today, by assignment rules and support teams.

How it works

1. 1ArrivesA new case comes in by email, the web form or another channel you route, and nobody is assigned to it.
2. 2WaitsIt becomes work waiting for an agent, in its support team if it has one.
3. 3OfferedIt pops up for the online agent with the most room, with a countdown.
4. 4AcceptedThe case is assigned to that agent and opens. If they decline or don’t answer in time, the next agent gets it.

Turn on Omni-Channel

You need the Customize application permission (the Admin profile has it).

1. Go to Settings → Omni-Channel (in the Service section).
2. Tick Enable Omni-Channel.
3. Under Channels to route, choose the case origins to push to agents. Email and Web are chosen at first; you can add Phone, Chat or any origin your organization has added.
4. Check the capacity numbers and the Seconds to accept, then choose Save.

After saving, everyone who works cases sees an Omni-Channel status in the header and an Omni-Channel page in the Service menu. Ask your agents to set themselves Online: until someone is, new cases wait.

Which cases are routed

A case is routed when all of these are true:

• It’s new. Cases that already existed when you turned Omni-Channel on aren’t routed.
• Its origin is one of the channels you chose.
• It’s open and not assigned to anyone. If an assignment rule gives a case to a person, it goes straight to them as before. If a rule puts it in a support team, it’s routed within that team.
• It wasn’t imported. Cases from Data Import are never routed.

Moving a waiting case to another support team moves it to that team’s agents. Assigning a waiting case to someone by hand takes it out of routing.

Who gets which case

• Order: the case with the most urgent priority goes first, then the oldest. Urgency follows the order of your Priority values: the last value in the list (Urgent, by default) is the most urgent.
• Agent: among the online agents who have room for it, the one using the least capacity gets it. On a tie, it goes to whoever has waited longest for new work.
• Several at once: an agent with room for more than one case can be offered several together.

Agent status

Each agent sets their status in the header, next to Settings. The bar beside it shows how much of their capacity is in use, for example 4/10.

• The status is shared with Live chat. While Omni-Channel is on, the chat panel shows your status but you change it in the header.
• An agent counts as online only while CRMSix is open in their browser. Close it and, within about a minute, no more work is offered to them.
• The first time you go Online, your browser asks whether CRMSix may show notifications. Allow it to hear about new work while you’re in another tab.

Accepting and declining

A new case pops up at the top right, wherever you are in CRMSix, with a short sound. It shows the channel, priority, subject, case number, customer, account and support team, and a countdown.

• Accept assigns the case to you and opens it.
• Decline offers it to the next agent. So does letting the countdown run out.
• A case you declined or let time out isn’t offered to you again for 5 minutes, unless someone else takes it first. If every available agent has passed on it, it goes round again after 5 minutes, so it never gets stuck.

Capacity

Capacity is counted in units. You set three numbers in Settings → Omni-Channel:

With these numbers an agent can have up to 5 cases, or 3 chats, or a mix such as 2 cases and 2 chats. The settings page works this out for you.

An accepted case uses its units until one of these happens:

• the case is closed;
• it’s assigned to someone else;
• the agent chooses Release on the Omni-Channel page. This frees the capacity while the case stays theirs, for example while waiting on the customer.

The Omni-Channel page

Open Omni-Channel in the Service menu, or select the capacity bar in the header. It shows:

• Your status and how much capacity you’re using.
• What’s waiting, by channel and support team.
• Open work: the cases you’ve accepted (with Open and Release) and your live chats.
• Customer: for the case you select, the contact, their account, and their other cases from every channel and their recent chats. Cases are matched by contact, or by email address when the case has no contact. You can see the customer’s whole history before you reply.

The page updates every few seconds.

Turning it off

Untick Enable Omni-Channel and save. Cases that are waiting or being offered go back to how they were: unassigned, in their support team. Cases agents have already accepted stay with them. The status and the Omni-Channel page disappear for everyone.

Troubleshooting

A new case stays Unassigned

It’s waiting for an agent. Check that:

• someone is Online in the header, with CRMSix open;
• they have room in their capacity;
• they’re a member of the case’s support team, if it has one with members.

If the only online agent declined it, it comes back after 5 minutes. Settings → Omni-Channel shows how many agents are online and how many cases are waiting.

A case wasn’t routed at all

Its origin isn’t one of the routed channels, an assignment rule gave it to a person, it was imported, or it was created before Omni-Channel was turned on.

I accepted a case and got “You can’t open this case”

Your organization’s sharing settings don’t let you see that case. Ask your admin to check Settings → Sharing Settings or the case’s support team.

“This case is no longer offered to you”

The countdown ran out, or you went Busy or Offline, so it went to someone else.

I’m not getting chats any more

Your capacity is full of cases. Close or release a case to make room.