Departments, Queue and routing

Team Workflow & Conversation Routing Settings

Scale your support operations with powerful distribution and organization tools.

• Departments: Segment your team (e.g., Sales, Support) and route conversations accordingly.
• Queue & Routing: Automatically distribute incoming chats to available agents or place users in a waiting line when demand is high.
• Email Piping: Seamlessly integrate your email inbox, allowing agents and users to reply to chat messages directly from their email clients.
• Office Hours: Define your team’s availability to trigger offline messages or hide the chat widget outside of business hours.

Departments give you the power to distribute conversations and assign various agents to specific departments. For example, you can create a department entitled “Sales” and assign specific conversations to that department. To start using departments, follow the steps below:

• Go to Settings > Miscellaneous and add, delete and manage the departments. After saving, reload the page.
• Go to Users > Agents and edit an agent, you will see a new field where you can set the department of the agent.
• Reload the page and you’re done! In the Conversations area, you will now see an option to set the department.

• Display in dashboard Displays the departments’ list in the chat dashboard and force users to choose a department before starting a conversation.
• Display images Displays the department image instead of the department color.
• Display in conversation list Displays the department color in the conversation list of the admin area.
• One conversation per department Restrict users from opening multiple conversations within the same department, allowing only one conversation to be active per department.
• Label Replace the label Departments (plural) with another text. The name is displayed in the admin and tickets area.
• Label single Replace the label Department (singular) with another text. The name is displayed in the admin and tickets area.
• Dashboard title Set the title of the chat dashboard list. Default: Departments.

• Agents and admins with no assigned department always see the conversations of all departments.
• Agents and admins with an assigned department can only access conversations, users, and agents within that department.
• When a conversation is assigned to a new department, an email notification is sent to all of the agents assigned to the new department.
• The chatbot can assign a department to the active conversation through the Q&A set data feature, the flows actions feature, or Dialogflow actions.

You can assign a department to a conversation in several ways:

• Via the Q&A set data feature.
• Via the flows actions feature.
• Via Settings > Miscellaneous > Departments settings > Display in dashboard. In this case, the user will be required to select a department before starting a new conversation.
• Via Settings > Automations > More.
• Via JavaScript, with the variable var SB_DEFAULT_DEPARTMENT = ID;. Enter the code into the pages where the chat is displayed and replace ID with the department ID. For more details check the API here.
• Via API.

If the Settngs > Slack > Department linking option is active, when a conversation in the CHAT.devad.io is assigned to a department, a new message is sent to the linked Slack channel, informing Slack users that a new conversation has started and inviting them to join the dedicated user Slack channel. However, the full conversation can only be accessed on the dedicated Slack channel of the specific user.

• Get the department IDs from Settings > Miscellaneous > departments.
• Get the channel IDs by clicking the button Get channel IDs.

When the queue is activated via Settings > Miscellaneous > Queue, or routing is activated via Settings > Miscellaneous > Routing, CHAT.devad.io automatically assigns the users conversations to all available agents proportionately.

• Only online agents are counted as “available” agents and will receive new conversations. Conversations are assigned proportionally between all online agents. If no agents are online, the conversation will remain unassigned and will be automatically assigned to the first agent who comes online.
• Admins are not included; admins always see all the conversations.
• Agents must archive a conversation to mark it as completed; this will automatically give them access to the next conversation in the queue. A conversation is active if it’s not deleted, or archived.
• Agents can switch their status between online and offline by hovering over their profile image and then clicking the label of the profile pop-up at the bottom-left of the admin area.
• Agents can only search and filter their conversations.
• Agents can only view their conversations; however, they can see all of the conversations of a single user.
• To enable agents to view all unassigned conversations, activate Settings > Miscellaneous > Hide conversations of other agents and View unassigned conversations.
• Queue and routing are compatible with the departments.
• If human takeover is active, the queue or routing is activated only on human takeover.
• When routing or queue is active, the agents menu will be automatically enabled.

When the queue is activated users enter into a queue automatically when an agent’s chat limit is reached. When a user enters the queue, a message with the current position in the queue and the estimated waiting time is displayed. CHAT.devad.io automatically assigns the conversations to all available agents proportionately. When an agent marks a conversation as completed (by archiving it), the queue is updated and a new conversation is received.

• If a user is in the queue and leaves (e.g. by closing the browser) for more than 1 minute, the conversation is saved; however, once the user comes back, the queue is reset and the user will lose their previous position. If the user leaves, the conversation remains unassigned and therefore invisible to agents, but only visible to admins.
• You can use the following merge fields in the queue message: {position}, {minutes}. They will be replaced by the real values in real-time.
• The waiting time is displayed in minutes and is calculated as follows: queue position X response time = waiting time. For example, if a user is 5th in the queue, and the response time has been set to 4 minutes (via Settings > Miscellaneous > Queue), then the total wait time displayed to the user will be 20 minutes.
• When the sound option is active, a sound is played when it’s the user’s turn.
• For conversations started from messaging apps like WhatsApp, it is not possible to respect the limit of conversations per agent, all conversations will be immediately and proportionally assigned to an online agent. If no agents are online, the conversation will remain unassigned and will be automatically assigned to the first agent who comes online.
• Use the offline message to prevent the chat from showing the queue update message to the user.

To test the queue, follow the steps below:

• To simulate multiple users and agents, open the chat in multiple different browsers (e.g. Opera, Firefox, Brave, Chrome, etc.). Each browser can simulate two users/agents: one in normal mode and one in “private” or “incognito” mode.
• To reset the chat and start a new user session, open the browser console, enter SBF.reset(), and press ENTER.

When the routing is activated CHAT.devad.io automatically assigns the users conversations to all available agents proportionately.

• If the Routing > Disable online status check option is active, the conversations are distributed proportionally among all agents, regardless of whether they are online or offline.
• When an agent comes back online after being offline, all unassigned conversations are automatically assigned to them.
• When routing is active agents can manually route conversations to other agents from the right panel of the conversations area.
• If the conversation is archived and the user reopens it in the future by sending a new message, if the assigned agent in the conversation is offline, the conversation is assigned to another agent.

When the routing is activated via Settings > Miscellaneous > Hide conversation of other agents agents see only their own conversations and can select the unassigned ones.

• Agents menu: enable the agents menu.
• Routing if offline: if the conversation is archived and the user reopens it in the future by sending a new message, if the assigned agent in the conversation is offline, the conversation is assigned to another online if there is at least one, otherwise to no agent.
• View unassigned conversations: allow agents to view the unassigned conversations, when an agent replies the conversation is automatically assigned to him and the conversation is removed in real-time from the admin area of the other agents. Check this option to enable the manual routing.

The Agents menu lets you assign conversations to specific agents. It appears on the right side of the conversations area and is automatically enabled when queueing or routing is active. Select multiple conversations (see keyboard shortcuts) to assign the selected conversations to a specific agent.

You can assign an agent to a conversation in several ways:

• Via the Q&A set data feature.
• Via the flows actions feature.
• Via the queue or routing features.
• By enabling the Settings > Chat > Agents menu option. In this case, the user will be required to select an agent before starting a new conversation.
• Via Settings > Automations > More.
• Via JavaScript, with the variable var SB_DEFAULT_AGENT = ID;. Enter the code into the pages where the chat is displayed and replace ID with the agent ID. For more details check the API here.
• Via API.

Email piping lets you sync multiple email addresses to receive messages directly in CHAT.devad.io. It also allows you, your agents, and users to reply to chat messages via email.

• Go to Settings > Notifications > Email piping and enter your POP3/IMAP email server information.
• Go to Settings > Notifications > SMTP and enter your SMTP email server information. The email address must be the one to which the email piping server connects to. CHAT.devad.io will send all emails from this email address and you, your agents, and your users will reply to this email address. For more details check the email notifications section.

• The email address of Settings > Notifications > SMTP > Sender email should match the one used by the email piping server. If the email address does not match, or if multiple email addresses are configured for email piping, and the Username setting is defined as an email address, CHAT.devad.io will automatically include a reply-to field in the email notification. This ensures that when the user replies, their response is directed to the correct email piping address, keeping the conversation linked properly.
• The Notifications > User email notifications and Notifications > Agent email notifications settings are enabled automatically when email piping is active. When agents reply in CHAT.devad.io, emails are always sent to the user.
• If you’re using the Artificial Intelligence app, and the human takeover feature is activated, no emails are sent if the chatbot knows the answer.
• If the Convert all emails option is active:

You can set the office hours timetable from Settings > Miscellaneous > Office hours. Office hours are used for:

• Sending the offline message.
• Disabling and hiding the chat during out-of-office hours.
• Disabling the chatbot during regular office hours and enabling it during out-of-office hours.

• If a day has only one start and end time, enter them in the first two fields. For example, use 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and (empty) to (empty), not 10:00 AM to (empty) and (empty) to 5:00 PM.
• Do not leave empty values. Set them to closed instead.
• You have to set values to closed if you want to set a whole day as not office hours.
• The office hours are in UTC format. Set your UTC from Settings > Miscellaneous > Timezone.
• The date and time format of the timetable matchs automatically the one used in the country of the browser language of the user.