Workflow: Using queues in omnichannel routing to overflow calls to other groups

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">In some cases, you might want to route calls to certain agents, but need to have the routing logic to "overflow" to alternative agents if none of the preferred agents are available. Omnichannel routing queues are designed to provide more granular routing logic and consistent ways to route work to multiple groups of agents.</p>
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<div class="note attention">
<span class="attentiontitle"></span> This article assumes omnichannel routing has been turned on for
your account. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5866925319962" target="_blank">Turning on omnichannel routing</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4828787357210" target="_blank">Managing your omnichannel routing configuration</a>.</div>
<p class="p">In some cases, you might want to route calls to certain agents, but need to have the
routing logic to "overflow" to alternative agents if none of the preferred agents are
available. Omnichannel routing queues are designed to provide more granular routing
logic and consistent ways to route work to multiple groups of agents.</p>
<p class="p">This recipe uses omnichannel routing, groups, and custom queues.</p>
<div class="p">This example includes:<ul class="ul" id="topic_bht_ygf_p1c__ul_b5r_nl3_1yb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_c5r_nl3_1yb">Workflow goal</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_txx_wnr_byb">Creating groups of agents to handle different types of insurance inquiries</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_bry_km3_1yb">Defining the queues</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_c5r_nl3_1yb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Workflow goal</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Your company uses separate phone lines for each type of insurance they offer, such as
a dedicated line for health insurance inquiries. They want to route all calls
received on the health insurance phone number to the Health Insurance Division
group of agents, but use the General Insurance Division group of agents as backup
when the health insurance division agents aren't available. Now that omnichannel
routing supports the creation of custom queues and routing work to both primary and
secondary groups of agents, you've been tasked with updating your omnichannel
routing settings to accomplish this.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested2" id="topic_d5r_nl3_1yb">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title3">Using omnichannel routing for calls</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Before deciding how to route calls, it's important to understand the ticket
creation process. When you use <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409149119514" target="_blank">omnichannel routing</a>, a ticket is
created for the call as soon as it is received. That means you can run triggers
on incoming calls before it is answered. If you choose not to use omnichannel
routing, tickets are created for calls after the call is answered by an agent,
and triggers can't be run against the incoming calls until the ticket is
created. That means omnichannel routing is the only way you can use triggers to
influence call routing.</p>
<p class="p">When using custom queues, triggers fire on new calls before omnichannel routing
evaluates the queues.</p>
<p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409149119514#topic_nlb_c3p_m5b" target="_blank">How omnichannel routing works</a>.</p>
</div>
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</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_txx_wnr_byb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Creating groups of agents to handle different types of insurance inquiries</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886146842" target="_blank">Groups</a> collect agents together, allowing
admins to manage agent ticket assignments based on an agent's skills, experience, or
other similarities.</p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">To create the groups</strong><ol class="ol" id="topic_txx_wnr_byb__ol_qcc_hd1_xwb">
<li class="li"><span class="ph">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581766374554#topic_hfg_dyz_1hb" target="_blank">Admin Center</a>, click <img class="image" id="topic_txx_wnr_byb__d7e688" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_people_icon.png">
<strong class="ph b">People</strong> in the sidebar, then select <strong class="ph b">Team &gt; Groups</strong>.</span></li>
<li class="li">Click <strong class="ph b">Add group</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Enter a group name. In this example, we'll use <strong class="ph b">Health Insurance
Division</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Select the agents you want to add to the group.</li>
<li class="li">Click <strong class="ph b">Save</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Repeat steps 2–5 to create another group named <strong class="ph b">General Insurance
Division</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Create a process, such as a <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886797466" target="_blank">trigger</a>, to assign calls from the
health insurance phone number to the new group.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_bry_km3_1yb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Defining the queues</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Tickets, including calls, are assigned to queues based on the queue's conditions.
Conditions are the qualifications needed for a ticket to be added to the queue.</p>
<div class="note tip">
<span class="tiptitle">Tip:</span> If you use IVR, you can create queue conditions based on the tags added
by IVR. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408885628698#topic_wbb_y4k_bzb" target="_blank">Using IVR with omnichannel routing</a>.</div>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">To define the queues</strong><ol class="ol" id="topic_bry_km3_1yb__ol_pdd_yt3_1yb">
<li class="li"><span class="ph">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581766374554#topic_hfg_dyz_1hb" target="_blank">Admin Center</a>, click <img class="image" id="topic_bry_km3_1yb__d7e1980" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_objects_rules_icon.png">
<strong class="ph b">Objects and rules</strong> in the sidebar, then select <strong class="ph b">Omnichannel routing &gt;
Queues</strong>.</span></li>
<li class="li">Click <strong class="ph b">Create queue</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Enter a <strong class="ph b">Name</strong> for the queue. For this example, we'll use: <strong class="ph b">Health
insurance requests</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Specify the queue's <strong class="ph b">Priority</strong> relative to other queues. <p class="p">Queue
priority is only considered when an agent receives work from multiple
queues. In that case, work from the queue with the higher priority is
assigned first. You can use the same priority value for more than one
queue.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">Under <strong class="ph b">Conditions</strong>, specify the conditions under which you want the
skill to be added. For example:<ul class="ul" id="topic_bry_km3_1yb__ul_imc_wpm_p1c">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Ticket &gt; Channel</strong> &gt; <strong class="ph b">Is</strong> &gt; <strong class="ph b">Phone call
(incoming)</strong>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Ticket &gt; Comment text</strong> &gt; <strong class="ph b">Contains at least one of the
following words</strong> &gt; <strong class="ph b">Call to: +1 888 8888</strong>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">For <strong class="ph b">Primary group</strong>, select <strong class="ph b">Health Insurance Division</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">For <strong class="ph b">Secondary groups</strong>, select <strong class="ph b">General Insurance Division</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Click <strong class="ph b">Save</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">On the Queues page, drag and drop the queues into your preferred
order.<p class="p">Omnichannel routing evaluates the queues in the order they are
listed on the Queues page and inserts tickets into the first queue they
match the conditions for.</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p class="p">When you use the configurations described in this article, calls received on the
health insurance line (+1 888 8888) are inserted into the Health insurance requests
queue based on the call's priority and ticket creation timestamp. Then, the call is
routed to an available agent in the Health Insurance Division group. If all agents
in the Health Insurance Division group are unavailable, the call overflows to the
secondary group (General Insurance Division) for a faster response.</p>
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