Assignment

What it is for

A new case can be given to a member as it arrives, instead of waiting in the queue for somebody to take it. Each support address (an address your customers write to — Settings › Support email) and each queue (a team — a call group's missed calls and voicemails) can have its own rule:

• Not given out (the default): the case waits in the queue, as before.
• By turns: the next member after the last one given a case, in the order of their addresses.
• To the least busy: whoever holds the fewest open (not closed) cases; a tie goes by turns.

An address's cases go to the members of a team you choose for it (Everyone unless you choose one); a queue's go to its own members.

When a case is given out

As it arrives with no owner: an email that opens a case (and a question from the help center), or a call nobody answered. A case a member types in is never given out; an answered call's case is the member's who answered.

An email written to a support address with a rule follows that address's rule, even if it also belongs to a queue.

Who is skipped

• A member who said they are Away.
• A member outside their hours: their own hours if they keep their own, the organization's business hours if not (both in the team's time zone).
• A member whose role does not see and work cases.

With nobody left, the case waits in the queue for anybody to take — nothing else happens.

Setting it up

Open Settings › Assignment (/settings/assignment). Under How new cases are given out, choose Given out for each support address and queue, and for an address To the members of. Each change is saved as it is chosen. Setting the rules is for whoever may change the organization's settings (an Owner or an Administrator, and a role of your own given it); everyone else reads them. "Last given to {name}" shows who the rule chose last.

Your own: Away and your hours

At the top of the same page, every member sets their own:

• I'm away — give me no new cases. Cases you already hold stay yours.
• Your hours: the organization's business hours, or My own hours — a week of your own, saved with Save my hours.

Nobody sets these for anybody else. Who takes new cases now lists every member: "Takes new cases", or why they would be skipped ("Away", "Outside their hours", "Their role doesn't work cases").

On the timeline

A case given out shows, on its timeline, ContactRoll changing its owner: "Case #{n}: owner nobody → {name} · given out by turns ({queue})" (or "given to the least busy").