GS Departments Articles

How to manage customer queue time upon manual reassignment

Tell Digital DX how to place customers into the queue when they are reassigned by an agent rather than automatically. You can set this option independently for customers reassigned within a department as opposed to between departments.

  1. Create or edit a department, as follows:
    1. In the Web Admin Center, go to Organization > Departments. The Department Management page is displayed.
    2. Select an existing department or click Create New.

    Result: The New/Edit Department page is displayed.

  2. On the Automatic Distribution tab, choose a channel and click Override account-level distribution settings.
  3. Under Manual Reassignment, set how you want to handle transfers From the same department.

    Result:

    Move to end of queue (time is reset) Place customers at the end of the queue regardless of how long they have been waiting.
    Maintain place in queue (time is preserved) Place customers in queue based on time already spent waiting.
  4. Similarly, set how you want to handle transfers From other departments.
  5. Repeat this procedure for each channel, as required.
  6. Save your changes.

How to send chats to a rollover department

When no agents are available in the original department, agents of rollover departments take over incoming chats.

For example, Sales goes offline at 5pm, but Customer Support stays online. You set Customer Support as the rollover department for Sales. As a result, the Sales chat button is displayed as available whenever either a Sales or Customer Support agent is logged in.

Important: Chats are not assigned to the rollover department, only the original department's membership is expanded with the agents of the rollover department. The original department keeps ownership of the work item.

Rollover departments are set when creating or editing a department.

  1. Create or edit a department, as follows:
    1. In the Web Admin Center, go to Organization > Departments. The Department Management page is displayed.
    2. Select an existing department or click Create New.

    Result: The New/Edit Department page is displayed.

  2. On the Rollover departments tab, select a department.

    Result: The selected department is displayed in the table at the top of the screen.

  3. Under Rank, define the order in which the rollover department will receive rollover items.
  4. Save your changes.

How to create a department

Create a department as part of your chat distribution strategy.

  1. In the Web Admin Center, click Organization > Departments.
  2. On the Department Management page, click Create New.
  3. Enter a Name.

    When the pre-chat form includes the Department field, this name can be seen by customers.

  4. Under Language, associate the department with languages to route chats to agents with appropriate language skills.
  5. You can also set department-level business hours.

    See How to set department-level business hours.

  6. Save your changes.

How to set department-level business hours

Department-level business hours allow you to control the times, days, dates, and circumstances under which chat with a department is available.

Department-level business hours and exceptions override website-level business hours and exceptions respectively. Departments without unique business hours and/or exceptions use the same settings as associated websites.

A department cannot receive new chats outside of business hours; neither when agents are available nor when a rollover department has been selected. You may change this default behavior as described below.

  1. Create or edit a department, as follows:
    1. In the Web Admin Center, go to Organization > Departments. The Department Management page is displayed.
    2. Select an existing department or click Create New.

    Result: The New/Edit Department page is displayed.

  2. On the Department Information tab under Department Hours, select Enable business hours for chats.
  3. Optionally, to make chat buttons available within business hours even when no agents are available, select Ignore Agent Status.

    Result:

    Important: This may result in unanswered chats. Chats may continue to be queued even when no agents are available.
  4. Select the Timezone used by the business hours settings.
  5. Set your Business Hours, which are periods of time (day/time combinations) that reflect your regular hours of operation.
    1. Select the hours between which you want chat to be potentially available.

      Outside of this time period, your chat buttons display as unavailable even when agents are available. For example, if business hours are set for 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, the Chat button associated with this website reference will become available at 9:00 AM (if agents are available) and will be disabled at 5:00 PM.

    2. Select the Days to which the From/To setting is applied.
    3. To set unique hours for the weekend (or any day of the week), click Add business hours and set the days and time as described above.

    Result: Outside of these time periods, chat is unavailable unless you set exceptions.

  6. To alter your Business Hours (opening hours) on specific dates throughout the year, such as holidays or for special events, you can add exceptions under Exceptions by date. See What are exceptions to business hours? below.
    • Same as website exceptions. The department uses the same exceptions as associated websites.
    • Override website exceptions on specific dates. On the dates specified here, department exceptions override website exceptions. Otherwise, the department uses the same exceptions as associated websites.
    • Override all website exceptions. The department uses unique exceptions and ignores all website exceptions.

    Result:

    Tip: When adding exceptions, you may find it useful to copy previously used exceptions (when available). To see these exceptions, select the Show previously expired exceptions from option.
  7. Save your changes.

What are exceptions to business hours?

An exception is valid for one day only. By defining an exception, you override normal business hours. In other words, an exception defines the time when your agents are available to chat on a specific day.

Think of a business hours exception as an exception in your daily routine: You may provide support from 9 AM to 5 PM, but on an exceptional day, like Black Friday, you may want to provide chat support for longer hours. In this case, you can define an exception for that single day by defining your availability, say, from 9 AM to 9 PM.

Similarly, if you have a meeting on November 20, from 2 PM to 3.30 PM and you are not available to support your customers, you have to change your standard business hours by setting two exceptions for the day:

  • One exception for November 20 from 9 AM to 2 PM
  • Another one for November 20 from 3.30 PM to 5 PM

This way, you can let Digital DX- and your customers - know that this is an exceptional day when you are available from 9 AM to 2 PM and from 3.30 PM to 5 PM only.

Department management

Departments are used to group agents and distribute chats.

How do departments relate to other Bold360 entities?

Departments can be associated with the following items:

  • Agents, who can be grouped in multiple departments
  • Chat Button (chats initiated from a button can be routed to a specific department)
  • Chat Window pre-chat form (customers can select a department to facilitate routing to a specific department)
  • Rules (when a chat triggers a rule, the chat is routed to a specific department)
  • Other departments as Rollover Departments

What is controlled by the department definition?

The department definition controls the following:

  • How agents are grouped
  • How chats are distributed, including the ability to override Automatic Distribution settings at the department level
  • Departments can also be associated with a specific language to help route chats to agents with appropriate language skills

Announcements

Genesys DX/Bold360 End of Life: January 2024

The Genesys DX (Bold360) platform will end of life on January 31st, 2024. This difficult decision was announced in March, 2023.  

Genesys continues to make a strong commitment to Genesys Cloud, while tightening the portfolio to further accelerate feature growth on the platform. Part of that included bringing over key Genesys DX features to Genesys Cloud CX, such as Knowledge Optimizer that focuses on ease-of-use knowledge management. Digital only licenses for Genesys Cloud were also introduced late last year, which are suitable to those who are not looking for voice capabilities or who need agent seats that only feature support for digital channels. 

Details on the end of life timeline

As of January 31st, 2024, access to Genesys DX product interfaces and customer-deployed components stop to function. Users will no longer be able to log into product interfaces, and all of the boldchat/bold360/nanorep domains will become unavailable for use. If you are curious on what the code on your website related to this might look like and how to remove it, we encourage referencing this post on the DX community

After January 31st, 2024, admins will still be able to get access for an additional 30 days. This period is meant to allow for extracting the necessary data from the platform. Historical data extraction from your account will be available to retrieve by data extraction APIs (Bold360 APIs and Nanorep APIs).