What is IntelliAssign

With IntelliAssign, you can automatically assign incoming messages to agents or groups (teams) by configuring their load level and conversation limit.

How IntelliAssign is different from Assignment Rules

Assignment rules are a rule-based assignment method, and a message will be assigned to an agent or group if the specific conditions you set (such as the message content and/or the user's country) are met. 

IntelliAssign, on the other hand, follows a load-based or round-robin method (you can choose between these two depending on your business needs)  to assign conversations based on the load or number of active conversations in an agent's queue, which you can pre-define.

When new messages come in, or existing chats are reopened, agents logged into Freshchat and marked themselves active on IntelliAssign will be assigned conversations. Each agent can mark themselves active on IntelliAssign by clicking on their name in the top right corner of the screen and switching the 'Set active on IntelliAssign' toggle.

Note: Assignment Rules always take precedence over IntelliAssign if both are enabled at the same time.

How to setup IntelliAssign

Go to  Admin Settings > Channels > Chat Settings > Conversation Routingn (Intelliassign) > Enabled

Step 1: Choose the Intelliasign Logic

Load-based: Load-based logic assigns conversations to an agent with the highest bandwidth percentage at the moment and for whom a conversation hasn't been assigned for the longest time. 

Bandwidth is the number of conversations an agent handles at that moment out of the total number of conversations an agent can handle.

For example,

Agent A's conversation limit: 10 conversations

Agent B's conversation limit: 5 conversations

Now when four new conversations come in, Agent A will be assigned three conversations, and 1 conversation will be assigned to Agent B.

Load-based assignment: considers the agent's load level first, followed by the time since the last assigned conversation.

Skill Based assignment: Skill-based assignment prioritizes and assigns conversations based on agents skills. This is only available on the Enterprise plan. Learn more about skill-based assignment.

Round Robin assignment: Round Robin logic auto-assigns a conversation to an agent based on who hasn't been assigned a conversation for the longest time and their active conversation limits availability.

For example, 

There are three agents A, B, and C. Agent A was assigned a conversation 2 hours ago, agent B was assigned a conversation 1 hour ago, and agent C was assigned a conversation 30 minutes ago. The following conversation will be assigned to agent A as they have not been assigned a conversation for the longest period.

Step 2: Agent Settings

In Agent settings, you can define idle time for agents, conversation time-out limit (when a conversation becomes inactive), reassignment condition, and the number of chats an agent can handle at a time. 

• Idle time - If the agent is not active on the Freshchat tab for more than the number of minutes you define in Agent Settings, they'll be marked as idle.
• An active conversation is the one pending reply from an agent or customer within a specified period. You can define this time limit as inactive if the customer has not responded in certain minutes.

How does conversation reassignment work

When you resolve a conversation, it will be moved to the resolved queue. If it is reopened when your customer sends a message after it's marked as resolved — you can reassign it to the same agent.

But there are a few conditions that must be met for you to reassign it to the same agent.

• Reassign toggle should be enabled under Agent Settings.
• Agents must have marked themselves active on IntelliAssign.
• IntelliAssign must be enabled for a group, and the agent has to be part of that group.
• The conversation is reassigned if it is reopened within the specified period. This time is calculated based on the time the last message was sent in the conversation. This is not the time at which the message was resolved or archived.

Step 3: Auto Resolve

To improve your team's productivity, you can auto-resolve (close) conversations with customers who have stopped interacting. In IntelliAssign, you can configure auto-resolve to automatically resolve a conversation when it becomes inactive. 

Note: You will be able to see this option in IntelliAssign only if you have enabled Auto Resolve under Settings.

Step 4: Define load levels for agents

You can classify agents into different categories such as Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert, and define the number of active conversations each can handle simultaneously. For example, you can have a higher active conversation limit for your pro support team while defining a lower limit for your newbies or interns. 

The conversation limit you define here will override the overall Active conversations per agent you set under Agent Settings.

Click Add load Level > Give a name > Add Agents > Define active conversation limit  > Save

You can also enable/disable a load level anytime by switching the toggle on or off. Or edit/delete it.

Step 5: Group Settings

Apart from auto-assigning conversations to agents, you can also distribute chats to different teams (groups).

All the groups that you have created in Freshchat will be displayed here. All you have to do is move the toggle to enable IntelliAssign for a Group. 

Plus, if an agent goes inactive during a conversation, you can reassign it to other active members within the group. Select 'Yes' from the drop-down to enable this, and the message will be reassigned to the member with the least number of current active conversations in the group. 

Note: If all agents in a group are inactive at the same time, the active conversations will stay open until one of them becomes active again.