Manage Departments

An Omnichannel Department is a core organizational feature that can be tailored to represent diverse units in your organization. This feature is essential when there are incoming chats originating from various communication channels, requiring expertise from diverse departments or specialized knowledge experts. Using departments is critical for ensuring your visitors are always connected to the most appropriate and knowledgeable agent.

Key features of Omnichannel departments

Directing conversations to a department: Visitors can select the specific department they wish to engage with, sending their inquiry directly to the right team.
Agent assignment: Mangers can assign agents to specific departments, ensuring that conversations requiring specialized knowledge are routed to the most appropriate experts.

To access the Department menu, go to Administration > Omnichannel > Departments. You can View, Create New, Edit, or Delete a department.

Create Omnichannel department

To create a new department:

Click the Create Department button at the top of the Departments page.
Toggle Enable to activate the department immediately. You can leave it disabled if you’re not ready to use it.
Fill in the following department details:

Field	Description
Name*	Enter a name for the new department.
Description	Provide a brief description of the department’s function.
Show on the registration page	Enable this option to display the department on the livechat widget, allowing visitors to select it when initiating a chat.
Email*	Enter an email address to receive messages during offline hours.
Show on offline page	Enable this option to display the department during offline hours.
Send this department's Livechat offline messages to a channel	Select a channel where offline messages should be directed.
Max. number of simultaneous chats	Enter the maximum number of simultaneous chats that agents in this department can attend. The order of priority is agent-level limit > global limit > department limit. If you have set a value for the Max. number of simultaneous chats field at the global level, the agent-level limit takes precedence over the global limit. If you have set a value for the Max. number of simultaneous chats field for departments, the agent-level limit and global limit (if set) take precedence. If these limit settings are not defined, there is no limit to the number of chats an agent can attend when they are available
How long to wait to consider visitor abandonment?	Enter the time (in seconds) to wait before considering visitor abandonment.
Custom message when the room is automatically closed by visitor inactivity	Enter the custom message to be displayed when a room is automatically closed due to visitor abandonment.
Waiting queue message	Enter the waiting queue message that is displayed to visitors when they are waiting to chat with an agent.
List of departments allowed for forwarding (Optional)	Select the list of departments that can receive chats from this department. This list appears to the users if the Show on the registration page option is enabled for those departments. Note that agents must be assigned to the departments.
Fallback department for forwarding	Select a fallback department for forwarding messages.
Unit	Select business units to associate with the department. This field is useful when monitors need to specify a unit for the departments. Keep the following points in mind: Monitors can only select units that they are part of. Once a department has been created, the Unit field cannot be modified. This field is optional if the user creating or editing the department has the `manage-livechat-units` permission. This field is optional if the user has no business units assigned to them. This field is required if the user does not have the `manage-livechat-units` permission and they are assigned to business units.
Request tag(s) before closing the conversation	Enable this option for your agents to set tags for the conversation for searching and tracking purposes.
Allow department to receive forwarded inquiries even when there's no available agents	Enable this setting to ensure that inquiries are forwarded to a department even when no agents are available within that department. This feature is specifically effective with automatic assignment routing methods and does not apply to manual selection.
Business Hour	The field is automatically populated according to the departments assigned to the business hours.
Agents	Assign agents to the department.

Click Save.

Workspaces on the community plan from version 6.0 and above can only create one department. The multiple department feature is exclusively available to workspaces subscribed to any of Rocket.chat's premium plans.
Workspaces with multiple departments on versions less than 6.0 can continue using their departments but can't create a new one until they're subscribed to any of Rocket.chat's premium plans.

Edit Omnichannel department

To modify an existing department:

On the Departments screen, click the kebab (:) right next to the department.
Then, select Edit. A panel is displayed with all the current omnichannel department information you can modify.
Update the department details and click Save.

Archive Omnichannel department

If a department is no longer needed but you want to retain it for future use, you can archive it.

To archive a department:

On the Departments screen, click the kebab (:) menu right next to the department you want to archive.
Select Archive. The department will move to the Archived tab.

To unarchive a department:

Navigate to the Archived tab.
From the list of archived departments, click the kebab menu right next to the department you want to unarchive.
Select Unarchive. The department will be moved back to the list of active departments.

For community workspaces below version 6.0 with multiple departments, archiving a department allows you to temporarily disable it without losing it, which helps you avoid exceeding your department limit.

Delete Omnichannel department

To delete a department:

On the Departments screen, click the kebab (:) menu right next to the department.
Select Delete.

As a workspace administrator, navigate to Administration > Settings > Omnichannel and Enable department removal to allow deleting departments.

Chat routing behaviour based on department

The number of active departments in your workspace influences how incoming chats are assigned in Omnichannel:

No departments: All agents receive incoming chats using a round-robin rule.
One department: All incoming chats are only assigned to agents in that department using a round-robin rule.
Multiple departments: The visitor must select the department to handle their chat during registration.

Rocket.Chat offers omnichannel departments to categorize conversations, enhancing collaboration and timely responses for improved customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

Next steps

Your departments are now ready. The next step in building your Omnichannel structure is to set up Units and define Business Hours.