Deliver conversations and tickets to the right agents faster by enabling Departments in your Tidio project.

 

In this article, you'll learn:

Silent walkthrough. Create the Sales department with two agents, add a pre-chat routing rule for the Sales alias, save the Appearance settings, and route the support@yourstore.com mailbox to Sales.

 

 

Benefits

 

Save agents' time

Answer your customers more quickly by focusing only on the relevant chats. No more unnecessary reassigning of chats or tickets. 

 

Relevant conversations only

No more interruptions during your work. Let your visitors find the right agent and enjoy fewer notifications and a lighter workload.

 

Keep your inbox organized

See only those chats and emails that fit into the scope of your expertise. Let other departments handle the rest of the conversations.

 

 

Adding Departments

 

To start using Departments, go to the Settings > Team section:

 

The Settings sidebar has "Team" selected under "GENERAL".

 

 

Once inside, you will see three tabs: Agents, Departments, and Roles. This is where you manage your team of agents and their permissions, and you can also create departments if that feature is available on your Tidio project.

 

Settings > Team on the Departments tab, with the Set routing rules and Create department buttons in the top-right and the department list below it (General plus one more department, with their agents' avatars and the Edit and delete buttons)

 

 

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Please note: Departments are available on the Plus plan and above (see Which upgrades do I need?). On a lower plan, the Departments tab is marked with a paid badge.

 

Click on Create department in the top-right, and in the Add a new department window, set the Department name and pick the right agents under Add agents. You can add as many agents to the department as you need; one agent can be added to multiple departments as well.

 

The "Add a new department" dialog names the department "Sales" and has the "Add agents" dropdown open with available agents.

 

 

Save the settings, and your new department will be created. The first time you do this, Tidio will suggest routing messages to it right away: click on Set routing rules to jump to the routing rules of your pre-chat survey (covered below), or on Add another department. You can get to the routing rules anytime with the Set routing rules button in the top-right of the Departments tab.

You can see all your current departments listed along with the associated agents:

 

The "Departments" tab lists "General" and "Sales", their assigned-agent avatars, and edit and delete controls.

 

 

You can come back to the Departments tab and modify your departments anytime. To edit a specific department - click the Edit button on the right. You'll be able to add agents and change the department's name. To delete the department - click on the trash can icon, and confirm with Yes, delete it.

 

There is no limit on the number of departments your project can have.

 

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Please note: The General department is always listed, and it can't be renamed or deleted - it receives all conversations and tickets that weren't routed to a specific department. It includes all your agents by default. You can still click on Edit to remove (and re-add) agents, but an agent can't be removed from a department if it's their only one.
If an incoming chat has no specified department - the chat will go to the General department. This allows all agents to be notified equally. 

 

If you delete a department, all of its unassigned chats (and tickets) will be automatically transferred to the General department as well. All of the open threads will show the old (deleted) department name. No chats or tickets are deleted during this process.

Deleting a department also deletes all routing rules linked to it, so your customers won't be able to choose it anymore, and any agent who was only in that department is moved to the General department. Flows that transfer conversations to the deleted department will route new conversations to General instead.

 

If you deactivate all agents assigned to a department, it's marked as Deactivated (no active agents inside) in the Departments tab. A routing rule that points to it shows a warning, and incoming messages are redirected to the General department until the department has an active agent again.

 

 

Getting notifications

 

If your Tidio project has Departments enabled, you will be notified only about the conversations from the department to which you are assigned. You'll receive push notifications from the Tidio panel and offline email notifications as well.

 

Please keep in mind that if your email address is added manually in the Forward email notifications section - you will also receive offline email notifications about all conversations from all departments.

 

 

Assigning live conversations to departments

 

You can decide about how your live chat visitors reach specific departments; this can be done either in the Pre-Chat Survey (where the visitor selects a department manually) or via flows (where the visitor is assigned automatically, based on your flow setup). Of course, you can also assign departments manually.

 

 

Assigning via Pre-Chat Survey

 

The Pre-Chat Survey pops up for any visitor who tries to message you via chat for the first time, and it's mandatory to complete then. One of the fields you can add to the survey is the Department field - allowing the visitor to select a department they'd like to contact.

You can modify the Pre-Chat Survey in Settings > Live Chat > Appearance. Access the Content section there to find the survey settings:

 

The Live Chat "Appearance" page has an arrow pointing to the "Content" section beside the widget preview.

 

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Please make sure the Pre-Chat Survey is enabled on your Tidio project in general. Without this, your visitors will be unable to select a department!
 
The "Pre-chat survey" tab is selected in Content settings, with its "Display" toggle switched on.
 

 

 

In the Pre-Chat Survey tab, use the Add new button. This will allow you to add a new field to your survey, and in this case - you want to add the Department field:

 

The pre-chat survey "Add new" menu is open with "Department" highlighted, and an arrow points toward the field choices.

 

 

You will see the new field appear, and you can modify the text that accompanies it:

 

The survey fields include Email and Department, with "Select department" in the department text field and a "Set routing rules (1)" button.

 

 

By clicking on the Set routing rules button, you will be able to configure what departments are available to select, and how they are named in the Pre-Chat Survey. Set these aliases and departments the way you'd like your visitors to see them displayed in the list:

 

The "Routing rules for departments" dialog maps the "Sales" alias to "Sales Assistance" and includes a Technical Support rule and "Confirm" button.

 

 

Hit the Confirm button to save your routing rules for the Pre-Chat Survey. In the Appearance section (where you've been configuring the Pre-Chat Survey), don't forget to save your changes in order for them to take effect!

 

From now on, your visitors will be able to select a department when they try to send you a chat message:

 

The visitor pre-chat survey asks for an email and department, with a newsletter checkbox and "Send" button.

 

 

Now, you'll see the chats and get notified only from the departments you are assigned to. When a visitor is transferred, the agents assigned to the department will see the incoming chat in the Unassigned folder (while other departments will not be notified):

 

The Inbox "Unassigned" folder contains an incoming live chat labelled "Technical Support".

 

 

You'll also see a label under each incoming chat, with the department name on it. The department transfer details will also be included in the conversation itself, along with timestamps:

 

A timestamped notice in the chat says the conversation has been transferred to the Sales department.

 

 

Assigning via flows

 

If you feel like your visitors can use a help of a human agent - you can also assign your visitors' conversations with the flow to specific departments by using the Reassign to a Department node inside your flow.  Your visitors can still continue with the flow, but the agent will be notified and can join the conversation. 

 

The Reassign to a Department node allows you to specify the department to which the chat will be transferred to continue the conversation with an agent. 

 

Inside the node, you can select an already existing department or add a completely new department. 

 

The "Reassign to a Department" node has "Sales" selected and offers "Add new department", with a note about fallback routing after deletion.

 

 

Let’s see how it works on an example. 

 

Example

Imagine a user coming to your website with a particular goal in mind. You can let the visitors choose a topic they would like to discuss by using one of the decision nodes, and thanks to the Reassign to a Department node, it will be transferred to the correct department with the agents knowledgeable in the chosen subject. 

 

Take a look at how the flow looks in our flow editor: 

 

The flow starts when a visitor clicks the chat icon, branches by quick reply into technical or sales department reassignment, then sends a chat message.

 

 

In this example, the visitor gets two options: "I am having technical issues" (which transfers them to the Technical Support department) and "I want to speak with Sales" (which transfers them to Sales Assistance).

 

The widget asks "What do you need help with today?" and offers "I am having technical issues" and "I want to speak with Sales".

 

 

Once they select what they need, the flow will continue to the next action (transferring to the correct department, followed by a simple message):

 

The chat widget shows the visitor choosing "I want to speak with Sales" and the flow replying, "Alright, somebody will assist you right away!".

 

 

The department will be notified by the flow, which will be visible for them in the Unassigned folder, along with the visitor's choice:

 

The Inbox Unassigned folder contains conversations with the visitors' selected replies and Sales department labels.

 

 

As always, the flow interaction and transfer details will be included in the conversation itself, along with timestamps:

 

The conversation history shows the visitor choosing Sales, a timestamped transfer to the Sales department, and the flow's confirmation message.

 

Departments work in your flows in two more ways: the Visitor selects department trigger starts a flow when a visitor chooses a department in the pre-chat survey, and the Department status condition checks whether any agents in the selected department are online - so the flow can follow a different path when nobody from that team is available.

 

 

Routing emails from a mailbox

 

Emails can reach the right team, too. Once you have at least one department besides General, head over to Settings > Email > Mailbox. Next to each verified mailbox, you'll find the Department column - choose the department the mailbox is routing to. Agents from the selected department will have access to email messages from this mailbox:

Settings > Email > Mailbox with two verified mailboxes listed, and the Department column showing "is routing to" with a department dropdown open next to one of them (General, Sales, Technical Support)

 

 

Assigning manually

 

As an agent, you can reassign your chats, emails, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp conversations to another department - similarly as you would reassign a chat to a different agent. This also applies to any tickets (emails) in your Tidio inbox.

 

To reassign the conversation (or ticket) to another department, click on the Assignee button at the top of the conversation. You will see the available departments listed above the available agents:

 

The Assignee menu lists General and Sales under Departments above the agents, with Sales highlighted and an arrow pointing to the menu.

 

 

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The departments will be visible on the list only after being added first. See how to add a new department. 

 

Alternatively, you can click on the three dots to the right of the conversation itself, inside the folder - and use the Assign (or Reassign, if the chat/ticket is already assigned somewhere) option there:

 

The conversation's three-dot menu is circled, with "Assign" highlighted among the available actions.

 

 

You’ll then see a new window where you can select the department (or agent) which the conversation should be transferred to:

 

The "Reassign the conversation" dialog has its dropdown open, with General and Sales departments above the agents and Sales highlighted.

 

 

As with other transfer methods, the conversation (or ticket) assigned to a chosen department will be displayed in the Unassigned folder. Only agents from that specific department will see the message and will be able to assign it to themselves. 

 

The Inbox Unassigned folder shows a live chat labeled Sales.

 

For more on assigning and reassigning, see Assigning conversations to agents.

 

 

Further reading