Departments

Deliver the conversations to the right operators faster by enabling the Departments in your Tidio panel. 

In this article, you'll learn:

• The benefits of using departments
• How to add operators to departments
• How to assign chats to departments via the Pre-Chat Survey
• How to assign chats to departments via flows
• How to reassign conversations to departments

Benefits

Save operators' time

Answer your customers quicker by focusing only on the relevant chats. No more chats' reassigning. 

Relevant conversations only

No more unnecessary interruptions during your work. Let your visitors find the right operator and enjoy less notifications and fewer chats. 

Keep your inbox organized

See only the chats from 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 > Departments section, where you can group your operators into specific departments.   

Click on Add new department, and you'll be asked to set the department's name and add the right operators to it. You can assign as many operators to the department as you need; one operator can be added to multiple departments as well.

Save the settings, and your new department will be created. You can see all your current departments listed along with the associated operators:

You can come back to this view and modify your departments anytime. To edit a specific department - click the edit button on the right. You'll be able to add operators and change the department's name. To delete the department - click on the trash can icon.

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

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

If you deactivate all operators assigned to a department - that department will not be shown to visitors anymore, and you will stop seeing it in your routing rules settings. 

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 conversations to departments

You can decide about how your 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).

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 the Settings > Live Chat > Appearance section.

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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!

 

 

In the Pre-Chat Survey settings, 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:

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

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:

Hit he 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:

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

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:

Assigning via flows

If you feel like your visitors can use a help of a human operator - 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 operator 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 operator. 

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

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 operators knowledgeable in the chosen subject. 

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

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).

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

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

Reassigning conversations to Departments

Manually - from the Conversations section

As an operator, you can reassign your chats, emails, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp conversations to another department similarly as you would reassign a chat to a different operator. 

To reassign the conversation to another department, click on the three dots menu in the upper right corner of the conversation panel and select reassign. 

You’ll see a new window where you can select the department to which the conversation should be transferred. 

As with other transfer methods, the conversation assigned to a chosen department will be displayed as unassigned. Only operators from that specific department will see the conversation and will be able to assign it to themselves.