Why are conversations assigned outside of hours, even if I have the "assign outside of hours" option disabled?
The article explains why conversations may be assigned outside of business hours, even if the "Assign outside of hours" option is disabled.
🤔 Frequently asked question or initial context
Sometimes, even if you have defined a specific schedule for your groups and have disabled the Assign outside of hours option, you may notice that conversations are still being assigned to agents outside of the set hours. This often causes confusion, especially when testing or expecting the system to keep conversations on hold until the next business hour.
This behavior is not due to a system error, but rather to how the schedule settings interact with the real-time status of your agents.
In this article, it is mentioned that if a conversation comes in outside of business hours but there are still agents in an assignable state in the corresponding group, the conversation will be assigned to that agent. This explains why, even though the group has a set schedule and the 'Assign outside of hours' option is disabled, conversations are assigned to agents who are online.
🛠️ Troubleshooting: step by step
Check the schedule configured in the group Go to the Groups section and make sure the business hours are correctly defined.
Go to the Groups section and make sure the business hours are correctly defined.
Check if the "Assign outside of hours" option is disabled Within the group settings, make sure this option is disabled.
Within the group settings, make sure this option is disabled.
Check the status of the agents at the time of the conversation If an agent was online and in an assignable state (i.e., available to receive conversations), the system will assign the chat to them, even outside of hours.
If an agent was online and in an assignable state (i.e., available to receive conversations), the system will assign the chat to them, even outside of hours.
✅ Solution
Put agents in a "non-assignable" state outside of hours If you do not want conversations to be assigned outside of hours, it is essential that agents are in a "non-assignable" state when they are not on duty.
Put agents in a "non-assignable" state outside of hours
If you do not want conversations to be assigned outside of hours, it is essential that agents are in a "non-assignable" state when they are not on duty.
📝 Additional notes
Schedule rules are applied at the group level, but have no effect if an agent within that group is in a state available to receive conversations.
This is intentional to ensure that if someone is active, they can respond to the customer without friction.
💡 Practical example or use case
Scenario: The Sales group has business hours from 8:00 to 17:00, and the Assign outside of hours option is disabled.
However, Francisca, a member of that group, logged in at 18:30 and left her status as online. A customer wrote at 18:35, and the conversation was automatically assigned to her.
Diagnosis: Although the group's schedule had already ended, the system detected that Francisca was in an assignable state, therefore, it delivered the conversation to her.
Applied solution: Francisca was advised to change her status to non-assignable (such as offline) when her shift ends, to avoid receiving chats outside of working hours.
☎️ When to contact support?
Contact support if:
The system assigns conversations to agents outside of hours when there is no one in an assignable state.
You cannot identify why conversations are being unexpectedly assigned to certain agents or groups.