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Setting Up Departments & Team Groups

Summary​

As organizations expand beyond a single customer support desk, structuring staff into functional Departments and specialized Team Groups becomes essential. In Wabixo, departments and groups organize your staff roster into logical teams (such as Frontline Support, Enterprise Sales, Billing, and Technical Escalations).

By defining hierarchical groups, configuring assignment algorithms (Round-Robin vs Sequential), and assigning individual member Shift Schedules, your organization ensures incoming customer inquiries are instantly routed to the right on-duty specialists without manual triage delays.

Departments and groups are managed under Settings → Department & Group (/dashboard/settings?tab=team_groups).

Organizational Structure: Departments vs Groups​

Wabixo provides a two-tier hierarchy to model your real-world team structure:

  1. Departments: Top-level corporate divisions representing broad business functions (e.g., Customer Service, Sales & Commercial, Finance & Billing).
  2. Team Groups: Specialized operational units nested directly inside departments (e.g., Tier-1 Triage and VIP Escalations nested under Customer Service).
    • Team groups can also be nested hierarchically (parent and child groups) to create tiered escalation paths.
    • Each group contains assigned staff members and can have its own assignment distribution method.

1. Creating & Managing Departments​

  1. In the top navigation bar, click Setting (/dashboard/settings).
  2. In the left menu under Team & Routing, select Department & Group.
  3. Select the Departments tab.
  4. Click + Add Department.
  5. Enter a clear departmental title (e.g., Customer Care, Enterprise Sales, or Accounts).
  6. Click Save Department.
  7. The department appears in your directory, displaying the total count of assigned groups and members.

2. Creating Hierarchical Team Groups​

Once departments are established, create targeted groups within them:

  1. Under Department & Group, switch to the Team Groups tab.
  2. Click + Add Group.
  3. Configure the group settings:
    • Group Name: A descriptive name for the operational unit (e.g., Inbound Lead Qualifiers or Weekend Support Desk).
    • Description: Summary of the group's scope and responsibilities.
    • Parent Department: Select the parent department this group belongs to (e.g., Sales).
    • Parent Group (Optional): If this is an escalation or sub-team, select a parent group to create a hierarchical nested path (e.g., Sales / Enterprise / Tier-2).
    • Assignment Mode:
      • Round-Robin: Distributes new incoming conversations evenly across all eligible group members, balancing chat workloads fairly.
      • Sequential: Routes conversations in a fixed, ordered sequence based on member priority.
  4. Click Save Group.

3. Adding Members & Configuring Shift Schedules​

To ensure customer conversations are only assigned to agents who are currently on the clock, Wabixo allows Administrators to configure shift windows per group member:

  1. In the Team Groups directory, locate the target group and click Manage Members.
  2. Click + Add Member and select a staff member from your team list.
  3. Configure Individual Shift Hours (Optional):
    • Shift Start: The time the agent's working hours begin (e.g., 09:00 AM).
    • Shift End: The time the agent's working hours conclude (e.g., 06:00 PM).
  4. Click Save Member.

How Shift Timing Governs Routing:​

When an automated routing rule or bot action directs a conversation to a team group:

  • Wabixo checks the current time against each member's shift schedule.
  • Only agents whose shift is currently active and whose presence status is Online (not marked Busy) will be assigned the conversation.
  • If all group members are currently outside their shift window, the conversation triggers the configured group fallback rule (such as escalating to an after-hours queue or sending an automated away message).

4. Connecting Groups to Automated Routing​

Configured team groups integrate across Wabixo's automation tools:

  • Auto-Assignment Escalation Chains: In Auto-Assignment, configure primary and secondary groups with timeout thresholds (e.g., if a chat sits unassigned in Frontline Support for 5 minutes, automatically escalate to Senior Support).
  • Keyword Action Triggers: In Keyword Actions, automatically assign conversations matching specific words (e.g., "INVOICE" or "PAYMENT") directly to the Billing Group.
  • Bot Builder Action Blocks: In the Visual Bot Builder, connect button choices (such as [Sales Inquiry]) directly to an Assignment Action targeting the Sales Team Group.

Customer Troubleshooting & FAQs​

Problem: A conversation assigned to a group is not reaching any agent​

  • Why it happens:
    1. All agents in the group are currently outside their configured shift hours (shift_start to shift_end).
    2. All agents in the group are marked Offline or Busy in their header presence toggle.
    3. Every online member of the group has reached their maximum active chat capacity limit.
  • How to fix it: Verify the agent shift schedules in Department & Group, ensure agents are marked Online in their headers, and confirm active chat volumes in the Team Inbox.

Problem: Can a single team member belong to multiple departments or groups?​

  • Yes. Staff members can be added to multiple team groups (e.g., an agent can belong to both General Support and Escalation Desk). You can configure different shift timings for the agent in each respective group.

Problem: What is the difference between Round-Robin and Sequential assignment modes?​

  • Round-Robin actively balances concurrent active chat loads by routing the next inquiry to the agent with the fewest active conversations or longest idle period.
  • Sequential always attempts to assign to the first agent listed in the group; only if that agent is offline or at maximum capacity will the inquiry cascade to the second agent in order.