Teams and Routing Management

What are teams?

Teams are groups of agents who handle conversations together. Every conversation routed to a team goes into that team's shared queue. Agents accept conversations from the queue, or AutoRoute assigns them automatically.

Typical team structures:

• By function: Sales, Support, Billing, Technical
• By product line: Product A Team, Product B Team
• By tier: Tier 1 (general), Tier 2 (escalation)
• By region: Americas, EMEA, APAC

Creating a team

1. Go to Teams in the sidebar.

2. Click New Team.

3. Enter a name and optional description.

4. Choose a routing mode:

- Queue — conversations wait in the queue until an agent accepts

- AutoRoute — conversations are automatically assigned to the least-busy available agent

5. Add agents to the team.

6. Click Save.

Adding agents to teams

1. Open the team.

2. Click Add Agents.

3. Search for users and select them.

4. Click Add.

An agent can be on multiple teams and will see all queues they belong to in the messaging workspace.

AutoRoute vs Queue mode

Queue mode is best when agents should choose their own conversations — for example, a sales team where reps own specific accounts.

AutoRoute is best for high-volume support teams — conversations are automatically distributed based on workload so no agent sits idle while another is overwhelmed.

Team availability and capacity

Set a max concurrent conversations limit per agent on the team. When an agent is at capacity, new conversations stay in the queue until capacity opens up.

Agents go offline by setting their status to Away or Offline in the messaging workspace. Offline agents do not receive AutoRoute assignments.

Tier Escalation

Tier Escalation lets you define a priority sequence within a team. Tier 1 agents get the conversation first. If no Tier 1 agent responds within a set time, the conversation automatically escalates to Tier 2, then Tier 3.

This is powerful for:

• Ensuring first-line agents handle routine requests while senior agents only receive escalations
• Guaranteeing SLA coverage without manual intervention
• Replacing manual "pass to supervisor" processes

Setting up tiers

1. Open a team that uses Queue or AutoRoute routing.

2. Go to the Tiers tab.

3. Click Add Tier to create Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.

4. For each tier, add agents.

5. Set the escalation time (in minutes) — how long before the conversation escalates if unanswered.

6. Save.

Example: Tier 1 agents (5 agents) get 3 minutes. If none accept, it escalates to Tier 2 (2 senior agents) for another 3 minutes. If still not accepted, it escalates to Tier 3 (team manager).

Routing history

Every routing decision Velaro makes is logged. To view routing history:

1. Go to Reports > Routing History.

2. Filter by team, date, or conversation.

3. See exactly which rules matched, which teams were tried, and when escalations occurred.

This is useful for debugging unexpected routing behavior.

Business hours per team

Teams can be configured with different business hours. When a team is outside its hours:

• Queue mode: conversations stay in queue but no notifications are sent
• Or route to an after-hours workflow via Rules

To set hours: open the team > Schedule tab > set hours per day.

Restricting historical conversation visibility

By default, agents on a team can see each other's past resolved conversations with a customer in the Customer History tab — useful for handoffs and picking up where a teammate left off. For teams that handle sensitive accounts, an admin can restrict this so agents only see their own historical conversations with a customer, never a teammate's.

To turn this on:

1. Go to Teams and open the team.

2. In Agent Controls, enable Restrict Historical Transcript Visibility.

3. Save.

Team managers and account administrators always see every agent's history on the team regardless of this setting, so oversight and QA are never affected.

This restriction only applies to already-closed (resolved) conversations shown in the Customer History tab. It never affects a live, in-progress conversation — any agent who can be routed a new chat with a customer can always see and handle it, whether or not this setting is on.

Manager-only conversation notes

When adding a note to a conversation, managers and administrators see an additional Manager only option. A note marked this way is visible only to other managers and administrators — never to line agents, even ones who are otherwise able to see the conversation. Use this for escalation context, performance notes, or account details that shouldn't be visible to every agent handling the conversation.

Teams and Rules

Rules are the most flexible way to route conversations to teams. A rule can send conversations to different teams based on:

• Which page the visitor is on
• Time of day or day of week
• Language detected
• Survey answer
• Contact custom field value
• Channel (web vs SMS vs WhatsApp)

Go to Rules > New Rule > Quick Setup for a guided wizard that builds common routing rules in minutes.