Assign tickets automatically with round robin
Share new tickets evenly between available agents with round robin, cap how many open tickets each agent gets and see who receives the next ticket.
Last updated 2 min read
Round robin shares new tickets fairly. Each new ticket goes to the available teammate with the fewest open tickets, so nobody is buried while others wait.
Before you start
- Who can do this: owners and admins.
- Plan: all plans.
- What you need: a team with members. See Create teams.
- Time: about five minutes.
Step by step
- Open Workflows > Ticket assignment ("New tickets go to the Available team member with the fewest open tickets. Away and Offline agents are skipped.").
- Under Auto-assignment, press New assignment rule. The rule builder opens with Auto-assign new tickets: when a ticket is created, if Assignee is empty, Assign round robin in team.
- Pick the team, add conditions if needed and press Save rule.
- Back on Ticket assignment, under Open-ticket limit, switch on Stop assigning when an agent has too many open tickets and set the number of open tickets per agent. Save. A message confirms Limit saved.
- Check Right now to see who would get the next ticket.
What happens next
New tickets that match the rule are assigned as they arrive and the ticket history records it. The Right now list shows each agent's state (Available, Away, Offline) and open tickets.
Who gets the next ticket
- Only Available members of the team are considered.
- Anyone at the open-ticket limit is skipped.
- Of the rest, the person with the fewest open tickets gets it.
"Open and waiting-on-customer tickets both count. Manual assignment is never limited."
Queues
If your workspace has queues, the page lists them under Queues: "Who covers each topic. Leads take escalations; backups only get tickets when nobody else is available."
Tips
- Ask agents to set themselves Away at breaks. See Set agent availability.
- Start with a limit around 20 open tickets per agent and adjust.
- Put the assignment rule below tagging rules, so it can use their tags in conditions.
Troubleshooting
"Nobody can receive tickets right now: everyone is away, offline or at their limit."
Set someone to Available, or raise the limit.
"All assignment rules are off, so new tickets stay unassigned."
Switch an assignment rule on.
"No auto-assignment yet: tickets wait in the inbox until someone takes them."
Create an assignment rule with New assignment rule.
"The limit must be between 1 and 500"
Pick a number in that range.
Frequently asked questions
How does round robin assignment work in Hushdesk?
A rule with Assign round robin in team gives each new ticket to the Available member of that team with the fewest open tickets. Away and Offline agents are skipped, and agents at the open-ticket limit are skipped too. If nobody can receive tickets, the ticket stays unassigned in the inbox.
What is the open-ticket limit?
An optional cap on how many open tickets an agent can hold before round robin stops giving them more, from 1 to 500. Open and waiting-on-customer tickets both count. Manual assignment is never limited, so a lead can still hand someone an extra ticket.
Why are new tickets staying unassigned?
Either no assignment rule is on, everyone in the team is Away or Offline, or everyone is at the open-ticket limit. The Ticket assignment page shows which of these applies under Right now, with a warning when nobody can receive tickets.
Does round robin reassign tickets when an agent goes away?
No. Away and Offline agents keep the tickets they already have; round robin only skips them for new tickets. If someone is off for longer, reassign their open tickets by hand, for example with bulk actions from the Assigned to view.
Can I round robin only chats or only certain tickets?
Yes. Assignment is an ordinary rule, so add conditions, such as Channel is Chat or Tags contains wholesale, and pick the team. Create several rules for different teams and kinds of ticket, each with its own conditions, and order them so the most specific rule comes first.
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Related articles
- Set agent availability (Available, Away, Offline)Mark yourself or a teammate as Available, Away or Offline. Only Available agents receive auto-assigned tickets; others keep the tickets they have.
- Create teams to group your agentsGroup agents into teams so tickets can be routed and reported per team. Create, edit and delete teams from Settings, Teams in a minute.
- Start from a rule templateFive ready-made rules to start from, auto-assign new tickets, close after no reply, tag by keywords, prioritise urgent words and auto-merge follow-ups.
- Assign a ticket and set its team and priorityGive a ticket to a teammate, take it yourself, set a team and priority, move it to a queue and tag it, all from the ticket header and sidebar.
Still stuck?
Chat with the Hushdesk team. A person answers on every plan.