# Teams & Routing

Teams decide who owns a ticket. Routing decides how new tickets reach the right team and person automatically. This article is for admins. Open **Helpdesk → Teams**.

## Support Teams

A team is a named group of staff users that tickets can be routed to and assigned within. Create one per functional area (e.g. "Front Line", "Billing", "Tier 2").

To create a team:

1. Click **New team** and name it.
2. Add **members** — the staff who work its tickets.
3. Pick an **assignment strategy** (below).
4. Optionally set routing defaults and a tenant-default flag.

## Assignment Strategies

- **Manual** — new tickets are routed to the team but left **unassigned**, so anyone on the team can pick them up from the Unassigned queue. Best for small teams that self-organize.
- **Round-robin** — new tickets are assigned to team members in rotation, spreading load evenly. The rotation cursor is remembered, so it keeps turning correctly even across busy periods.

You can always override the automatic choice by reassigning a ticket by hand.

## How a New Ticket Is Routed

When a ticket is created, the helpdesk picks its team in this order:

1. An **explicit team** set on the ticket (e.g. by an agent or an automation) — always wins.
2. A team whose **default channels** include the ticket's channel (e.g. all `email` tickets → the "Front Line" team).
3. A team whose **default types** include the ticket's type (e.g. all `billing` tickets → the "Billing" team).
4. The tenant **default team**.
5. If none match, the ticket stays **unrouted** in the shared triage queue.

Once a team is chosen, its assignment strategy decides the individual owner.

### Setting routing defaults

On each team, set **Default for channels** and **Default for ticket types** to build simple routing rules without a separate rules engine. For anything more sophisticated (route by tag, company tier, keyword, sentiment), use an **Orchestration** on the `crm.ticket_created` trigger with the **helpdesk-ticket → assign** action.

## Reassigning

Any agent with edit permission can reassign a ticket from the ticket's **Assignee** picker. Assigning an unowned **New** ticket moves it to **Open** and alerts the new owner — in their notification bell, and by email if they have turned that on. See [Notifications & CSAT](/help/helpdesk/notifications) for every staff alert and who receives it. Under each team, the Teams page shows how many of its people ticket alerts actually reach — a member without access to tickets is skipped. You can also assign a ticket to an **AI agent** as its handler.

## The Unassigned Queue

Tickets with no owner appear under the **Unassigned** scope tab on the ticket list. Make triaging this queue part of someone's routine (or use round-robin so it rarely fills). Reports flags the current unassigned count so it doesn't grow unnoticed.

## Tips

- Start with **one team, manual assignment** — add teams and rules only when volume justifies them.
- Use **round-robin** the moment "who's taking this?" becomes a recurring question.
- Keep a **default team** set so nothing ever falls through the cracks.