How to Setup Omni Channel in Salesforce?

In Salesforce Service Cloud, we have Omni-Channel that helps service agents in handling live chats, working on cases, and replying to emails.

Omni-Channel in Salesforce helps us to assign work to the right agents automatically through routing, based on their availability, skills, or workload. For example, we can define the capacity of a case and the capability or skill of a service agent. Then, the case will be auto-assigned to the suitable agent with routing in Omni-channel.

In this blog, I will explain how to set up Omni-Channel in Salesforce from scratch. In addition, I will also explain how to automate the case management through Salesforce Omni-Channel.

Set up Omni-Channel in Salesforce

To set up the Omni-Channel in your Salesforce org, go to the Setup page and follow the steps below.

1. All the configuration of Omni channel will done in the Service Cloud so first navigate to the Service setup.

2. On the service setup, go to the quick-find box and search, then select Omni-Channel.

3. In the Omni-Channel settings, select the checkbox Enable Omni Channel and click Save.

With this, we have enabled the Omni-Channel in Salesforce. Now, we need to set up a service channel for the Omni-Channel.

Set up Service Channel

In Salesforce Omni-Channel, a Service Channel defines how different types of work, such as Cases, Chats, Leads, etc., are routed to agents.

In this example, we will create the Service Channel to manage the case assignment. Now, follow the steps below to create a service channel for the case object.

1. In the quick find box, search and select Service Channel. It will only appear when Omni-Channel is enabled.

2. In the Service channel setup, click on the New button.
3. In this step, enter the basic Information such as the Service channel name and developer name.

After this, select the Case object and click on the Save button.

With this, we have created the service channel that will take the cases, and these cases will be assigned to the users or queries through routing.

Setup Routing Configuration

In Salesforce Omni-Channel, the routing configuration determines how tasks such as chats, cases, and leads are routed to agents. It defines how, when, and to whom the work is assigned within a service team.

For example, no agents are currently available or working on existing cases, so the new cases in the pipeline will wait in the routing configuration. The case will later be assigned to the agent based on their capability and case capacity.

Follow the steps below to set up routing in the Salesforce Omni-channel.

1. On the service setup page, search for ‘Routing Configurations‘ under the heading ‘Omni-Channel‘.

2. In the Routing Configuration details, go to the Basic information section and enter the Routing Configuration Name and Developer Name.

3. Then, in the section Routing Settings we have to set the Routing Priority. It determines the order in which work items across your Omni-Channel queues get pushed to your agents. Lower-priority items are pushed first.

Here, I have selected the Priority as 1.

4. After this, we have to set the Routing Model that decides how to evenly distribute work items to agents.  

Here, I have selected the Routing Model as Least Active; this will assign tasks or cases to the agents having the least work.

5. In the section Work Item Size, we need to define the capacity of work. For example, if a work capacity is two and an agent’s capability is 10, then they can handle five tasks.

For better understanding, I have set the Units of Capacity as one.

At last, click on the Save button.

Check out: Status-Based Capacity Model in Salesforce Omni Channel

Create a Queue

Now, we will create a queue to connect the routing configuration with the users. The work will be assigned to the users in the queue through configuration.

Follow the steps below to create a queue.

1. On the service setup, search and select queues in the Quick Find box. Then, in the queues setup, click on the New button.

2. Enter the Label for the queue, then the Queue Name will be auto-filled according to the entered label.

Then, in the Routing Configuration, select the route that we have created.

3. Add the users to the queue and click on the Save button.

Now, the queue will take the cases from the routing and assign them to the user in the queue.

Setup the Presence Configuration for Omni Channel

In Salesforce Omni-Channel, Presence Configurations determine how much work an agent can handle and the Omni-Channel features they can access. With this, the agents can accept or decline the work.

They also define the different presence statuses agents can use to indicate their availability, such as “Available,” “Offline,” or custom statuses. 

Follow the steps below to create a presence configuration.

1. On the Service setup page, search for and select ‘Presence configurations’ under the Omni Channel.

Then, in the setup of the presence configuration, click the New button.

2. Enter the Presence Configuration Name and then select the capacity of work. Here, I have selected the capacity as 10.

For example, if the work capacity is 10 and the agent capacity is two, then he can handle five cases.

After this, click on the Save button.

Setup Presence Status for Omni Channel

In Omnichannel, presence status indicates a service agent’s availability to handle work tasks. It’s like a real-time indicator of their current state, whether they are available, busy, away, offline, or in another defined state. 

This status helps the work distribution system decide where to route incoming task requests.

Follow the steps below to set up the presence status of service agents in Omni-Channel.

1. On the service setup page, search and then select Presence Statuses under the Omni-Channel.

2. To show the user as online, we create an available status. For this, click on New, then name the Label as Currently Online. Select the status as Online.

Add the created service Channel serviceCase to the selected channels and click Save.

3. Create another status to show the service agent as offline. Enter the Label as ‘Currently Offline‘ and select the status as ‘Busy‘.

Add Presence Status to Profiles

To make the service agent’s status visible to the users, we need to add the presence status to the profiles. For this, follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to the profile setup and select the profile from which you have added users in the queue. In this setup, I have chosen the System admin profile.

2. In the profile, drag down to the section Enabled Service Presence Status Access and click Edit.

3. Select both the online and offline status and move them to Enabled Service Presence Statuses. At last, click on the Save button.

Without this settings the green line and red light won’t appear to show the agent’s availability.

With this, we have enabled the service presence status of the agents in the Omni Channel.

Add Omni-Channel to the UI

At last, we will add Omni-Channel to the UI of the Salesforce Service Console. For this, follow the steps below.

1. Click on the settings icon and select Service setup.

2. In the Quick find, search, then select App Manager.

3. In the App Manager, click on the dropdown of Lightning Service Console and select Edit.

4. In the App Settings, select the Utility Items. Then click on the button Add Utility Item and select the Omni-Channel.

5. At last, click Save to apply the changes.

Now, when you go back to the Service Console, you will see the Omni-channel at left corner of the window.

Test the Working of Omni Channel

In the configuration settings of this Omni-channel, we have created the service channel for Case object. For this, we have defined routing to assign cases to users in the queue.

To test the working of omni channel, we will create a case and then assign it to the queue routed in the omni channel.

If the routing is configured correctly the assigned case will appear in the Omni-channel.

So, let’s create a case with all the required details and save it.

Now, go to the Case details and change the ownership from the current user to the queue that we have configured in the omni channel.

As we select the owner as the queue configured in the omni channel, it will show the case the Omni-channel.

This way, we can set up and configure the routing of Omni-Channel in Salesforce Service Cloud.

I hope the above steps helped you understand how to set up and configure Omni-Channel in Salesforce Service Cloud, from enabling Omni-Channel to routing cases efficiently to the right agents.

By enabling Omni-Channel, the support agents and support team can save time, improve productivity, and deliver a better customer experience by making sure work is automatically assigned based on agent availability and capacity.

You may also like to read:

• Setup External Objects in Salesforce
• Setup Skill Based Routing in Salesforce Omni Channel
• Enable Field History Tracking in Salesforce
• Setup Support Processes for Utilization Management in Salesforce

Abhijeet

Abhijeet is a skilled Salesforce developer with experience in developing and integrating dashboards, data reports, and Salesforce applications. He is also skilled at optimizing processes and flow automation processes, coding, and executing complex project architecture. Read more about us | LinkedIn Profile.