Routing Work with Omni-Channel Fallback Mode

If the Omni-Channel routing service becomes unavailable, depending on your org setup, you can use Omni-Channel Fallback Model to keep your contact center up and running. With Fallback Mode, an external routing service can route work to agents. Fallback Mode is available with Enhanced Omni-Channel only.

Requirements for Fallback Mode

Before you get started, verify that your environment supports Fallback Mode.

To use Fallback Mode, these requirements must be met.

• Enhanced Omni-Channel must be enabled. 

• Omni-Channel must use the tab-based capacity model to determine agent capacity. Fallback Mode doesn’t support status-based capacity.

• To get the benefits of Fallback Mode, you must use external routing in Omni-Channel.

See Also

• Understand Capacity Models

Enable Fallback Mode

When the Omni-Channel routing service goes offline, log a ticket with Salesforce Customer Support. If your Salesforce org meets the criteria, Salesforce Customer Support can enable Omni-Channel Fallback Mode. After enablement, each agent must refresh the Omni-Channel widget page and set their status to available to continue receiving work in their Omni Inbox.

When Fallback Mode is enabled, Omni-Channel polls work records every 60 seconds to identify new work. Then, the external routing service routes the new work to agents. Voice calls are routed in real time–no polling required.

When the Omni-Channel routing service’s health is back to normal, Salesforce Customer Support contacts you again and disables Fallback Mode. After disablement, agents can refresh the Omni-Channel widget page and set their status to available to continue receiving work. 

See Also

Routing Work When the Omni-Channel Routing Service Is Unavailable

Fallback Mode Limitations

Before setting up and using Fallback Mode, be aware of these limitations. 

Consider these limitations with Omni-Channel Fallback Mode. When Fallback Mode is enabled:

• Fallback Mode supports externally routed work only, such as voice calls.

• Status-based work isn’t supported. For example, if you manually create any status-based work, this work won't be routed until Fallback Mode is disabled. Because standard apps and Omni Mobile depend on status-based work, they also aren’t supported. 

• All Messaging channel types, except Bring Your Own Channel and Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS, aren’t supported. Fallback Mode doesn’t support Messaging for In-App and Web, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Messages for Business, or SMS channels. 

• Omni Supervisor isn’t supported. Because the routing service is unavailable, work isn’t pushed to Omni Supervisor.

• An agent logging in to multiple Omni-Channel sessions on different web browsers isn’t supported. 

• Admin changes, such as changes to presence statuses or routing configurations, won’t be applied automatically while Fallback Mode is enabled. To apply these changes, agents must log off and log back in.

• The ActiveTime field in the AgentWork object isn’t calculated.

• An agent can’t transfer Partner Messaging sessions. 

• If a bot transfers work to an agent, Omni-Channel creates the PSR and agent work records for the transferred work. However, the work isn’t transferred until the routing service is available and Omni-Channel Fallback Mode is disabled.

• After Conversation Work (ACW) isn’t supported. When Fallback Mode is enabled, capacity isn’t released until the agent closes the tab in the service console. Also, the ACW component in the Voice Call and Messaging Session record page doesn’t show the timer. To free their capacity, the agent can click the All Done button.

• An agent can’t raise or lower a flag to get the supervisor’s attention.

• You can’t downgrade from Enhanced Omni-Channel to Standard Omni-Channel. The Enable Enhanced Omni-Channel option in the Omni-Channel settings is disabled.

• If an agent refreshes the Omni-Channel widget page while they’re online or busy, they’re logged out. To continue working, they must log back in.

• In Fallback Mode, the login setting is ignored. The Don’t automatically log agents in to Omni-Channel on a new window or tab option is always applied. 

• The agent’s Omni-Channel session is terminated, and any in-progress work is closed and not rerouted if an agent:

  • Logs in to Omni-Channel on a second browser tab or window

  • Refreshes the Omni-Channel page

  • Logs out of their Omni-Channel session

  • Changes their status to unavailable

  • Closes the tab

For example, if an agent is working on a case, opens a second Omni-Channel instance, and sets her status to be available for cases, the initial session is terminated and the case is closed and not rerouted.