Groups
What this domain covers
Groups tests how Freshdesk organizes agents for routing, visibility, business hours, and automatic assignment. Groups are the bridge between a ticket’s needs and the agents who can work it.
Core rules and concepts
- A group is a set of agents with a name and optional group email, business hours, and automatic ticket assignment settings. Agents can belong to multiple groups and have one default group.
- Group membership supports Group ticket scope: an agent with Group scope sees tickets in groups they belong to, not every group.
- Automatic assignment can use round robin, load balanced, skill-based, or IntelliAssign depending on plan. The group-level toggle must be enabled for the method to apply.
- Dispatch’r usually routes a ticket to a group first; the group’s auto-assignment then chooses an agent. Manual assignment overrides the automatic choice.
- Group email addresses can create tickets directly into a group, but they must not conflict with the main support address or create forwarding loops.
- Group performance reports compare volume, response, and resolution across teams, but they depend on accurate group membership.
Worked example
A company runs Tier 1 and Tier 2 support. Dispatch’r routes all new tickets to Tier 1; Tier 1 agents escalate by changing the group to Tier 2. Tier 2 has skill-based assignment enabled and a separate business-hours calendar for follow-the-sun coverage. If Tier 2 agents were not actually members of the Tier 2 group, Group-scoped agents would lose visibility after the handoff. The reasoning: routing changes the group, visibility follows membership, and auto-assignment only works inside the group.
Traps that cost marks
- Adding an agent to a group but leaving their role scope Restricted, so they still cannot see group tickets.
- Assuming group email and support email are interchangeable.
- Deleting a group without planning where its open tickets should go.
- Enabling auto-assignment without enough available agents, causing repeated reassignment.
- Forgetting that a default group affects new ticket ownership and reporting.