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Manage presence in Customer Service

Applies to: Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Dynamics 365 Contact Center—standalone only

Presence status indicates whether customer service representatives (service representatives or representatives) are available to take work. This article explains how to view and update presence status and how capacity affects it.

Screenshot of representative presence status.

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for presence status to load correctly are as follows:

View out-of-the-box presence statuses

View your presence status on the navigation bar. Select the presence icon to open the presence dialog and update your presence.

  • Available presence status. Available
  • Appear away presence status. Appear away
  • Busy presence status. Busy
  • Do not disturb presence status. Don't disturb
  • Offline presence status. Offline
  • Inactive presence status. Inactive

Note

  • Inactive is a special status that isn't available for the representative to select. The system sets this status automatically when representatives miss notifications.
  • You can't modify or delete the default presence statuses.

Understand presence status elements

A presence status consists of two elements:

  • Base presence: The base presence status indicates a representative's status. The unified routing engine distributes work items to representatives according to their base statuses. All default statuses except Inactive are base statuses.
  • Presence text: The text associated with a specific base status, which is visible to representatives.

Custom presence status

Apart from the out-of-the-box presence statuses, you can create custom presence statuses for your representatives to use. The system matches the custom presence status to a base presence.

For example, if representatives on your team need to attend training, you can create a custom "Away–In Training" presence status. Ensure each custom presence status maps to a base presence that matches its meaning. If you map an available custom presence to offline base status, the application treats it as Offline but representatives see the Available icon.

You can view custom presence statuses in Omnichannel real-time analytics and Omnichannel historical analytics reports.

Learn more in Configure custom presence status.

Default presence

Specify a default presence for representatives when they sign in to Copilot Service workspace. Depending on the admin configuration, default presence allows the representatives to immediately start the work or have some time before they start work. If you don't configure any default presence, the application sets Available as the default.

Learn more in Configure default presence for representatives.

How presence is calculated when representatives sign in

When the representative signs in to Copilot Service workspace, the system sets the representative's presence based on the following factors:

  • Default presence configuration
  • Representative capacity

If active work items are equal to zero, then system sets the presence to default presence. If the representative has active work items and their default presence is Do not disturb, Away, or Offline, then the system sets the presence to default. Otherwise, it sets the presence based on capacity use.

For custom presence status, the system considers the base status for calculating the presence.

How presence status is updated

The representative presence status is updated in the following two ways:

  • Manually: The representative can view and set the presence manually by selecting the presence icon on the navigation bar. In the Set Your Presence Status dialog, select a status from the list. The list shows the following standard presence statuses:

    • Available
    • Appear away
    • Busy
    • Don't disturb
    • Offline

    The representatives might also see other presence statuses that you configured for them.

    Screenshot of the Set your presence status dialog showing the list of statuses.

When the representative sets the presence manually as Do not disturb, Offline, or Away, the system doesn't change the presence when they accept or close a work item. Otherwise, on accept or close, the system calculates the representative's presence based on capacity use.

  • Automatically: When representatives start work, the system sets their presence status based on their capacity as follows:

    • When capacity is fully used, presence is set to Do not disturb.

    • When capacity is partially used, presence is set to Busy.

    • When capacity is unused, presence is set to Available.

    • If representatives already have 10 sessions open, which is the maximum multisession limit, and a new work item comes in, then the presence is set to Do not disturb.

    • When representatives miss a notification and the missed notifications setting is enabled, the presence changes to Inactive.

    • When representatives reject a work notification and the representative reject notification setting is enabled, the presence changes to Do not disturb.

      When new work comes from live chat and voice channels, to stop assigning the work to representatives who miss or reject notifications, don't include Inactive or Do not disturb in the allowed presence setting of the workstream.

    • If the representative is disconnected, the system captures the current presence status and immediately sets the status as Offline. If the representative signs back in within 2.5 minutes, the system restores the presence status. If the representative doesn't sign back in within 2.5 minutes, the system recalculates presence. The following actions by the representative are considered for disconnection:

      • Closes the Copilot Service workspace browser tab, or the browser puts the tab to sleep.
      • Signs out of Copilot Service workspace.
      • Closes the application or signs out of the device.
      • Experiences internet disruption.

Note

Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome can put inactive tabs to sleep to save memory. When the Copilot Service workspace tab goes to sleep, the system treats this action as a disconnection. As a result, a presence status that the representative set manually, such as Appear away during a break, can change. To prevent this action, add your Copilot Service workspace URL to the list of sites that the browser keeps active. Follow the browser documentation for the setting. Administrators can use browser policies to apply this setting to all representatives.

How capacity affects presence

Presence changes automatically based on capacity use. The following rules apply:

  • If available capacity is negative, presence is set to Do not disturb.

  • If representative has both capacity units and profile, the system waits for both to be exhausted to mark the representative as Do not disturb. The system checks only when capacity units are configured, even if they aren't being used.

  • If the representative has multiple capacity profiles and none are fully used, the system waits until the capacity profiles are consumed to mark the representative as Do not disturb. If one of the profiles is blocking, then the system waits for the blocking profile to be used to mark the representative as Do not disturb.

  • If you set the unit-based capacity for the representative to zero, their presence changes to Do not disturb. Even if the representative manually sets the presence to Available, it switches back to Do not disturb after they accept or close a conversation.

How manual and automatic presence updates work together

When representatives manually set their presence to Available or Busy, the status persists until they accept a new conversation or close an in-progress conversation. The system recalculates the new presence based on capacity utilization. The currently assigned work items remain assigned.

However, if the representative has manually set one of the following presence statuses, the status persists until the representative signs out or changes it manually.

  • Offline
  • Away
  • Do not disturb

How presence is updated on transfer of a work item

After the transfer of a work item is successful, the capacity is released for the original representative and blocked for the receiving representative. The presence of the representatives changes according to their respective capacity use.

Use presence in routing

Define allowed presence in workstream settings

Allowed presence is a workstream setting that specifies which presence statuses a representative much have to be assigned work.

Use presence in assignment rules

The default assignment methods use the presence that you configured in the allowed presence setting of the workstreams to route to the most suitable representative for an incoming work item. You can also define conditions on presence in the assignment rules of custom assignment methods. Learn more in Assignment methods in unified routing.

View analytics for presence status

Use the Agents report in Omnichannel real-time analytics dashboard that provides information on representative presence history.

Use the drill-down views in Agent dashboard in Omnichannel historical analytics dashboard to view the information on representatives' presence and custom presence statuses.

FAQ on presence
View notifications
Introduction to the representative interface
Manage sessions
Manage applications
View the communication panel for conversations
Monitor real-time customer sentiment

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