# Understand routing > Routing allows you to organize and collect conversations and route them to your agents using a set of criteria defined in queue rules. Source: https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/queues-routing-overview-ry92_wFOX Last updated: 2026-06-22T23:09:45.277Z Routing allows you to organize and collect conversations or tasks and route them to your agents using a set of criteria defined in [queue rules](https://help.kustomer.com/queue-rules-HyLuJ1KHX). Routing conversations allows you to: * Accurately calculate the estimated wait time * Track and monitor user availability * Measure team capacity against inbound volume for scalability * Route custom tasks to teams **Who can access this feature?** **User types** Admins can access the Routing page. ### In this article * [Key terminology](#Terminology) * [Kustomer routing model](#Routing) * [Conversation model](#Conversation) * [Queues](#Queues) * [Rules](#Rules) * [Skill-based routing](#skills) * [Tasks](#tasks) * [User statuses](#Statuses) * [Routing profile](#Profiles) * [Reporting & metrics](#Reporting) * [The user experience](#UserExperience) ### Key terminology To better understand routing, the following terms must be defined: * **Queues** Buckets, or containers, that organize inbound conversations from newest to oldest. Conversations in a queue are then routed to available agents based on queue rules. See [Create and configure queues](https://help.kustomer.com/configure-queues-BkCVqbJ9L). * **Rules** Customer, conversation, message, or company criteria that determine what queue a conversation should be in. See [Create queue rules](https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/queue-rules-HyLuJ1KHX). * **Capacity**  The amount of conversations an agent can have in their inbox. This limit is based on their team assignment. * **Weight** The total space allocation a conversation takes up in an agent's inbox.  * **Routing profiles** Team-based routing configurations that determine what queues a team can access. See [Team routing profiles](https://help.kustomer.com/routing-profiles-H1tz3ITv7). * **Skills** Route conversations to agents based on a preferred skill set or expertise. * **Tasks** Route custom tasks to teams to enhance team productivity * **Third-party voice queues** Route phone calls to the selected team enabled outside of Kustomer, such as Amazon Connect. * **User statuses** The states an agent can be in to determine whether they are available or unavailable for routed conversations. See [User statuses](https://help.kustomer.com/user-statuses-H1qvvNnD7). * **Router** The logic that takes unassigned conversations from a queue and assigns them to available agents under capacity. **Note:** Voice conversations are routed to queues based on IVR (Customer Voice Assistant) configuration. The router does not evaluate or assign conversations while callers are interacting with the IVR. Routing will only begin after the IVR completes, and an IVR action is executed. For example: 1. A caller presses a keypad option triggering an IVR action (in this case, routing the call to the billing team).  2. Once that IVR action is executed, the IVR completes and the routing instruction is sent.  3. Only after this point does the router evaluate the conversation and assign it to an available agent. Each phone number can have its own IVR, and IVR actions determine which queue and team a call is routed to. Queue routing for Voice is not handled by standard queue rules alone. ****Important:**** Setting the ****Assigned Team**** on a conversation through a business rule does not trigger automatic conversation routing. To route conversations automatically to available agents, set the ****Queue**** instead. Agents receive routed conversations only if they are members of a team assigned to that queue, are logged in, have their status set to ****Available****, and have available capacity. ### Kustomer routing model The following diagram illustrates how the queue system works with our platform in relation to workflows, conversation metrics, and routing logic. ![](https://cdn.kustomerhostedcontent.com/media/570fad9d9001bc1000163b28/a5cbfe0ce95906d12bf6a2f7bb22cc57.png) ### Conversation model When a conversation is created, it will first go through your configured workflows. Once that is complete, the conversation is passed through queue rules to determine which queue it should be in. ![](https://cdn.kustomerhostedcontent.com/media/570fad9d9001bc1000163b28/0b48168025f2ee9a540f1a6030c33255.png) Before a conversation, such as chat or voice, reaches Kustomer, we can track when they were initiated and calculate IVR time. This is the time the user spends in the IVR tree.  For chat, this is the time the customer spends replying to the conversational assistant.  For Voice, it is important to note that routing is blocked until: * The caller is done interacting with the IVR (Customer Voice Assistant)  * IVR processing has completed.  Once IVR finishes and assigns an action (such as routing to a queue), the conversation enters the routing and queueing flow.  Once queued, we track the time the customer spends in the queue as "wait time". ### Queues With queues, you can automatically route inbound conversations from any channel to agents within Kustomer. Queues use a set of advanced rules with access to customer and conversation data to manage where each inbound conversation is routed. Once assigned to a queue, an inbound conversation will wait for an agent to become available. Routing can be customized for each team, allowing you to determine how much work they receive and the queues for which they are responsible. Settings help you control whether agents are required to accept conversations and when a queued conversation will time out if it is not accepted. You can use routing to: * Route inbound chats to a chat team. * Route email from VIP customers to a VIP team. * Route social messages to a social team. ### Rules Conversations will always run through workflows before being sent to the [queue rules](https://help.kustomer.com/queues-and-rules-HyLuJ1KHX) logic. This means that you can use workflows to set conversation, message, or customer properties that can be used by the queue rules to determine where it will be routed. For example, you can have a workflow that adds a tag to a conversation with an order status of "return request". A queue rule can use that tag to ensure their emails are placed in the Returns queue. This helps ensure you have the most flexibility when routing conversations to agents. **Note:** Unlike searches, conversations can only exist in one queue either by queue rules or manual assignment. ### **Routing behavior for multi-channel conversations** When a conversation spans multiple channels, Kustomer routes the conversation based on the ****primary channel**** — the channel on which the conversation was first created. For example, if a customer starts a conversation over voice and an agent later adds email or chat to the same conversation, the conversation continues to route through the voice queue. Adding a new channel to an existing conversation does not change which queue rules apply. Keep this in mind when you design queue rules: * Build queue rules around the primary channel if your team organizes queues by channel type. * If you need different routing for follow-up channels, create a workflow that reassigns the conversation to a different queue when a new channel is added. ### **Prioritize custom KObject routing with queues** Custom KObjects do not have a built-in priority setting. To route certain KObjects before others, use queue priority levels as a workaround. To prioritize KObject routing: 1. Create separate queues for each priority level. Set a lower number for higher-priority queues (1 is the highest priority). 2. Configure queue rules to route your KObjects to the appropriate queue based on their attributes (for example, a custom attribute that marks urgency level). 3. Add the new queues to your team's routing profile alongside existing queues. ### Skill-based routing Skill-based routing directs conversations to agents best suited to assist the customer. Skills can include things like specific expertise in a product area or language proficiency. To learn more, see [Understand skill-based routing](https://help.kustomer.com/understand-skill-routing-ByTKNVPFR). ### Tasks Use routing to efficiently manage and delegate work across teams by enabling tasks to be routed to the appropriate agents or departments. To learn more, see [Understand tasks](https://help.kustomer.com/understand-tasks-r1djh7wCC). ### User statuses [Statuses](https://help.kustomer.com/user-statuses-H1qvvNnD7) allow agents to become available for teams and their associated queues. Beyond the need to become _Available_ and unavailable for conversations, user statuses help organizations understand their capacity and the resources required to service customers daily. By creating custom statuses, you'll be able to see when an agent has gone to lunch or might otherwise be unavailable to wrap up a difficult conversation. ### Routing profiles Teams have a [routing profile](https://help.kustomer.com/routing-profiles-H1tz3ITv7) that allows you to determine which queues agents on the team will be assigned conversations from and their total user capacity for their inbox. A router will check queues for new conversations waiting to be assigned against the agents in the team assigned to that queue. The router will then determine which agent gets their assignments based on their user status. If an agent is available and has the capacity, they'll be routed conversations. ### Reporting & metrics Kustomer provides tools to help you analyze your queues and agents' performance. * **Routing standard report** The [Routing standard report](https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/queue-reporting-rkYo9LaPX) allows you to see your queues and their performance, monitor agent availability, and monitor customer wait time. You can view all your queues in a single report or on an individual level and easily group individual queues together. Certain plans also include a Live Dashboard, which updates every 15 seconds. This live dashboard can go full-screen to display your queue metrics on monitors around your office. * **Team Pulse live dashboard** The [Team Pulse dashboard](https://help.kustomer.com/team-pulse-BkanzDa4G) lets you see your agents' work in real-time and how your queues operate within your platform. The agent dashboard displays your agents' user status, which conversation they are working on, and their current capacity. These live dashboards will help you manage your team and routing more effectively at a glance without directly consulting users for updates. ### The user experience Users will log into Kustomer and have access to their User Toolbar. This toolbar is where all the routing and call functionality exists. Users on multiple teams can select which team they want to go online for using the status fly-out. Switching teams can be done quickly if agents help across your organization. * **User Inbox** shows the user all their assigned and snoozed conversations and the customers they recently viewed. Once a conversation is closed, the customer will appear in the recently viewed area. Agents that are part of a team that has routing will no longer see the _Currently Viewing_ panel, which shows the conversations that an agent viewed regardless of whether it was assigned to them.  * Users on multiple teams can switch between teams with routing enabled from the menu. * Users can **change their status** to control their availability in the router. Users who go _Available_ will get conversations routed to them from their assigned queues. Depending on the [settings](https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/general-queue-settings-SJwEnzfdI#general) turned on, when a user goes _O__ffline,_ their assigned conversations may be unassigned and put back into the queue to be routed to a new user. * Depending on the [settings](https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/general-queue-settings-SJwEnzfdI#general) turned on, **users may need to accept conversations** routed to them to reply. If they don't accept it in a determined timeframe, the conversation will move to the next user, and the user who passed on it will be placed into an unavailable status. * **Marking a conversation done** when it has required fields will place the conversation into wrap-up until the required fields are completed. * Users can **reassign conversations to other users** with the assignment options. * **Reassigning a conversation to a different queu****e** will clear the user and team assignment and place it in the new queue to be routed to a new user. * Users can **select conversations in bulk and assign them to one of the established queues.** Any assigned users or teams will be unassigned when transferring conversations to a different queue. ### How conversations route when channels change Conversations route to queues based on their primary channel — the channel of the first inbound message. If a voice call comes in first, the conversation routes as a voice conversation, even if an agent later adds an email or chat message to the same conversation. Subsequent channel changes do not re-trigger queue routing. ### **Understand how capacity and weight interact** When the router assigns a conversation to an agent, it checks whether the agent has enough remaining capacity to accommodate the conversation's weight. However, the router follows an important rule: ****if any conversational weight is available, the router assigns the next available item regardless of its size.**** This means an agent's total assigned weight can exceed their capacity by the weight of the last assigned item. For example, if an agent has a capacity of 11 and email weight is set to 2, the router may assign 6 emails (total weight 12) rather than stopping at 5 (total weight 10), because the agent still had available weight when the 6th email was assigned. ****Note:**** The ****Route when over capacity**** setting applies only to ****Kustomer Voice**** calls. It does not affect email, chat, or other channel routing. If you need to guarantee available capacity for a specific channel (such as chat), set up a ****separate dedicated team**** for that channel. This prevents other channel types from consuming the capacity you want to reserve.