The Smart Support agent management settings control how support tickets are distributed among agents, how many active tickets an agent can handle, and which tickets each agent is allowed to see.

These settings help you organize support workloads and create a more structured WordPress help desk workflow for teams with multiple support agents.

To access these options, go to:

WordPress Dashboard → Smart Support → Settings → Agent Management

Automatically Assign New Tickets

Enable Automatically assign new tickets to available agents when Smart Support should assign incoming customer requests automatically. Automatic assignment can help:

• Reduce the number of unassigned tickets.
• Distribute incoming requests among your support team.
• Improve ticket ownership.
• Reduce manual ticket administration.
• Keep busy support queues organized.

This setting is particularly useful when multiple agents are responsible for the same support queue.

Auto-Assign Tickets When an Agent Replies

Enable: Automatically assign unassigned tickets to agents when they reply to make the first responding agent responsible for an unassigned ticket.

For example:

1. A customer creates a support ticket.
2. The ticket is currently unassigned.
3. A Smart Agent opens the ticket and sends a reply.
4. Smart Support automatically assigns the ticket to that agent.

This provides an easy way for agents to claim tickets through their normal reply workflow.

Agent Assignment Method

The Agent Assignment setting determines how Smart Support distributes tickets when automatic assignment is enabled.

Round Robin Assignment

Round Robin distributes new ticket assignments across available support agents in rotation. For example, if your team contains three available agents:

Ticket 1 → Agent A
Ticket 2 → Agent B
Ticket 3 → Agent C
Ticket 4 → Agent A

This can help distribute incoming support requests more evenly across your team.

Maximum Tickets Per Agent

The Max Tickets Per Agent setting controls how many open support tickets an individual agent can have assigned at one time. For example:  20 means an agent can have up to 20 open assigned tickets.

Set the value to: 0 for no assignment limit. This setting is especially useful when automatic assignment is enabled because it helps prevent individual agents from receiving more active requests than your workflow allows.

A reasonable workload limit can make your WordPress customer support ticket system easier to manage as ticket volume increases.

Allow Agents to Edit Custom Fields

Enable: Allow agents to edit and update ticket custom fields when Smart Agents should be able to modify information stored in a ticket’s Custom Fields tab. This setting applies when the Smart Support Custom Fields add-on is installed and configured. When enabled, agents can update relevant ticket field values while handling customer requests. Administrators and supervisors can retain broader access depending on their permissions.

Consider what information your custom fields contain before allowing all agents to edit them.

Agent Ticket Visibility

The Smart Support agent management settings also control which support tickets agents are allowed to see.

There are three visibility options.

Agents See Only Their Assigned Tickets

Select: Agent see their own tickets (assigned to them)

when each support agent should only see tickets specifically assigned to them.

This is useful when:

• Each request has a clear ticket owner.
• Agents manage separate customer workloads.
• You want to restrict unnecessary access to other tickets.
• Support requests contain information that should only be visible to assigned staff.

This creates the most restrictive agent visibility model.

Agents See Department Tickets and Assigned Tickets

Select:

Agent see tickets from their department + assigned to them

when agents should collaborate within their assigned support department.

For example, an agent in the Technical Support department can work with tickets associated with Technical Support as well as tickets individually assigned to them.

This model works well for teams organized into departments such as:

• Technical Support
• Billing
• Account Support
• Sales Support
• Product Support

Department visibility gives agents more flexibility while still restricting unrelated support requests.

Agents See All Tickets

Select:

Agent see all tickets

when every Smart Agent should have access to the full support ticket queue.

This can work well for smaller support teams where:

• Everyone handles the same ticket queue.
• Agents frequently assist each other.
• Strict ticket ownership is unnecessary.

For larger organizations, assigned-ticket or department-based visibility usually provides better separation.

Agent Management vs User Roles & Permissions

Agent Management determines how agents receive and see tickets.

It does not define every action an agent is permitted to perform.

For example, Agent Management controls:

• Automatic ticket assignment
• Auto-assignment on reply
• Round Robin distribution
• Maximum tickets per agent
• Custom Fields editing
• Ticket visibility

Capabilities such as:

• Replying to tickets
• Closing tickets
• Deleting tickets
• Adding internal notes
• Managing departments
• Viewing analytics
• Managing settings

are controlled separately under Smart Support User Roles & Permissions. Choose settings based on the way your team actually handles customer requests.

After configuring Smart Support agent management, click Save Changes.