How do I use Cases for Teams?

Cases for Teams helps you and your care team improve their experience working from shared work-streams to more reliably answer customer questions, resolve issues and enhance your brand’s reputation on social.

Note: This feature is only available on the Advanced and Professional plans.

This article contains the following sections:

• How do I create a User Team?
• How can I route cases?
• How do I claim an unassigned case?
• How do I reassign a case?
• Cases for Teams FAQs

How do I create a User Team?

You must create User Teams in your account to use Cases for Teams. You need the Manage Permissions administrative permission to create User Teams. 

To create a User Team:

1. Navigate to Roles & Team Members.
2. Click Add new team in the upper right corner of the Teams section. The Create New Team popup appears.
3. Enter the following:
   • Name: Enter a descriptive name for the user team. For example, Engineers.
   • Description: Enter a description to appear in the Roles & Team Members page.
     
4.  Add members to your User Team. You can either click users directly from the list or search for a team member by name. Selected Team Members appear in the Team List.
   
   • You can also filter by Group Access by clicking . Select the Groups you want to filter by.
5. Click Create New Team. Your team is now created.

How can I route cases?

After your User Teams are created, you can start routing cases to teams for triage and next steps. You can:

• Route a case to a Team - best practice is to use this option when you want to notify all members of a team so that anyone who’s available can assign the case to themselves and respond quickly.
• Route a case to a Team and Assign it - best practice is to use this option to ensure someone is responsible for the case, reducing the risk of the case slipping through the cracks. Or, you might know the Team member you want to assign the case to.
• Assign a case to a user without a Team - best practice is to use this option when someone belongs to more than one Team, or doesn’t belong to a Team. This also enables the Assignee to choose which team to associate the case with.

You can also claim and reassign cases from the Case pane. For the Teams you’re a part of, you can claim unassigned cases or reassign a case if someone else on your Team is more equipped to take care of an issue or answer a question.

How do I route a case to a Team?

To route a case to a Team:

1. Navigate to the Smart Inbox.
2. Click the pin icon on the message you want to create a case for. The Create Case popup appears.
3. Select the Team you want to route the case to from the Team dropdown.
4. Select Unassigned from the Assignee dropdown. This is a required field.
5. Select the Case Type.
6. Select the Case Priority.
7. (Optional) Add any internal comments.
8. (Optional) Select Mark Message as Complete.
9. Click Create Case.

How do I route a case to a Team and Assign it?

To Route a case to a Team and Assign it to an individual:

1. Navigate to the Smart Inbox.
2. Click the pin icon on the message you want to create a case for. The Create Case popup appears.
3. Select the Team you want to route the case to from the Team dropdown.
4. Select the appropriate user from the Assignee dropdown. This is a required field.
5. Select the Case Type.
6. Select the Case Priority.
7. (Optional) Add any internal comments.
8. (Optional) Select Mark Message as Complete.
9. Click Create Case.

How do I Assign a case to a user without a Team?

To assign a case to a user:

1. Navigate to the Smart Inbox.
2. Click the pin icon on the message you want to create a case for. The Create Case popup appears.
3. Select No Team from the Team dropdown.
4. Select a user from the Assignee dropdown. This is a required field.
5. Select the Case Type.
6. Select the Case Priority.
7. (Optional) Add any internal comments.
8. (Optional) Select Mark Message as Complete.
9. Click Create Case.

How do I claim an unassigned case?

To claim an unassigned case:

1. Navigate to Cases in the left-hand navigation.
2. Click Default Queue under My Team Queues in the left-hand navigation or click the particular Team you want to view unassigned cases for.
   
   
3. Filter by Types, Statuses and/or Priority.
4. Click the case you want to claim.
5. Assign the case to yourself and update any additional case details.

How do I reassign a case?

To reassign a case that’s assigned to you:

1. Open a case from the Case tab.
2. Select Unassigned from the Assignee dropdown.
   

A notification is sent to all Team members alerting them the case is unassigned and available to claim. Alternatively, you can reassign a case directly to another user on the Team.

Cases for Teams FAQs

What’s the difference between case routing and assignment?
Routing is the process in which cases are sent to a team, whereas assignment is the process of making an individual user responsible for the case.

What teams are included in the Team dropdown when creating and updating cases?
All active Teams within your account are included.

Does a user need to be a member of a particular Team to create and route a case to that Team?
No. Any user who can create a case can see a list of Teams within your account.

What happens if a team member is removed from a Team but they have cases assigned to them from that Team?
The case remains assigned to the user.

What happens if a Team is deleted?
Deleting a team is permanent and can’t be undone. It’s a best practice to move cases to a different team before deleting the Team.

If a case belongs to a Team and is Unassigned, the case automatically updates to No Team on the Cases page in the All Cases view.

If a case belongs to a Team and is assigned to a user then remains with the current Assignee.

What is considered an ‘Available’ case in Sprout?
Available cases are those that are unassigned.

What impacts are there on the Case Performance Report?
Before the cases for Teams feature, a case required a user to be assigned at all times. The Case Performance Report is a user-level report, where metrics are calculated during the time in which a case is assigned to a specific user. As such, any time period where a case is unassigned is not attributed to an assignee.

Example:

• A new case is created and routed to the Customer Support team at 12:00 pm. The case is Unassigned.
• Agent A claims the case at 1:00 pm.
• Agent A marks the case Closed at 2:00 pm.
• The Active Case Time for Agent A is 1 hour, the time period the case was Open and assigned to the agent.

How “real-time” are the case counts that appear on the Cases page?

The case counts badges appear for each view within the My Teams' Unassigned Cases section on the Cases page. These case counts are updated when unassigned cases are claimed/assigned, when assigned cases are unassigned, and when cases change teams

For a user making these updates to a Case Assignee, the case counts update in real-time.

For other users on the Cases page the case counts update after a page refresh, either manually or by performing other actions that refresh the page, e.g. using filters, clicking into views and viewing cases.

Is this feature available on the Sprout mobile app?

The Cases for Teams feature is not available on the Sprout mobile app at this time. When creating or updating cases from the mobile app, you can’t route cases to teams or unassign users from cases.

You can view unassigned cases created from the Sprout web app in the Cases section of the mobile app. When viewing an unassigned case from the mobile app any edits made to the case also update the case assignee.

Why are some values not selectable in the Team and Assignee dropdowns?

In order to prevent cases from slipping through the cracks without any ownership, you can’t create a case without at least a Team or user assigned. During case creation or update, validations are in place to prevent a case with a Team value of No Team and Assignee of Unassigned.

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