Explore Enhanced Omni-Channel
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you'll be able to:
- Explain what Enhanced Omni-Channel routing is and why it replaced Standard Omni-Channel.
- Describe how Server-Sent Events (SSE) power real-time, event-driven work assignment.
- Identify the key capabilities available only in Enhanced Omni-Channel.
Before You Start
Before you start this module, consider completing this recommended content.
Understand Why Routing Matters
Imagine a contact center where every new case, chat, message, and call lands in one gigantic shared inbox. Service reps and AI agents grab whatever they come across first. A high-priority billing escalation from a VIP customer sits behind a low-priority password reset from a guest. A customer gets transferred twice because the first rep didn't have the right skills to help. These scenarios repeat daily—and they're costing you.
This manual, inconsistent, first-come, first-served chaos drives up costs, burns out reps, and sends customers straight to your competitors.
Enhanced Omni-Channel solves this problem. It automatically routes incoming work to the right rep or AI agent based on availability, capacity, priority, and skills—across every channel simultaneously. Fast, reliable, and built to scale. Check out this video to explore how it works.
Discover How Enhanced Omni-Channel Works
Enhanced Omni-Channel is Salesforce's next-generation routing engine for Agentforce Service. It runs on Hyperforce infrastructure, and replaces Standard Omni-Channel, which reached end of life with the Summer ’26 release.
The biggest architectural shift between the two: how they communicate with service reps.
Understand How Enhanced Omni-Channel Delivers Work More Reliably
Standard Omni-Channel relied on a polling-based model. Picture your rep's browser tapping the server on the shoulder every few seconds at a set interval: “Is there new work for me? How about now? Now?” It worked, but it was slow and inefficient. That introduced a delay between when work arrived and when a rep received it, and it created unnecessary load on the system.
Enhanced Omni-Channel replaces that model with Server-Sent Events (SSE), a push-based architecture where the server notifies the browser the moment work is available. But the shift to SSE isn't just about speed—it's about what that architecture makes possible for your organization.
- Higher reliability: SSE connections are more stable and better at recovering from network instability, so reps stay connected and keep receiving work even in degraded network conditions.
- Faster improvements: Because Enhanced Omni-Channel operates as a microservice, Salesforce can deploy updates and fixes to the routing engine independently—without waiting for a full platform release.
- Limited ripple effect: If an issue does occur, it's isolated to a smaller scope, reducing impact and improving overall availability for your customers and agents.
The result? A routing engine that's not just faster, but more resilient—like upgrading from a bicycle to a high-speed train. And it's built to stay available when it matters most.
Enhanced Omni-Channel uses a new domain URL: *.salesforce-scrt.com. If your organization uses a corporate network or VPN with domain restrictions, this domain needs to be allowlisted before you go live—otherwise reps and AI agents won't receive work.
Learn How Work Flows to Service Reps and AI Agents
Here's how a work item moves through the Enhanced Omni-Channel routing engine.
Enhanced Omni-Channel Stage | What Happens |
|---|---|
Work arrives | A case, chat, voice call, messaging session, or lead is created or updated. |
Routing engine evaluates | Enhanced Omni-Channel applies your routing logic—queue membership, skills, capacity, and priority. (Optionally, the logic bypasses an evaluation and sends work to a specified rep or AI agent.) |
Rep or AI agent is selected | The engine identifies the best available rep or AI agent using your configured routing model. |
Work is pushed via SSE | The work item appears in the reps's Omni-Channel widget in real time. |
Rep or AI agent accepts | The rep or AI agent picks up or declines the work and the routing record updates. |
Routing logic runs at creation time. If field values on a work item change after it's been routed, the routing logic doesn't run again automatically.
Compare Standard and Enhanced Omni-Channel
Still wondering what exactly changed between the two routing engines? Here's a side-by-side comparison.
Dimension | Standard Omni-Channel | Enhanced Omni-Channel |
|---|---|---|
Routing mechanism | Polling-based | Server-Sent Events (SSE) in real time |
Infrastructure | Legacy | Hyperforce |
Backlog size or capacity | Limited | Higher maximum of work items |
Skill-based routing | Basic | Unified routing for end-to-end calls |
Voice and digital blending | Limited | Supported via Unified Routing |
EOL status | Retired—Summer ’26 | Active—current and future platform |
For more in-depth details, check out this Salesforce Help Article: Comparison of Standard and Enhanced Omni-Channel.
Explore Enhanced-Only Capabilities
Enhanced Omni-Channel unlocks a bunch of capabilities that Standard Omni-Channel just doesn’t have. Here's what you get now.
Enhanced Omni-Channel Capability | What It Does |
|---|---|
Unified Routing | Routes voice calls end-to-end within Salesforce and brings skills-based routing to voice channels. |
Paused Work | Pauses a work item so you can return to it later without losing context. |
Omni Mobile | Provides access to Omni-Channel workload from mobile devices. |
Omni-Channel Sidebar | Shows rep workload and availability in a compact workspace view |
Agentforce Service Agent Monitoring | Provides real-time visibility into AI agent activity and handoffs. |
Work Reassignment from Record Page | Lets reps transfer or reassign work directly from the record page—without leaving the conversation or navigating to a separate tool. |
Command Center for Service | Shows queue health, rep or AI agent status, and wait times from a centralized Wallboard. Note: Command Center for Service is available in both Standard Omni-Channel and Enhanced Omni-Channel. Enhanced Omni-Channel includes all Command Center for Service supervisor capabilities, plus an additional Wallboard feature for real-time visual monitoring of queue metrics. The Wallboard is exclusive to Enhanced Omni-Channel. |
Enhanced Omni-Channel is included with Service Cloud Enterprise Edition (EE), Unlimited Edition (UE), and the A1E add-on, as well as Digital Engagement, Voice, and Enhanced Chat (formerly Messaging for In-App and Web). No separate license is required.
Standard Omni-Channel reached end of life with the Summer ’26 release. All orgs are now on Enhanced Omni-Channel, with no option to revert.
What’s Next?
Now that you know what Enhanced Omni-Channel is and why it replaced Standard Omni-Channel, you're ready to roll up your sleeves and get into the mechanics. In the next unit, you explore how queues, skills, and routing models work together to get the right work to the right rep or AI agent—every single time.