Every assignment decision in Horizon flows through a two-level hierarchy: teams group agents. Before you can route work effectively, you need a clear mental model of how that hierarchy works on your account.

Teams and Users

Problem: As an agent, you only had to think about yourself — your tickets, your todos, your queue. As a dispatcher, you're directing work to other people. You need a mental model of how Horizon groups those people, because every assignment decision flows through that grouping.

Horizon's answer: A two-level hierarchy. Teams are groups of agents. Almost every assignment decision in Horizon — manual or automatic — picks a team first, then picks an agent from that team.

A quick word on terminology

Horizon (and this guide) uses agent to refer to a person who works tickets — the human at the keyboard. You'll also see the word user in some screens (e.g. the "User" dropdown when you direct-assign), and your own organization might call the same person a tech or engineer. They all mean the same thing: the person doing the work.

For the rest of this guide we'll mostly say "agent." If a UI label says "User," read it as "agent" and move on.

Why teams matter for dispatchers

You'll see teams in three places, all the time:

• Direct Assign — you pick a team, then an agent on that team.
• Smart Assign / Escalation — the system picks a team based on routing rules, then picks an agent.
• Reports and metrics — workload, capacity, and utilization views typically slice by team.

If you don't understand the team layout for your account, you'll fight every assignment.

What a team is, in practice

Each team in your account has:

• A name — e.g. "Tier 1 Support," "Network Specialists," "Onsite Field Techs."
• A roster of agents — the team's members. An agent can belong to multiple teams.
• An is-assignable flag — whether the team can receive ticket assignments. Some teams exist for grouping/reporting only and aren't routable.
• A time estimate policy — when work is assigned via this team, the policy decides how much time to schedule for it. Different teams can have different default durations for the same kind of work.
• An active flag — inactive teams don't appear in pickers.

The "All Users" system team

Every account has a built-in team called All Users containing every active agent. It's created automatically when the account is provisioned, can't be renamed, and can't be deleted. Useful for catch-all routing and reports that should span everyone.

Yes, the system team is named "All Users" and not "All Agents." It predates the terminology we use in the rest of the UI. Same concept.

Helpdesk role requirements (Autotask only)

If your account uses Autotask, teams may have a work type / resource role requirement. An agent can only be assigned via that team if their Autotask resource has the matching role. For ConnectWise, Zoho, and HaloPSA, this constraint doesn't apply — any agent on a team can be assigned through it.

If you try to direct-assign someone to a team they're not eligible for in Autotask, the assignment will fail. Pick a different team or different agent.

You don't create teams

Teams are created and configured by your admin in the Horizon admin panel. Dispatchers consume them — assigning work, reading rosters, reporting on workloads. If you need a new team or a roster change, ask your admin.

Where to see your team layout

The fastest way to understand your account's teams as a new dispatcher: open the In/Out Board (covered later) — it shows every agent grouped by team, with their current availability. That gives you the full team picture in one screen.

Tip: Spend ten minutes on day one walking through the team list with your admin or a senior dispatcher. "What does each team mean? When does work go to Tier 1 vs Tier 2? Why does this team exist?" Routing decisions you make later will be obvious if you know the team semantics, and gibberish if you don't.