# What Are Topics and Skill Groups?

Topics and skill groups work together to route dialogues to the right operators.

## Topics

**Topics** are categories of requests (e.g. "Technical Support", "Sales", "Billing"). Each incoming dialogue or ticket can be assigned a topic. Topics are created first and used as building blocks for skill groups.

**Custom fields of a topic** — each topic can have its own set of ticket fields (text, number, date, list). The operator fills these fields when working with a ticket. Fields are created in the **field library** (shared pool for the instance) and can be reused across multiple topics.

**SLA and metrics** — for each topic you can configure metrics (TFR — time to first response, TTC — time to close) and a calendar. SLA deadlines are calculated based on the calendar's working hours.

**Deletion and restore** — a topic can be removed from the main list while staying in the system as deleted. An administrator reviews them in **Settings → Topics → “Deleted topics”** and can restore the needed topic with fields and SLA intact. If the deleted topic’s identifier is free, you can either create a new topic or restore the old one.

## Skill Groups

**Skill groups** combine topics with operators. A skill group defines:
- Which topics operators in that group can handle
- Which operators belong to the group
- **Normatives** — time to accept a new request and time to respond to messages (override global settings)
- **Email for tickets** — default sender email for tickets assigned to this group
- **Allowed sender email addresses** — extra addresses operators in this group may use when sending to clients; stored separately from the default sender

When a dialogue arrives with a topic, the system looks for operators whose skill group includes that topic. Only those operators can receive the dialogue.

## How They Work Together

1. Create topics (e.g. "Technical Support", "Billing").
2. Create skill groups and assign topics to each (e.g. "Support Team" → Technical Support, Billing).
3. Assign operators to skill groups.
4. When a dialogue comes in with topic "Technical Support", it is offered to operators in skill groups that include that topic.

## Related

- [How to configure topics](/en/settings/how-to/configure-subjects.md)
- [How to configure skill groups](/en/settings/how-to/configure-skill-groups.md)
- [How to configure metrics](/en/settings/how-to/configure-metrics.md)
- [How to configure calendars](/en/settings/how-to/configure-calendars.md)