Business Scenario:

In organizations using skill-based routing with Unified Routing in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, there are scenarios where an agent needs to set a case to "Pending" status (e.g., waiting for customer response, waiting for internal approval, or waiting for third-party input) and unassign the case from themselves to free up their capacity for other work items.

Current Behavior:

When an agent changes a case status to "Pending" and removes the assignment (sets owner to a queue or unassigns), Unified Routing immediately picks up the case and re-routes it to another available agent based on the configured routing rules and skill matching. There is currently no mechanism to pause or hold the routing assignment while a case remains in "Pending" status.

This is confirmed as current product design per Microsoft Learn FAQ: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-service/administer/unified-routing-faqs#can-i-pause-the-assignment-of-a-case

Expected / Desired Behavior:

Provide administrators with the ability to configure Unified Routing to recognize specific case statuses (e.g., "Pending", "On Hold", or custom statuses) as "routing-paused" states. When a case enters one of these configured statuses, the routing engine should:

1. Hold/pause the case in the queue without triggering assignment to any agent.

2. Resume normal routing assignment automatically when the case status changes back to an active/open status (e.g., "Active", "In Progress").

This would allow agents to:

- Free up their capacity while waiting on external dependencies.

- Avoid unnecessary case transfers to other agents who cannot act on the case either.

- Reduce agent disruption and improve overall routing efficiency.

Business Impact:

Without this capability, organizations face the following challenges:

- Cases in "Pending" status are repeatedly routed to agents who cannot take action, creating unnecessary workload and confusion. - Agents are forced to keep cases assigned to themselves while waiting, which consumes their capacity and reduces throughput.

- Workarounds (e.g., custom workflows, plugins) add complexity and maintenance overhead.

This feature would significantly improve the flexibility and real-world applicability of Unified Routing, especially for organizations with complex service processes involving external dependencies.