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Teams

A team is a group of people who share chats, like Sales or Support. Send a chat to a team and it waits in the team's queue until someone on the team picks it, or, in a team that shares chats by itself, goes straight to one person. Teams are optional: without them, the inbox works as before.

What a team does

The chat shows these as small tags, for example Sales and Rahul, in the chat list and at the top of the open chat.

Add a team

Only the account owner and admins can add or change teams.

  1. Open Teams

    Open Settings (the gear icon) and click Teams, next to Agents.

  2. Click New team

    Click New team at the top right.

  3. Name it and pick a colour

    Type a Name, for example Sales, and pick a Colour. The colour is used for the team's tag in the inbox. You can add a short Description, like New orders and price questions.

  4. Choose the people

    Under People, tick everyone on the team. Click Make lead next to a person to make them a team lead. A team can have more than one lead, and a person can be on more than one team.

  5. Click Add team

    Click Add team. You will see the team in the list with its people and leads.

To change a team, click the pencil next to it. To remove a team, click the bin: chats waiting in its queue become unassigned, chats a person has stay with them, and AI agents and bot steps stop sending chats to it.

To give a team its own working hours and an off-hours reply, see Team working hours. To see how each team is doing, see Team report.

How new chats are shared

Each team has How new chats are shared:

  • Team picks by hand: new chats wait in the team queue, and anyone on the team picks one.
  • Take turns: each new chat goes straight to the next person on the team, one after the other.
  • Least busy first: each new chat goes straight to the person with the fewest open chats. When two people have the same number, the one who got a chat longest ago goes first.

The person who gets a chat finds it under their own chats and gets a notification. The chat shows a note, for example Given to Priya: Sales takes turns.

Who can get a chat

With Take turns or Least busy first, a new chat only goes to someone who:

  • has joined (not only been invited) and is not locked,
  • is not Away (see Available and Away),
  • is not paused on this team. In the team, click Pause next to a person to keep them out for now. People paused on the team do not get the New chat notification either,
  • is online, when Only people who are online is on: the website is open and their status is Available. The phone app does not count as online yet,
  • has fewer open chats than Most open chats per person, when you set it. Leave it empty for no limit.

When nobody can take a chat, it waits in the team queue, and the team gets a New chat notification as in a team that picks by hand (with Only people who are online on, only online people get it). The chat itself goes to someone within about half a minute of a person being able to take it, for example after a person switches to Available or closes a chat.

With Tell the team lead when nobody can take a chat on, the team's leads get one notification. It is sent again only after the queue has been empty, or after 6 hours. Leads who are Away, locked or not signed up yet are skipped. If no lead can get it, the account owner does, unless they are Away too.

A chat someone releases back to the queue, or that is taken off them, is not shared with them again until someone else has had it, or for 12 hours. If only they could take it, it waits.

These rules only decide where new chats go. Anyone on the team can still Pick a waiting chat, and the owner and admins can still give a chat to anyone.

A team that takes turns or gives chats to the least busy person, and has its own working hours, hands out nothing while it is closed: new chats wait in the queue until it opens. While any team is closed by its own working hours, the New chat notification goes only to people on the team who are online right now (the website open and Available); if nobody is, nobody is notified. See Team working hours.

If nobody replies

If nobody replies in moves a chat on when the customer has waited that long for an answer. Only open chats move: resolved and snoozed chats never do.

The time counts from the latest of these, measured to within about half a minute:

  • when the customer started waiting: their first message after the last reply a person on your team typed, or after the chat was last opened again or woken from a snooze. Messages sent by a bot, an AI agent or an automation are not replies,
  • when the person got the chat,
  • when the team was last saved. So switching it on does not move all the old unanswered chats at once.

A chat whose newest message is a reply typed by a person never moves. So after an AI agent or a bot hands a chat over with a message, the person who gets it still has to reply. Moves can happen at any time of day, except in a team with its own working hours: nothing moves while it is closed, and the time starts again when it opens. See Team working hours.

  • In a team that takes turns or gives chats to the least busy person, the chat goes to the next person who can take it. This way a chat goes to each person at most once a day. When nobody new can take it, it stays where it is, and with Tell the team lead when nobody can take a chat on, the lead gets one notification for that chat.
  • In a team that picks by hand, the chat goes back to the team queue, and the team gets a New chat notification.

The chat shows a note, for example Moved from Rahul to Priya: no reply in 10 minutes. Your software can follow these moves with the conversation_reassigned webhook. See Webhooks.

Available and Away

When your account has teams, the top bar shows your status next to the help icon: a green dot for Available, a grey dot for Away. Click it to change it.

  • Available: new chats from your teams can come to you.
  • Away: no new team chats come to you, team queues send you no New chat notifications, and calls handed over by a voice AI agent do not ring for you. Your chats stay yours, unless your team moves unanswered chats on (If nobody replies in).

Each person sets their own status, and it stays until they change it. You count as online while the website is open and your status is Available. When your account removes its last team, everyone is Available again.

Who sees which chats

Team lead is not a separate role: an agent becomes a lead for the teams you choose.

The owner and admins can stop an agent from seeing chats nobody has yet. On the Agents page, switch off Sees unassigned on their row. They still see their own chats and their teams' queues. See Team members.

Send chats to a team

  • From the inbox: open the chat's Assign menu and pick a team under Teams. See Assign and resolve chats.
  • From a bot flow: in the Assign Conversation step, choose A team. See Flow steps.
  • From an AI agent: in the agent's Settings, set Hand over to to a team. See Chat AI agent.
  • From your own software: send team_id or team_name to the assignment API. See Chat assignment API.

When a chat lands in the queue of a team that picks by hand, from the inbox, an AI agent, your own software, or a bot step with Notify the team ticked, the people on the team get a New chat in Sales notification on their phone and browser. People who are Away do not. In a team that takes turns or gives chats to the least busy person, the chat goes straight to one person, who gets the notification. When nobody can take it, the team gets the New chat notification instead (with Only people who are online on, only online people), except from a bot step with Notify the team unticked.