Guide
The conversations inbox
What the Conversations screen shows, how to search and filter, what each status means and what each team role can do there.
- Reviewed on
- 6 min read
In this article
Conversations brings everything your customers say to your agents into one screen. There you read each conversation as it happens, see who is handling it at that moment and, when needed, reply yourself.
What appears in the inbox
- Every conversation your customers have with any of your agents: the ones from your website chat, from WhatsApp and from Instagram. If you use the API from your own systems, those too.
- Tests do not appear. What you type in an agent’s Playground tab stays out of the inbox and the analytics.
- Each customer has their own conversation. When they write again to the same agent on the same channel, their messages are added to the conversation they already had. The website is the exception: a visitor who comes back after 24 hours, or from another browser, counts as a new visitor and opens another conversation.
The list: searching and filtering
Conversations are ordered by activity: the one with the latest message comes first. Each row shows the customer’s name, the start of the last message, how long ago it was, the status, the agent and how many messages are unread.
- The name. If the customer has not given it, you see their email or phone. If there is neither, a reference such as “Visitor A1B2”, “WhatsApp contact” or “Instagram 1784”.
- Searching. The “Search conversations” field searches by name, email, phone or message text.
- Filtering by status. The All, AI, Person, Paused and Resolved buttons leave only the conversations in that status.
- More filters. The Filters button, next to the search field, opens four more: Agent, Channel, Assignment and Tag. The button itself shows how many are applied, and Clear filters removes them. The last two are explained in tags and assignment.
- Unread. The number on each row is the customer’s messages nobody has opened yet. In the menu, next to Conversations, you see how many conversations have unread messages. The mark belongs to the whole team: when one person opens the conversation, it stops counting as unread for everyone else.
The four statuses
The status says who is answering the customer at that moment.
| Status | Who answers | How a conversation gets there |
|---|---|---|
| AI active | The agent, on its own | It is the status of every new conversation. Also after pressing Return to the AI, and when the customer writes in a resolved conversation |
| Person in charge | Your team. The AI does not reply | The agent hands the conversation over, or someone on your team presses Take over or sends a reply |
| Paused | Nobody replies automatically | Someone on your team presses Pause |
| Resolved | Nobody: it is closed. If the customer writes again, the AI reopens it | Someone on your team presses Resolve |
In the list, Person in charge is shortened to Person. How to move from one status to another, and what the customer notices, is in take over a conversation.
Reading a conversation
When you open a conversation you see the customer’s name, the channel and the agent, and a bar with the status and the buttons that change it. The messages are below:
- Who wrote each one. The customer’s carry their name. The agent’s carry the agent’s name and the mark “AI”. Your team’s carry the person’s name and the mark “team”.
- The sources of each AI reply. Under the reply, “Sources:” lists the knowledge sources the agent used to write it. It tells you where a fact came from, so that you can correct it at its origin if it is wrong.
- The time and the credits. Each agent reply shows the credits it used. Your team’s replies carry no credits.
- Delivery, on WhatsApp and Instagram. Each message sent by the agent or by your team shows how it is doing: Waiting to be sent, Sent, Delivered, Read or Not delivered. If it is not delivered, “Not delivered:” appears underneath with the reason the channel gives. The website chat has no delivery states.
To see older messages, scroll up the conversation or press Load earlier messages. On a phone, the list and the conversation take turns on the screen.
The details panel
The conversation’s Show details button opens a panel with five sections:
- Contact. The name, where they are writing from and, if they have left them, their email and phone, with a button to copy each. If they have left nothing, you see “Anonymous visitor: no contact details yet”.
- Lead. The lead that came out of that conversation, with its status. Pressing it opens it under Leads. If there is none, it says so: “This conversation has not produced a lead.” More in leads: what your agent collects.
- Tags and Assignment. For classifying the conversation and saying who on the team looks after it.
- Information. The agent, the channel, the language, the number of messages, when it started and when the last message arrived. If it has been through a person or has been resolved, also when.
The live connection indicator
Next to the Conversations title there is an indicator that says whether the screen is updating by itself.
| Indicator | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Live | New messages and status changes appear without reloading | Nothing |
| Connecting | The screen has just opened and is setting up the connection | Wait a moment |
| Reconnecting | The connection dropped and the app is recovering it on its own. It can happen for an instant now and then | Wait. Once it is back, the list catches up with whatever arrived in the meantime |
| No live connection | The screen is not updating by itself | Reload the page. If it asks you to sign in, sign in again |
What each role can do
Everyone on the team sees every conversation in the account, whatever the agent or the channel.
| Role | On this screen |
|---|---|
| Read only | Reads conversations and their details. Cannot reply or change the status, the tags or the assignment. Instead of the reply box they see “Your role (Read only) can read conversations, but not reply or change who handles them.” |
| Member | Also replies, takes over, returns to the AI, pauses, resolves, tags and assigns |
| Admin and Owner | The same as a member |
All the roles are in team roles.
The notices when a customer asks for a person
When an agent hands a conversation over to your team, owners, admins and members receive the A customer asks for a person notification. It arrives in two ways:
- In the app, under Notifications, with the title “A customer needs a person” and the reason. Pressing it opens the conversation.
- By email, with a link to the conversation.
Each person chooses how they want it under Settings › Notifications, with the Email and In-app columns. Anyone with the Read only role receives no notices.
Bear two things in mind. The notice is not sent when it is someone on the team who takes over. And new messages in a conversation do not produce a notice: you see them in the list, as unread messages. All the notices are in notices: what you hear about and how.
Related articles
- Take over a conversation and return it to the AIHow to reply to a customer yourself, what they notice on each channel and how to pause, resolve or return the conversation to the agent. The AI does not come back on its own.
- Tags and assignment: organising the team’s conversationsHow to tag a conversation, assign it to a person on your team and filter the inbox by both. What assignment does and what it does not do.
- Leads: what your agent collects and where to find itWhat a lead is, how the agent and the chat form create one, which details are saved and how to follow up, edit or delete it on the Leads screen.
- Notices: what you hear about and howWhich notices iAgentify sends, when and to whom, how they reach you (the bell and email) and how each person chooses their own under Settings › Notifications.