Four controls, each answering a different question about a conversation.
| Control | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Assign | Whose job is this? |
| Pin | Should this stay in front of me? |
| Close | Is this dealt with? |
| Reply | (and it takes the conversation over — see below) |
Assigning
Assign a conversation to a teammate and it appears in their view. Unassigned conversations are the shared pool everyone works from.
Assignment matters more than it looks on a site with several operators, because it is also what the handoff notification email falls back to. When no specific notification addresses are configured, the email goes to the conversation’s assignee.
It also affects visibility: a non-administrator holding only the view capability sees conversations assigned to them or unassigned, not the whole inbox.
Pinning
Pinning keeps a conversation at the top of the views that respect it. Useful for something you are mid-way through, or a thread you want to come back to after checking something.
The Waiting for a Person queue ignores pinning entirely. That is deliberate — it is ordered oldest-first so nobody can be pushed behind somebody who has waited less time.
Closing
Closing marks a conversation dealt with and takes it out of the default view. It does not delete anything, and a closed conversation can be reopened.
Close generously. The value of the inbox depends on the open list meaning “needs attention”, and that only holds if you clear the things that do not.
Closing a conversation also ends any handoff in progress, returning it to the assistant.
Replying takes it over
Worth knowing before you type: replying to a conversation hands it to you. There is no separate “take over” step to remember.
That is deliberate. Requiring a click first ends with the assistant answering on top of you mid-sentence, which is worse for the visitor than any amount of extra UI. There is a Take over button for claiming a conversation before you have written anything.
While you are in a conversation, the assistant stops replying, and the visitor sees your name and picture rather than the AI marker. Hand it back with the control in the conversation header and the assistant resumes — with everything you said still in front of it.
Who can do all this
Replying, assigning, pinning and closing all need the reply to conversations capability. Reading needs only the view capability. See Giving your team access without making them admins.
Where to go next
What human handoff is, if you want visitors to be able to ask for a person rather than waiting for you to notice.
