Handoff is only as good as how fast somebody notices. There are four signals, deliberately, because no single one covers every way a person works.
1. The Waiting for a Person view
Sohay → Conversations → Waiting for a Person lists everyone waiting right now, oldest first.
This is the one bucket in the sidebar that is a queue rather than a list, so it ignores pinning. Nothing gets to jump ahead of somebody who has waited longer.
2. The browser tab
The tab title shows a count while anyone is waiting. A background tab still tells you, which is the point — most people do not keep the inbox in front of them.
3. Email
An email goes out when a request comes in, to the addresses configured under Sohay → Settings → Widget Settings, falling back to the conversation’s assignee and then the site admin.
Two things keep it from becoming noise: once per conversation, and never if somebody has already picked it up by the time it would send.
4. The banner
A waiting conversation carries a banner at the top with a Take over button. That is for when you arrived by search or by a link rather than through the queue — you should not have to go back to the sidebar to claim something you are already looking at.
What to actually rely on
Pick one primary signal and treat the rest as backup.
- A team with the inbox open all day — the sidebar view and the tab count are enough; the email is a safety net.
- A team that checks in periodically — email is the primary signal. Configure real addresses rather than relying on the admin fallback.
- One person, doing this among other things — email, and set Give up waiting after to roughly how long you actually take to notice.
If nobody notices
Nothing is lost and nobody is left hanging. After the timeout the assistant takes the conversation back and tells the visitor honestly that nobody was available. The conversation stays in the inbox, so you can still pick it up later and reply — it just is not a live handoff any more.
Worth checking that view occasionally even so. A pattern of timed-out requests is telling you your hours are set wider than you actually cover.
Where to go next
Before you switch handoff on — one of its two points is exactly this.
