Using the Chat Inbox

The inbox is where your team works chat conversations. Open it from Inbox in your project's sidebar. Everyone on your account can use it, and any number of teammates can have it open at once. Everything updates live.

The layout

Area	What it shows
Header	Your status (Available or Away), Enable alerts, Full screen, Reports and Messenger settings
Views (left)	Your conversation queues, with counts, and who on your team is online
Conversation list	Visitor name, latest message, time, and who is handling it. A blue dot means unread visitor messages.
Conversation	The full thread, a status banner, action buttons and the reply box
Details (right)	Contact details, verification status, current page, browser, custom attributes, team and previous conversations

Views

View	Contains
Waiting for team	Conversations handed to your team that nobody has taken yet. Keep this at zero.
Assigned to me	Conversations you own
AI live	Conversations the AI is handling right now
All open	Every open conversation
Snoozed	Conversations parked until later
Closed	Finished conversations

Your status and alerts

Available or Away. When you're Available with the inbox open, visitors see your team as online, and handoffs alert you.
Click Enable alerts once to get browser notifications and a sound when a conversation needs a person.
When nobody has the inbox open, alerts go to Slack and email. See Chat Notifications and Teams.

Replying

Reply goes to the visitor. Enter sends; Shift+Enter starts a new line.
Note is an internal note, shown in yellow. Visitors never see it.
Saved replies inserts a canned response. {{first_name}}, {{name}} and {{email}} are filled in automatically. Manage saved replies in Messenger settings.
Draft with AI writes a reply from your articles for you to edit. Nothing is sent until you send it.

You can see what the visitor is typing before they send it, and teammates can see when you're replying.

Managing conversations

Action	What happens
Take over / Take it	You own the conversation, and the AI stops. See Taking Over a Chat from the AI.
Assign	Give it to a teammate, or return it to the Waiting queue
Hand back to AI	The AI answers the visitor's next message
Snooze	Park it for 1 hour, 4 hours, until tomorrow, or next week. It returns early if the visitor writes.
Close	Finish it. The visitor is asked for a rating. If they write again, the AI answers first.
Team	In the details panel: move the conversation to another team, so its alerts go there

Full screen

Click Full screen to fill the whole browser window with the inbox. Press Esc or click Exit full screen to leave. The inbox remembers your choice.

See how your team is doing in Chat Reports.