Whenever you open Agent, always make sure you are in the Home tab. Because of the way Slack works, at times, Slack will automatically open the Messages tab when you open the Agent app. You will even find copies of your Agent threads in the messages tab. However, always avoid the messages tab and always select Home. To reiterate how important it is, always just go Home!
Once you Install Agent and a customer sends a new message, Agent will automatically notify all available agents that a new conversation has been created.
The notification will once again disappear if you open the Agent application or if another Agent starts the conversation.
<aside> 💡 When it notifies: Agent will notify you of new conversations if your Agent status is Online and your Slack status is Available. It looks at your Slack and Agent status to determine this. By default, you are only be notified of new conversations if you are actively using Slack on your phone or computer. Once you become inactive or manually set your status to inactive, you will no longer receive Agent notifications.
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Once you configured the previous steps, the customer asked a question, and you followed the notification into Agent, you will now notice a new section you might not have seen before called "Waiting for Help." This section contains the list of un-assigned and unstarted customer conversations. Think of this as your team's to-do list, as these are the conversations that require customer help.
<aside> 💡 Note: Some conversations might already have some messages from agents and work started. This can happen if a message is unassigned or reopened.
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The ellipsis ("...") button to the right of each item in the list allows you to take action on those conversations. The most common action you will take is to "Start" the conversation.
Starting the conversation is the most frequently used option in the Waiting for help options ****list.
Starting the conversation will automatically assign it to the user who clicks Start. It will display on the right side of the Agent home screen. Once the conversation is started and is assigned, no other Agent will be able to start it. Prior notifications for that conversation will no longer display, and that conversation will no longer appear in others' Waiting for Help queue.
Started conversations, automatically open a thread on the right side of the screen, and the conversation will move into the "Your current chats" queue. This is the list of all open conversations assigned to you only. While all agents can see the "Waiting for Help" list, only you can see your assigned chats.
The conversation detail is displayed at the top of the conversation thread, and the original message is displayed below it.
From the started conversation, you can open the ticket by clicking View Ticket, add Notes &Tags or click End Chat to end the conversation.