Agents participating in messaging conversations may want to collaborate with colleagues to solve a customer’s support request without reassigning the conversation to another agent or admin.
There are several situations where doing so can be helpful, including:
- Requesting input from an agent not currently following the conversation.
- Involving the expertise of a team lead or a specialist when the assigned agent can’t answer the question asked.
- Letting experienced agents shadow new agents (and vice versa) so they can step in when needed.
When agent collaboration for messaging is turned on by an admin, agents can use @mentions to add non-assignee agents to conversations as followers in a conversation. End users can't be @mentioned.
When an agent is added to a conversation in this way, they can:
- Add public replies to the conversation. Public replies are viewable by any agent or end user who can access the conversation.
- View and receive notifications for updates to the conversation.
You can use @mentions on both messaging conversations and support tickets. They are not available for live chat conversations.
This article includes the following topics:
See Activating @mentions for messaging conversations for more information on turning on this feature.
Inviting a non-assignee agent to collaborate
Any agent or admin with edit permissions on a conversation, including those who are not currently a follower or assignee, can invite an agent (or themselves) to that conversation. Similarly, agents added to a conversation via @mention are limited by their access permissions to that ticket.
You can invite colleagues using @mentions in an internal note but not in a public reply. Invited agents can leave both public replies and internal notes in the conversation.
Because light agents, contributors, and Chat-only agents can't add followers to conversations, they can't use the @mentions feature (see Understanding and setting light agent permissions).
To invite a non-assigned agent to collaborate on a messaging conversation
- From the composer, select Internal note.
- In the body of the internal note, enter "@" followed by the beginning of the
agent's name.
For instance, if you want to include agent Jane Doe, enter "@Jan".
- Select the agent you want to add from the autocomplete menu.
- Finish composing your message and click Submit. The agent is automatically added as a follower on the ticket and is notified in the Agent Workspace.
See Receiving @mention notifications and viewing conversations for more information.
Removing an agent from a conversation
When you’re done collaborating with an agent, you can remove them from the conversation. Any agent or admin with edit permission on a conversation can remove users.
To remove a follower from the conversation
-
In Agent Workspace, click the delete button (X) in the person's name box in the Followers list.
Receiving @mention notifications and viewing conversations
When an agent is invited to collaborate on a messaging conversation via @mention, they are added to that conversation as a follower. The agent receives conversation notifications and can participate in the conversation.
You receive a notification when the agent is initially added to a conversation and when subsequent updates are made.
The table below describes these notifications and other indications an agent has been added to a conversation and how to access the conversation in each type of notification.
| Notification | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Initial @mention |  |
Appears in the upper-right corner of the Agent Workspace interface for 10 seconds. Signed-in agents see this notification regardless of their status. Click Reply to view the conversation in the composer. |
| Subsequent conversation updates |  |
Appear in the upper-right corner of the Agent Workspace interface. Click See conversation to view the conversation in the composer. |
| Ongoing conversation updates |  |
Appears in the Messaging updates list. Click a notification to view the conversation in the composer, view message details, and reply. |