Team Management #

Invite team members to your account and control exactly what they can see and do. Whether you have a support agent who only needs access to chats or a marketing manager who runs your AI agents and broadcasts, you can set the right level of access for each person.

Accessing Team Management #

How to get there: Settings → Workspace group → Team.

Open Settings near the bottom of the left sidebar, then click Team in the Settings menu. On a phone, tap the menu icon (☰) first.

The Team section shows your current member list (with the account owner always pinned to the top) and, once you have any pending invitations, a separate Invites list below it.

How It Works #

Team management lets you:

• Invite people to join your account via email
• Assign roles (Admin, Editor, or Viewer) to set a baseline level of access
• Fine-tune permissions per member — open a member’s Permissions editor to change their access to any of the 13 areas individually (see Customizing Permissions)
• Hide who the customer is — mask every phone number, email and handle for a member who should answer chats but never leave with the customer list (see Hiding Customer Contact Details from a Member)
• Limit someone to their own chats — the same editor can narrow a member to the conversations and contacts assigned to them (see Limiting a Member to Their Own Chats)
• Limit someone to certain agents, channels or departments — split the team by area rather than by workload (see Limiting a Member to Certain Agents or Channels)
• Group the team into departments — Sales, Support, HR, each taking its own new chats and running its own rotation (see Departments)
• Suspend or remove team members at any time
• Switch between accounts using token-based account switching, then switch back to your own

Each team member logs in with their own account. When they switch into your account, they see your dashboard, AI agents, contacts, and chats — but only the parts you’ve given them access to.

Every team member has their own login, and that login is their own empty account. It has no plan, no credits, no channels and no access to your data or to any of your clients. When they sign in, they land in your workspace automatically, so in practice they never see that empty account.

Team members stay in your workspace. A member whose login is only that empty account does not get a Back to my own account option, so a viewer you invite for a client account cannot leave it for an empty dashboard. The option only shows for members who also run an account of their own (with a plan, channels or contacts), and takes them back to it. This is the same for every member on every device.

Roles #

Every team member has one of three roles, which sets their default permissions across the platform.

Naming note: this role is called Editor throughout this guide (and in the permissions table below), but the role picker in the app itself labels it Agent — same role, same permissions, just a different on-screen name.

Permission Areas #

There are 14 permission areas across the platform. Each can be set to one of four levels:

Areas and What They Cover #

Default Permissions by Role #

These are the defaults — any area can be changed per member in the Permissions editor below.

Customizing Permissions (Overrides) #

Sometimes the default role doesn’t fit exactly — you might want an Editor who can also view Analytics in full, or an Admin who shouldn’t see Billing. The platform supports permission overrides: granular, per-area settings that take priority over a member’s role defaults.

To edit a member’s permissions:

1. Find the member in the Members list and click the sliders icon on their row (if they already have overrides, the “N overrides” label next to their role opens the same editor).
2. The Permissions editor lists all 14 areas, each with the four levels — None, View, Edit, and Full. A small dot marks the level the member’s role already gives them, so you can always see what’s baseline and what’s custom. Above the areas sit the limits that decide how much of the account the member can see at all: Chat & contact visibility (see Limiting a Member to Their Own Chats), Task visibility (see Limiting a Member to Their Own Tasks) and Agents, channels & departments (see Limiting a Member to Certain Agents or Channels).
3. Change any areas you want and click Save permissions. Only the areas that differ from the role’s defaults are stored as overrides, and the Members list shows a count next to anyone who has them.
4. Reset to role defaults (bottom-left of the editor) clears every override and puts the member back on their role’s standard access.

Changing a member’s role later keeps their overrides — each area they’ve been customized on stays at its custom level, while everything else follows the new role’s defaults.

Only the account owner can grant access higher than their own. A team member with Team Management access can invite and manage others, but can’t give anyone permissions stronger than they have themselves, and can’t suspend or remove a teammate whose access is broader than their own. If a role would give the new person more than the inviter has in some area (an editor’s default Edit on Appointments, say, invited by an admin whose Appointments were set to None), that area is simply set to the inviter’s own level and the invite goes out; a message after sending names what was lowered. In the permissions editor, levels above your own are greyed out.

Example: Your support agent has the Agent (Editor) role. By default that role has view-only Analytics — they can open the dashboards but not manage them. Open their Permissions editor, set Analytics to Full, and save — everything else stays at the role’s defaults.

Example (clients who keep their own FAQs): You want a client to add and fix the FAQs their AI answers from, but not touch the agent’s instructions, personality or settings. Set FAQs to Edit and AI Agents to View, and save. They can then:

• add, edit, delete and import FAQs on the Knowledge Base page, and manage FAQ groups and knowledge sources there;
• open an agent and, on its FAQs & Knowledge step, link or unlink FAQs and sources and edit the FAQs themselves.

Everything else in the agent editor is view only for them. On the FAQs & Knowledge step, AI web search and Extra context are greyed out too, because those are settings of the agent itself. Set FAQs to View or None as well and the Knowledge Base page becomes view only or disappears. Anyone with Edit on AI Agents can still edit FAQs, whatever FAQs is set to.

Example (members who must not touch live automations): Your support agent needs Contacts at Edit to work their chats, but should never change an automation. Set Automations to View (they can look, not change) or None (Automations disappears from their menu), and save. Their Contacts access stays as it was.

Example (agencies): You want a teammate to manage general settings, notifications and webhooks, but never open your branding. Leave Settings at Edit and set White Labeling to None — the White Labeling section disappears from their Settings menu and every branding save is refused for them, while the rest of Settings keeps working. The White Labeling row shows a dot on whatever Settings is set to, because that is what it follows until you move it.

Limiting a Member to Their Own Chats #

Permission areas decide what a member can work with — chats, contacts, AI agents. Chat & contact visibility decides how much of it they can see: everything on the account, or only the conversations and contacts that are assigned to them.

This is what you want for a freelancer looking after one segment, an outsourced agent, or a junior who should handle their own queue without browsing your whole customer base.

How to get there: Settings → Team → the sliders icon on the member’s row → the Chat & contact visibility section at the top of the Permissions editor.

Pick one of two options:

• All contacts — the member sees every chat and contact on the account. This is the default and how every existing member already works.
• Only assigned to them — the member sees only the chats and contacts that are assigned to them, and nothing else.

With Only assigned to them selected, one extra choice appears:

• Also show unassigned — as well as their own, the member also sees chats and contacts nobody has picked up yet. Turn this on for someone who works the shared queue and claims conversations from it; leave it off for someone who should only ever see what you hand them.

Click Save permissions when you’re done. The change applies the next time the member loads or refreshes your account.

What the member sees #

The limit applies everywhere, not just to the chat list: their Chats inbox, their Contacts list, their Tasks (only tasks on contacts they can see, plus tasks without a contact that they created or that are assigned to them), search results, the counts and badges on their queue, anything they export, and new messages arriving live. There is no filter for them to clear and no view that shows them more — it is simply the edge of what their login can reach inside your account.

A few practical effects:

• The Assignee filter in Chats collapses to just You (plus Unassigned if you allowed it), because there is nothing else for them to filter to.
• Contacts they create or import are assigned to them automatically, so they can see what they just added.
• They can still hand a conversation over. Reassigning a chat to a colleague works as usual — the chat then leaves their view, since it is no longer theirs, so it’s worth handing chats over deliberately.
• A link to a conversation that isn’t theirs simply doesn’t open for them.

How it works with assignment #

Visibility is the boundary; assignment is what decides who lands inside it. Nothing about assignment changes: Auto-Assign Incoming Contacts still spreads new contacts the same way, and manual assignment from a chat’s ⋮ menu still works too — see Chat Assignments. So there are three ways a chat reaches a limited member: auto-assign hands it to them, you or a teammate assigns it to them by hand, or they claim it themselves from the unassigned queue (when you’ve allowed that).

If a limited member is switched out of the auto-assign rotation, they simply see only what people assign to them by hand.

Good to know #

• The account owner can never be limited. The owner always sees everything.
• It’s separate from the role. Any role can be limited — even an Admin, though that’s an unusual combination and the editor says so when you pick it.
• Account-wide totals are not split up. Dashboard analytics and daily summaries are whole-account numbers, so a limited member with access to those areas still sees account-level figures there. If that matters, set Analytics and Daily Summaries to None for that member in the same editor.
• Members with Team Management access can see the roster as usual — limiting visibility covers chats and contacts, not your team list.
• It limits which contacts they see, not what they see about them. Inside a conversation the member still sees that contact’s phone number, email address, notes and custom fields in the chat header and the contact panel, even with Contacts set to None (that only removes the Contacts pages, contact editing, deals and tasks). To mask them while the member keeps replying, switch on Hide customer contact details for that member. Privacy blur (Settings → Security) is a per-browser blur for screen sharing that the person can switch off themselves, not an access control.

Limiting a Member to Their Own Tasks #

Task visibility is a separate choice from chat and contact visibility. Use it when several people answer the same customers, but each of them should only work on the tasks given to them. Two colleagues can both open the same customer’s chat, while each only sees their own tasks.

How to get there: Settings → Team → the sliders icon on the member’s row → the Task visibility section in the Permissions editor.

Pick one of two options:

• All tasks they can see through their contacts — the default. The member sees every task on the contacts they have access to.
• Only tasks assigned to them — the member only sees a task once it is assigned to them, even when they can open the same customer as a colleague.

With Only tasks assigned to them selected, two extra checkboxes widen it again:

• Also show tasks they created — tasks this person made themselves stay visible to them, even after they hand them to someone else.
• Also show tasks nobody is assigned to — tasks nobody has picked up yet, like new ones your AI agent creates, stay visible so they can take them on.

Click Save permissions when you’re done. Members on Only tasks assigned to them get an Own tasks only badge in the Members list.

What the member sees #

• Everywhere tasks show up: the task board, search, a direct link to a task, and the task list on a contact. A link to a task that is not theirs does not open it for them.
• When a task is reassigned away from them, it leaves their board.
• Their notification bell does not show task notifications.
• Contact visibility still applies on top. A member limited to their own chats only sees tasks on the contacts they can see, and with Only tasks assigned to them only the assigned ones among those.
• The account owner is never limited, and nothing changes for members left on the default.

Limiting a Member to Certain Agents or Channels #

The section above limits someone to the chats assigned to them. This one limits them by where the chat belongs instead: a specific AI agent, a specific channel, a specific department, or any combination.

Use it for teams split by area rather than by workload — a support person who should only ever see support-agent conversations, a WhatsApp-only rep, a Sales rep who works the Sales queue, an outsourced team that handles one channel for you.

How to get there: Settings → Team → the sliders icon on the member’s row → the Agents, channels & departments section, just under Chat & contact visibility.

Tick the agents this person works on, and/or the channels, and/or the departments. Leave a list empty to not limit by it. Tick nothing at all and they see everything, which is the default and how every existing member already works. (The Departments list only appears once you’ve created some.)

Channels are limited by type, not by number. Ticking WhatsApp Web shows the member every WhatsApp Web number on the account. To keep someone on one number, give that number its own AI agent in Who answers new conversations and limit the member to that agent. This covers new conversations; contacts already handled by another agent stay with it.

The two limits stack #

Chat & contact visibility and Agents, channels & departments are separate limits, and both apply at once:

• Agents/channels/departments on their own gives you a shared team inbox — everyone on the support team sees every support-agent chat, whoever is handling it.
• The same together with Only assigned to them gives you the narrow version — their own chats, on their agent, and nothing else.

Everything the assigned-only limit covers, this covers too: the Chats inbox, Contacts, search, the counts and badges, exports, and messages arriving live. It’s the edge of what their login can reach, not a filter they can clear.

Chats with no agent #

Some conversations aren’t handled by any agent — older ones from before you set your agents up, and any chat the member starts themselves. By default those stay hidden from an agent-limited member.

Tick Also show chats that aren’t handled by any agent if you’d rather they saw those too. It’s worth ticking if the member needs to start conversations of their own, since a chat they create has no agent on it yet.

Good to know #

• The account owner can never be limited. The owner always sees everything.
• It’s separate from the role. Any role can be limited this way, Admin included.
• Deleting an agent doesn’t break anything. A member limited to an agent that no longer exists simply stops seeing chats from it; nothing errors, and you can re-pick at any time. Deleting a department goes one better: anyone limited to it is un-limited automatically, so nobody is left with an empty inbox.
• Same account-wide exception as above. Dashboard analytics and daily summaries stay whole-account numbers. Set those areas to None for the member if that matters.

Hiding Customer Contact Details from a Member #

The limits above decide which chats and contacts a member can see. This one decides whether they can see who the customer is. Switch it on for a member and every phone number, email address and social handle in your account is masked for them — they still read and answer the chats, they just never get a number they could take with them.

Use it for a support agent or an outsourced team that should handle the conversation but not walk away with the customer list.

How to get there: Settings → Team → the sliders icon on the member’s row → Contact details, directly under Chat & contact visibility.

Tick Hide customer contact details from this member and click Save permissions. The change applies the next time the member loads or refreshes your account.

What the member sees #

• A phone number shows as +316 ••• ••• •78: the first three digits and the last two, so two “Unknown” contacts can still be told apart. An email shows as h•••@•••.com, a social handle as d•••.
• The masking is applied everywhere: the Chats inbox and its conversation header, the contact panel, the Contacts list and record, search results, appointments, tasks and deals, notifications, and the address bar — the link to a chat never contains the number either.
• Numbers and emails a customer types inside a message are masked too, in the thread and in the message preview, so “call me on 06 12345678” reads as “call me on •••”. Voice-note transcriptions are covered; a number spoken in the audio itself, or shown in an image, is not.
• Searching by number or email finds nothing for them, and a list or filter rule on the phone or email field is refused. They can still search by name.
• They can’t export anything. Contact exports, chat transcripts and emailed transcripts are switched off for that member, in the app and in every download.
• Click-to-call, email-this-contact and “continue on WhatsApp / SMS” actions are hidden; the phone and email fields on a contact are read-only for them.
• Replying works exactly as before, on every channel, because sending never needed the member to know the number.

Good to know #

• The account owner can never be hidden. The owner always sees everything.
• It’s separate from the role. Any role can be hidden, Admin included, and it stacks with the two limits above.
• A hidden member can’t un-hide anyone. Someone whose own seat has contact details hidden can switch it on for others (if they manage the team) but never off — not for a colleague, not for themselves. Every change to the setting is recorded in the account’s audit log.
• Numbers shorter than seven digits inside a message stay visible (order numbers, prices, dates).
• If you added a team member’s address to your own notification emails, those emails reach them as they reach you — take them off that list if the setting matters.
• There is no “reveal” button and no per-view log: hidden is hidden, and the owner sees everything.
• Contacts access set to None means the member gets no contacts in the pickers either: the global search (Cmd+K), the appointment booking form, tasks and deals show an empty list for them. Give them Contacts View if they need to pick a contact there; the list then shows masked numbers and emails.

Departments #

A department is a named group of your team — Sales, Customer support, HR. It gives you three things that assignment alone can’t: a name for who owns a lead, a way for new chats to reach the right team on their own, and a rotation that only covers that team.

How to get there: Settings → Team → the Departments card, just under Auto-assign.

Creating One #

Click Add department, then fill in:

• Name — what the team is called. “Sales”, “Customer support”, “HR”.
• Who’s on it — tick the people on that team. You can be on one yourself.
• New chats handled by these agents / New chats on these channels — optional. Pick these and new conversations that match are filed under this department automatically. Pick nothing and the department is manual-only: leads land in it when someone files them there.
• Also hand each new lead to whoever on this department has the fewest right now — on by default. Turn it off if the team works from a shared queue and picks up its own leads. For new leads this needs Assign new contacts automatically switched on as well: without it, new leads are still filed under the department but nobody is handed one, and you’ll see a note under the checkbox. Escalations an AI agent sends to this department are handed over either way (see below).

If you pick both an agent and a channel, a chat has to match both to be filed here — that’s how you give one team “the support agent, but only on WhatsApp” while another takes the rest.

Filing a Lead by Hand #

Open any chat, click the ⋮ menu, and choose File under a department…. Pick the department (or No department to take it out of one).

Unless you turn it off, filing a lead by hand also gives it to whoever on that team has the fewest chats right now — the same rotation auto-assign uses. (Filing by hand does this whether or not the account-wide auto-assign toggle is on; only the automatic routing depends on it.) Two things it never does:

• It never takes a chat off someone who is already handling it. If the chat already has an assignee, filing it under a department only changes the department.
• It never changes who replies. That’s the chat’s AI agent, which you change from the side panel.

Sending an Agent’s Escalations to a Department #

An AI agent can send its human alerts straight to a department: open the agent, go to its Human alerts switch, and pick the department under Send escalations to (see AI Bot Setup).

When that agent hands a chat over:

• The chat is filed under the department.
• If someone on the department already has the chat, it stays with them and they get the alert.
• Otherwise, with Also hand each new lead to whoever on this department has the fewest right now on, it goes to that person and they get the alert. The account-wide auto-assign toggle does not matter here.
• With that switch off, the chat waits in the department’s shared queue and everyone on the department gets the alert, so whoever is free can pick it up.

Each person gets the alert on their own notification settings. You, as the account owner, still get yours. If the department is deleted, or nobody on it is active any more, that agent’s escalations go back to the account owner.

You can also send an agent’s escalations to one person instead of a whole department; pick them from the same list.

Departments and Assignment Are Separate #

A chat can have both, and they answer different questions:

• Assignee — which person is on it.
• Department — which team owns it.

Changing one never clears the other. That’s deliberate: a lead can move between people inside Sales all week and still be Sales’ lead.

Limiting Someone to Their Department #

Once you have departments, a third option appears in the Agents, channels & departments section of a member’s Permissions editor: Departments. Tick one or more and that person only sees leads filed under them.

• On its own, that’s a shared team inbox — everyone in Sales sees every Sales lead, whoever is handling it.
• Together with Only assigned to them, it’s the narrow version: their own Sales leads and nothing else.

Chats with no department stay hidden from a department-limited member. Tick Also show chats that aren’t in any department if you’d rather they saw those too — worth doing while you’re still filing your back catalogue, since every existing chat starts with no department.

Good to know #

• Departments grant nothing on their own. Being on one doesn’t change what someone can see or do — only the limit above does that.
• Deleting a department that someone is limited to is refused. You’ll be told who, so you can change their permissions first. That’s deliberate: silently un-limiting them would hand them your whole customer base without anyone noticing.
• Leads keep working after a delete. Contacts filed under a deleted department simply stop showing one, and the next time you file them it sticks.
• The rotation only covers people who are actually working. A suspended member, one switched out of auto-assignment, or you if you’ve switched yourself out — none of them get handed a lead, even when they’re listed on the department.
• If nobody on the department is available, the lead is still filed under it and stays unassigned for the team to pick up.
• A contact created by a department-limited member is filed under their department automatically, so they don’t lose sight of something they just added themselves. (Only when they’re limited to exactly one — with several there’s no way to guess which.)

Inviting Team Members #

1. Go to Team (or Settings → Team) and click Invite teammate.
2. Enter the person’s email address.
3. Open the Role dropdown and pick Admin, Agent (Editor), or Viewer.
4. Click Send invite.

• The person receives an email invitation with a link to accept. If they don’t already have an account, one is created for them automatically with a temporary password included in the email.
• The invitation is valid for 7 days; after that it expires and you’ll need to resend it.
• Pending invitations appear in their own list below the member roster, so you can see who hasn’t accepted yet.

Team Seat Limits #

Your plan sets how many team members you can have. Pending invitations count against your allowance, so an invite nobody has accepted yet still takes up a seat.

The Team page shows how many seats you’re using and how many you have in total. If you hit the limit you’ll see an error when you try to invite someone. Cancel an unused invite to make room, or move to a plan with more seats from Settings → Billing.

If your account is managed by your provider, your seat allowance is set by them — it can be any number they choose. If team members aren’t included in your plan, inviting is disabled; ask your account provider to enable it or raise the limit.

Managing Invitations #

From the pending invites list you can:

• Resend an invitation if the person didn’t receive it or the link expired.
• Cancel an invitation (the trash icon) if you no longer want to add that person. This works for expired invitations too, so you can clear old entries off the list.

Accepting an Invite #

1. Click Accept in the invitation email.
2. If you’re new to the platform, log in with the temporary password from the email and set a new one.
3. If you already have an account, log in with your existing credentials.
4. Once accepted, logging in takes you straight into that account.

You can also decline an invitation if you don’t want to join.

Switching Between Accounts (Team Mode) #

Team members don’t work inside your account all the time — they have their own account and switch into yours when needed.

1. The team member logs in with their own email and password.
2. They’re taken straight into your account. The switcher near the top of the left sidebar names the account they’re working in.
3. Your dashboard loads with the permissions you’ve assigned them — areas they don’t have access to are hidden entirely from navigation.
4. When they’re done, they simply Sign out. Members who also run an account of their own see Back to my own account in that switcher to return to it.

The same email can belong to several accounts at once. If you’re invited to a second account with an email that already has access elsewhere, the new access is added automatically — nothing extra to accept, and you keep your existing access.

The account switcher near the top of the left sidebar always shows a team member which account they’re currently working in. When they belong to more than one, clicking it lists the others so they can move between them.

Everything a team member does — connecting a channel, importing contacts, replying to chats — happens in the account they’re working in, so it’s visible to the owner and uses that account’s plan and credits. Their own login is just a key; it holds no channels, contacts or credits of its own.

Because logging in always takes a team member into an account they belong to, invite people using an email that doesn’t already have its own separate account on the platform.

What Team Members Can See #

• They only see the areas you’ve given them permission to access.
• Areas set to “None” don’t appear in the navigation at all.
• If you’ve limited their chat and contact visibility, they see only the conversations and contacts assigned to them, everywhere in the app. The same goes for an agent or channel limit.
• If you’ve hidden customer contact details for them, every phone number, email address and handle is masked, exports are off, and they can’t look a contact up by number.
• “View” areas appear but every editing control is disabled.
• Credit balance and billing details are only visible with Billing access.
• A team member always sees their own email at the bottom of the left sidebar and on Settings → Profile (their own name and email), while the rest of Profile (preferences, notifications and other workspace settings) belongs to the account owner. The Working in label near the top of the sidebar is the name of the account they’re working in, not theirs.
• Settings → Security shows a team member only the workspace session and privacy preferences. The sign-in email, password, two-factor and delete-account controls belong to the account owner’s login and aren’t shown to team members.
• The guided Setup Wizard is shown only to members with Edit or Full on both Settings and AI Agents, because it changes business details, channels and the agent. Anyone else who opens it is sent back to the dashboard.

Editing a Team Member #

1. Go to Team (or Settings → Team).
2. Find the member’s row and click the role chip (their current role, shown as a colored pill) to open a small menu of Admin / Agent / Viewer, then pick the new role.

That’s the only thing the role chip changes. Everything else about a member’s access — per-area overrides, chat and contact visibility and any agent or channel limit — lives behind the sliders icon on the same row.

Changes reach the member within a few seconds, even if they already have your account open: a page they were locked out of opens by itself, no refresh needed.

Changing a member’s name #

A member’s name is taken from their own account when they join, or their email address when they have none. To change it, click the sliders icon on their row, type the new name in the Name field at the top of the editor and click Save permissions. The new name shows in the Members list, wherever chats are assigned and on replies they send from then on. You (or a teammate who can manage the team) set it here; the member can’t change it from their own profile.

Their email address can’t be changed here — it identifies the member. To add a different person, send a new invite.

Suspending a Team Member #

1. Find the team member in the Members list.
2. Click the pause icon next to their row.

A suspended member is blocked from switching into your account but keeps their role and permission settings, so you can reactivate them with one click later — no need to remove and re-invite.

Suspension blocks new sessions; if the person already has your account open, it may not interrupt that session immediately.

Removing a Team Member #

1. Find the team member in the Members list.
2. Click the trash icon and confirm.

Once removed, they can no longer switch into your account (their own account and personal data are unaffected). Add them back later with a new invitation.

Removal takes effect right away. If the person is currently working inside your account, they’re signed out shortly after.

Auto-Assign Incoming Contacts #

By default, a chat only gets assigned to a person when something forces it to — a human alert, or a manual pick. Everything else stays in the Unassigned queue.

How to get there: At the top of the Team page, turn on Assign new contacts automatically.

What It Does #

When on, every contact that messages you for the first time is assigned to the team member (or you, the account owner) with the fewest contacts assigned in the last 30 days. Over time this spreads inbound volume evenly across whoever is available.

Who Is in the Pool #

Everyone active who hasn’t been switched out: you and every active team member. Suspended or removed members are always skipped, and roles don’t matter.

If you use departments, they get first refusal. A new chat that matches a department’s agent or channel rule is filed under that department, and the rotation is narrowed to the people on it — so a WhatsApp lead goes to someone in Sales rather than to whoever on the whole account happens to be quietest. Chats no department claims fall back to the account-wide rotation described above.

Filing itself does not depend on this toggle: a department’s routing rule files matching chats under it whether or not auto-assign is on. The toggle only decides whether the lead is also handed to a person.

Choosing Who Takes Part #

Not everyone on the team should necessarily be handed conversations. A manager who is only there to supervise, or a specialist who just reviews chats now and then, can stay out of the rotation without losing any access.

Each person in the team list — including you, the account owner — has an Include in auto-assignment switch on their row. Everyone starts included; switch someone off and new contacts simply stop landing on them, while everything else about their seat stays exactly the same: they can still open every chat, reply, and be assigned conversations manually.

A few details:

• The switches only matter while Assign new contacts automatically is on — with the master toggle off they’re shown dimmed, since nothing is being handed out anyway.
• Switching someone out doesn’t touch the chats already assigned to them; it only affects new contacts from that point on.
• If you switch everyone out (including yourself), new contacts stay in the Unassigned queue — nothing breaks, there’s just nobody to hand them to.
• Human alerts are separate: an unassigned chat that raises a human alert still goes to the account owner, even if the owner is switched out of the rotation here.

What Doesn’t Change #

• Existing assignments are never overwritten.
• Only the very first inbound message triggers an assignment — later messages from the same contact don’t reshuffle anyone.
• Manual assignment still works from the chat’s ⋮ menu.
• Human-alert auto-assignment is unaffected — with the toggle off, an unassigned chat that raises a human alert still goes to the account owner.
• The 30-day window is rolling, so people who go on leave and come back aren’t permanently disadvantaged.

Best Practices #

• Start with roles. Pick the role (Admin, Agent, or Viewer) that’s the closest fit — that’s the level of control available today.
• Use Viewer for stakeholders who just need to monitor progress without accidentally changing anything.
• Limit visibility for outside help. Freelancers and outsourced agents rarely need your whole customer base — set their chat and contact visibility to their own assigned conversations.
• Use departments once you have more than one team. Departments let new chats reach the right team on their own, keep the rotation inside that team, and give you a one-click way to hand a lead over.
• Limit Team Management access to account owners and trusted Admins — a team member can never grant access higher than their own.
• Suspend to pause access temporarily, then reactivate with one click when they’re back.
• Review permissions regularly as roles change within your organization.

FAQ #

Can a team member belong to multiple accounts? Yes — they switch between them from the account switcher near the top of the sidebar.

Can a team member answer chats without seeing the customer’s phone number or email? Yes. Open their Permissions editor and tick Hide customer contact details from this member. Numbers, emails and handles are masked for them everywhere (including inside message text), exports are off, and they can’t search by number — but they read and reply as normal. See Hiding Customer Contact Details from a Member.

Can team members see each other? Only if they have Team Management permission set to View or higher.

What happens if an invite expires? Resend it from the invites list — the new invite is valid for another 7 days. If you’d rather not invite that person after all, use the trash icon to remove the expired invitation from the list.

Do team members use my credits? Yes. Actions that consume credits while working inside your account (in team mode) are charged to your account.

Can I change someone’s role after they join? Yes — edit the member directly from the Members list at any time; there’s no need to remove and re-invite them.

Can I change a team member’s name? Yes. Click the sliders icon on their row, edit the Name field at the top and save. See Changing a member’s name.

Can I restrict a team member to one channel — WhatsApp only, and not the social inboxes? Yes. Open their Permissions editor and tick WhatsApp under Agents, channels & departments — they then see only WhatsApp conversations, everywhere in the app. See Limiting a Member to Certain Agents or Channels. The same section limits someone to specific AI agents or to a department. Note it’s per channel type, not per connected number: someone limited to WhatsApp sees every WhatsApp conversation on the account, not just the ones on one of your numbers.

Can I hide a contact’s phone number and email address from a team member who still replies to their chats? Yes. Open their Permissions editor and tick Hide customer contact details from this member under Contact details. Phone numbers, email addresses and social handles are then masked for them everywhere, while they still read and reply. Setting Contacts to None alone does not do this: it removes the Contacts pages and contact editing, but the details in the chat stay visible. See Hiding Customer Contact Details from a Member. Privacy blur (Settings → Security) is a per-browser screen-sharing blur the person can switch off, not an access control.

Can I limit someone to only the conversations assigned to them? Yes. Open their Permissions editor and set Chat & contact visibility to Only assigned to them — they then see just their own chats and contacts, everywhere in the app, and you can optionally let them see unassigned ones too. See Limiting a Member to Their Own Chats. Left on the default, All contacts, assignment stays purely a workflow tool: it decides who is responsible for a chat and who gets notified about it, and everyone with Messages access still sees the whole inbox.

Can I organise my team into departments like Sales and Support? Yes. Settings → Team → Departments. A department is a named group of people that can take new chats automatically (by AI agent or by channel), hands each one to whoever on that team is least busy, and can be used to limit what its members see. You can also file any individual lead under one from the chat’s ⋮ menu. See Departments.

Can I give a whole team its own inbox? Yes, two ways. If the team’s work arrives on its own agent or channel, limit its members to that under Agents, channels & departments. If it’s about who owns the lead rather than where it came from, create a department, limit its members to it, and file leads under it — either automatically with a routing rule or by hand from the chat menu.

Is there round-robin distribution of incoming chats? There is something better than round robin: turn on Assign new contacts automatically and each new contact goes to whoever has been assigned the fewest contacts in the last 30 days, so the load evens out rather than just rotating. You can switch individual people out of the rotation without changing their access, and with departments you can keep the rotation inside the right team instead of running it across the whole account.

Does a chat get assigned automatically when someone replies to it? No. Assignment happens on a contact’s first inbound message when auto-assign is on, on a human alert, or when someone picks an assignee by hand. Replying to a chat does not claim it.

Next Steps #

• Account Settings — Manage your profile and security.
• Billing System — Understand credits and billing.