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Conversations inbox

Triage assistant chats, assign owners, and resolve conversations across channels.

Inbox guide

The conversations inbox is where every chat, web voice call, and phone call lands. This guide shows you how to triage, assign, close, and export your conversations so nothing slips through.

If you are new to the admin, start with the admin tour first.

What you can do

  • Move conversations through four states (open, pending, closed, archived)
  • Assign conversations to a team member
  • Mark conversations as read or unread
  • Get an automatic AI summary when you close a conversation
  • See where the visitor came from
  • Export your leads to CSV

Step-by-step

1. Understand the four states

Every conversation is always in exactly one state.

StateWhat it meansWhen it happens
OpenActive or recentThe visitor sends the first message
PendingWaiting on a teammateYou set it manually while you wait
ClosedDone; triggers an AI summaryYou set it manually when finished
ArchivedLong-term storage; hidden by defaultYou move a closed conversation here

Allowed transitions:

  • Open → Pending or Closed
  • Pending → Open or Closed
  • Closed → Open or Archived
  • Archived → Closed

If you reopen a closed conversation, the closed-at timestamp is cleared so you do not see misleading dates.

2. Assign a conversation

On the conversation detail page, use the Assignee dropdown to assign it to an Owner, Admin, or Support member of your workspace.

  • Pick None to clear the assignee.
  • Viewers cannot be assigned.
  • You cannot assign someone from another workspace.

Every change is recorded in the audit log so you can see who changed what.

3. Mark as read or unread

New conversations start as unread. You will see an unread badge on the row in the list. Tick Unread only at the top of the list to filter.

Click Mark as read on the conversation detail page (or open the conversation — it is automatically read once you do). All team members can mark conversations as read.

4. Read the automatic summary

When you change a conversation to Closed, BestAI generates a short AI summary (3 sentences, plain English) of what happened. The summary appears in the right-hand panel of the conversation detail page.

If the summary fails or you want a fresh one, click Retry summary. The new summary will overwrite the old one.

The summary uses the last 50 messages of the conversation. It uses your BYOK key first if you have one configured, otherwise the platform key.

5. See where the visitor came from

The right-hand panel shows source information captured on the visitor’s first message:

  • Page URL — the page they were on when they first wrote
  • Referrer — where they came from (Google, another site, direct)
  • IP address — masked to the first three octets
  • User agent — browser and operating system

These are useful when you decide whether a lead is genuine.

6. Export your leads to CSV

  1. Open Leads.
  2. Use the date and status filters if you want to narrow the list.
  3. Click Export CSV.

The download includes: created date, name, email, phone, summary, status, page URL, and assignee. Owners, Admins, Viewers, and Support can all export.

A simple flow for a small team:

  1. Triage — open the dashboard and check unread leads.
  2. Claim it — assign the conversation to yourself so the rest of the team knows.
  3. Follow up — call, email, or text the visitor through your usual channels. Update the lead status.
  4. Close it — set the conversation to Closed when you are done. The AI summary helps the next person understand what happened.
  5. Archive — once the conversation is more than 30 days old and not relevant, move it to Archived to keep your inbox clean.

For team coordination, use Pending when you are waiting on the customer, and assign conversations rather than messaging team members about them.

Common questions

The summary is empty after I close a conversation.

Summaries are generated in the background. If our queue is busy or temporarily unavailable, the summary may not appear right away. Click Retry summary to try again.

I reopened a closed conversation. Is the old summary lost?

No. The summary stays until you close the conversation again, at which point a fresh summary will replace it.

Where do archived conversations go?

They are hidden from the default list. Tick Include archived in the filters to see them, or use the direct URL to a conversation you remember.

Is the visitor’s IP address fully visible to my team?

We mask the IP in the admin so you only see the first three octets, for example 203.97.42.0/24. The full address is stored for forensic and abuse reasons.

Can I assign a conversation to someone outside my workspace?

No. The system rejects this with an error.

Next steps