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Conversation routing settings

Conversation routing settings

The Routing & Assignment tab (Settings → Inboxes & Routing) controls two distinct decisions: which inbox a conversation moves to, and which teammate owns a handoff.

See also: Conversation triage & routing for how routing works conceptually, and Inboxes / routing settings for an overview of all four Inboxes & Routing tabs.

Routing & Assignment settings

Automated routing

"Routing decides which inbox a conversation moves to. Automated routing checks manual rules first, then uses AI when no rule matches."

  • Enable routing — master switch (shown on).

  • Channels — Widget, Email, Internal & API checkboxes choose which sources are routed.

  • Confidence slider — AI routing precision (around 0.8 default): higher routes fewer, more-certain conversations.

  • Rerun on meaning change — re-evaluate when later messages change the topic.

  • Fallback behavior — where unmatched conversations stay (shared inbox) or move (default inbox).

  • Daily budget — cap on AI triage evaluations per day.

  • Skip spam and deduplicate first message hygiene options.

Manual triage rules (phrase/domain/sender conditions → target mailbox) run before AI and win on match. See Conversation triage & routing.

AI to human handoff assignment

"Assignment decides which teammate owns a handoff. Choose where AI handoffs go and whether a teammate is assigned automatically."

  • Destination inbox — the inbox that receives AI escalations (Shared Inbox or a team inbox).

  • Assignment behavior — Leave unassigned or assign automatically via the inbox's mode (manual queue or round-robin).

See Handoff to human agents and Team inbox assignment.

How the two interact

  1. New message arrives.

  2. If routing is enabled for its channel: manual rules try first; if none match, AI routing evaluates (if confidence ≥ threshold, move; else fallback).

  3. If the AI support agent escalates the conversation, it lands in the handoff destination inbox with the chosen assignment behavior.

  4. Inside the inbox, the assignment mode applies (round-robin for routed/handoff arrivals, manual pickup otherwise).

Practical defaults

  • Enable routing for Widget + Email; add Internal & API when your internal tooling creates support conversations.

  • Start the confidence slider moderate; watch misroutes for a week.

  • Keep fallback = shared inbox until your inboxes are stable.

  • Point handoffs at the inbox whose members monitor their queues; prefer auto-assignment for small teams with round-robin fairness.

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