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Every chat, email, text and call your customers start lands in Helpdesk > Inbox. This guide shows how to find any one of them, old or new, and how to clear out the ones that are finished so the inbox shows only what still needs you. It uses Northwind’s inbox, where a dozen conversations from the past week are already done.

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Know the tabs

Click Helpdesk in the left rail. The inbox opens on the tab that needs you most. Each tab is a different slice of your conversations:
  • Waiting for you: open conversations where the customer wrote last.
  • Live now: visitors on your website right now.
  • Assistant: chats your website assistant is still answering.
  • Mine: open conversations assigned to you.
  • All open: every conversation that isn’t done.
  • Sent: replies your team sent in the last 30 days that the customer hasn’t answered yet, so you can follow up.
  • Done: conversations marked done.
Sort at the top right switches between Longest waiting and Newest activity. Type a name, an email address or words from a message in Search name, email or message and press Enter. The search looks inside the tab you are on, so to find a finished conversation, click Done first.
The inbox header with subscription typed in the search box, outlined, and the tabs Waiting for you, Live now, Assistant, Mine, All open, Sent and Done, with Done picked and outlined, then Filter and Sort

A search for subscription, in Done

Northwind’s search finds three customers who wrote about their subscription. It searches the messages too, not only the subject lines.
Three done conversations: Tamsin Clarke, Skip my next box?; Malik Jefferson, Team: Hi Malik, yes. I've paused; and Annika Berg, Move my subscription to Mondays, with Clear filters and search below

What the search found

Clear filters and search under the list puts everything back.

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Filter

Click Filter and pick what to show: a Channel (Website chat, Email, Text message or Phone), a Priority, who it is Assigned to (Me or Nobody), or a Tag. Each choice shows as a chip next to Filter; click its x to remove it.
The Filter panel: Channel with Phone picked, outlined, Priority Any, Assigned Anyone and Tag Any tag, and the Phone chip with its x, outlined, next to Filter 1

Phone calls only

Three done phone conversations: Ruth Okonkwo, Office coffee for 25 people; Tamsin Clarke, No tracking number for my last order; and Desmond Achebe, Wholesale pricing for a second location

Northwind's three phone calls

Filters and search work together, and they stay on when you switch tabs until you clear them.

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Clear out finished conversations

1

Open the conversation and click Resolve

When a conversation needs nothing more from you, open it and click Resolve at the top.
The top of Sam Ortega's conversation, with Resolve, outlined

Resolve

2

It moves to Done

The conversation says This conversation is done. It leaves your open tabs and is listed in Done. Hiveku sends the customer nothing, unless you switched on the CSAT survey (below) or a workflow that starts when a conversation is resolved.
Sam Ortega's conversation with Reopen at the top, outlined, and the bar This conversation is done. with Reopen, outlined

Done, with Reopen

The Done tab, outlined, with Sam Ortega's conversation at the top of the list marked Done, outlined, and All open now showing 1

Now in Done

Changed your mind? Click Reopen and the conversation goes back to your open tabs. If the customer writes again, their conversation reopens on its own.

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Good to know

  • Done conversations close after a week. Seven days after a conversation is marked done, it is closed. The customer can still reply to reopen it. Change this under Setup > Settings > Auto-close resolved tickets.
  • The customer can be asked how you did. CSAT survey, on the same Settings page, emails a short satisfaction survey when a conversation is done. It is off until you switch it on.
  • More: Answer a Visitor Who Asked for a Person covers replying, and Inbox covers every inbox setting.