Set who is told about unassigned conversations

Choose who is notified about unassigned texts, emails, calls and voicemails, whether a team hears about them too, and how long a callback can wait before it is overdue.

In the sidebar, open Settings, then choose How Links Open under Communications. The page address is /settings/org/communications-workflow. The page title reads Communications Workflow; the sections you want are Family policy and Workflow defaults.

Before you start

• Your role needs permission to change organization notification settings; otherwise the sections are Read-only.
• Everything here saves on its own. The pill on Workflow defaults moves from Autosave queued to Saving to Saved, and covers Family policy too.
• While nobody owns a text, call or voicemail, the people told about it (the coverage group) are everyone assigned to that phone line. For an email, they are the members of that inbox who get its notifications. Change who that is under Manage phone lines and Manage email inboxes near the top of the page.
• Choosing a team needs access to schedule crews, because teams here are the crews set up under Scheduling. See Create a crew.

Steps

1. Under Family policy, work through Texts, Email, Calls and Voicemails. Turn each family on, and turn on Notify coverage so its coverage group hears about items nobody owns yet.
2. On Calls and Voicemails, set Default SLA minutes: how long a callback can wait before it counts as overdue. On Texts and Email this box has no effect today. Schedule SLA escalation sends late items through your escalation steps; see Escalate conversations nobody has answered.
3. Under Workflow defaults, turn on Team routing if a team should hear about unowned work. Members of the team an item is assigned to are then told while no person owns it.
4. To add one team to every unowned item, pick the Default team and turn on Prefer team coverage.
5. Turn on Auto-follow when mentioned if people mentioned in a conversation should follow it from then on. Anyone who saved their own choice keeps it.

What you see

• The pills near the top of the page read Escalation on or Escalation off, Team routing on or Team routing off, and the default view.
• Team routing widens who is told. It never replaces the person who finally owns the item; the owner is always a person.
• Once someone owns an item, coverage stops: the owner and the people following it are told instead.

If something looks different

• Keep previous assignee following, Notify the new assignee, Unassigned routing and Default subscriptions view are saved, but today a reassignment starts from each person's own choices, and My Queue opens on the list each person picked. Open personal overrides opens your own.
• The Default team search says Schedule crew access required: your role cannot read crews, so ask your admin or have someone with that access pick the team.
• No teams appear: no active crews exist yet. Create one under Scheduling first.
• A teammate on the line was not told: someone already owned the item, the family or its Notify coverage is off, or they muted it. See Check who was notified about a conversation.

Open Workflow settings