Working the support inbox

Website chat and tickets work without any outside service. Other channels need setup.

This guide is for the people who answer customers. It explains the inbox, how to reply, how to hand work over, and what each status and badge means. To configure Support, see Set up HyoNova Support.

Before you start#

• You need a role with access to Support. Employees work as agents; managers, admins and owners can do more. See Who can do what.
• As an agent, you see the conversations of the queues and inboxes you belong to, plus the ones assigned to you and tickets shared with you. If your inbox is empty but colleagues are busy, ask an admin to add you to a queue.

Set your status#

Your agent status tells HyoNova whether to send you new conversations:

Your capacity is the number of active conversations you can hold at once. Queues set a default — 10 unless changed — and you can set your own.

On the website chat, the team counts as available only while at least one agent of the widget's queue is Online (and, if the widget has business hours, while they are open). Otherwise visitors get the offline form or see The team is away. See Online and offline.

When you count as online#

Choosing Online is not enough by itself. For customers and for queues you count as Online only while you chose Online and HyoNova is open on your device.

• While HyoNova is open — on any page, in the dashboard or in an office world, also in a background tab — it sends a sign of life every minute. You do not have to keep the inbox open.
• When you close HyoNova, you count as Away within about three minutes: queues stop assigning new conversations to you, and the website chat no longer counts you as available.
• The status you chose is not changed. My availability keeps showing what you chose, and you count as Online again as soon as you open HyoNova.
• A note tells you when the two differ. If you chose Online but customers see you as away for the moment — for example after your connection dropped — the inbox shows Reconnecting — customers see you as away for a moment. It goes away by itself.
• To stop new conversations while HyoNova stays open, choose Away, Busy or Offline.

Your support photo#

Customers on the website chat see your first name and your support photo beside your replies. Without a photo, they see your initials.

Choose My support photo, next to My availability, to open Your support photo. There you can Upload a photo, Replace photo or Remove photo. The photo is a PNG, JPEG or WebP image of up to 1 MB and at most 2048 × 2048 pixels. A Support administrator can also set it for you. See Agents and support photos.

• Hidden information is removed. When the photo is uploaded, HyoNova removes the information hidden inside the file: where and when it was taken, the device, an embedded thumbnail and comments. The picture itself is not changed and keeps its orientation.
• The photo goes when you leave. When you are removed from the company, are suspended, or close your HyoNova account, your support photo is deleted. Within a few minutes customers no longer see it, also in older conversations: your messages then show your initials.

The inbox#

Open Support in the company workspace sidebar. The inbox lists conversations, newest activity first, and updates live — you do not need to refresh. Live updates work in up to six browser tabs at a time. See The inbox updates slowly in one tab.

You can narrow any view by channel, inbox, queue, assignee, status, priority, SLA state, tag, customer, widget, brand, unread messages and date, and search by text. Each row shows the channel, the customer, a preview of the last message, unread messages, the ticket number, priority and SLA badge, the queue and the assignee.

Take, assign and transfer#

The header of a conversation says who handles it: Handled by and the person's name, or Unassigned — waiting for the team while nobody holds it. On the website chat the customer is told the same. See Who answers.

• Take. Choose Take on an unassigned conversation to make it yours. If two agents take the same conversation at the same moment, only one succeeds; the other sees Another agent already took this conversation.
• Assign. Choose Assign / transfer, then Assign. You can give your own conversation to a colleague, or choose Nobody (unassigned) to give it back. Reassigning a conversation that belongs to someone else is a manager action, and it is recorded.
• Transfer. In the same dialog, Transfer moves the conversation to another queue or another inbox, with a Note for the team (internal) that explains why. When the conversation is yours, transferring hands it back to the queue. To give it to a person, use Assign. Agents can transfer their own and unassigned conversations; managers can transfer any.

The assignment list#

Who takes this conversation is one list of everyone who could take it. Each row shows:

The best choices come first: members of the conversation's queue, then colleagues whose role allows support but who are not in that queue. Inside each group, people who are Online and carry the lightest load are listed first. A search field appears when the list has more than eight entries, and you can add a Reason (optional).

HyoNova checks every assignment again when you confirm it. A member who is neither in the conversation's queue nor allowed to work support by their role is refused with This member cannot work support conversations: they are not in the conversation’s queue and their role does not include support. The same check applies however a conversation is given to another person, by assigning or by transferring. Taking a conversation yourself and automatic assignment by a queue are not affected.

Reply or write an internal note#

The composer has two modes, Reply and Internal note. A line above the text field always says where your text goes — for example The customer will see this reply on Website chat. or Only your team sees internal notes. — and the button reads Send or Add note.

Notes are stored separately from replies and are never sent, so you can write freely about the customer. Still, write as if the customer might one day ask for their data.

Your unsent text is kept#

If you open another conversation before sending, your text stays with the conversation you wrote it in — the reply and the internal note separately, so a note never turns up in the reply field. When you come back, the composer says Your unsent reply was kept. Only you can see it until you send it. or Your unsent note was kept. Only you can see it until you add it.

The text is kept in the open browser tab only. It is gone when you reload or close the tab.

Typing on the website chat#

• Customer is typing… appears under the messages while the visitor writes. It starts after the visitor's first message, and not at all when the widget's typing setting is Show nothing.
• While you write a reply in a website chat conversation, the customer sees that you are typing. Writing an internal note never shows the customer anything.
• Only members who can reply give these signals. A colleague who can read the conversation but not reply never shows the customer a typing signal, and their opening the conversation does not mark the customer's messages as Read.

Other channels do not show typing.

Customer draft#

When the widget uses Live typing preview and the visitor agreed to share what they type, the block Customer draft — not sent yet takes the place of the typing line. It shows the text the customer is writing, with the reminder A live preview of what the customer is typing. It may change or never be sent.

• Who sees it. Only the agent the conversation is assigned to, and Support managers. If the conversation is unassigned, take it first.
• It is not a message. The draft disappears within seconds when the customer stops writing, sends the message or empties the field, and when the conversation is assigned to someone else. Nothing of it is saved to the ticket.
• Answer what was sent. Use the draft to prepare; reply to the message the customer actually sends.
• Likely secrets are not shown. Text that looks like a password, a code or a card number is not shared, and you see only Customer is typing….

See Typing indicator and typing preview.

Canned replies#

Type the shortcut or pick a canned reply to insert a prepared answer. A canned reply can also change the ticket when you send it — for example set it to Waiting or Resolved, change the priority, or add tags. Admins manage canned replies. See Set up HyoNova Support.

Add to reply#

Add to reply in the composer puts one of three additions under the text of a reply. It is offered for replies only: an internal note never carries them.

• One kind per reply. When you add another kind, the panel warns you first: A reply carries one kind of addition. Adding here replaces what is attached now, with the name of what will be replaced.
• The text is always required. Additions are sent only together with the reply text; without it the composer says Write the reply text: additions are only sent together with it. Write the text so that it is complete by itself.
• Check before you send. Added to this reply, above the text field, lists what you added. You can remove each item there.
• The website chat shows buttons and cards. The composer says The customer sees these under your reply and can tap them. Quick replies are offered to the customer only while your reply is the newest message of the conversation.
• Other channels get text lines. On WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and email the additions are added as lines under your text — for example WhatsApp shows these as text lines under your reply. Quick replies become a numbered list and links become the button text followed by the address. Articles are listed by their titles only, so the customer cannot open them there.
• Article cards use the saved title. A card shows the article's title as it is saved in Help articles. An article that was unpublished, archived or passed its review date before you sent the reply is left out.
• A link shows where it leads. The customer sees your button text and, under it, the host name of the address.
• Kept with your unsent reply. Additions stay with the unsent reply of that conversation, like its text.

In the conversation, what you sent is listed under your message as Suggested answers, Help articles or Link buttons. For what the visitor sees, see Buttons and cards in a reply.

Attachments#

You can attach up to 10 files to a reply or note. Accepted: images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP), PDF, plain text and CSV, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, ZIP, common audio (OGG, MP3, M4A, AAC, AMR) and video (MP4, 3GP). HyoNova checks that each file's content matches its type and refuses web pages, SVG and XML files, scripts and programs.

What a channel can deliver differs:

Files you upload are kept to 10 MB. If a channel cannot deliver attachments, HyoNova says This channel cannot deliver attachments.

Delivery states#

Every reply shows how far it got:

HyoNova retries temporary failures on its own, up to five times. When a failure can be fixed by trying again, the message offers Retry. When it cannot — for example the reply window has closed — the reason says so and Retry is not offered.

Ticket statuses#

Every conversation has a ticket. Its status is the one you change:

You can move a ticket straight to any status that the workflow allows; HyoNova takes the steps in between. Agents resolve tickets; closing a ticket that is not resolved yet is a manager action. If someone else changed the ticket while you were editing, HyoNova reloads it and says Someone changed this ticket meanwhile. It has been reloaded; try again.

Tickets also have a priority — Low, Normal, High or Urgent — and up to 30 tags. Managers can merge a duplicate ticket into another and change up to 100 tickets at once.

Open a ticket by hand#

Choose New ticket to record a request that came by phone or in person: a subject, a description, a priority, and optionally a queue, an assignee and a customer. Its channel shows as Manual.

SLA badges#

The assignee and the queue's managers are notified when a ticket becomes at risk and when it breaches — once per ticket and state. When an SLA counts only business hours, nights, weekends and closed dates do not use up time.

Reply windows and WhatsApp templates#

WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger limit when a business may write to a customer:

• WhatsApp: a free-form reply is possible only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, the composer asks for an approved template: choose one of your WhatsApp number's approved templates, its language and the values for its placeholders. If you try a normal reply, HyoNova says The reply window for this customer has closed. On WhatsApp, send an approved template.
• Instagram and Messenger: within 24 hours you reply normally. From 24 hours up to 7 days after the customer's last message, HyoNova sends your reply as a human agent reply, which Meta allows for that period. After 7 days, Meta does not allow a reply, and the message shows Not delivered with the reason.
• Website chat and email have no reply window.

When the customer writes again, the window opens again. See Connect WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

Customer context#

Next to the conversation you see who you are talking to:

• the customer's identity on this channel and their other identities, such as the same person on WhatsApp and email;
• on the website chat, the Page the customer wrote from. It is always on the site where the chat is installed; a conversation that came through the direct chat link shows no page;
• the linked customer from Customers, with previous tickets and how many are still open;
• if your role allows it: their deals, their invoices and the tasks linked to their tickets.

If the conversation is not linked to a customer, you can link it to an existing customer (needs access to Customers) or create a new customer from it. HyoNova links automatically only when exactly one customer shares a verified WhatsApp number or authenticated email address. Managers can merge two identities of the same person, with a reason. You can block a customer or mark them as spam; replies to a blocked customer are refused.

Turn a ticket into a task#

When a request needs work outside support, choose Create task: a name, a description, a due date, an assignee and a project. The task appears in Work and stays linked to the ticket. This needs permission to create tasks.

Live support from a ticket#

Managers, admins and owners can start live support from a ticket. HyoNova opens a private support meeting linked to the ticket and the customer, optionally in a room of your office world. If you choose to invite the customer, HyoNova creates a guest link and sends it as a reply on the customer's own channel. The ticket's history records that the session started. See Meetings and Guests.

• On the website chat the customer gets an invitation card, Live support session. It says what joining means and has a Join the session button. Nothing starts by itself: the customer decides, and the room opens in a new tab.
• On other channels the link itself is the message.
• In the conversation you see Live support invitation with the time it expires, and afterwards This invitation has expired. The customer's card then says that the invitation has expired and offers no button.

Notifications#

HyoNova notifies you when:

• a conversation is assigned or transferred to you;
• a new conversation arrives in a queue you belong to and nobody was assigned automatically;
• the customer writes again in your conversation (at most once every ten minutes per conversation);
• a colleague @mentions you in a note;
• one of your tickets becomes at risk or breaches its SLA.