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Working Your Conversations Inbox

The Conversations tab is where your team reviews every conversation your agents had — who replied, who didn't, what got booked, and what conversations need a person to reply.

Two things to know first

  • You don't set the status. The chip on each row is UpSmith telling you where the thread stands — it isn't a field you pick. There's no Contacted, Resolved, or Done to choose. What you can change on a conversation: hide it, mark it booked, take over from the agent, and resolve an escalation.

  • Hiding is how you close a thread. There's no Close or Archive button on a conversation. Hide drops it out of the list and out of every count — and if the customer texts again, or an agent escalates, the thread comes back on its own.

What the status chips mean

  • Active — a live back-and-forth.

  • No reply yet — the agent reached out and is waiting.

  • Never replied — the agent reached out, the customer never answered.

  • Did not start — the run never actually sent anything.

  • Ended — the conversation is finished.

  • Paused — the agent is being held and isn't sending.

You'll also see chips that aren't statuses: Booked, Escalated, Escalation resolved, Manual (someone on your team took over), and a solid amber Needs reply

Clearing a thread you're done with

  1. Right-click the row in the list and choose Hide this conversation — or open the conversation and click Hide in the header.

  2. It disappears from the list and stops counting toward anything.

A few things to know about hiding:

  • It's for your whole company, not just you. Hiding takes the thread off everyone's list.

  • Nothing is deleted. The conversation and its history are all still there.

  • It comes back on its own if the customer sends a new message or an agent raises an escalation. You won't miss a live customer because someone hid the thread last week.

  • To see what's hidden, click the Hidden chip next to the "Conversations" title. You can unhide from there.

Clearing a backlog

There's no multi-select today — hiding is one thread at a time. If you're sitting on a big pile, filter down first so you're only touching rows you actually mean to clear. A common one: set Status to Never replied, add a date range that ends a few weeks back, and work that list.

If bulk-clearing is something you'd do often, email support@upsmith.com and tell us — how often it comes up is what moves it up the list.

Finding what needs you

The filter row above the list is all multi-select, and it remembers your choices:

  • Status — the chips above, plus Needs reply.

  • Attention — Escalated, Resolved, or Normal. This is the fastest way to find everything waiting on a person.

  • Handling — Manual Takeover or Agent Handling.

  • Agent, Source, Booked, Campaign.

Alongside them: a date range chip, a search box that covers name, message text, phone and agent, and a gear icon where you can pin the filters you use and hide the ones you don't.

There's no "assigned to me" filter. Assignment lives on the escalation, not on the conversation, so the inbox can't sort by it. To see who's got what, use the Workflow board — every card shows the assignee's avatar.

Escalations — resolve, reopen, archive

When an agent hands something to a person, a red banner appears at the top of the conversation with the reason and how long it's been open. Click Why to see what the agent saw.

  • Resolve — you've handled it. You'll get a green confirmation: "Escalation resolved. {Agent} is handling this conversation again." There's an Undo link if you hit it by accident.

  • Notes / assign — opens the escalation, where you can leave a note, assign it to a teammate, or reclassify why it was raised.

  • Reopen — on an already-resolved escalation, from the green record at the top of the thread. Click Show details to see who closed it, how long it took, and any notes.

  • Archive — clears it off the Workflow board. An escalation has to be resolved before it can be archived.

There's no "dismiss" — Resolve is the verb for "dealt with," whether you fixed something or decided nothing needed fixing. Leave a note if it's the second one.

On the Workflow board there's one bulk action: Archive Resolved. It clears every already-resolved escalation in your account at once, and asks you to confirm first. It doesn't resolve anything — it only tidies up what's already done.

Assigning an escalation to a teammate

Two ways:

  • Right-click the row in the Conversations list → Assign the open escalation… → pick a teammate. This one assigns only.

  • Open the escalation (via Notes / assign, or a card on the Workflow board) and use Assigned To. This is where you reassign or clear an assignment, and the only place that shows you who currently has it.

Assigning isn't just bookkeeping. An escalation nobody has claimed keeps climbing your notification protocol — more people get emailed as time passes. The moment someone is assigned, that ladder stops. Claiming it is how you tell the system it's handled.

Taking over from the agent, and handing it back

At the bottom of a conversation the agent is handling, you'll see a status line and one button:

  1. Click Take over.

  2. Optionally pick a reason — Taking over manually, Customer asked for a human, and so on. You can skip it.

  3. Confirm with Disable AI. The agent goes quiet and the reply box appears. Write your message and hit Send (or ⌘/Ctrl + Enter).

The row now shows a Manual chip, and the thread matches the Manual Takeover filter. When you're finished, click Hand back to {Agent} and the agent picks it up again immediately.

While you're in control, nobody else is watching that thread for you. If the customer replies, the row gets a Needs reply chip.

Who gets told when an agent escalates

Two things happen. First, an email goes out immediately to whoever is subscribed to that agent's escalations. Second, if nobody claims it, more people get emailed on a delay.

Both are set up on the Notifications page:

  • People — pick a teammate and choose what they hear about. You can subscribe someone to a whole agent (everything Mollie raises) or to one kind of event across every agent.

  • Escalation protocols — who gets told right away, and then up to five delayed steps after that, per agent. Use this so an escalation raised at 4:55pm doesn't sit until morning.

Assigning the escalation stops the delayed steps. So does resolving it.

Common questions

How do I mark a conversation as contacted? There's no Contacted status — the agent already reached out, and the status chip reflects what happened. If you're using it to mean "I'm done with this row," Hide is the tool.

Can I close a batch of conversations at once? Not today. Hiding is one at a time. Filter the list down first so you're working a short list rather than the whole inbox, and let support@upsmith.com know you want it.

A customer said to check back later — do I mark it resolved or something else? If there's an escalation on the thread, Resolve it and put what they said in the note ("call back after the 15th"). There's no separate outcome field on the conversation itself, so the note is where that detail lives for your team. Your agent also records deferrals like this on its own, so it isn't lost when you resolve.

How do I see just the escalations assigned to me? There's no such filter in Conversations. Use the Workflow board — the avatar on each card shows who has it.

Does an escalation stop the agent from replying? Sometimes. For the serious ones — an emergency, an angry customer, a wrong number, a request for a different person, a death in the family — the agent goes quiet on its own and waits for you. For the rest, it keeps replying while the thread is flagged. The status line at the bottom of the conversation always tells you which situation you're in.

I hid something by mistake. Click the Hidden chip next to the Conversations title and unhide it.

Does hiding delete the conversation? No. Nothing is deleted, and the thread returns by itself if the customer writes again.

Where to go next