Inbox

Find, assign, answer, release, and close Text Agent conversations in Inbox.

Inbox is the operating view, not a complete export of all activity. Business-initiated chats awaiting a reply are not in the default list — select Awaiting first reply to find them, and use history and exports for reporting.

Open Text Agents → Inbox in the correct workspace. Read the status and assignment before replying: a conversation can be visible without being editable by you.

Find the right conversation

Use search and combine the available filters: Source, Assigned to, Status, date range, Agents, and Tags. Source distinguishes website widget and WhatsApp activity.

• All is the normal conversation view; it does not include chats awaiting their first customer reply by default.

• My conversations limits the list to your assignments.

• Unassigned helps find open human-handover conversations without an assigned person; it is not a list of every AI-managed chat.

• Unread can be combined with the assignment view. For example, select your conversations and then unread to focus on your own queue.

Opening a conversation clears its unread indicator. Unread is not a delivery, success, or assignment status. Use Clear filters when a conversation seems missing, then explicitly choose the relevant status. Results also depend on your workspace access.

Understand conversation states

State	Meaning and available work
Open	Active conversation. Assignment and your permissions determine whether you can send manually.
Awaiting first reply	Your business initiated contact, but the customer has not replied. Read-only: no composer, assignment, tags, close menu, or additional template send within this view.
Closed	Finished conversation. Review its history; it is not an active free-form reply session.
Deleted record	A retained deleted record, when surfaced, is read-only; it is not an active chat.

An outbound template does not prove engagement. When the first customer reply arrives, the awaiting conversation becomes open. If no reply arrives before its waiting period expires, it closes; history can report a failed outcome for an unanswered initiation. That path does not run the normal post-conversation analysis. Do not equate “Failed” here with a provider delivery failure.

See history and exports for finding awaiting/unanswered records outside Inbox.

Take over, assign, and return to the AI

1. Open an Open conversation and review the recent messages.

2. Choose yourself or a teammate in Assign to. Assignment puts the conversation into human handling.

3. To reply yourself, make sure you are the assigned person and have write access. Assignment to someone else does not enable your composer.

4. When the human work is done but the conversation should continue with the AI, use the × control beside the assignment. This removes the assignment and re-enables AI handling; it is different from closing the conversation.

5. Confirm the assignment changed before leaving the chat.

If your account shows an online/offline availability control, use it to communicate availability for the configured human-handover pool. It does not replace assigning a particular conversation.

Reply with text or media

For an open conversation assigned to you, type your message and send it. Enter sends; Shift + Enter adds a line break.

On supported WhatsApp channels, use the attachment controls to add an image/file or record audio. Allow microphone access when recording, stop and review the recording, then send. Remove unwanted attachments before sending and follow the type/size validation shown by the interface.

If an attachment fails, inspect its error before retrying. Do not resend already successful text or attachments just because another item failed.

In the timeline you can review:

• Customer, AI, and human messages.

• Images, downloadable files, and audio playback; a transcription may appear when available.

• Tool-call cards with the action name, execution state, parameters, and response.

• Messages and media synced from a WhatsApp Business App line that keeps working on the phone.

A synchronized Business App message is not an additional AI reply. An action marked completed also does not by itself establish a successful business outcome; read the action result.

Templates and the reply window

If WhatsApp blocks free-form sending, follow the template guide. Its customer-service-window rules apply to human replies as well as AI replies.

Use New conversation for a supported manual template send. In an existing conversation, Send template appears only where supported by its provider/state. Awaiting-first-reply and deleted records do not offer that action. Do not repeatedly send opening templates while waiting for the customer.

Close a conversation

Use the conversation's ⋮ → Close conversation, review the confirmation, and confirm only when the work is finished. Closing is not “return to AI,” and the confirmation warns that the close action cannot be undone.

The agent's configured closure/analysis behavior determines subsequent processing for an ordinary conversation. Review its history afterward when you need the final outcome rather than assuming it is immediately available.

When you cannot send

Situation	What to check
Composer missing	Conversation state, assignment to you, and write permission. History views are read-only.
WhatsApp window expired	Use the approved-template workflow; wait for a customer reply before free-form messaging.
Awaiting first reply	Read-only by design. Monitor for the reply rather than trying to take over.
Line unavailable or send fails	Check the original sending line in Channels and the provider error.
Conversation missing	Workspace, access, date/source/assignment filters, and awaiting status; then check history.

Source review: September 17, 2026. Available actions depend on provider, state, and permissions.

WhatsApp message templates