Two settings on the Automation tab control the end of a ticket's life: Auto-resolve closes conversations that have gone quiet, and the Reopen window decides what happens when a customer writes again afterwards.
Both sections are on the Automation tab. You see them if you can view automation and queues. Changing them needs permission to manage queues; without it you see "You can see auto-resolve, but changing it needs write access to queues."
Auto-resolve
Auto-resolve resolves conversations with no activity for a period you choose, on a schedule.
Open Inbox, then Settings, then the Automation tab, and scroll to Auto-resolve.
Turn on Resolve quiet conversations automatically.
Set After no activity for a number of minutes, hours or days. It's required before you can save.
Optionally write a Closing message. The placeholder suggests "We're closing this for now — reply any time to reopen it."
Optionally choose a Label to attach, so you can find auto-resolved conversations later.
Decide whether to turn on Skip conversations waiting on the customer.
Save. You see "Auto-resolve saved."
A sentence under the form states what you've chosen, for example "Conversations with no activity for 2 days are resolved automatically, with the label Auto-resolved." When it's off it reads "Off. Conversations stay open until somebody resolves them."
In the conversation's events the change is attributed to auto-resolve.
Reopen window
Turn on Reopen a recently closed ticket when the customer writes again and set Reopen if they write again within a number of hours or days, up to 365 days. Save to apply.
- Inside the window, the customer's message reopens the same ticket. The conversation shows Reopened.
- After the window, the message starts a new ticket.
- Off: every message after a ticket is resolved or closed starts a new ticket.
How a reply is handled depends on the line:
- On a line where an AI agent answers, that reply goes back to the ticket instead of to the bot.
- On an external bot line, it goes to the external bot as a new conversation, and the ticket is not reopened.
If a customer has already started a new conversation, an older one can't be reopened. You see "The customer has started a new conversation, so this one cannot be reopened" with a link to open the new one.
Choosing values
- A short reopen window keeps tickets and reports tidy, because a new topic becomes a new ticket. A long one keeps one thread per customer, so SLA clocks and history stay together.
- Skip conversations waiting on the customer leaves alone tickets that are waiting for the customer's answer. See Ticket statuses.