A queue is where conversations land and wait for people. Each channel line sends its new conversations to one queue, and the agents who work that queue are offered the tickets. The Queues tab in the Inbox lists them, with live counts.
Some screens and APIs still call a queue an "inbox". It's the same thing.
The Queues page
Open Inbox, then Queues. Each queue shows its channel, whether it's Open or Closed right now, and, if you can view reports, live counts: open, unassigned and breached. View conversations opens the Inbox filtered to that queue. Select a queue to open its page. You need permission to view queues to see this tab, and permission to manage queues to change a queue's settings. Choosing its agents, adding teams and setting tiers needs permission to manage teams.
- 1New queue
Create a queue
On Queues, select New queue.
Name it ("Name this queue…").
Optionally select agents. Without permission to manage teams, this list is read-only. A queue with no agents holds every conversation unassigned.
Select Create queue.
Then point a channel line at it in Connect. The queue page lists Lines landing here, each marked as answered by a bot first, an external bot first, or people. If no line lands there, conversations arrive only through rules, transfers and moves. See Connect a channel.
Set up a queue
A Finish setting up checklist tracks the basics: name, agents, and business hours (optional). The queue page then has these sections.
Routing
- Auto-assign conversations: new conversations are offered to the queue's agents in turn. Off, they wait for someone to pick them up. Policies refine how: see Assignment policies.
- Only the assignee can reply: off, a colleague can still reply and is warned first. On, only the assignee can reply and everyone else can still write private notes.
- Lock a contact to a single conversation: a returning contact continues their open conversation instead of starting a new one.
Changes apply as soon as you switch them.
Agents and tiers
Manage agents opens a drawer to choose who works the queue. You can also add whole teams (see Teams). This needs permission to manage teams, as does setting tiers. Each person or team works at a tier: tier 1 takes a ticket at once, tier 2 only after the Overflow wait. Only agents who are online and under their limit are offered a ticket. A queue nobody works holds its tickets unassigned.
Waits
- Overflow wait: how long a ticket waits for tier 1 before tier 2 may take it. Off means everyone takes work at once.
- Return an offline agent's tickets after: when an agent has been offline that long, their open tickets from this queue go back to it to be assigned again. Snoozed tickets stay with them.
Business hours
Select Edit hours & holidays to set a Schedule name, Timezone, a Weekly schedule and Holidays. A holiday is one date or a range, and a multi-day closure like Eid is one entry. With no hours set, the queue counts as open around the clock and the away message never sends.
Automated messages
The queue can send a Greeting when a conversation starts, an Away message outside business hours, and a CSAT survey that asks the contact to rate the conversation, with an option to trigger it on resolve. Each sends only while its switch is on. Write the text and select Save message.
Sender name
Choose a Style: Friendly signs as "Layla from Acme", and Professional signs as "Acme", using your Business name.
Routing labels and priority cases
Routing labels send an AI agent's handover to this queue by label; see Labels. Priority cases for this queue shows which cases can set its tickets' priority; see Priority.
Rename, deactivate, reactivate
Select Rename to rename. Deactivate queue stops routing; history, agents and settings survive and you can reactivate later. If a line still lands there, you must point it elsewhere in Connect first.
Why is a ticket waiting?
A ticket held in the list shows a reason: Queue closed, Nobody works this queue, Nobody online, Everyone is full, Fair share reached, Waiting for tier 1 or Held by a team setting. Fair share reached means the queue's fair-distribution cap for agents was reached. Held by a team setting means a team setting is holding the ticket back.