Assignment & Reassignment
Give every ticket one owner — take it yourself, pick a teammate, or let a team hand it to whoever's turn it is.
Assignment decides who is responsible for a ticket. Every ticket has one owner. It is not optional bookkeeping: a ticket with no owner cannot be replied to.
Why Assignment Is Required
The composer stays locked until a ticket has an owner. This prevents the two failure modes every shared inbox suffers from:
- Duplicate replies — two agents answering the same customer minutes apart
- Silent drops — everyone assuming somebody else picked it up
An unassigned ticket is visible to everyone but owned by nobody. It carries a New status pill until that changes, and while it is recent it also sits in the New view with an amber edge.
The Ways to Assign
| Route | Best for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Quick assign | Taking a ticket without reading it first | The person + button on a list row (Assign to me) |
| Assign bar | Taking a ticket you have just read | Assign to me or Assign to… above the composer in an unassigned ticket |
| Ticket Details | Assigning to someone else, or reassigning | Click the assignee under Assignment — or press A |
| Bulk assign | Handing many tickets out at once | Selection mode → Assign selected chats |
Assign a Ticket to Yourself
Open the New view — or find any row with an amber left edge.
Click the person + button on the right of the row.
Alternatively, open the ticket and click Assign to me in the bar above the composer.
The status pill turns to Assigned, the ticket moves to your Mine view, and the composer unlocks.
A system note is added to the thread recording who took the ticket, so ownership history is always visible.
Assign to a Colleague in One Click
Open the ticket.
Click the assignee under Assignment in the Ticket Details panel — it reads Unassigned if nobody has it. Or click Assign to… in the bar above the composer of an unassigned ticket.
Shortcut: press A anywhere in the open ticket (not while typing). The panel opens with the picker ready.
Type in Search people or teams to narrow the list.
Click a name. The ticket is assigned straight away, "Assigned to …" confirms it, and a system note records the change.
The picker has three groups:
| Group | Contains |
|---|---|
| (top) | Assign to me (unless you already own it) and Unassign (if someone owns it) |
| People | Members of the teams you can see — you first, then whoever is online, then everyone else by name. The current owner is marked · Owner |
| Auto-assign in a team | Your teams. Picking one hands the ticket to one of its members — see below |
Assigning replaces the current owner: the ticket leaves their Mine view and enters the new owner's. A person who is in several teams is recorded under the ticket's current team when they belong to it.
Tickets assigned to several people before one-owner assignment keep showing every assignee, with
a +N badge, until someone reassigns them. Picking one person then leaves just that person.
Let a Team Pick Whose Turn It Is
Pick a team under Auto-assign in a team when you know which team should have the ticket but not who. RateUp hands it to one member, turn by turn:
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Taking turns | Members are given tickets in rotation, so nobody gets every one |
| Available first | Only members who are Online or Busy are in the rotation. If nobody is, every member is |
| Its own rotation | Manual team picks keep their own turn order, separate from any automation that assigns round-robin |
The ticket then shows the member it landed on, like any other assignment.
Reassigning
Reassignment changes the owner of an already-assigned ticket. Reach for it when:
- An agent is going offline or on leave
- The issue needs escalating
- Another team is better placed to handle it
Leave a private note explaining where things stand. This is the handover.
@mention the new owner in that note so it reaches their @Mentions view.
Click the assignee under Assignment (or press A) and pick the new owner.
The ticket leaves your Mine view and enters theirs. A system note records the change.
Reassigning without a note is the most common reason customers have to repeat themselves. Always leave the context behind — it takes ten seconds and stays on the ticket forever.
Picking Up a Closed Ticket
Closed tickets cannot be reassigned in place — they are a finished record.
A closed ticket's composer reads "This chat has been closed by … at …", followed by "Their 24-hour window is still open, so you can message them straight away." or "Start a new conversation with a template." Beside it are New conversation (which assigns you) and Assign to…. Either one, or Reopen in the header, opens a new ticket for the same customer. Reopen carries the previous assignees across. The closed ticket keeps its number, close time and result.
Bulk Assignment
Click the Select Chats (✅) icon in the toolbar to enter selection mode.
Tick the tickets you want to move — or tick one, then use the select-all checkbox in the selection bar.
Click Assign selected chats. The dialog, "Assign N chats", holds the same searchable list as the picker.
Click Assign to me, a person, or a team. A progress bar — "Assigning chats…" — counts the tickets as they are done.
Picking a team gives each ticket to the next member in turn, so a batch is spread across the team rather than landing on one person.
Useful at shift changes, or when redistributing an absent colleague's queue. Bulk assign is not offered in Mine or Spam.
Bulk assign replaces the existing assignees. Each ticket ends up with only the person it was given to, so anyone who was on it before is taken off.
Permissions
Changing who owns a ticket needs the Assign conversations ability. Without it, you see the owner under Assignment but cannot click it. Within that, the limit is visibility:
| Role | Can assign |
|---|---|
| Owner, Admin | Any ticket, to anyone — no channel scoping applies |
| Manager | Any ticket on the channels their teams grant |
| Staff, Agent | The same channel scope, minus any assigned tickets their organisation hides from them |
Abilities are set per role, and can be added or removed for one person — see Users.
Best Practices
- Assign as soon as a ticket arrives — an unowned ticket is nobody's problem
- Pick a team when you are unsure who should take it, and let the rotation choose
- Reassign when availability changes, rather than letting a queue stall
- Avoid ping-ponging tickets between agents; it fragments the history
- Close tickets once resolved, so ownership lists stay honest
Related Pages
- New — the unowned queue
- Private Notes & @Mentions — writing a handover
- Closing & Reopening
- Conversations → Agents — transfers per agent