Inbox 2.0 quick start guide - for agents

As an Inbox 2.0 agent, you manage your workflow and handle conversations all from one central location. In this guide, you’ll find out how to set your availability, learn how to work with conversations and service-level agreements (SLAs) in the queue, and take a brief tour through the agent workspace.

Set your availability

Go to Inbox 2.0. When you first sign in, you can set your availability as Available or Away. When you’re available, you’ll get the first conversation waiting in the New queue. Not ready to start handling the queue? Change your status to Away (you may have other choices, depending on your organization’s settings).

To change your default availability preference, follow these steps:

1. Go to Inbox 2.0, select Personal Preferences, and then select General.
2. Under Default availability, select a status, and then select Save.

The next time you sign in, this will be your default status.

Set your notification preferences

Customize the notifications you receive so you can focus on what matters to you.

Go to Inbox 2.0, select Personal preferences, and then select Notifications.

Learn more about your notification options.

Find and work with your conversations

In Inbox 2.0, you engage with all your contacts from one streamlined queue that consists of conversations in different states. There’s no need for you and a contact to constantly be engaged in a conversation - instead, conversations happen asynchronously.

At the top of your Inbox, you'll see your New and Pending queues. On the left side, you'll see conversations by status. You have the following queues:

• New - These are the conversations that need attention. They are either new or awaiting a reply. When you reply to a conversation, it moves from this queue to the Pending queue. As soon as a contact replies, the conversation moves back to this queue.
• Pending - Conversations waiting for the contact to reply. You can select Pending at the top of the reply area to move a conversation to the Pending queue. You might do this if you're waiting for more information or need to do additional work.
• All conversations - All unresolved conversations in an organization.
• Not assigned to an agent - Your organization's unresolved, unassigned conversations.
• Assigned to me - If you're a member of a team, this shows unresolved conversations assigned to you.
• Assigned to my teams - Unresolved conversations assigned to your teams. You may be a member of multiple teams. If that's the case you'll see all of those conversations in this queue.
• Resolved - Conversations that have ended because they were resolved either by an agent or automation, and require no further action. This queue shows all resolved conversations from the last three days. You can select Resolve at the top of the reply area to move a conversation to the Resolved queue once you've resolved a contact's issue or answered their questions.

You can also filter your inbox and save filtered inbox views. See the following:

• View and filter your queues
• Create a saved inbox

The conversation view is where most of your work takes place, and where you see a conversation's history. Each message within a conversation includes the type of message (private message, Facebook post, Twitter direct message, comment on Instagram dark post, and more), a link to the social network for public messages, the message sender, and a timestamp. Use the reply area at the bottom of the conversation to select your message type and the account you want to use to reply, and then enter your reply to the contact. Learn how to work with conversations in Inbox 2.0.

Interact with messages

Select Message actions next to a message to show the options you have to interact with it, such as Reply, Quote, Like, and Retweet.

For each social network and message type, you have the following options:

• X (formerly Twitter) - Follow. Like, quote post, and repost inbound public messages
• Facebook - Like and hide inbound public messages
• Instagram - Hide inbound public messages
• TikTok - Like and hide inbound comments on owned videos

Get to know your customers

When a customer messages your team in Inbox 2.0, you can view key contact details, like their language preference, email address, account number, and more. These details help you personalize responses and build stronger relationships with customers. Learn more about working with contact details and adding internal notes about a contact for other agents to read.

Add internal notes to a message

You can add internal notes to messages in a conversation by selecting Add note. Notes include your name and a timestamp. You can edit or delete them at any time.

Assign conversations to another agent or team

If you're a member of a Hootsuite organization, you can assign conversations to other agents or teams. Select Unassigned (or the assigned agent or team) at the top of the reply area, and search for or select the agent or team. The assigned agent or team receives a notification letting them know they're assigned to a message. Learn more about assignments.

Watch for SLA breaches

A service-level agreement, or SLA, is an agreed-upon measure of the response times of your team. When you don't answer a conversation by the time specified in your SLA, it’s considered “breached.” The queue displays colored icons​​ to warn you of upcoming breaches. Gray and orange icons show the time left before you breach the SLA, and red icon shows how long a breached conversation is overdue. Learn more about the SLA status.