Tender gives you two ways to say who looks after a discussion: queues and assignment. Both are visible only to your support staff; customers never see them. You can use either, or both together.
- A queue is a shared list, like Bugs or Billing. A discussion can be in as many queues as you like.
- Assignment gives a discussion to one supporter. It's for "this one is yours".
Assigning a discussion
Open the discussion and use Assigned to in the right-hand column. Choose a supporter from the list.
The supporter's name and picture then replace the menu. To hand the discussion to someone else, click Remove beside the name and choose again. A discussion is assigned to one supporter at a time.
To assign several discussions at once, tick them in a dashboard list and pick a supporter from Assign to in the bar below the list. Choosing Nobody there unassigns them.
You can also assign a discussion by replying to its notification email; see Updating discussions through email commands.
What happens when you assign
- The supporter gets an email about it (unless they assigned it to themselves) and starts watching the discussion, so they hear about new replies.
- A note, "Discussion was assigned to …", is added to the discussion. Like all system notes, only staff see it.
- The discussion appears in that supporter's list in the dashboard: under Assigned to me for them, and under Supporters in the sidebar for everyone else.
Every supporter on your site can be assigned discussions; there is nothing to set up.
Adding a discussion to a queue
On the discussion page, click Add to Queue in the staff toolbar above the first message and choose a queue. Click a queue that the discussion is already in to take it out again. The number after Add to Queue shows how many queues the discussion is in.
When your site has more than 10 queues, Add to Queue opens a search box instead: type part of a queue's name, then press Enter to add or remove the highlighted queue.
The pin beside each queue pins it to the bar at the top of the page, so you can keep an eye on its count while you work.
In the dashboard, tick discussions and use Enqueue or Dequeue in the bar below the list to change many at once. Discussion filters can also put new discussions into queues for you; see How do I use discussion filters?.
Supporters can ask to be emailed whenever a discussion is added to a queue: see How do I create a Queue?. For more ways to work with queues, see Using queues to organize your support.