How do I reply to a conversation, or take it over from the agent?
Open the chats tab in a project's sidebar and click a conversation to read it. Type in the box at the bottom and press Enter to reply. The moment you type, you take the conversation over from the agent, so it steps back and lets you handle it as a person. The buttons take over, release to agent, and resolve let you grab a conversation, hand it back to the agent, and close it when it is done.
Before you start
- You need the Support module and to be signed in to codus cloud. See What is codus Support?.
- The chats tab shows the conversations for the instances bound to the project you have open, plus any unbound instances. To see everything at once instead, use the support floor.
The conversation list
Each row shows a coloured status chip, the conversation's title (its first message), and how long ago it last moved. A dot on the right means it is unread. The chats tab itself carries a small number badge counting unread conversations, so you can tell there is something new without opening it.
Resolved conversations drop out of the working list. If there are any, a ▶ closed (N) button appears in the bar at the top; click it to show them again. They stay fully readable, and a new message from the visitor reopens one.
Reading and replying
Click a conversation to open it. At the top you get a back arrow (‹), the conversation's title, and its status chip. Below that is a row of actions, and then the transcript, newest message at the bottom.
To reply, type in the box at the bottom and press Enter (Shift+Enter for a new line). Your reply appears in the visitor's chat window as a message from your team.
Taking over, releasing, and resolving
The agent handles conversations on its own. You step in only when you want to. Three buttons control who is answering:
- take over: you become the person answering. The visitor's status line changes to "You are talking to the team", and the agent will not reply over you. Typing a reply also takes the conversation over, so you rarely need this button on its own.
- release to agent: hand the conversation back to the agent to carry on. Use this once you have said your piece and want the agent to take it from here.
- resolve: close the conversation. It moves to the closed list. On the visitor's side it reads "Conversation closed — send a message to reopen", so a customer who comes back with more is picked up again automatically.
The exact labels and what the visitor sees for each state are covered in What do the conversation states mean?.
Turning a message into a fixable issue
If a visitor reports something that needs a code change, right-click their message and choose ⚑ Create issue from message. That files an issue against the conversation's project, and the visitor's chat gets a line reading "Issue raised with the team: …" so they know it is logged. When a conversation has raised issues, the thread shows a summary of them and where each one has got to.
Here is the part that makes this worthwhile: when that issue is later marked fixed, codus reopens the conversation and posts a short message to the visitor for you, telling them the team has shipped a fix and to try again. You do not have to go back and chase them. The whole queue lives in the issues tab: see What is the issues tab?.
Watching an agent work
When agents are handling conversations, a row of them appears above the list, each labelled like "w1 answering" or "w2 idle". Click one to open its live terminal in an overlay and watch it reply in real time. Closing the overlay does not disturb it. This is a read-only window onto the work; you never have to touch it.
How do I know it worked?
After you reply, your message appears in the transcript and in the visitor's chat window. After take over, the chip on the conversation changes to "you". After resolve, the conversation moves to the closed list, and the visitor's window shows it as closed.
Common problems
The tab says to sign in to codus cloud. Conversations live in the cloud, so the tab needs you signed in. It reads "Sign in to codus cloud (Settings → Account) to run customer-support chat" until you do.
"No conversations for this project yet." The instance is embedded but nobody has written in, or the widget is not live on the site yet. Send yourself a test message through the bubble to confirm the path. See How do I add the chat widget to my website?.
A reply I typed did not reach the visitor. Check the visitor's site domain is on the instance's allowed-domains list, otherwise their widget cannot read replies. See Why can't my visitor see replies?.