Working with conversations

This page covers the work you do inside a single conversation: reading what has been said, answering it, handing it to the right person, and finishing it.

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Opening a conversation

Click a row in the list. The conversation opens, its unread count clears immediately, and it becomes a tab in the strip above the pane. If a conversation cannot be opened you will see “This conversation is unavailable.” — “It may have been removed or you don’t have access.”

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The header

The bar across the top of the conversation carries the contact’s name and a row of pills that tell you where things stand. On the right sit the AI toggle, the More actions menu, and — for agents that follow a flow — a View flow button that shows where the conversation has reached in the script.

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Reading the thread

Messages run oldest to newest, split by Today / Yesterday / date separators. Messages sent close together by the same side are grouped so the thread stays readable.

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Who wrote what

Every outgoing message carries a small name above it:

• A teammate’s name when a person sent it.
• The AI agent’s name when an agent answered on its own.

Incoming messages are the customer’s, anchored by their avatar at the end of each run.

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Delivery state

Outgoing messages carry a tick indicator, WhatsApp style: A failed message sometimes carries an explanation underneath it. On Meta channels, for example, a missing payment method on your Meta account shows a link to Add a payment method in Meta Business Manager “to send template messages — free-form replies are unaffected”. Under the whole thread, a Read by line names the teammates who have read the conversation, excluding you.

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Media, voice notes and templates

• Images render inline. Documents appear as a download row.
• Voice notes get an audio player. Once Callivox has transcribed them, a Transcript: block appears below the player. If transcription fails it reads “Transcript unavailable”.
• Templates show as Template · <name> with the list of variables that were filled in and the values used.
• Locations render as a map card.

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Email messages

Email is not chat, and it does not pretend to be. Each email in the thread is a card, not a bubble: subject header, a From / To / Cc line, the formatted body, inline images, and attachment chips with their sizes and download links. Replies normally carry the whole history quoted below them. Callivox collapses that behind a ••• Show quoted history toggle so the thread stays readable; click it again to hide it. Each email card has its own Reply, Reply all and Forward actions, which prefill the composer with the right recipients.

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System markers

Some events show as a centred line across the thread rather than a message: Repeated identical markers collapse into one line with a ×N count, so a busy day of toggling does not bury the conversation.

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Replying

The composer sits at the bottom of the conversation and has two tabs.

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Reply

Reply sends to the customer on their channel. The box reads “Type a reply… (Enter to send, Shift+Enter for newline)”. Press Enter to send. The icon buttons to the left of the box:

• Attach file — images, PDFs, ZIPs, Office documents and text files. You can pick several; each becomes a chip showing its upload progress, with cancel and retry.
• Share location — pick a point and send it as a location message.
• Record voice message — records in place, showing “Recording… m:ss” with Stop and Discard recording.
• Insert canned response — opens the saved-reply picker. See Canned responses.

Hover any message and click Reply on it to answer that specific message. A banner appears above the composer reading Replying to them or Replying to yourself, with the message previewed; the X cancels it. If a send fails, your text and attachments stay in the box so you can try again.

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Note

Note writes an internal note. The composer turns amber to make the difference unmistakable, and the box reads “Add an internal note — type @ to mention a teammate…”. Notes are for your team only. They are never sent to the customer. In the thread they appear centred, in an amber card headed INTERNAL NOTE. Type @ to mention a teammate — a list of names appears, and the person you pick is notified.

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Writing an email

Email conversations get a different composer: a To field with recipient chips, Cc and Bcc links, a Subject line, and a rich text editor with formatting, links, images and tables. Above it, Replying in thread shows that your message will be threaded under the customer’s. Click its X to send it as a new email instead. To the right, Sending as <address> confirms which mailbox it goes out from. After sending, the recipients and subject stay in place — the body and attachments clear — so a back-and-forth exchange takes one click less.

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When you cannot reply

Two things replace the composer: See WhatsApp for how to create and submit templates.

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Assigning

Open the More actions menu (the kebab at the top right). Its items, in order:

1. Assign to me
2. Unassign
3. ASSIGN TO — one row per teammate, each with a dot showing whether they are online
4. Close (when the conversation is open) or Reopen (when it is closed or snoozed)
5. Snooze 1 hour / Snooze 4 hours / Snooze tomorrow
6. Re-evaluate tags
7. Block sender or Unblock sender
8. MOVE TO FOLDER — one row per folder

Assigning writes a Conversation reassigned marker into the thread and notifies the new assignee. To assign a batch at once, select rows in the list and use Assign… in the bulk toolbar.

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Tags

Conversations are tagged automatically by topic, and the tags show as coloured chips on the list row. They use the same tag vocabulary as your contacts, so “Refund” means the same thing everywhere. If a conversation has moved on since it was tagged, Re-evaluate tags in the More actions menu re-reads it and updates the tags. Curate the vocabulary itself — rename, recolour, merge duplicates — on the Tags page.

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Snoozing, closing and archiving

Snooze puts a conversation aside for 1 hour, 4 hours or until tomorrow. It still counts as active and still appears under the Active filter; it stops demanding attention. Close finishes the conversation. The status pill turns grey, the composer is replaced by the closed notice, and the conversation moves out of your working views into Archive. The Archive row in the sidebar is where closed conversations live. It is not a separate place you move things to — anything closed is there. A conversation can also close itself: when an AI agent completes the objective you set for it, it closes the conversation on its own. See Behavior and handoff.

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The conversation lifecycle

This is the one piece of behaviour worth understanding properly, because it explains a lot of what you see in the inbox. A closed conversation is finished for good. When the contact writes to you again, their message does not land in the closed conversation — it starts a brand-new one. That is deliberate. Each conversation is a self-contained episode: one enquiry, one outcome, one record. A customer who asks about delivery in March and about a refund in June gets two conversations, not one endless thread, so your reporting and your team’s reading of the history both stay meaningful. What follows from it:

• The N past chip on a list row counts that contact’s earlier, closed conversations.
• The Conversation history section in the contact panel lists those earlier conversations. Click one to read it.
• Reopen exists for the case where you closed something too early. It clears the closed state and puts the conversation back in play. A new inbound message never reopens a conversation on its own — only you can.
• For email, conversations follow the email thread rather than the sender, because reply-all recipients change over the life of a thread. A late reply to a thread you already closed starts a new conversation that still carries the same thread.

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Blocking a sender

Block sender in the More actions menu stops the AI from answering that person. Callivox asks you to confirm:

The AI will stop auto-replying to this contact everywhere they message you — this conversation and any others on the same channel. You can still reply manually, and unblock them anytime.

Blocked senders get a red Blocked pill on the conversation header. Unblock sender takes effect immediately, with no confirmation. Blocking is about the AI, not about the person’s ability to reach you — their messages still arrive, and your team can still answer. If what you want is to stop sending them marketing, opt the contact out instead. See Managing contacts.

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The right-hand panels

A narrow icon rail runs down the right edge of the conversation. Click an icon to open its panel; click it again to close. One panel is open at a time. On a phone the panels are hidden; you see the thread and the composer only.

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Next steps