Inbox
Replying and takeover
Answer customers from the inbox, take conversations over from the agent, hand them back, and close them when you're done.
You can answer any customer straight from the inbox. Your reply goes out on the channel they wrote from, so a WhatsApp customer gets it in WhatsApp and an Instagram customer gets it in their DMs. The moment a person steps in, the agent stops answering, so your customer never hears from you and the agent at the same time.
Reply to a customer
Open the conversation
Click a conversation in the list.
Write your reply
Type in Write a reply… at the bottom of the conversation. Press Enter to send, or Shift + Enter to add a new line.
Check it was sent
Your reply shows Sending… while it goes out, then appears in the conversation as sent by you.
Replying takes the conversation over. If the agent was handling it, OrbitBase hands it to the team and assigns it to you, so the agent stops answering and the conversation moves to your Mine view. If a teammate already owns the conversation, it stays theirs.
Take a conversation over
You can also take over without replying, for example to stop the agent while you look something up.
- The agent is handling it. Click Take over to stop the agent and answer the customer yourself.
- It's in the queue. The conversation shows "Waiting for a teammate". Click Take it to make it yours.
Either way, the conversation is assigned to you and you'll see "You're handling this conversation." If the agent was partway through writing a reply when you took over, that reply is thrown away rather than sent.
If the agent hasn't answered a customer within a few minutes, the conversation shows The AI agent hasn't replied. That's a good moment to take over.
Hand back to the agent
When you're done helping and the agent can carry on, hand the conversation back:
Open the assignee picker
In the Details panel, click the assignee.
Choose Unassigned
Choose Unassigned. The picker describes this as Hand back to the agent.
The conversation goes back to AI handling, and the agent answers the customer's next message. A closed conversation stays closed.
Close a conversation
When the customer's question is resolved, click Close conversation. The conversation moves to Closed.
- Closing is final. There's no reopen. If the customer writes again, a new conversation starts.
- You can't reply to a closed conversation. Replies are no longer sent to the customer.
- Closing needs a person in charge. While the agent is handling a conversation, the only option is Take over. Once a person owns it, or it's in the queue, you can assign it or close it.
Send a file
To attach a file to your reply, click Attach a file, choose the file, and send.
- You can send images (PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP), PDFs, text and CSV files, and Word documents (DOC, DOCX).
- Files can be up to 5MB.
- Files are delivered natively, so the customer sees a photo or document in their app, not a link.
Customers can send you files too, such as screenshots, voice notes and PDFs. They appear in the conversation, and you can click a photo to open it in a new tab. The agent can't open attachments, so if a file matters, the agent asks the customer to describe it or offers a teammate.
Typing indicators
While you type a reply, the customer sees a typing indicator on Telegram, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Slack doesn't support typing indicators for bots, and website widget visitors only see one while the agent is answering.
Your teammates see you too. If someone else is writing a reply in the same conversation, you'll see a warning such as "Sam is writing a reply here too — check before you send."
If a reply doesn't go through
- Not sent. Your reply didn't reach the platform. Click Retry to send it again, or Remove to discard it. Retrying never sends the same reply twice.
- Not delivered. The platform accepted your reply but later reported that it couldn't deliver it. The platform's reason shows under the message.
- The messaging window has closed. On Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, you can only reply for a limited time after the customer's last message. See Messaging windows.
If you press Send twice by accident, OrbitBase only sends the reply once.
Work through several conversations at once
Tick the checkbox on each conversation you want, or use the checkbox at the top to select every conversation on the page. A bar appears above the list with:
- The assignee picker. Assign all selected conversations to a teammate. This takes them over from the agent first, and the teammate gets one email for the whole batch.
- Actions → Mark read or Mark unread.
- Actions → Close. You'll be asked to confirm, because closing can't be undone.
You can act on up to 100 conversations at a time. OrbitBase tells you how many actually changed. For example, if you close 40 and 12 were already closed, it says "28 conversations closed." Playground sessions are skipped when you assign.