The Human Handoff screen lets you monitor active customer conversations in real time and step in to respond manually when needed.

You can staff the desk on a weekly schedule, auto-assign waiting enquiries to available agents, generate an AI draft to revise before sending, and give live-support staff an Agent login that can work the queue without changing configuration.

The screen maintains a live connection to the conversation server and updates automatically — you don't need to refresh the page.

Connection Status

A status indicator in the top-right corner shows whether the live connection to the server is active:

• Green dot — Connected — Receiving live conversation updates.
• Yellow dot — Connecting — Attempting to establish a connection.
• Red dot — Disconnected — The connection has been lost. The page will attempt to reconnect automatically.

Next to it, Available / Away controls whether you are in the auto-assign pool. Click the agent count to see who is currently available (and who is on the page but Away).

Stats Bar

Three counters at the top of the screen give a live summary:

Service Modes

Each service can be set to one of three operating modes using the button group shown next to its name. If you have multiple services, an Apply to all services bar appears above the queue to change every service at once.

Store Full Conversations

By default the AI keeps only a short working history so the model does not get confused. Turn on Store full conversations (per service, or for all services at once) if agents will take over chats. The extra copy is text-only and is discarded a couple of days after the session ends.

Enable this before agents start taking over. Conversations that were already long while the setting was off cannot recover the turns the AI has already dropped.

Auto-assign

When a service is in Human Only or Human-Supported AI, an Auto-assign switch appears next to the mode controls. It is off by default.

With Auto-assign on:

• Human Only — every new customer conversation is queued and claimed by the next available idle agent.
• Human-Supported AI — only conversations that need a human (help requested, thumbs down, non-answer, or negative sentiment) are queued.

An agent is available only while they have the Human Handoff page open and the Available toggle is on. Holding a live claim makes them busy; they return to the pool after Hand back to AI, Release, or the five-minute idle timeout.

If nobody is free, the conversation stays unclaimed in the list. The next time someone becomes available, the oldest waiting conversation is assigned. Agents can still Take Over an unclaimed card themselves.

Only admins can change modes or the Auto-assign switch. Agents can see the setting but cannot edit it.

Staffed hours

Admins can put a service on a weekly schedule. Open Hours next to the mode radios (or the Hours control on the Apply to all bar). Typical hours are Monday–Friday 09:00–17:00 in a chosen timezone.

Turn on Use a weekly schedule, then set:

The preview at the bottom of the modal shows whether the schedule is on and what the live mode would be now.

The radios still show the live mode. Clicking a radio while a schedule is on does not rewrite the saved hours. You are asked how long the override should last:

• Until the next scheduled change
• Until you turn the schedule off
• Until a specific time

Turn the schedule off to go back to a manual mode; the desk keeps whatever mode was live at that moment.

Apply this schedule to all services copies the same hours everywhere. Uncheck it to Save to a single service from the picker.

Only admins can edit hours. Agents can see the live mode but cannot open or change the schedule.

Agent role

Give live-support staff the Agent role in User Management instead of Customer Admin.

Agents:

• Land on Human Handoff after sign-in
• Can monitor conversations, take over, generate and send replies, set Available/Away, and open Insights
• Cannot change modes, Auto-assign, staffed hours, Store full conversations, or other configuration
• Do not see Account, Users, Usage, or service configuration screens

You can scope an Agent to all services or to specific services, the same way as Analyst. Admins still change desk settings; agents work the queue.

Conversation List

Active conversations are listed under each service. Each card shows:

• Status badge — AI Active (green) when the AI is responding, or Paused (yellow) when a human has taken over.
• Agent badge — Which specialist agent is handling the conversation (e.g. Tech Support, Sales).
• Location — The customer's detected city and region.
• Opening question — A preview of the first thing the customer asked.
• Time — When the conversation started.
• Message count — The total number of messages exchanged.
• Tags — Compact chips for any conversation tags the claimed rep has applied.

Attention Flags

Conversations that need human review are highlighted with a pulsing red border and display a coloured badge on the right side of the card:

These conversations also increment the Needs Attention counter in the stats bar.

Taking Over a Conversation

Click any conversation card to open the conversation detail panel.

Conversation Panel

The panel shows the full chat transcript in a scrollable view, with messages colour-coded by role:

• User messages — Blue background, right-aligned.
• AI responses — White with a border, left-aligned.
• Human agent messages — Green background, left-aligned.
• System messages — Yellow, centred and italicised (e.g. handoff notifications shown to the customer).

Taking Over

Click Take Over Conversation to claim the conversation and pause the AI. The customer sees a notification that a human agent has joined. Once you have taken over:

• The conversation opens a New Message panel beside the transcript.
• Generate, revise, or type a reply (see Generate AI Answer below), then click Send (or press Enter).
• Use Shift + Enter for a new line within a message.
• If another agent has already claimed the conversation, a blue banner shows their name and the Take Over button is disabled.

Generate AI Answer

After you have claimed a conversation, Generate AI Answer runs the same agent pipeline the customer would have seen, without sending anything to them. This works in Human Only as well as Human-Supported AI.

• The markdown appears in the New Message box, with source citations underneath for your reference.
• Click again while it is generating to cancel and start a new draft.
• Edit the markdown as needed, or click Clear and write your own reply.
• Click Send to deliver the draft as your message. The customer sees a human-agent reply, not an AI answer. Citations stay in the admin draft pane and are not shown in the widget. Inline citation images are omitted from the New Message box because they cannot render on a human send.
• If the customer sends another message while you have a draft, a banner asks you to regenerate. The draft is not overwritten automatically.

Generating an AI answer counts toward your subscription quota, even if you edit or discard the draft. Replies you type yourself are not billed.

Conversation tags

Tags belong to the whole conversation (not each thread) and stay on Insights after the session ends.

• Click a suggested tag from the service palette, or type a custom label and press Enter. The picker sits under the New Message box, next to Send.
• Matching a palette name (or its id) stores the standard tag, so reporting stays clean.
• Only the claimed rep can add or remove tags. Everyone can see the chips on the conversation list.
• Custom tags cannot contain a semicolon. Up to 12 tags, 40 characters each.

Suggested tags are configured per service in YAML (human_handoff.conversation_tags). Custom tags still work when the palette is empty.

Resuming the AI

Click Hand back to AI, then click again to confirm, to return the conversation to the AI. The AI will resume responding from the next customer message. A system message is shown to the customer.

Releasing

Click Release Conversation to release your claim on the conversation without resuming the AI. This allows another agent to take over, but leaves the conversation paused.

Notifications

When a new conversation requires attention — for example, when a customer gives a thumbs down or the AI fails to answer — a notification sound plays and a toast notification appears at the bottom-right of the screen, even if you are on a different page in the admin console. This allows you to monitor for escalations without keeping the Human Handoff page open.

Auto-assign still requires the Human Handoff page to be open with Available on. Toasts tell you something needs attention; they do not put you in the assignment pool.

Related documentation

• User Management — Assign the Agent role for live-support staff
• Customer Service Insights — Review tagged conversations after the session ends
• Handoff and Escalation — Planning live vs async escalation