Proper ticket assignment is key to having clear ownership, faster replies, and no "orphan" conversations. In Commslayer, there are two main ways to assign tickets to agents:
-
Manual Assignment
-
Auto-Assignment
Both methods can be used together: manual assignment is the foundation, while auto-assignment helps you distribute new incoming tickets efficiently across your team.
1. Manual Assignment (Recommended Base Practice)
Manual assignment is the first action an agent should take when they open a ticket. This ensures that every conversation has a clear owner from the very beginning.
How to manually assign a ticket to yourself
-
Open the ticket you want to work on.
-
Go to the right sidebar menu.
-
In top right corner, next to priority click on Unassigned button
-
Click on Assign to me
Once assigned, you can reply and manage the ticket as the owner.
What if I forget to assign the ticket?
If an agent replies to a ticket that is still unassigned, Commslayer assigns that ticket to the agent who replied. This is the account setting Auto-assign tickets when replying under Settings → Account settings, and it's on by default.
This means:
-
Ideally, you should always assign the ticket to yourself first.
-
If you forget, your reply will still create ownership: the ticket will be automatically assigned to you as soon as you respond.
This behavior helps keep the queue clean and prevents tickets from staying unassigned after someone has already taken action on them.
You can also add a Team if you have a dedicated team (billing, support, marketing), or Participants if you have a conversation where multiple people are working on it — for example, if a conversation is escalated to a manager, you will have both the agent and the manager as participants in that conversation.
2. Auto-Assignment of New Tickets
If you want new incoming tickets to be distributed automatically among your agents, you can enable auto-assignment at the inbox level.
How to enable auto-assignment
-
Go to Settings
-
In Channel click on Inboxes
-
Select the inbox you want to configure by clicking Manage in right corner
-
Scroll to the Collaborators card and find Agent assignment.
-
Tick Enable auto-assignment, then click Save.
Once enabled, Commslayer assigns conversations in that inbox to agents who:
-
Are collaborators of that inbox, and
-
Have the status Online at that moment. Agents set to Busy or Offline are skipped.
To assign to every collaborator whatever their status, tick Include offline agents under the same checkbox.
The rotation is the inbox's collaborator list. To choose who gets tickets, edit the Agents field in the Collaborators card.
How does auto-assignment work? →
Capacity limit: maximum number of conversations per agent
To avoid overloading a single agent, set an Auto-assignment limit in the same card. It is the maximum number of open conversations from this inbox that one agent can hold.
-
Only conversations with the status Open in this inbox count. Pending and Resolved conversations don't.
-
An agent at the limit stops receiving new auto-assigned tickets until they hold fewer open conversations than the limit.
-
Tickets that arrive while every agent is at the limit stay in Unassigned. They are not assigned later, so assign them by hand.
The distribution logic is round robin, which means that Commslayer will assign new tickets in turns, cycling through the eligible agents one by one, instead of sending everything to the same person (as long as they are online and below their capacity).
Practical Examples
Let us assume:
You have 4 agents assigned as collaborators in the same inbox.
-
Auto-assignment is enabled.
-
All other settings are standard, so Include offline agents is unticked.
Scenario 1: 3 out of 4 agents are offline
- Only 1 agent is currently online.
Result: All new incoming tickets will be auto-assigned to the single online agent (until they reach their capacity limit, if set).
Scenario 2: 2 agents online, 2 offline
- 2 agents are online, 2 are offline.
Result: New incoming tickets will be distributed between the 2 online agents according to the auto-assignment logic and their capacity limits.
With Include offline agents unticked, Busy and Offline agents are left out, even if they are collaborators of the inbox. With it ticked, every collaborator is included.
Important Note on Scope of Auto-Assignment
Auto-assignment runs at the moment a conversation becomes Open: when it arrives, when it reopens without an assignee, and when the AI agent hands it over. It doesn't go back over tickets that are already sitting in Unassigned.
To handle those, assign them by hand. To assign many at once, select them in the list and use Agent on the toolbar at the bottom.
Bulk actions: resolve, assign or label many conversations at once →
Frequently Asked Questions
Can other agents see tickets that are assigned to me?
Yes. Assigning a ticket to yourself doesn't make it private. What a person can see follows the inbox: agents and managers see the conversations of inboxes they are collaborators of, and administrators see every inbox. Anyone with access to the inbox can open your tickets and help out.
To see only your own tickets, use the Mine tab at the top of the conversation list.
Assignment follows the same rule. The Assignee list of a conversation shows the collaborators of its inbox plus all administrators.
What does "Participants" mean?
Participants are agents who want to be notified about updates to a ticket without being assigned to it. Use this when:
-
You want to stay in the loop on a conversation someone else is handling
-
Multiple people need visibility into a ticket's progress
-
A manager wants to monitor specific conversations
Participants receive notifications but aren't responsible for responding. The assigned agent remains the owner.
A colleague is out—can I reply to their assigned tickets?
Absolutely. You can reply to any ticket regardless of who it's assigned to. When you reply:
-
The ticket is assigned to you when you send, as long as Auto-assign tickets when replying is on in Settings → Account settings. It's on by default.
-
The assign control next to Send shows who the ticket goes to after sending. Change or clear it there if the ticket should stay with your colleague.
This makes shift handoffs easy—just jump in and respond.
Why are some tickets not appearing in my inbox?
If tickets seem to be "missing," check these common causes:
-
AI agent filtering: Tickets being handled by the AI agent are filtered out of regular views. Find them under AI agent → Open in the sidebar.
-
View filters: Make sure you're in "All" status, not just "Open" or a custom filter.
-
Inbox selection: Check that you're viewing the correct inbox in the sidebar.
-
Inbox access: agents and managers only see inboxes they are collaborators of. Ask an administrator or manager to add you under Settings → Inboxes → Manage → Collaborators.