Parallel Conversations: Trigger Another Department Without Leaving the Support
https://www.loom.com/share/cfde8d6333a2460d83e488035d5d98b7
When to Use
- The agent needs the finance, legal, back office, or any other department to resolve the customer's case.
- You want the request to this department to have status and owner — it’s not enough for someone to respond; the
department needs to resolve it.
- The agreement with the other department must be recorded within the support ticket, not in a loose email or message
group.
- The department you need to trigger does not use Cloud Chat and can only be reached via email.
The end customer never sees a parallel conversation.
Prerequisites
The feature is active on your account, but neither channel works before being configured:
- Internal sub-ticket — you need to create at least one inbox of type Parallel Conversation, one for each department
to be triggered.
- Email — you need to choose which email inbox the triggers will be sent from.
:::info Only administrators can perform this configuration. The step-by-step instructions are in the Configuration
(administrators only) section below.
:::
How It Works
What is a parallel conversation
It is a separate conversation, created from a support ticket, to communicate with another department within the company.
It has its own status, appears linked to the original ticket, and is invisible to the customer.
As long as a parallel conversation remains open, the original support ticket cannot be resolved — the message displayed
is "Resolve parallel conversations first", with the number of each.
The two channels
| | Internal sub-ticket | Email | |---|---|---| | Recipient | Departments using Cloud Chat | Departments outside the
platform | | Where response is made | In their own queue | Responding to the email | | Who marks as resolved | The
triggered department | You |
Who sees what
- End customer: nothing.
- You, who opened: sees the conversation with the Requester View — message exchanges and response field. You do not
enter the department's queue nor see their other tickets.
- Triggered department: sees the full conversation, with status, responsible person, and history.
Step-by-step
Step 1 — Open the panel
In the support ticket, on the right panel, open the Parallel Conversations section. It shows the count in parentheses if
any exist. If none, it displays "No parallel conversations yet."
Step 2 — Create the trigger
Click + Create New. Choose the channel:
Internal sub-ticket
1. In Recipient, select the department's inbox.
2. In Person (optional), choose a specific individual — or leave blank for the request to go to the team queue.
3. In Request, write what you need.
4. The AI-generated summary appears ready. Review, regenerate, or discard.
5. Use Attach to include files and click Send.
Email
1. In To, search for a contact or enter the email address.
2. In Request, write what you need.
3. If you want to include the AI summary, check Include AI summary in email. It is unchecked by default, as the summary
will be inside the email body and may contain customer data.
4. Use Attach and click Send.
:::warning In the email channel, verify the address before sending. The request may contain customer data, and once
sent, it exits the platform.
:::
Step 3 — Monitor
The parallel conversation appears in the panel with the Waiting label. When the other department responds:
- an orange dot appears on the card, indicating New response;
- a record is added to the original ticket's history.
Click the card to open the conversation and reply. Back-and-forth exchanges are unlimited across both channels.
Step 4 — Close
- Internal sub-ticket: the triggered department marks the conversation as resolved.
- Email: you read the response and mark as resolved — email respondents cannot change the status.
The label changes to Resolved, and the original ticket is free to be closed. If the response did not resolve the issue,
simply reopen the parallel conversation.
Configuration (administrators only)
Create a department inbox
In Settings → Inboxes → Add inbox, select Parallel Conversation, name the department, and add its agents. Each
department to be triggered needs its own inbox.
Enable email channel
In Account Settings → Parallel Conversations, under Email, choose which email inbox the triggers will be sent from. The
default is None — until set, the email channel is unavailable to agents.
Allow closing the original ticket
In each parallel conversation inbox settings, there is an option Allow resolving the original conversation with open
parallels. It is off by default — meaning the original ticket remains locked until all parallels are resolved.
SLA pause
While there are pending parallel conversations, the SLA of the original ticket is paused and resumes when the last is
resolved. The history records both events.
The first response is an exception: if the agent has not yet responded to the customer, this timer continues.
To disable, go to Settings → SLA and adjust Pause SLA while waiting for parallel conversations in the desired policy.
Notes
- How the department knows it was triggered. If you assign a person, they receive a notification in Cloud Chat. If you
assign only to the team, the request enters the queue without individual notification — someone must monitor the
queue. No email or browser notification is sent.
- Where to find parallel conversations. Only in the Parallel Conversations item in the sidebar menu. They do not
appear in regular conversation lists.
- Customer satisfaction surveys, automatic resolution, and follow-up are never triggered in a parallel conversation.
- Reports. Parallel conversations are included in reports by inbox. To exclude internal work from metrics, remove
parallel inboxes from filters.
- Customer data identification. Internal parallel conversations do not load customer data. Context is provided by what
you write in the request and the AI summary — describe the case clearly.
- There is no limit to the number of parallel conversations per ticket.
