Assigning Agents and Channels in Slack

In the Slack integration, any team member who has access to the chat channel can act as a live chat agent. Below we cover how agent assignment works, how to manage channels, and how Social Intents creates per-chat channels for organized conversations.

How Agents Work in Slack

Social Intents identifies agents by matching Slack user profiles to your account. When a team member responds to a chat in Slack:

1. Social Intents looks up the Slack user by their user ID
2. The user's email, display name, and profile photo are pulled from their Slack profile
3. The agent's name and photo appear in the visitor's chat window

There is no separate agent provisioning step. If someone is in the Slack channel and responds to a chat, they are an agent.

The Default Channel

During setup, you select a default channel. This channel serves as the notification hub where all new chat invitations are posted. When a visitor starts a chat, a message appears in this channel with the visitor's name, the page they are on, and their initial message.

Common choices for the default channel:

• #live-chat - A dedicated channel that all agents monitor
• #apoio - If your support team already uses this channel
• #sales - If the primary chat audience is sales leads

Changing the Default Channel

To change which channel receives chat notifications:

1. Go to My Widgets and select your widget
2. Find the Slack channel setting
3. Select the new channel from the dropdown
4. Save the settings

Conversation Routing: Channels vs. Threads

Social Intents gives you two ways to organize chat conversations in Slack. You can choose the mode that best fits your team's workflow.

Per-Chat Channels (Default)

By default, when a visitor starts a conversation, Social Intents automatically creates a new Slack channel dedicated to that single chat session. The channel name is based on the visitor's name (truncated to 21 characters if necessary).

This provides several benefits:

• Conversation isolation - Each chat is in its own channel, so multiple simultaneous conversations do not get mixed together
• Multiple agents - Several team members can join the per-chat channel and collaborate on the response
• Clean history - The full conversation transcript is contained in one place
• Automatic cleanup - When the chat ends, the channel is archived

Threaded Mode

Threaded Mode keeps all conversations as threaded replies in your inbound notification channel. Instead of creating a new channel for each chat, Social Intents posts a parent message to your notification channel and all visitor and agent messages are exchanged inside that thread.

Benefits of Threaded Mode:

• Fewer channels - Your Slack workspace stays clean without dozens of per-chat channels
• Centralized view - All conversations are visible in one channel as threads
• Faster for high volume - Teams handling many chats can scan threads quickly without switching channels
• No channel limits - Avoids hitting Slack workspace channel limits on busy teams

How to Enable Threaded Mode

1. Go to your Integrations page
2. Click the Settings button on your Slack integration
3. Find the Threaded Mode toggle
4. Turn it on and save

Threaded Mode is a per-widget setting. You can use dedicated channels on one widget and threaded mode on another.

Which Should I Use?

Agent Features in Slack

Comandos Slash

Social Intents provides slash commands that agents can use within chat channels:

Agent Profile Information

Social Intents can show the agent's Slack profile photo and display name in the visitor's chat window. You can configure this behavior in your widget settings:

• Display name - Use the agent's Slack display name or real name
• Profile photo - Show the agent's Slack photo in the chat widget
• Typing indicators - Show when the agent is typing

Compartilhamento de arquivos

Agents can share files through the chat. Social Intents supports file uploads up to 25 MB. Certain file types are blocked for security: executables (.exe), archives (.zip), scripts (.js, .py, .bat), and other potentially dangerous formats.

Multiple Widgets, Multiple Channels

You can create multiple widgets, each connected to different Slack channels:

• Widget A (marketing site) routes to #conversa-de-vendas
• Widget B (support portal) routes to #support-chat
• Widget C (product app) routes to #product-help

Each widget maintains its own default channel, AI chatbot settings, and appearance configuration.

Best Practices

• Use a dedicated channel - Do not use #general for chat notifications. Create a channel specifically for live chat so notifications do not get lost in other discussions
• Enable channel notifications - Make sure agents have notifications enabled for the default chat channel so they do not miss incoming chats
• Limit channel access - Only add team members who should handle chats. This prevents people from accidentally joining visitor conversations
• Use the /end command - Close chats properly with /end to keep your channel list clean. Archived channels can be reopened if needed

Perguntas frequentes

Do agents need Social Intents accounts?

No. Agents respond through Slack using their existing Slack accounts. The widget owner manages settings through the Social Intents dashboard.

What happens to the per-chat channel after the conversation ends?

In per-chat channel mode, the channel is archived. It remains in your Slack workspace and can be searched or unarchived if you need to reference the conversation later. In Threaded Mode, no channel is created, so the thread simply stays in your notification channel as a historical record.

Can I prevent certain Slack users from joining chats?

Use a private Slack channel as your default chat channel. Only members of that private channel will see incoming chat notifications.

Next Steps

• Escalation Routing in Slack
• Using AI Chatbots with Slack
• Troubleshooting Slack Integration