Inbox Style & Auto-Assignment
What are Inbox Style & Auto-Assignment?
These settings control how your team's shared WhatsApp inbox behaves. Inbox Style decides the layout everyone sees, and Auto-Assignment decides how new conversations are shared across your team.
Both are workspace-wide settings — only an Owner or Admin can change them, and the choice applies to everyone in the organization. You'll find them under Settings → Inbox & routing.
How to use it
Choosing your inbox style
There are two layouts:
| Style | Tabs your team sees | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Team | Mine, Unassigned, Open, Resolved | Customer service and sales teams that hand off conversations between agents |
| Simple | Inbox, Resolved | Businesses that mostly broadcast and only reply to customers occasionally |
To change it:
- Go to Settings → Inbox & routing
- Under Inbox style, choose Team or Simple
The change takes effect for everyone right away. With the Team layout, see Working as a Team in the Inbox for how the tabs and assignments work day to day.
Turning on auto-assignment
Auto-assignment shares brand-new conversations across your team automatically, so nobody has to grab them from the Unassigned tab manually.
- On the Inbox & routing page, switch on Auto-assign new conversations
New conversations are then handed out using round-robin — one by one, in turn — so the workload is shared evenly. A customer always stays with the same teammate for their follow-up messages, and conversations already in someone's inbox don't move.
Setting the assignment pool
The assignment pool is the group of teammates who receive auto-assigned conversations.
- Click the Assignment pool selector and choose the members who should be included
- Leave it empty to include everyone — all active team members will share new conversations
Any active member — Owner, Admin, Manager, or Agent — can be added to the pool.
Reopen behavior
When a customer replies to a conversation you've already resolved, it reopens. The Reopen behavior setting decides who gets it:
- On — the conversation returns to the agent who originally handled it. If that agent has since been removed or deactivated, it goes to Unassigned instead.
- Off — the reopened conversation goes straight to Unassigned for anyone to pick up.
This only applies when a customer reopens a chat by replying. When you manually reopen a resolved conversation, it's always assigned to you.
Remember to click Save Changes after adjusting auto-assignment or reopen behavior.
Tips & best practices
- Most teams should use the Team style — it prevents two people replying to the same customer. Switch to Simple only if you rarely chat one-to-one.
- Turn on auto-assignment once you have two or more agents — it removes the "who's taking this one?" guesswork.
- Keep the assignment pool to people who actually reply — leave out teammates who only build campaigns or manage contacts, so conversations don't land with someone who won't see them.
- Leave Reopen behavior on — returning customers usually want the person who already knows their issue.
- Changing the inbox style affects everyone instantly, so let your team know before you switch it.
Frequently asked questions
Who can change these settings?
Only Owners and Admins. Managers and Agents can see the page, but the controls are read-only for them.
What's the difference between the Team and Simple inbox styles?
Team splits conversations into Mine, Unassigned, Open, and Resolved tabs so a group can divide the work. Simple shows one combined Inbox plus Resolved — better when one person handles replies. Both layouts can still resolve and reopen conversations.
How does round-robin assignment work?
Waplify gives each new conversation to the next teammate in the pool, in turn. Over time everyone gets a roughly equal share. Once a customer is assigned to someone, their future messages stay with that same teammate.
Will auto-assignment move conversations already in my inbox?
No. Auto-assignment only applies to new conversations. Anything already assigned stays where it is.
What happens if my assignment pool is empty?
Every active team member is included automatically. Auto-assignment never runs out of people to assign to, as long as you have active members.
A teammate left — what happens to their conversations?
Their open conversations stay assigned to them until someone reassigns them. If a customer reopens one of their resolved conversations and Reopen behavior can't reach them, it falls back to Unassigned.