# How to Restrict Team Members to Assigned Chats in ZazzyAgent A shared inbox can contain hundreds or thousands of customer conversations. That's useful for managers. But individual support agents don't always need to see every conversation. A sales employee may only need their sales leads. A support employee may only need tickets assigned to them. [ZazzyAgent](http://zazzyagent.com) provides: **Allow Only Assigned Chat in Livechat** to restrict a team member's Live Chat view to conversations assigned to them. ## What does this setting do? When enabled for a team member, their Live Chat access is restricted to assigned conversations rather than giving them unrestricted visibility across the inbox. This is useful for teams where conversations are distributed among individual agents. ## Why use assigned-chat restrictions? Without restrictions: ```text Shared Inbox ├─ Customer A ├─ Customer B ├─ Customer C ├─ Customer D └─ Customer E ``` Every agent may potentially see many conversations. With assignment-based access: ```text Rahul ↓ Customer A Customer D Priya ↓ Customer B Customer E ``` Each person focuses on their own workload. ## When should you use it? This works especially well when: * Every customer is assigned to an agent. * Your support team has clear ownership. * You want to reduce inbox clutter. * Customers need a consistent point of contact. * Agents should not work on each other's conversations unless explicitly reassigned. ## When should you not use it? You may want broader access for: * Managers * Supervisors * Team leads * Escalation specialists A manager may need visibility across the entire support queue. ## Enable the setting Open: **User Manager** Find the relevant team member. Choose: **Edit** Look for: **Allow Only Assigned Chat in Livechat** Enable it. Save the user. ## What does "assigned" mean? The conversation needs to be assigned according to your configured human-assignment workflow. For example: **Conversation** → Assign to Rahul Rahul can then work on the assigned conversation. ## Assign manually A manager or authorized team member can assign a conversation to the appropriate person through Live Chat. For example: > Customer needs technical help. → Assign to Technical Support. ## Assign through AI An AI Agent can also assign a conversation to a specific team member or team role using supported actions. For example: ```text Customer ↓ AI Agent ↓ Needs human? ↓ Assign Support Role ``` The assigned agent then receives the conversation according to the account configuration. See [How to Hand Off AI Conversations to Human Agents in ZazzyAgent](https://blog.zazzyagent.com/ai-agent-human-handoff-zazzyagent). ## Reassign a conversation A conversation shouldn't necessarily remain with the original agent forever. For example: > Sales agent receives a technical question. It can be reassigned to: > Technical Support. The new owner can then handle it. ## Example: Sales team Customer: > I want pricing information. The conversation is assigned to: > Sales Agent. With assigned-chat restriction enabled, that sales employee can focus on conversations assigned to them. ## Example: Customer support Customer: > My account isn't working. The conversation is assigned to: > Support Agent. The employee doesn't need to search through every conversation in the company inbox. ## Example: Specialist escalation Customer starts with: > Support Agent. The issue turns out to require: > Technical Specialist. Reassign: **Support → Technical Specialist** The new owner gets the conversation. ## Assigned chats vs bot access These are different. ### Bot access Controls which bots the employee can manage. ### Assigned chat Controls which conversations the employee can see/work with in Live Chat. For example: ```text Employee ↓ Allowed Bot: Support WhatsApp ↓ Assigned Chats: Customer A Customer D ``` The employee can work with the correct bot while still seeing only assigned conversations. ## Assigned chats vs Team Role Again, separate them. **Team Role** controls feature permissions. **Bot Access** controls bot scope. **Assigned Chat** controls conversation scope. ## Use assignment consistently Assigned-chat restrictions work best when your team actually assigns conversations consistently. If conversations aren't assigned, an employee with the restriction may have very little to work on. ## Combine with round-robin assignment Where your setup uses role-based routing, you can distribute conversations among available team members. For example: ```text New Customer ↓ Support Role ↓ Available Team Member ↙ ↓ ↘ Rahul Priya Amit ``` Each employee receives the conversations assigned to them. ## Combine with AI handoff An AI Agent can identify that a human is needed. Then: ```text AI ↓ Needs human ↓ Assign Support Role ↓ Agent receives conversation ``` Assigned-chat restrictions can then keep the agent focused on the conversations assigned to them. ## What happens when a conversation is reassigned? The conversation ownership changes. The new assigned agent should then be able to access it according to the configured access rules. ## Common problems ### Agent sees no conversations Check whether conversations have actually been assigned to that user. ### Agent cannot see a conversation they should handle Check the assignment. Also check whether the user has access to the correct bot. ### Manager needs to see everything Consider whether the manager's Live Chat restriction should remain disabled. ### Conversation is assigned to the wrong person Review your manual or automated assignment rules. ## Example team structure ```text Support Manager ↓ Broad Live Chat Access Support Agents ↓ Assigned-Chat Restriction ↓ Only their conversations Specialists ↓ Assigned when escalation is required ``` This creates a clean division between management visibility and frontline work. ## Best practice Don't enable assigned-chat restrictions simply because the option exists. First decide: > How does your team own conversations? If every conversation has a clear owner, assigned-chat access can work very well. If your team operates as a shared pool where anyone should answer anything, broader access may make more sense. ## The important distinction Think of the three access layers like this: ```text Team Role ↓ What can I do? Bot Access ↓ Which bot can I work with? Assigned Chat ↓ Which conversations can I work on? ``` That separation is the foundation of a well-organized ZazzyAgent support team.