Human Handoff: Pass Conversations to Your Team

Overview

Most questions are answered by the assistant on its own. Some need a person: the user asks for one, the AI can't solve the problem, or it's a complaint, a refund or something only your team can do. With human handoff the assistant passes such a conversation to your operators and steps aside until they are done:

1. The assistant decides that a person is needed. It follows your When to call a specialist instruction.
2. A request appears in your Slack operator channel as a card: the user, where they wrote from, the reason, a short AI summary and the place in the queue.
3. An operator clicks Claim. The user gets a message that the operator has joined.
4. The operator replies in the card's thread. Replies reach the user in their messenger, and the user's messages appear in the thread.
5. The operator clicks Close — or the request closes by itself after a while without messages. The user is back with the AI.

Everything is set up per assistant: each assistant has its own settings, operator channels and switch.

Before You Start

You'll need:

1. An assistant connected to at least one social bot — see the social bots overview.
2. A Slack workspace where you can install apps, and a channel for your operators (for example #support).

Open Human Handoff

Open Human handoff in the main menu. You can also get there from the headset icon in the assistants table, or from Set up → at the bottom of the assistant form.

Choose the assistant at the top. Next to each one you see its status: Working, Off, Not set up or No channel.

Below it is a strip with three steps. Click any step to open its tab:

The switch can be turned on only when steps ① and ② are done.

Step 1. Settings

Open the Settings tab. Until you save, it shows the defaults.

Time Zone and Working Hours

• Time zone — required. Working hours are in this time zone.
• Working hours — when your operators take requests. Up to 3 intervals a day. An interval can't run past midnight: a night shift is two days, until 24:00 and from 00:00.

Outside working hours requests are still created, but they wait in the queue. See Queue and working hours.

Deadlines

Under Maximum wait the page shows what it means in calendar time with your working hours.

Operator Language and Auto-Translation

Choose the language your operators work in and switch on Auto-translation if users write in other languages. See Auto-translation.

When to Call a Specialist

This text tells the assistant when to hand the conversation over. The standard text covers the usual cases: the user asks for a person, the AI can't solve the problem, complaints, refunds and disputes. Edit it to fit your business (up to 2000 characters), or click Reset to standard to go back.

Fallback Contacts

• Contact for users — a phone number, email or link. Users see it when nobody took their request in time or when the chat window is about to close.
• Email for operators — overdue reminders are also sent there.

Your System Messages (Optional)

During a handoff the user gets a few messages from the system, for example "Anna from our support team has joined the chat". Open Your system messages to write your own versions, per language. Leave a field empty to keep ours. Some messages can hold placeholders — {name} is the operator's name, {fallbackContact} is your contact for users; the page shows which ones each message allows.

Click Save. Step ① is done.

Step 2. Connect a Slack Channel

Requests go to a Slack channel where your operators work. Save the settings (step ①) first — until then a channel can't be connected, and the Connect button stays off.

Find the Channel ID

It's easiest in Slack on a computer or in a browser:

1. Open the channel for your operators — it's under Channels on the left. No channel yet? Create one: + → Create channel.
2. Click the channel name at the top, above the messages.
3. On the About tab, scroll to the bottom: there's Channel ID, for example C0123ABCD. Click the copy icon next to it.

Another way: right-click the channel in the list → Copy → Copy link. The link ends with the ID — https://your-team.slack.com/archives/C0123ABCD — and you can paste the whole link: Mingleego takes the ID from it.

On the Operator channels tab, the i icon next to Slack channel ID shows these steps right on the page.

Connect It

1. For a private channel, first add the Mingleego app to it: send /invite in the channel and pick the app, or open the app in Slack and click Add this app to a channel. A public channel needs nothing — the app joins it by itself.
2. In Mingleego, open the Operator channels tab, paste the ID and click Connect.
3. A Slack window opens. Sign in, check that it's the workspace the channel is in, and click Allow. Installing an app may need a Slack workspace admin.
4. Mingleego notices the new channel by itself — it appears in the list as Active, and step ② is done.

A channel can need your attention later — for example, if the app was removed from it. It then shows Needs setup: click Reconnect and go through the same steps with that channel's ID.

Deleting a channel: requests that operators are handling in it are closed, and the users go back to the AI. If it's the last channel, waiting requests are cancelled, and new ones can't be created until you connect another channel.

Step 3. Switch It On

Turn on the switch in step ③. From now on the assistant can hand conversations over.

Switching it off is a pause:

• requests that operators are handling are closed, waiting ones are cancelled, and users go back to the AI;
• your settings and channels are kept — you can switch it back on any time.

Deleting the assistant also deletes its human handoff settings and operator channels.

Queue and Working Hours

• Requests are created at any time. They wait in a queue, and each operator card shows the place in it.
• While a request waits, the user keeps chatting with the AI. Once an operator claims the request, the user's messages go to the operator.
• If a request waits longer than Overdue reminder, operators get a reminder.
• Maximum wait counts only working minutes. With Monday–Friday 9:00–18:00 the default 540 minutes are one working day. With one working hour a week, the same 540 minutes would take nine weeks — so check the calendar estimate on the settings page.
• When the maximum wait runs out, the request expires: the user is told that the team couldn't reply in time (with your fallback contact, if you set one) and continues with the AI.
• A claimed request closes by itself after Auto-close minutes without messages.

24-Hour Windows: WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger

On WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger a business may reply only within 24 hours after the user's last message. Telegram, Discord and Slack have no such limit.

• If nobody has claimed the request and the window is about to close, the user is asked to send any message to keep the chat open — or to use your fallback contact.
• Every message from the user opens a new 24-hour window.
• When the window closes, operators can no longer reply: the request closes and the user goes back to the AI.

The Requests tab shows when each window closes, in yellow when less than an hour is left.

Text Only

Only text goes between the user and the operator. If the user sends a file, it isn't forwarded: the user is asked to describe it in a message, and the operator sees a note about it.

Auto-Translation

When you set the Operator language and turn on Auto-translation:

• messages from the user are translated into the operator language for the operator, with the original kept;
• the operator's replies are translated into the user's language.

Without an operator language, operators read the messages as the users wrote them. In the conversation history (Users list) you can switch between the original and the translation of each message.

Track Requests

The Requests tab shows the assistant's requests. It is read-only — operators work in Slack.

• Active — waiting and claimed requests: place in the queue, how long the user waits, who handles the request, when the chat window closes. The list updates every 30 seconds.
• Closed — how each request ended (closed by an operator, closed for inactivity, nobody took it in time, the user changed their mind, the chat window closed, or handoff was switched off) and how long it took.

Click the arrow in a row for the AI summary and languages, and Open conversation for the whole chat with the user.

FAQ

Can several operators share one channel?

Yes. Everyone in the channel sees new requests, and the one who clicks Claim handles it. Each request has one operator.

Can an assistant have more than one channel?

Yes. Every new request appears in all of the assistant's active channels — for example, one per team or shift.

What happens to requests outside working hours?

They wait in the queue. The maximum wait counts only working time, so a request created on Friday evening is still waiting on Monday morning.

What happens to open requests when I switch handoff off?

Claimed requests are closed, waiting ones are cancelled, and the users go back to the AI. Settings and channels stay, so you can switch it back on at any time.

Can the user cancel the request?

Yes. While the request waits, the user keeps talking to the AI; if they say they no longer need a person, the request is cancelled.

Does it work in the website chat widget?

Not yet — human handoff works for social bots only.