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When the the assigned agent of the conversation is removed from a conversation, the conversation ends unless it’s reassigned to a new agent.

This is important when you set up a permanent, long-running conversation between each client and their advisor, usually when the customer first becomes a client of the firm. When a client changes advisors, you need to transfer their long-running conversation to their new advisor. How to do so depends on whether their new advisor was already a participant in the conversation. This may be the case if the new advisor served as the previous advisor’s deputy or if they were already invited to join the conversation by the previous advisor.

The discussion below uses the Unblu terms "agent" and "visitor" to refer to the advisor and the client, respectively.

Changing the assigned agent in a conversation

In an active conversation with a visitor, or in a scheduled conversation, the assigned agent can invite other agents to participate in the conversation and reassign the conversation to one of them.

To do so, the assigned agent clicks the secondary agent’s avatar. In the participant information popup that opens, there’s an Assign to agent button. Clicking the button reassigns the conversation to the secondary agent. The previous assigned agent may then be removed from or leave the conversation without ending it.

You can’t reassign conversations to hidden agents.

Reassigning a conversation upon removing the assigned agent

Secondary agents can remove the assigned agent from a conversation when allowed to do so with com.unblu.conversation.ui.removeParticipant. If com.unblu.conversation.invitation.allowSecondaryAgentsToSetNewAssignee is also set to true, the secondary agent can directly reassign the conversation to themselves or another agent when they remove the assigned agent. Otherwise, the conversation ends when the secondary agent removes the assigned agent.

To remove the assigned agent, the secondary agent clicks the assigned agent’s avatar. In the participant information popup that opens, there is a Remove participant button. Clicking the button causes different scenarios to occur depending on how many agents are participants in the conversation:

  • If there is only one secondary agent in the conversation (the person removing the assigned agent), the conversation is automatically assigned to them when they remove the assigned agent.

  • If there are two secondary agents in the conversation, a dialog appears asking who the next assigned agent should be:

    change assigned agent popup

  • If there are more than two secondary agents in the conversation, a dialog appears as above, asking who the next assigned agent should be.

    If they choose Assign to another agent, a fly-in page appears where they can choose the specific agent:

    change assigned agent flyin

If com.unblu.conversation.invitation.allowSecondaryAgentsToSetNewAssignee is set to false, when the secondary agent clicks Remove participant, a confirmation message appears and the conversation ends when the assigned agent is removed.

Reassigning a conversation to a new agent using the web API

Conversations can also be reassigned using the Unblu web API.

To reassign a conversation to an agent who isn’t already a participant in the conversation, call the endpoint /invitations/forwardConversationToAgent. The call must include the personId of the new agent.

The text of the optional comment field appears in the agent’s view of the conversation as a message from the previous assigned agent, that is, the agent the conversation is being forwarded from. The visitor doesn’t see it.

Once the new assigned agent accepts the forwarding, the previous assigned agent is removed from the conversation and can no longer access it. If you want them to remain in the conversation, add the new assigned agent to the conversation by calling /conversations/{conversationId}/addParticipant, then make them the assigned agent by calling /conversations/{conversationId}/setAssigneePerson.

Reassigning a conversation to a participating agent using the web API

It isn’t possible to forward a conversation to an agent who’s already participating in the conversation. As a result, you can’t simply call /invitations/forwardConversationToAgent if the future assigned agent is already a participant in the conversation.

To assign a conversation to a different participant, proceed as follows:

  1. If the new assigned agent is a hidden participant, you must first change their visibility by calling /conversations/{conversationId}/changeParticipantVisibility. Make sure you include the query parameter hidden=false.

  2. Call /conversations/{conversationId}/setAssigneePerson to change the conversation’s assigned agent.

  3. If necessary, remove the previous assigned agent from the conversation by calling /conversations/{conversationId}/offboardParticipant. If you include something in the comment field, it isn’t visible in the conversation.

    Once you remove the agent from the conversation, they can no longer access it.

See also

For more information on the Unblu web API, refer to the reference.