A team is a group of Operators plus a set of rules deciding which conversations reach them. Set up well, a guest asking about breakfast lands with the restaurant and a guest asking about an invoice lands with finance, without anyone triaging by hand.
Teams are found under Inbox Settings > Teams, and the section is admin only. There is also a five-minute video on Teams.
The Teams overview
The overview lists every team you have created. It is where you add new ones, and where you set the order they are checked in.
Each team shows its name and emoji, its rules written out in plain language, its status, and its scope. A team with take over switched on also shows Enabled in the Take over column.
The page is in two parts, and the split is the point of it.
Routing order, first match wins. Teams under this heading are numbered. The number is a team's place in the queue, not a label: an incoming message is checked against number 1 first, then number 2, and the first team whose rules match takes it. Nothing below that team is consulted.
Not in the routing, inactive teams. Teams under this second heading carry no number, because they receive nothing. An inactive team is not a low-priority team.
Keep a catch-all team at the bottom of the routing list, so anything the rules above did not match still lands somewhere.
Changing the order
Because order decides the outcome, there is more than one way to change it, and every change can be undone for a few seconds after you make it.
One team. Drag its row up or down, or type the position you want into the # cell.
Several teams at once. Select them, then use the move up and move down controls, or drag the selection as a block.
Take a team in or out of routing. Drag it between the routing list and Not in the routing, inactive teams. A team you put back into the routing list joins it at the bottom, so drag it up if it needs to be checked earlier.
Delete or deactivate several teams together. Select them, then use Deactivate or Delete in the bar that appears.
A confirmation appears after each change with the option to undo it, but only for a few seconds. Act on it right away if you need it. Reordering does not touch any team's rules, so moving a team changes when it is checked, never what it matches.
Finding a team in a long list
Search by name to pick out the teams that match; matching text is highlighted, and the rest of the list stays exactly where it was. To narrow the list instead, use the filter panel: filter by status, or by access to see which teams a person is actually in.
If you run more than one property, read Managing teams across multiple properties, because scope is checked before position in the list.
The menu on the right of each team offers three options.
Edit. Change the name, rules, Operator access, and the rest.
Deactivate. Stops the team receiving new messages, keeps everything it already has, and can be undone at any time.
Delete. Removes the team permanently. Its messages stay in the property folder.
Creating a team
Click New Team in the top right of the Teams overview.
Name and icon. Enter a team name and pick an emoji. These are what your team sees in the Inbox.
Description. Optional, and only for your own reference later.
Scope. Choose either your whole organisation or a single property. This is one choice, not a multi-select. If you run more than one property, read Managing teams across multiple properties before you pick, because scope decides which team wins when two of them match.
Access. Select the Operators who should have access to this team.
Bot Access. Select any bots that should have access. A bot needs team access before it can see or answer the team's tickets. See Creating a webhook bot and giving it team access.
What to show in the team? Choose Include all messages or Select rule. See the two sections below.
Status. Active or Inactive. New teams are active by default; set it to Inactive to hold the team back.
Notify team members. Tick this if everyone with access should be told the team exists.
Allow take over. Optional and currently in Beta. See the section below.
Click Save.
"Include all messages" means everything left over
This option is worth reading carefully, because its name is broader than its behaviour. The platform's own note under it reads: "This option excludes messages belonging to higher priority."
So a team set to Include all messages does not take every conversation in the Inbox. It takes every conversation that no higher-priority team has already claimed. That is exactly what you want for the catch-all team at the bottom of your list, and it is why such a team typically shows "If the ticket doesn't match any higher prioritized items" in the overview.
Do not put an "Include all messages" team near the top of the list. Everything below it will be starved, because the first match wins and this team matches almost everything.
Rules: what the team receives
Rules decide which conversations a team picks up. There are eleven rule types.
App. The app you want to receive the message from.
Audience. Conversations from guests in a given audience.
Email Subject Keyword. Tickets whose email subject contains particular words.
Message Body Keyword. Tickets whose message body contains particular words.
Message Channel. WhatsApp, Email, SMS, and so on.
Message Language. The languages you want to receive messages in.
Recipient Email Address. Tickets sent to a particular address, including cc.
Sender Email Address. Tickets from a particular address, or from a whole domain. As well as Is and Is not, it offers Ends with and Does not end with, which match the end of an address so one rule covers every subdomain. See Matching a whole domain in team rules.
Reservation Stage. Where the guest is in their journey, for example pre-arrival, in-house, or post-stay.
Website Url. The website URL the guest is messaging from.
Operator absence. Matches when no Operator with access to the ticket is online. Useful for an out-of-hours or escalation team.
Keywords are split by where they appear. Email Subject Keyword and Message Body Keyword are separate rules, so a word in the subject line and the same word in the body are two different conditions.
How rule groups combine
Top-level groups are always joined by OR. A conversation matching any one group matches the team, and this cannot be changed.
Inside a group you choose AND or OR. Rules within the same inner group have to use the same one throughout.
Use the plus button to add a rule to a group, Add inner group to nest one, and Add group to start a new top-level group.
You can use the same rule type more than once in a team, for example to cover two channels.
Rules within a team should not contradict each other. Nothing stops you saving a contradiction, and the team then receives less than you expect.
An "Is not" rule excludes. In the example below, the team receives every reservation stage except upcoming.
Allow take over (Beta)
At the bottom of the team form is Allow take over, marked Beta. The platform describes it as: "Allow this team to take over from another team." Switch it on and the team shows Take over enabled beside its name in the Teams overview.
This is still a Beta feature. If you are considering it for live routing, talk to us first so we can walk you through how it will behave in your setup.
Assigning a conversation to a team by hand
Open the conversation in the Unified Inbox.
Open the ticket details panel on the right.
Click Assign Manually to a Team and choose the team.
What teams are used for
By department. Reception, housekeeping, and support each get their own.
By reservation stage. Pre-arrival, in-house, and post-stay questions handled differently.
By channel. WhatsApp, email, or SMS in separate teams.
By sender domain. Everything from one partner or OTA, including its subdomains, into its own team. See Matching a whole domain in team rules.
By language. Route German or Spanish messages to the colleagues who speak them, using Message Language.
Out of hours. Use Operator absence to send messages to an on-call team when nobody with access is online.
Escalations. A dedicated team for urgent requests.
Food and beverage. Keywords such as breakfast, dinner, buffet, gluten-free, vegetarian, and allergies routed to the restaurant or room service.
Finance. Keywords such as payment, invoice, charges, refund, billing, and credit card routed to accounting.
Housekeeping. Keywords such as cleaning, towels, amenities, and laundry.
Technical. Keywords such as Wi-Fi, TV, air conditioning, and maintenance.
What this does not do
Only the first matching team gets it. The list is read top down and stops at the first match, so a conversation is not shared across every team whose rules it fits.
Search highlights, it does not filter. Searching marks the teams that match and leaves the rest of the list in place. Use the filter panel when you want a shorter list.
A team you put back into routing starts at the bottom. It joins the routing list at the lowest position rather than returning to the one it had before. Drag it back up if its old position mattered.
Two admins reordering at the same time will overwrite each other. The last save wins. There is no warning and no merge, so agree who is making the change before a busy list is reshuffled.
"Include all messages" is not literally all messages. It excludes anything a higher-priority team has already claimed, which is why it only makes sense at the bottom of the list.
One scope per team. Scope is a single choice, either the organisation or one property. You cannot pick several properties for one team.
Nothing warns you about contradictory rules. A team with rules that cancel each other out saves normally and quietly receives nothing.
A rule pointing at a deleted audience is not repaired automatically. It stops matching rather than blocking the team below it, and the condition shows Audience not found in red until someone edits or removes the rule.
Domain matching is only on Sender Email Address. Every other rule that takes an address matches the whole address.
Changing a rule does not reassign existing conversations. Rules are applied as conversations arrive, so anything already routed stays where it is until you move it by hand.
Top-level groups cannot be joined by AND. That logic is fixed to OR.
Deleting a team is permanent. Deactivating is the reversible option; the messages stay in the property folder either way.
Being an admin does not put you in a team. You have to add yourself. See Why admins do not automatically have access to teams.
Take over is in Beta. Treat it as unfinished and check with us before relying on it.
What to do next
If you run more than one property, read Managing teams across multiple properties next: team scope changes which team wins when two of them match.
Getting help
Open Talk to Us in the left menu of the platform, or email support@bookboost.io.