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, and is where you add new ones and set their priority.
Each team in the list shows its name and emoji, its rules written out in plain language, and whether it is active. Search by name, or filter by All, Active and Inactive using the header. A team with take over switched on also shows Take over enabled on the right.
Order decides the outcome. The list runs between two markers, High Priority at the top and Low Priority at the bottom. Hover over a team and the cursor becomes a grabber, so you can drag it up or down. Messages are checked from the top down and the first match wins, so keep a catch-all team at the bottom to pick up anything the rules above did not.
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.
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 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.
"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.
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.