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Every conversation in VGraple CRM can be assigned to one teammate at a time, either by hand from the conversation header or automatically the moment it opens. This article covers both paths, plus how to turn auto-assignment on and what happens when a teammate leaves.
Assign conversations: first 5 of 9 steps
- 1Open the conversation
- 2Click the assignee control
- 3Pick a teammate from the dropdown
- 4The assignee is notified
- 5The conversation list updates for everyone
Before you start
- Assigning a conversation requires the "Assign conversations" permission (
inbox:assign); Owners, Admins and Supervisors have it by default. - Auto-assignment only routes work to active members who can send messages in the inbox. A member deactivated in Settings, then Team is skipped automatically and never receives new assignments.
- Turning auto-assignment on or off requires access to Settings, then Inbox, which needs the workspace settings permission (Owners and Admins by default).
- Assignment works the same way across every channel the inbox unifies (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, web chat), not WhatsApp alone.
Steps
Assign a conversation manually
Open the conversation you want to assign from the inbox list.
Click the assignee control in the conversation header. It shows "Unassigned" or the current assignee's name.
Pick a teammate from the dropdown, which lists every active org member. Selecting a name assigns the conversation to them immediately; selecting "Unassigned" clears it. The change applies instantly, no save button needed.
The assignee is notified. Unless you assigned the conversation to yourself, the person you picked gets a push notification on every signed-in device (web and Android) naming who assigned it and which contact it involves, so they know to check the thread even if they were not already looking at the inbox.
The conversation list updates for everyone watching the inbox: the assignee's initial appears as a small circular badge on that row, live, without anyone needing to refresh.
Turn on balanced auto-assignment
Go to Settings, then Inbox. This page holds three toggles: Auto-assignment, First-response SLA, and CSAT surveys.
Turn on Auto-assignment. Once enabled, every new conversation created from a fresh inbound message (not a reply inside an existing thread) is assigned automatically, with no further configuration needed.
Understand the routing rule. VGraple CRM counts each eligible teammate's currently open assigned conversations and gives the new one to whoever has the fewest. Ties are broken by who was assigned least recently, so a fast clicker cannot corner easy conversations while someone slower ends up overloaded, and someone who just returned from being idle is not skipped over indefinitely.
Save is automatic. The toggle takes effect the moment you switch it; there is no separate confirmation step.
Why balanced routing instead of first-come-first-served?
Many WhatsApp tools let any agent simply "claim" an open conversation, which in practice means whoever is fastest to click ends up cherry-picking easy conversations while a slower or busier teammate quietly accumulates a backlog nobody can see until it is already late. VGraple CRM's auto-assignment intentionally measures workload instead of speed: it counts each eligible teammate's currently open assigned conversations at the moment a new one arrives, and hands it to whoever is carrying the least. This is the same balanced-routing pattern used by mature support tools like Intercom and Zendesk, and it matters most during a busy hour, when a salon's WhatsApp number gets ten booking questions in twenty minutes and a manual claim system would let one agent grab the easy "what are your timings" messages while another gets stuck with every complicated one.
Example
A clinic runs three front-desk staff on one shared WhatsApp number with auto-assignment on. Priya currently has two open conversations, Arjun has five, and Meera has three. The next inbound message from a new patient goes to Priya automatically, because she has the lightest load, without anyone having to watch a queue or manually redirect it.
Auto-assignment only fires for brand-new conversations, the moment a first inbound message creates one. A reply inside an already-open conversation never re-triggers assignment or reassigns anything, so a conversation stays with whoever has it, even across a slow afternoon and a busy evening on the same thread.
What you will see
With auto-assignment on, a fresh inbound conversation shows an assignee badge in the inbox list within moments of the first message arriving, before an agent has even opened it. The assignee also receives a push notification. With auto-assignment off, new conversations sit as "Unassigned" until someone claims them manually, visible to every Agent-role teammate in the meantime. Either way, the assignee picker in the conversation header always reflects the current state and can be changed at any point regardless of how the conversation got its current assignee.
Settings and options
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-assignment (Settings, then Inbox) | Assigns every new conversation automatically using balanced routing | Off |
| Assignee picker (conversation header) | Manually assigns or unassigns the open conversation | Unassigned |
inbox:assign permission | Controls who can change an assignee at all | Owner, Admin, Supervisor |
| Eligibility for auto-assignment | Active org members with the inbox:send permission | Owner, Admin, Supervisor, Agent |
| Assignee push notification | Alerts the newly assigned teammate on every signed-in device | On, cannot be disabled per-assignment |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| New conversations are not auto-assigning | Auto-assignment is off in Settings, then Inbox | Turn on the Auto-assignment toggle |
| One teammate keeps getting most new conversations | They may be the only eligible member, or others have been deactivated or lack inbox:send | Check Settings, then Team for active members with inbox access |
| Auto-assignment skipped a teammate entirely | Their account is deactivated, or their role or custom role lacks the inbox:send permission | Reactivate them, or grant the permission from Settings, then Team |
| A reassigned conversation still shows the old assignee to another agent | Their inbox list has not received the realtime update yet, usually from a dropped connection | Refresh the inbox; VGraple CRM replays missed events automatically on reconnect |
| I cannot see the assignee picker at all | Your role lacks the inbox:assign permission | Ask an Owner or Admin to grant it, or to assign the conversation on your behalf |
Related reading
Pair assignment with SLA targets and alerts so a conversation cannot both sit unassigned and go unanswered, and with collision detection to avoid two agents replying to the same thread even when it is properly assigned.