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Small labels on Inbox chats that show what needs attention: the six built-in signals, your own signals and their rules, ready-made packs, who gets told, quiet hours, wait times and fixes.
Chat signals are small coloured labels on conversations in the Inbox. Each one tells your team something about a chat at a glance: a customer has been waiting, someone asked for a person, a new enquiry came in, a chat has gone quiet. They follow only the words and times you set, and they can tell the right people in the bell at the top of the dashboard.
Set them up in Settings > Chat signals. The six built-in signals are on from the start.
Signals only follow the words and times you set. They never guess what a message means and never look at health or other personal details. A signal appears only when a message has words you listed, when a time you set has passed, or when a contact has a tag, a detail or a table value you picked.
The counts in the Inbox filter refresh about once a minute while the page is open.
Every Switchboard has six, listed under Built-in signals. They're on from the start. You can switch each one off, rename it, and change its colour, icon, numbers, words and opening hours, when it clears and who it tells. Reset to default in the editor brings back its first settings (it stays on or off as it is). A built-in signal keeps its kinds of rule and can't be deleted (AVX-3905): to make something different, create your own.
"Waiting for a person" counts every minute, nights and weekends included. Turn on Count only opening hours in its rule so only the time you're open counts. See Opening hours.
Under Your signals, click New signal. A panel opens beside the list with four parts.
Name and look
A Name (up to 40 characters, and different from every other signal's name), a Description (optional) for the team (up to 200 characters), a Colour and an Icon. Signal is on switches it on or off: when it's off, it never appears on a chat. The panel shows how the badge will look on a chat.
When it appears
Choose Any rule is true or All rules are true, then use Add rule to add up to 8 rules. See The rules.
When it clears
Any of: When someone on the team replies, When the customer writes back, After a set time (Clear after 1 to 720 hours, so up to 30 days), and, for a signal with a tag rule, When the tag is taken off. With none of them on, the signal clears only by hand.
Who is told
Nobody, Everyone who can see the Inbox, or Chosen people. See Who gets told.
Create signal saves it. Changes reach chats within a minute.
Each signal in the list shows its badge, its rules in plain words after Appears when:, when it clears, who it tells and how many chats have it open right now. People who can set up signals also see:
A few things worth knowing:
A Switchboard can have up to 100 signals, built-ins included, on any plan (AVX-3917).
A waiting rule with Count only opening hours counts only the minutes you're open. It starts on Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 18:00, in your device's time zone. Change the Time zone, the Open days, Opens at and Closes at. A closing time earlier than the opening time runs past midnight into the next day ("Closes after midnight, the next day."). The opening and closing times can't be the same (AVX-3921).
Ready-made packs, under your signals, add a few signals made for one kind of business. Words are in plain English, plus some common Hindi and Hinglish words customers really use. Preview shows every signal a pack adds and the words each one looks for.
Add pack copies its signals into Your signals: each one is on, clears when someone on the team replies, tells nobody, shows where it came from in the list (like "From the Clinic pack"), and is yours to change or delete. Only the pack's signals that aren't already there are added, so adding a pack again brings back one you deleted. When every signal in a pack is already there, its card says so, like "All 4 added", and there's nothing more to add (AVX-3911).
Every pack signal looks for words. Repeat follow-up also appears when the customer sends 4 messages within 30 minutes.
The Clinic pack follows only words about appointments, changes, reports, bills and directions. It never looks for symptoms or anything about someone's health.
Each signal's Who is told:
When the signal appears, each person gets a Chat signal note in the bell at the top of the dashboard, like "A chat needs attention: Asked for a human.", with Open chat. Someone is told about the same chat and signal at most once an hour. The note stays in the bell while the signal is open, for up to 24 hours, and goes when the signal clears or is switched off.
A signal clears by itself when its When it clears rule is met, within about a minute. Anyone who can reply in the Inbox can also clear one by hand: open the chat and press the small button on its badge. If someone else cleared it first, nothing changes (AVX-3915).
While the Switchboard is paused, chat signals rest too:
Wait times keep being recorded during a pause, because they come from your team's real replies.
Analytics has a Wait times section that shows how long customers wait for your team, for the range at the top of the page (7d, 30d or 90d):
A wait starts at the customer's first unanswered message and stops at the next reply from your team: the Inbox, the phone app or the API. Messages sent by automations, smart link follow-ups and broadcasts don't stop the clock. The median is the middle time (half were faster), and 90% within is how long it took to answer 9 in 10 chats.
Wait times need the See analytics permission and a plan that includes Analytics. Reply times are kept for 13 months, and so is what Avox remembers about each chat's turns (when the customer last wrote and when your team last replied); cleared signals are kept for 180 days. Older ones are removed every day. A chat that still has a signal showing keeps what it needs.
Admins have every permission. Managers can see signals and clear them on chats they can reply to; an Admin can give them Set up chat signals. Without it, the settings page shows the signals with "You can see chat signals but not change them." See Members and roles.
Check that it's switched on and that its words match the message as whole words (or the whole message, for Is exactly one of these). With All rules are true, every rule has to match at once. Changes in Settings take up to a minute to reach chats. A signal you cleared by hand isn't raised again for the same message or wait.
Turn on Count only opening hours in its waiting rule, with your time zone and opening times.
That's on purpose: messages sent by automations, smart link follow-ups and broadcasts don't count as a reply from your team. It clears when someone on the team answers, from the Inbox, the phone app or the API.
Check the signal's Who is told, that the people can see the Inbox, their quiet hours, and that they haven't set Chat signals to Hide in their notification settings. Someone is told about the same chat and signal at most once an hour.
A table rule points at a table or column that changed, or the table has no WhatsApp contact or phone column to find the contact's row (AVX-3908). Pick them again in the rule.
If the settings page says Chat signals are turned off, they were turned off for your account (AVX-3912): contact hello@theavoxai.com. Otherwise, ask an Admin for See chat signals.
All chat signal error codes are in Error codes.
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