Assigning a ticket says who owns it — which teammate is responsible for getting the customer an answer. It’s how a team of agents divides the work instead of everyone stepping on the same ticket.
The AI holds a ticket until a person does. While the AI is answering a customer, the ticket’s assignee reads AI. Assigning a teammate, or anyone replying to the customer (from the ticket or from the Teams card), takes the ticket from the AI, and the AI stops answering that customer. Clearing the assignee afterwards doesn’t hand it back to the AI.
Assign a ticket
- Open the ticket. From the Tickets view, click a ticket to open it — in Teams or the web app. See the dashboard & views.
- Pick an owner. Use the assignee dropdown at the top of the ticket — it reads AI while the AI holds the ticket and Unassigned when nobody does — and choose a teammate, or use the button beside it to take it yourself.
- Done. The ticket now shows its owner in the list. If nobody held it, it drops out of the desk’s unassigned count. If the AI held it, the ticket’s activity timeline records the handoff as Assignee: AI → and the person’s name, with the reason.
Faster: press a on a ticket to assign it to yourself without touching the dropdown. See the inbox guide for the rest of the shortcuts.
Who can be an assignee? Anyone who’s a member of the desk — the people listed under Members in the desk’s Settings, whatever their role. That list belongs to the desk itself, so a desk that lives in a Teams channel and a standalone desk both work the same way: being in the Teams channel is not what makes someone assignable. Assigning doesn’t email them; it sets ownership you can both see in the list and on the dashboard.
Assign several at once. In the ticket queue, tick the checkboxes next to the tickets you want — or the box in the header to take the whole current view — then choose Assign to me. The same bulk bar also does a bulk Resolve, with an undo if you catch a mistake. See the inbox guide.
A simple way to run the desk
| Signal | What to do |
|---|---|
| AI | The AI is answering the customer. Nothing to do unless you want to step in: assign it or reply, and it’s yours. |
| Unassigned and awaiting a person | Someone claims it — Assign to me, or a lead assigns it out. |
| You picked it up | Reply from the ticket (or from the Teams card). See how a ticket works. |
| Not your area | Reassign it to the right teammate from the assignee dropdown. |
Keep the desk’s unassigned count near zero and every waiting customer has a name attached — that’s the whole point of assignment. Tickets the AI is answering aren’t in that count, so it only ever shows customers waiting on a person.