Omnichannel Agent Workspace
The omnichannel agent workspace is where contact-center agents handle customer conversations across channels from inside Thirdlane Connect. It lives in the Customer workspace (see Team and Customer Workspaces) and opens on the Omnichannel tab.
When it is available
The workspace appears only when:
- your administrator has enabled omnichannel messaging for your extension, and
- you are a member of at least one messaging-enabled queue.
If either is missing, the Omnichannel tab is hidden. Queues, agents, and messaging channels are configured by your administrator in the Configuration Manager (see Contact Center and Messaging).
The Omnichannel sidebar
The Omnichannel tab has three sub-tabs and a button to start outreach:
- Active interactions — conversations currently assigned to you or waiting to be picked up.
- Closed interactions — your recently completed conversations, with their wrap-up code and notes.
- Customers — the CRM contact list you can search, filter, and message from.
- New interaction — button that opens the outbound message flow.
Channels
Interactions can arrive on any channel your administrator has connected:
WhatsApp, SMS, Chat, and Call.
Each interaction shows its channel with an icon and name so you always know how the customer is reaching you. Outbound conversations you start yourself (via New interaction) are limited to the messaging channels your organization supports for outreach, typically SMS and WhatsApp.
Handling an interaction
A conversation moves through a small set of states, and the controls available depend on the current state:
| State | Meaning | Typical controls |
|---|---|---|
| Unassigned | Offered to the queue, not yet picked up | Accept, Decline |
| Accepted | Assigned to you and active | Hold, Close |
| On hold | Parked so you can work another conversation | Resume |
| ACW | After-Contact Work (wrap-up) after closing | Extend, Save |
| Closed | Completed and moved to Closed interactions | — |
- Accept / Decline — accept an offered interaction to start working it, or decline to release it back to the queue. Accepting links (or creates) a customer record for the conversation.
- Hold / Resume — place a conversation on hold to focus on another, then resume it when you are ready.
- Close and wrap up (ACW) — closing a conversation starts After-Contact Work. Pick a wrap-up code (your queue’s codes, or a general code if none are defined) and add notes. If you need more time, use Extend; otherwise Save to finish. If the ACW timer runs out, Connect gives you a short warning and then saves the wrap-up automatically so nothing is lost.
The session strip
When you are juggling several conversations, the session strip above the conversation pane shows one pill per active interaction, each with its channel, the customer, and a state indicator: Live, On hold, Hand-off, or ACW. Click a pill to focus that conversation.
You can pin conversations into a split view to keep two of them side by side, which is useful when a customer contacts you on more than one channel or when you are handing off between agents.
Customers (CRM)
The Customers sub-tab is your working contact list:
- Search for a customer by name or number.
- Filter by list — narrow the view to a static or dynamic CRM list (for example a campaign or a segment). Counts update as the list changes.
- Import — upload customers from a CSV file directly in Connect, with duplicate matching and an optional list assignment. For large or complex field-mapping imports, use the full CSV import wizard in the Configuration Manager.
Contact records are shared with the platform CRM, so notes and history you add here are available to administrators and other tools.
Starting an outbound conversation
Click New interaction to message a customer proactively. The Send Message panel walks you through:
- Target Recipients — choose one or more customers (individually or from a list).
- Channel — select the messaging channel to send on.
- Message Type — send a template message or a free-form message.
- Template and Variable Inputs — when using a template, pick it and fill in its variables. A preview shows the resolved message; if a variable cannot be resolved, Connect warns you so the template’s variable mappings can be corrected.
- Message — for free-form sends, type your message.
After sending, Connect confirms how many messages were sent successfully or failed, and offers Send another with same settings for quick repeat outreach.
Availability
Your presence and status (set from your avatar) control whether new queue interactions are offered to you. While you are working in Team mode, a badge on the workspace switch shows how many customer interactions are waiting, so you know when to switch back to Customer mode.
Related documentation
- Team and Customer Workspaces — how to move between internal collaboration and customer work.
- What’s new in 16.1.1 — the release that introduced the omnichannel workspace.
- Contact Center and Messaging — administrator setup for queues, agents, and messaging channels.