Team and Customer Workspaces
If your extension is enabled as a contact center agent, Thirdlane Connect gives you two workspaces in one app:
- Team — internal collaboration: colleagues, channels, meetings, and recent activity.
- Customer — customer-facing work: omnichannel interactions, SMS chats, and fax.
You switch between them with a single control, and your calls and settings stay available in both.
Who sees the workspace switch
The Team / Customer switch appears only when your administrator has enabled omnichannel messaging for your extension. If you are not an omnichannel agent, Connect shows a single, combined sidebar (messaging, contacts, channels, calls, and any SMS/fax you have access to) and there is no mode switch to worry about.
Omnichannel itself becomes active once you are a member of at least one messaging-enabled queue. Your administrator manages queue membership and agent settings in the Configuration Manager.
The workspace switch
The switch sits at the top of the left sidebar, just below your avatar:
- In Team mode it shows a Team label with a people icon and the tooltip Switch to Customer.
- In Customer mode it shows a Customer label with a headset icon and the tooltip Switch to Team.
Click it to toggle between the two workspaces. Connect remembers your choice: the workspace you were last in is restored the next time you sign in (it is stored with your account settings, so it follows you across devices), and each workspace also remembers the last tab you had open.
Pending-interaction badge
While you are in Team mode, a small badge on the switch shows the number of customer interactions waiting for you in the omnichannel workspace. It is a reminder to switch to Customer mode so incoming customer conversations do not go unanswered while you are collaborating internally.
What each workspace shows
| Team mode | Customer mode | |
|---|---|---|
| Recent activity | Yes | — |
| Meetings | Yes (if enabled) | — |
| Contacts | Yes | — |
| Channels | Yes | — |
| Omnichannel | — | Yes |
| SMS Chats | — | Yes (if you have SMS numbers) |
| Fax | — | Yes (if you can send faxes) |
| Calls | Yes | Yes |
| Settings | Yes | Yes |
Calls and Settings are always available, so you can place or take a call and adjust your status, forwarding, or devices without leaving the workspace you are in.
When to use each mode
- Use Team mode for day-to-day internal work: catching up on channels, messaging colleagues, and joining meetings.
- Use Customer mode when you are on shift as an agent: handling queued customer conversations across channels, following up on SMS threads, and sending or receiving faxes.
For a full walkthrough of handling customer conversations, see the Omnichannel Agent Workspace. For the platform side of contact center setup (queues, agents, and messaging channels), see Contact Center and Messaging in Organization Administration.