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Hello 

I have several questions around UI and conversation behaviour when making changes:

  1. Conversation moving from one inbox to another

I would like to ask for any good advice or work around to avoid the conversation to disappear from the page when making a change.

i.e: I move a conversation from inbox A to inbox B - current behaviour. I stop seeing the conversation, as this one is moved from the inbox Im in.

  1. I’d like the conversation to remain on the page, as sometimes I need to add a comment, a tag, or simply review some information
  1. Moving a conversation from one inbox to another (II)

When a moving a conversation both status and assignee are changed. 
I have tried to create a rule to prevent these changes, however, something is failing -

I have created a rule for Archived conversations to be moved but assignee and status remain the same 

 Macro is applied, however, conversation is reopened and then unassigned 

Help? xD

 

As a summary, 

1- how to avoid not seeing the conversation when making a change

2- how to avoid conversation being unassigned when moved from one inbox to another

3- how to avoid conversation status to change if im moving and its already archived. 

 

Thanks! 

Hi Alex! As it turns out, both workflows would be feature requests for our Product Team and this time. I’ve included the existing feature request, as well as the link to create a new request below:

https://front.ideas.aha.io/ideas/PRD-I-3953

https://community.front.com/ideas 


Would there be any work around we can come up with so we could at least keep the assignee when moving a conversation from one inbox to another?


Hey Alex! Phoebe here from the Front team, hopping in to help. 

If your team are on the Scale plan, you can set up a Smart rule that will assign moved converations back to the previous assignee. 

I'll take you through the steps to set it up.

 

1. Create a custom conversation field called "Last Assignee". More on custom fields here: Understanding custom fields

 

 

2. Set up a rule to Update the "Last Assignee" field every time a conversation is assigned. I recommend making this rule (and the next one) a company-wide rule if you want this to apply to shared and private inboxes. The IF condition here can be amended to whatever your team wants. 
 

3. Set up a rule that reassigns messages to the previous assignee:
 

 

That should do the trick!


Hi Phoebe,

Thanks so much for the tip! 😊 I’ve explored it further and managed to create the exact behavior I was aiming for:

  • Conversations are moved while keeping the assignee.
  • Archived conversations are moved, and their archived status is maintained.

In case it helps someone else, here’s how I slightly tweaked your instructions:

  1. Created 3 rules to record a custom field “Last Status” with values: Open, Snoozed, Archived.
  2. Set up a rule:
    • If a conversation is moved AND the status is Archived:
      • Check the "Last Status" custom field.
      • If it says “Archived,” then archive the conversation (while also applying the rule about maintaining the last assignee).

This allows us to move a conversation—for example, from Inbox Z (status Archived, assigned to Agent A) to Inbox Y—and ensures that both the assignee and status are maintained.

This setup is super useful as we’re just starting to use Front. Not everyone is clear yet on the exact inbox structure, so conversations sometimes get archived in multiple or incorrect inboxes.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction—it’s made a huge difference!


Hey Alex! 

Amazing setup, you’re definitely unlocking the power of smart rules here. Thanks for sharing this so others can benefit 😎
 


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