Inbox Notifications: Unread Counts & Assignment Alerts

Where to find it#

Open your Team Inbox → WhatsApp. The inbox keeps you up to date in real time — as soon as a customer replies or a chat is assigned, the counts update on their own, with no need to refresh. (For handling conversations, see WhatsApp Inbox: Manage Conversations.)

Unread badges in the web app#

New activity shows up as live unread counts in several places at once:

App-wide badge — a count sits on the Team Inbox icon in the left rail, on the WhatsApp item in the Team Inbox panel, and on your inbox bookmark, so you can see waiting chats from anywhere in the CRM.
Conversation-list header — shows how many chats you have and, in green, "{n} Unread".
Each conversation row — an unread chat shows a green count pill (up to "99+"), a bold name, and a green timestamp, and jumps to the top of the list.

Above the list, quick-filter tabs each carry their own live count: All, Active, Expired, Unread, Unassigned, Assigned to me, and On Hold. Open a conversation and it's marked read automatically — the counts drop right away.

💡

The unread badge is app-wide, so you don't have to sit on the inbox screen to know a customer is waiting — you'll see it on the Team Inbox icon and your bookmark from any page.

💡

Using more than one WhatsApp number? You can filter the conversation list to a single sender, but the app-wide unread badge always counts every number you're allowed to see. Sender access is covered in Manage Multiple WhatsApp Senders.

Assignment alerts#

When a conversation is assigned or reassigned:

Every open inbox updates live — the assignee shown on the conversation changes for everyone instantly.
The person who makes the assignment sees a quick confirmation ("Conversation assigned" or "Conversation unassigned").
A system line — "Conversation assigned to {name}" — is written into the conversation thread, so the history shows who took it and when.

Push notifications on the mobile app#

The AI Engage mobile app is what alerts you when you're away from your desk. It sends a push notification for:

New inbound messages — "New message from {customer}" (or "{customer} submitted a form"), sent to everyone who can see that conversation.
Assignment to you — "Conversation assigned to you", sent to the agent the chat was assigned to.

💡

In the web app, new activity appears as live unread badges and counts rather than pop-up alerts. For notifications while you're away from the inbox tab, install the mobile app and keep push turned on.

Good to know#

Web alerts are visual and live — the inbox does not currently play a sound or raise a desktop/browser pop-up for new messages, so keep the mobile app handy for away-from-desk alerts.
Internal notes you add to a conversation are private to your team and don't trigger a notification — they're for context, not alerting.

Was this article helpful?

Ready to implement this?

OpenAI Engage and apply what you just learned to your own workspace.

Open AI Engage CRM