Disable self assignment

Hello ​@EnvoyKevin 👋,

I entirely agree that dealing with "cherry-picking" is frustrating, but this fundamentally sounds like an operational issue rather than a missing software feature. 💡

Rather than restricting system access, the most effective approach is to provide proper guidance and establish strict workflows for your team. 🎯

Here is the ideal way to manage this situation:

• Proper Training: Agents ought to be instructed to wait for conversations to be routed directly to them - Your Inbox.

• Tailored Views: Set up clear, specific Views for your agents to work from to keep them focused.

• Avoid the Main Queue: Agents should be trained to never work directly out of the primary unassigned Inbox.

Furthermore, if a feature to completely disable self-assignment did exist, it could actually create quite a few operational bottlenecks and friction down the line. ⚠️ In my experience, guiding your team's behaviour always yields better, more sustainable results than simply limiting their tools.

Have a Londonful day ahed 💂

Cheers,

Roy 🇬🇧

Hi there Roy, 

Discussing how folks should manage their team better doesn’t feel like a Londonful kind of answer. Regardless, it’s an idea, a suggestion if you will. 

Suggesting to train better being an answer on a suggestion for a feature doesn’t seem like an appropriate response. While creating a feature, if it were toggleable, meaning that you can turn it on or off, would prevent this bottleneck you mention. As if it’s something that doesn’t seem to work, then great! Disable the feature. 

Guiding my team’s behavior has nothing to do with me submitting in a feature request. But thanks. 

Best, 

Kevin

​@EnvoyKevin , Fair points, and I appreciate the perspective. 🤝 To clarify, I certainly wasn't trying to dictate how you guide your team—just sharing some hard-earned personal experience in hopes it might offer you a faster resolution today rather than waiting on a product roadmap. 🗺️
 

Looking at the feature request from a technical SaaS perspective, a simple toggle can get incredibly complex. ⚙️ If Intercom restrict an agent's access to the Team Inbox but keep them in the assignment routing, how does that functionally operate? Do they still have visibility of the Team Queue, or are they entirely dependent on automated assignment? 🤔

Think about the edge cases: if a highly urgent query comes in via Facebook or X, how does a team jump on it with restricted Inbox access? 🚨 It creates severe blind spots for urgent triage, which makes it a difficult feature for a platform to prioritize and develop cleanly.

When I brought up team habits, it was because we hit this exact same bottleneck. We had agents forgetting to set their 'Away' status, operations leaving offboarded accounts active for weeks, and reassignment rules misfiring as a result. 📉 We eventually solved it by strictly overhauling our onboarding flow—even introducing a Donut bot 🍩 for new hires.
 

Just sharing a workaround that actually worked for us. 💡
 

Have a Londonful day ahead ✨
 

Cheers,
Roy 🇬🇧

Hey Roy, 

Totally understand that a function would be difficult and completely understand now how you’re approaching this. 

Again, just a suggestion. It’s not a bigger issue than what it seems to be. So my apologies if it came off that way.

Disabling the function of manually changing the assigning yourself as the assignee is just the suggestion. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Prioritizing highly urgent inquiries isn’t what we’re looking to solve. :)