This page helps you tell Thorpe which channels to track, and keep up with who is in them.
Channel types
Thorpe reads only channels it has been added to. In Settings > Channels, each one has a type.
| Type | What Thorpe does |
|---|---|
| Customer | Opens requests from new messages by people in the customer's workspace. |
| Triage | Posts request cards, SLA alerts and the weekly digest. You have one. |
| Ignored | Nothing. The row is greyed out. |
When Thorpe joins a channel that is shared with another workspace through Slack Connect, it becomes Customer on its own, unless your workspace has reached its customer channel limit. Any other channel starts as Ignored.
Set up a channel
- In Slack, add Thorpe to the channel with
/invite @Thorpe. It shows up in Settings > Channels within a minute. - Under Type, pick Customer, Triage or Ignored. Only admins can change channels.
- For a customer channel, pick its Account. Thorpe uses the account's tier to choose the SLA policy, and groups the account's channels in Accounts.
- To give one channel its own targets, pick a Policy override. Leave No override to use the account's tier.
The Connect column shows Shared with a customer or Internal. If you choose a new triage channel, the old one becomes Ignored, so you never have two.
Disconnect and reconnect
When a customer channel stops being shared with the customer's workspace, Thorpe:
- marks the channel Disconnected in Settings > Channels;
- pauses the resolution clock on each open request from that channel. Until the request is answered, only its resolution clock shows Paused in the web app;
- posts in each request's card thread that the channel was disconnected and the customer can no longer see replies.
The first-response clock keeps running. Its 75% and 100% first-response alerts wait until the channel is shared again; the time still counts. When the channel is shared again, the paused clocks pick up where they left off. If the customer is not coming back, choose Stop tracking on the row. The channel becomes Ignored.
Stakeholder alerts
Thorpe can tell your triage channel when people from the customer's workspace join or leave a customer channel, so you notice a new contact or a champion who left.
- Each change is one line, such as "Jane Doe (Acme) left #ext-acme". The name in brackets is the account.
- Changes are batched for 10 minutes per channel, then posted in one message.
- Teammates are never announced, and nothing is posted in the customer channel.
| Setting | Default | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Tell triage when customer people join or leave | On | Settings > Channels, admins only |
The People list
Open an account in Accounts to see its People card. It lists the people from that customer who joined one of the account's channels while Thorpe was in it, newest first, with the dates they Joined and Left. Left shows a dash while they are still in the channel. Someone in two of the account's channels appears twice.
People who were in the channel before Thorpe arrived are listed only after they leave. They appear as Unknown, with the date Thorpe joined the channel as Joined.
Coming
Settings for the messages Thorpe can post in customer channels, an off-hours acknowledgement and an SLA bookmark, are coming. Both will be off until an admin turns them on.
What's next
- Broadcasts sends one announcement to many customer channels.
- SLAs and business hours explains the Policy override and tier policies.