Create a side conversation

You need to talk to someone outside this conversation — engineering, a vendor, finance — without involving the customer. Side conversations are the dedicated channel for that.

Before you start

• The conversation you want to attach the side thread to must be open in front of you
• For Slack side conversations, your tenant needs Slack connected (Settings → Integrations → Slack)
• For email side conversations, no extra setup — Atender sends from the tenant’s outbound email address

Steps

1. Open the customer conversation you want to attach the side thread to.
2. Open the Side Conversations panel from the right rail.
3. Click New side conversation.
4. Choose the channel: Email or Slack.
5. Fill in the recipient and message.

For email

• To — recipient name and email address
• Subject — defaults to the customer conversation’s subject; edit if needed
• CC the customer — opt-in. Off by default. Toggle on if the customer should see the email
• Message — your first message in the thread

For Slack

• Type — DM, group DM, or channel
• Recipient — pick a Slack user, group, or channel from the picker
• Message — your first message in the thread

6. Click Send.

The side conversation appears in the panel, and the recipient is notified through their channel. Replies come back into the same panel — you respond inside Atender, the recipient sees them in their email or Slack.

Verify it worked

• The new side conversation appears in the Side Conversations panel
• For email: the recipient should receive a real email from your tenant’s outbound address
• For Slack: the recipient should see a notification in Slack
• The customer-facing thread is unchanged — unless you CC’d the customer on an email side conversation, the customer sees nothing

Patterns

• Engineering escalation — Slack channel, e.g. #oncall. Drop a link to the conversation and a brief summary of the issue.
• Vendor follow-up — Email to the vendor. Don’t CC the customer initially; bring them in only when the vendor has a concrete answer.
• Internal approval — Slack DM to a manager. “Customer wants a $200 refund — approve?”
• Cross-team handoff — Email to a team that doesn’t use Atender. Their reply lands in the side panel.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Slack side conversation never reaches the recipient. Fix: Check Settings → Integrations → Slack. Confirm the workspace is connected and the recipient is a member.

• Symptom: Email reply doesn’t appear in the panel. Fix: Replies must be sent to the original email — recipients who reply from a different address won’t be matched. Ask them to “reply” rather than starting a new email.

• Symptom: I want to bring the customer in mid-thread. Fix: Email side conversations let you toggle “CC the customer” when sending a reply. Switch it on when you reply, and the customer sees that reply forward.