Help Scout

Shared inbox for customer email and chat. Agents search and read conversations, reply or leave a draft for a teammate to review, add notes, set status, assignee and tags, and start new conversations.

Before general availability Your own app

Category
Customer support
Ways to connect
2
Actions for agents
12
Triggers
0

Start trial Read the Help Scout setup guide

Ways to connect

A company admin connects Help Scout from the Integrations page in Everdeck. Keys, tokens and secrets are encrypted before they're stored, and the connection's Test button checks it works before any agent uses it.

Every way in uses an app you create with Help Scout, so access stays under your control. The setup guide walks you through it.

  • Your Help Scout app (App ID and secret) Your OAuth app

    Create an app of your own with Help Scout and paste its credentials into Everdeck. The connection then works without anyone signing in.

  • Your Help Scout app (sign in) Your OAuth app

    Create an OAuth app of your own with Help Scout, paste its client ID and secret into Everdeck, then sign in to Help Scout and approve access. Access runs through your own app, never one Everdeck shares with other customers.

What agents can do with Help Scout

An agent can only use the actions its charter grants. Each action has a risk tier, and the tier decides whether it runs on its own, asks first or always asks a person.

Runs on its own 10

Looking things up, writing to Everdeck's own records and changes one step can undo. Once an agent's charter grants one of these, it runs without asking, unless you set it to Ask first in the charter or one of your approval rules covers it.

  • Search conversations Tier 0 · Read Outside content

    List or search conversations, 25 per page, most recently modified first. Returns id, number, subject, status, inbox, assignee, customer, waiting-since time, tags and a preview of the latest message.

  • Read a conversation Tier 0 · Read Outside content

    Read one conversation with all its threads: customer messages, replies, notes and status changes, each with author, body (HTML) and time. primaryCustomer.id is what replies need.

  • Draft a reply for review Tier 2 · Reversible Outside content

    Save a draft reply on the conversation for a teammate to review and send. Nothing reaches the customer until a person sends it.

  • Add a note Tier 2 · Reversible Outside content

    Add a note that only teammates can see.

  • Change status Tier 2 · Reversible Outside content

    Set a conversation to active, pending or closed, or mark it as spam. The customer is not notified.

  • Assign a conversation Tier 2 · Reversible Outside content

    Assign a conversation to a user (ids from list_users) or a team. Team ids share the user id space but are not returned by list_users.

  • Set tags Tier 2 · Reversible Outside content

    Replace a conversation's tags with this list (missing tags are created). Include the current tags you want to keep; an empty list removes them all.

  • Find customers Tier 0 · Read Outside content

    Find customers by email or name. Returns id, name, job title, organization, notes, conversation count and email addresses.

  • List inboxes Tier 0 · Read Outside content

    List inboxes (mailboxes) with their ids, names and email addresses.

  • List users Tier 0 · Read Outside content

    List Help Scout users with their ids, names, emails and roles, for assignments. Filter by email or inbox. Team ids come from GET /v2/teams.

Asks first 2

Anything a customer or the public sees. By default a charter grants these as Ask first: the agent sends an approval request and waits for a yes. A company admin can switch one to Auto in the charter after confirming with their second factor. Even then, once an agent has read outside content, such as a customer's email, its tier 3 and 4 actions need a person by default for the rest of that session.

  • Reply to the customer Tier 3 · External Outside content

    Send a reply that Help Scout emails to the customer as the connected user. Reopens the conversation unless you set a status.

  • Email a customer Tier 3 · External Outside content

    Start a new email conversation from an inbox and send the first message to the customer (a customer record is created if the email is new).

Actions marked Outside content return what people outside your company may have written, such as emails or comments. Agents treat it as information to check, never as instructions.

What can start work

Nothing in Help Scout starts agent work by itself. Agents use it while they work on tasks from the board, from other agents or from the sources on the Intake page.

Work an agent can take on

Examples for apps in Customer support. What an agent does with Help Scout depends on the actions you grant it.

  • Read new tickets or conversations, tag them and draft replies for review.
  • Add an internal note that sums up a long conversation before a person takes over.
  • Answer common questions from your help articles, after you approve the reply.

Set it up

The Help Scout setup guide walks through each way to connect: what to set up first and the fields to fill in.

Read the Help Scout setup guide

Help Scout is a separate service with its own terms. Everdeck isn't affiliated with or endorsed by it.

Help Scout's website

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