EPAV Desk tells agents about new work in three ways: a notification in the panel, an email and, if they allow it, a browser notification. Panel notifications work from the start; emails go out once you connect your own mail server in the panel or switch on the EPAV mailbox in the cabinet.
Notifications in the panel
The bell at the bottom of the left bar opens Notifications: the latest events with links to their conversations. You can mark one or all as read (Mark all as read), delete one or all (Delete all), and open Notification settings. Panel notifications need no setup and keep working when emails are not configured. Notifications older than 30 days are deleted automatically.
What agents are notified about
| Event | Who is notified | On by default |
|---|---|---|
| New conversation | The members of the conversation's team; when it has no team yet, the agents whose role lets them see all conversations. The agent who started the conversation for a customer is left out. Not sent for an inbox in AI chat without agents mode. | Browser only |
| Conversation assigned to me | The agent a conversation was given to, by a colleague, a rule or auto-assignment. Taking a conversation yourself sends nothing. | Yes |
| Mentioned in a conversation | The agent mentioned in a private note. Mentioning a team notifies every member. | Yes |
| Conversation assigned to me is reopened by a reply | The assigned agent, when a customer reply moves the conversation back to Open from another status, such as Resolved or Snoozed. | Yes |
| New reply on a conversation assigned to me | The assigned agent. | No |
| New reply on a conversation I'm participating in | Agents other than the assignee who have written in the conversation, private notes included. | No |
| SLA warnings and breaches for first response, next response and resolution | The recipients chosen in the SLA policy's alerts. | Yes |
New conversation arrives for every new conversation, also one the AI assistant answers first, so an agent can keep an eye on the support from a phone. By default it is on only in the Browser column: no panel notice and no email. Switch it off or on per column like any other event.
Notices about replies and reopened conversations reach an agent only while their account is enabled and their role still lets them see the conversation. SLA alerts are set up per policy, see Macros, tags, SLA and business hours.
Notices from automation rules
Automation rules can also notify agents with the action Notify agents. On a new platform the rule Handoff to a team → notify the team sends every member of a team a panel notification and an email «A conversation is waiting for an operator» whenever a conversation moves to that team. That is what happens when the AI assistant hands a conversation over, and also when an agent gives a conversation to another team. These notices have no personal switch: an admin turns the rule off or edits its text, see Automation rules.
Choosing your own notifications
Each agent picks what reaches them under Account > Notifications (from the bell: Notification settings). The table has one row per event and three columns: In-app, Email and Browser. Every switch is saved as soon as you flip it.
When emails are not set up for the platform, the Email column is greyed out with the note that email notifications are turned off for this workspace.
Browser notifications
Switch on Browser notifications at the top of Account > Notifications and allow notifications when the browser asks. They then arrive on this device even when the panel tab is closed, for the events switched on in the Browser column. If the browser blocks them, allow notifications for your support address in the browser settings. Each device and browser is switched on separately.
On a phone
Open your support address in the phone's browser, sign in and add the panel to the home screen: in Chrome on Android, the menu and Add to Home screen or Install app; in Safari on iPhone and iPad, Share and Add to Home Screen. The panel then opens from its own icon like an app and is called by your Site name from Admin > General (under the icon only its first 12 characters). Open it from the icon, go to Account > Notifications and switch on Browser notifications there.
On iPhone and iPad, notifications work only in the panel added to the Home Screen, with iOS 16.4 or later. In Safari itself the switch stays off, and the page says what to do.
Emails about conversations wait three minutes
An email about an assigned conversation, a new customer reply, a reply in a conversation you take part in or a reopened conversation waits 3 minutes. If within that time you open the conversation or read its notification in the panel, the email is not sent. Several such events in one conversation during the wait make one email, with the text of the latest event, so you get at most one email per conversation in that time. A customer who keeps writing does not push the email back: the 3 minutes count from the first event you have not seen. Account > Notifications explains the same rule under the table.
Emails about mentions, SLA warnings and breaches, and notices from automation rules go out at once. Invitations, password resets and verification codes never wait. Panel and browser notifications arrive at once for every event.
Two ways to send agent emails
Agent emails are notifications, invitations for new agents and password reset links. They leave the platform in one of two ways:
- your own mail: a sending server (SMTP) you enter in the panel;
- the EPAV mailbox: our address sends them for you, switched on in the cabinet.
Without either, agents get panel and browser notifications only.
Your own mail
Open Admin > Notifications > Email, tick Enabled and fill in the sending server: SMTP Host, SMTP Port, Username, Password, Authentication Protocol (usually Login), TLS and From email address. The remaining fields (HELO Hostname, Max Connections, Max Retries, Idle Timeout, Wait Timeout, Skip TLS Verification) can stay as they are.
The SMTP of your support mailbox or of any sending service will do. If you connected an email inbox, use the same details as its SMTP part, see Email. Emails start going out as soon as you press Save.
The EPAV mailbox
In the cabinet (my.epavdesk.com), card Emails to your agents, press Use the EPAV mailbox. Emails then come from helpdesk@epavdesk.com, and there is nothing to set up in the panel. While the mailbox is on, Admin > Notifications > Email shows a note about it; the settings below the note are kept for later.
Every plan includes the mailbox, and it works on a paid subscription. In trial mode the card asks you to set up your own mail instead. When a renewal payment fails, the mailbox keeps working for two weeks, see "When a payment fails" below.
Who the EPAV mailbox writes to
The mailbox writes only to confirmed addresses:
- your sign-up email, confirmed by the link you got when you registered;
- colleagues' addresses confirmed with a code: enter the address in the card, press Send a code, ask the colleague for the code from their email and enter it next to the address, then press Confirm.
A code works for 30 minutes and is spent after 5 wrong tries; you can ask for a new one after a minute. The card takes up to 50 addresses and up to 20 codes a day.
An email to an address that is not confirmed is simply not sent, invitations included. Confirm a colleague's address in the cabinet before you add them in the panel.
The one exception is the verification code for a customer (identity checks before the bot's actions and custom tools): the mailbox sends it to the customer's address too. Only a short plain-text email with the 6-digit code goes out, in the customer's language, with its own limits per hour and per day; any other email to that address is refused.
How many emails the EPAV mailbox sends
Emails to your agents through the EPAV mailbox are included in your plan: there is no daily quota, no email packs to buy and no counter on the card.
One safeguard remains, against runaway sending. If an automation rule or an integration starts sending emails in a loop and the number of emails in a day goes far beyond what a working day needs, no more emails to your agents go out through the mailbox until 00:00 UTC, and your confirmed sign-up email gets «EPAV mailbox: emails to your agents are paused until tomorrow». Emails far beyond normal within one hour, for the whole site or to one address, are not sent either; in the next hour emails go out as usual. Emails held back this way are not sent later. Panel notifications keep working. If your team really needs that many emails, write to support@epavdesk.com and we raise the limit.
When a payment fails
If a renewal payment does not go through, the EPAV mailbox keeps working as usual for 14 days, counted in UTC from the day of the failed payment. The cabinet shows a banner with the last day, and your confirmed sign-up email gets a reminder on the first day and again 3, 7 and 12 days later.
If the payment still has not gone through by then, the mailbox stops sending emails about conversations until it does. The same happens when a cancelled subscription ends. Invitations for new agents and password reset links still go out, so your team can still sign in to the panel. Once the payment goes through, the mailbox works again at once.
Switching back to your own mail
Press Back to my own mail on the same card. The panel then sends with the settings from Admin > Notifications > Email again. If they were never filled in, agents get no emails.
Language and look of agent emails
Agent emails are written in the platform language (Admin > Workspace > General > Language). Invitations and password resets have a fixed layout: your logo or Site name on top and the line «This is an automatic email from the ... support panel», with your site name in it, at the bottom. Notification emails get a similar frame with the site name and that line, until you set a default outgoing template, which then frames them instead. In SLA emails the metric name and the time left or overdue are still in English. Each email has a plain text part next to the HTML one, which mail services expect. You can change the texts of notification emails under Admin > Notifications > Templates, see Email templates.
Addresses that never get email
Agent emails, invitations, password resets and verification codes are never sent to addresses on reserved test domains, such as example.com or anything ending in .test, .example, .invalid or .localhost. Nothing can be delivered there, and a bounce would hurt the sender's reputation.
How to stop receiving
- One agent, one kind of email: that agent switches it off in Account > Notifications, column Email. The same table switches off panel and browser notices.
- Team emails about handoffs: an admin switches off or edits the rule Handoff to a team → notify the team under Admin > Productivity > Automations, tab Conversation update, or takes the agent out of the team.
- One address with the EPAV mailbox: untick receives emails next to it in the cabinet card. Cabinet emails about payment and limits still reach your confirmed sign-up email.
- All agent emails: press Back to my own mail in the cabinet if the EPAV mailbox is on, then untick Enabled under Admin > Notifications > Email and save. Panel notifications continue.