Chat distribution: routing chats to managers

When a new conversation arrives from a connected channel, Ikigai can assign it to a manager automatically. The rules live in Settings → Integrations, on the chat distribution page, and are organized into three sections: Routing rules, Limits and schedule, and Sticky ownership.

Routing rules

A rule says which chats it matches and who receives them:

• Provider — a specific channel (All providers by default) and Account (All accounts or one connected account).
• Managers — the roster the rule rotates through. Each manager has a Weight ("Higher weight = more chats. Weight 2 receives twice as many chats as weight 1"), an Enabled switch, and a Vacation toggle. The form previews each person's expected share of chats.

Rules are ordered — the first matching rule wins — and you can add several with Add rule. The page warns you about broken setups: a rule with no managers, all managers paused, or a provider without an account selected.

Inheriting from deal distribution

Instead of a separate roster, you can flip Inherit from deal distribution: chats then go to the same managers, weights, vacations and pauses as deal distribution — and stop when deal distribution is turned off. Chat-specific limits and schedule below still apply.

Limits and schedule

• Daily cap per manager — the maximum chats one manager can receive per day (empty = no cap).
• Use working hours — pick a Timezone and a weekly window; as the hint says, "Outside the window new chats stay unassigned." For example, a team in Kyiv can accept chats 9:00-18:00 on weekdays only.

Sticky ownership

Keep existing owner prefers the linked contact or deal owner before round-robin, so a returning client lands with the manager who already knows them. Two additional lookups strengthen it: Check duplicates by phone and Check duplicates by email.

Live state

The Live state tab shows the current rotation: who is Next up per rule, today's load per manager, and skip reasons — Disabled, Vacation, At daily cap, or Paused themselves. Use Refresh for a new snapshot.

Accumulated unassigned chats? The Distribute all unassigned chats now action pushes everything matching a rule through the rotation in one go.

Tip: right after connecting a new channel, make sure at least one active rule covers it — until then incoming DMs arrive unrouted.

See also: The Messages section in the Chat channels category.