Nudges and escalations in Slack and Teams

The direct messages the dispatch board and recommendation plans send to technicians and leads in Slack and Teams, what each one says, and how to be reachable.

Written By Chris Scaminaci

Last updated About 2 hours ago

The dispatch board can send you a direct message in Slack or Teams. You get one when a dispatcher asks for an update on a ticket you own, when a ping you have not answered is still waiting, when a ping nobody answered reaches the team leads, and when a recommendation plan moves work to you. These messages come from the same bot as Qubit, but they are not answers to anything you asked. They arrive whether or not the Qubit assistant is switched on, and they always use fixed wording.

Before you start: to receive these messages you need to be reachable (see below). To send a nudge you need dispatch access (the roles Administrator, Service Desk Manager, Dispatcher and Customer Success) and a HaloPSA agent linked to your login.

The messages you can receive

Message	When you get it	Who receives it
Owner nudge	A dispatcher selects Nudge on a ping about a ticket you own	You, as the ticket's current owner
Your own reminder	A ping on your board has gone unanswered for the second step of your escalation timing	You
Lead escalation	A priority-1 ping has gone unanswered for the third step	Your team leads, in chat and on the board
Pick-up request	A recommendation plan that a dispatcher runs moves breaching work to you	You
Coverage request	A plan finds that no dispatcher is covering the queue	Dispatchers who are on shift and not on a call

What each message says

The board sends only the texts below. A dispatcher's own words are never sent. Only the ticket, the names and the reason change. The ticket shows as its number and the client name, for example #4242 (Contoso). When a ping is about a person or the whole queue and not one ticket, it shows as agent #12 or the queue. A name longer than 60 characters is shortened.

Owner nudge: Dispatch is asking for an update on #4242 (Contoso): a customer reply is waiting for an answer. Please take a look when you can.
Your own reminder: Reminder from the dispatch board: #4242 (Contoso): a customer reply is waiting for an answer. It is still waiting for you.
Lead escalation: Dispatch board: Jane has not acted on a priority-1 ping. #4242 (Contoso): a customer reply is waiting for an answer. Please check in or take it.
Pick-up request: Dispatch is moving breaching work from Jane to you — please pick it up.
Coverage request: No dispatcher is covering the queue right now. If you can, please open the dispatch board and take it.

The reason after the ticket is one of these phrases. An owner nudge can use only the first four.

a customer reply is waiting for an answer
a ticket is about to breach its SLA
a technician has gone quiet on breaching work
an owned ticket has gone stale
an unassigned ticket is about to breach its SLA
a high-priority ticket arrived
a ticket has waited too long without an owner
a triage recommendation is waiting to be accepted
a ticket was reopened
a customer is unhappy
an appointment is at risk
a shift is ending with urgent work still held
an agent is over capacity
a recurring issue is spiking
no dispatcher is covering the queue
an AI insight needs a decision
a tracked ticket changed

Anything else reads an item needs attention.

Nudge a ticket's owner

On the focus card of a ping, select Nudge followed by the owner's name. The button shows only when you have a HaloPSA agent linked to your login, the ping is one of the first four kinds above, and the owner has a Slack or Teams account mapped.
Confirm the nudge. The board says Nudged and the owner's name, and waits.
If nothing changes after 15 minutes, the board notes Nudged 15 min ago, no change.

The same owner is nudged about the same ticket once in 15 minutes. A second nudge in that time sends nothing, and the board says the owner was already nudged a moment ago. If the ticket changed owner since your board loaded, the board says The owner changed; refresh the board.

How an ignored ping escalates

A ping that nobody answers goes up in steps. The minutes for each step are in your Workspace settings, and 0 means the step never happens.

The first step makes the ping louder on your board.
The second step sends you a reminder in your own chat, if you chose a chat for it.
The third step is for priority-1 pings only. If Tell my lead about a ping nobody answered is on, your team leads get an alert on their boards and a chat message. The team leads are the active agents whose agent role is SDM Primary or SDM Secondary.

Limits:

In the Gentle mode of How pushy, nothing escalates, so no chat message is sent.
A priority-2 ping can send you a reminder but never reaches the leads.
A priority-3 ping never escalates and never sends a chat message.
Each person's escalation happens once for each ping and step.
A person can trigger at most six escalations in an hour.

Make sure you can be reached

The bot sends the message to a chat it can open with you:

Slack: your Slack user ID is mapped to your agent record under Configuration → Q-Director Config → Messaging, in the Agent Mapping table (Slack User ID), and Slack is connected for your organisation.
Teams: your Teams user is mapped (Teams User), Teams is connected, and you already have a chat with the bot. Send the bot a message once if you do not.

When the channel is set to automatic, Slack is tried first and Teams second. An Administrator sets the mapping, either in that table or as Slack ID and Teams ID under Edit details in Team Management; see Q-Director: Slack, Teams and agent mapping.

When nobody can be reached, the dispatcher sees a message instead of a delivery. For a nudge, it is That owner has no chat channel linked, so the board cannot nudge them. For a step in a plan, it is Skipped — no channel linked for the person's name, with the reasons, such as Jane has no Slack id. The rest of the plan carries on.

Choose which messages you get

Your own reminders and the lead escalations follow your Workspace settings in the browser extension (Workspace: how pings reach you):

Nudge me in chat has the choices Off, Where I am linked, Teams and Slack. The setup wizard shows the same choices as Never, Automatic, Teams and Slack. The setting appears when your sign-in is linked to a HaloPSA agent, and the wizard shows it only when your agent record has a Slack or Teams ID. Where I am linked uses Slack when you have it and Teams otherwise.
Escalate a P1 after and Escalate a P2 after hold the minutes for the three steps.
Tell my lead about a ping nobody answered switches the lead message on or off.
How pushy chooses between Gentle, Standard and Strict.

Your Administrator can lock a setting. A locked setting shows Set by your admin.

The owner nudge and the plan messages do not depend on your settings. A dispatcher sends a nudge, and a plan sends its messages when someone runs it (Recommendations and plans).

Needs you: pings and the focus card: the pings these messages are about.
Workspace: how pings reach you: your reminder and escalation settings.
Q-Director: Slack, Teams and agent mapping: the mapping that makes you reachable.
Recommendations and plans: the plans that send pick-up and coverage requests.
Qubit in Slack and Teams: the assistant that uses the same bot.

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