Every assignment problem in a support team eventually turns into a status problem. A conversation lands with someone who is at lunch, a queue sits untouched because everyone shows offline, or a lead waits while the one available agent gets nothing. In HellouOne, your availability status is the switch that decides whether the system can give you conversations at all. This post explains the three states, the automatic behavior behind them, and what the status does not control, based on our help guide: Availability, your status for receiving conversations (https://help.hellou.ai/hc/hellou/articles/1791215207-disponibilidad-tu-estado-para-recibir-conversaciones).
The three states
Your status lives next to your avatar, top right in the interface, and it has three states:
Available: you receive new conversations assigned to you.
Busy: you do not receive new assignments. When you choose busy, HellouOne asks for a reason, free text such as after call work or a customer meeting, and you can attach a set duration, for example 30 minutes, after which the status returns to available on its own.
Offline: you do not receive new messages at all. Unlike busy, this state asks for no reason and offers no timer.
That difference between busy and offline is practical, not cosmetic. Busy is the state for a pause with an end: you are working, just not taking new conversations right now, and your team can see why. Offline is the state for being out: end of shift, vacation, not working today.
Changing your status
To change your status, click your avatar photo and choose the state you want. If you pick busy, write the reason and, optionally, set a duration so the return to available happens automatically. If you pick offline, confirm with Set offline.
One rule saves misunderstandings: there is no per inbox status. Your status is a single account wide state for every inbox you belong to. If you are busy, you are busy for WhatsApp, email and web chat alike, because the person who is unavailable is you, not a channel.
Automatic availability: the four hour rule
If your account has automatic availability on, you do not have to remember the switch every morning. After four continuous hours without a sign in, your account is shown available again for the next sign in. The count is of inactivity, stopped time without signing in, not of activity.
That account level setting appears in Settings, Account, as Re open availability automatically, and administrators toggle it for the account. With it on, a status left over from yesterday, a busy or offline state nobody reset, does not silently block a whole morning of assignments. With it off, statuses stay exactly as each person left them, which some teams prefer because every change is deliberate.
What your team sees
Your status is not private. In Conversations, Team, everyone sees who is online, their current status, and their reason if they are busy. Anyone can also change the status of any agent from that view, which is how a lead helps a teammate who left their status wrong, or how coverage is fixed quickly when someone steps away unexpectedly.
That visibility is what makes the busy reason worth writing well. A reason like after call work, back in 10, tells the team when you will take conversations again. A blank or vague reason leaves them guessing.
What your status does not do
The guide is clear about the limits, and they matter:
It does not close or reassign the conversations you already have open. Your active customers keep their thread with you.
It does not send an automatic reply to the customer. Nobody is told you are busy; assignment simply stops sending you new work.
It does not block you from opening or answering your existing conversations. You can keep working your queue while busy or offline.
And if you never change your status, the default is available: an account you leave untouched keeps receiving assignments.
A simple team habit
Used well, availability is a small daily discipline with an outsized effect. Go busy with a reason and a duration when you pause, instead of just stopping. Go offline when you are truly out. Leads, check the Team view at the start of the day and fix stale statuses before customers feel them. And decide once, as an account, whether automatic availability fits how your team works, so yesterday status never decides today assignments by accident.
Source: Hellou help center, Availability, your status for receiving conversations: https://help.hellou.ai/hc/hellou/articles/1791215207-disponibilidad-tu-estado-para-recibir-conversaciones
