> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dmly.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Work a conversation as a team
> Leave internal notes, mention teammates, see who else is typing, and take a conversation off the bot.
Two or more people answering the same Inbox need three things: somewhere to talk to each other that the contact never sees, a signal that a teammate is already replying, and a reliable way to stop the bot once a human steps in. This page covers all three.
**@mentions only stay private inside an internal note.** If you type `@Ann` in the reply box, the contact receives the literal text `@Ann` in their message. Mentioning a teammate does not hide the text, strip it, or turn the reply into a note — it only sends your teammate a notification on top of a message the contact can read. Keep mentions in the notes panel.
## Internal notes
Notes live in the details panel on the right of the open conversation, under **Internal notes**. They are visible only to people who log in to your Workspace. Before you add the first note the panel says so: **Notes are only visible to your team.** Nothing you write there is ever sent to the contact on any Channel.
Select the conversation in the Inbox list. The details panel is on the right. On a narrow screen it is hidden, so use a wider window when you need it.
Type in **Add an internal note…**. To pull a teammate in, type `@` and pick their name from the list that appears.
Select **Add note**. The note appears in the panel with your name and how long ago you wrote it.
You can edit or delete any note afterwards. Deleting asks you to confirm first (**Delete this note?**) because it is permanent.
Editing a note does not re-notify anyone. If you add a mention while editing, that teammate gets nothing — write a new note instead.
### Mentioning a teammate
The `@` list matches people in your Workspace. Mentioned teammates get a **You were mentioned** notification in the bell menu that links straight back to the conversation, so they can pick it up without you chasing them in another app. You are never notified about your own mentions, and mentioning someone who is not in the Workspace does nothing.
Matching is on the whole name, so `@Ann` notifies Ann and does not also notify Anna.
See [Notifications](/inbox/notifications) for where those alerts show up and how to control them.
## Seeing that a teammate is already replying
When another teammate is typing in the same conversation, you see three bouncing dots and **`` is typing…** just above the reply box — or **`` teammates are typing…** when more than one of you is in there. This is the cheapest way to avoid two people sending the same answer thirty seconds apart.
A few things worth knowing:
* The teammate hint works on every Channel, not just the LiveChat widget.
* On LiveChat, if the visitor is typing at the same time, **Customer is typing…** wins the slot — you will not see both at once. Other Channels give DMLY no customer-typing signal, so there you only ever see the teammate hint.
* The indicator disappears a few seconds after the last keystroke, and expires on its own if a teammate closes the tab mid-sentence. A stuck indicator is not a thing you need to clear.
* It is a live hint only. If real-time messaging is not reaching your browser, you simply do not see it — there is no fallback and no error. Messages themselves still arrive, because the Inbox refetches the open thread regardless.
On a LiveChat conversation, the visitor sees **`` is typing…** in the widget while you type.
Replying also quietly reassigns the conversation to you — whoever answers last owns it. If you are just chiming in, a note is safer than a reply. See [Assigning chats](/inbox/assigning-chats).
## Taking over from the bot
Every automated reply — bots, Flows, Sequences, scheduled and lifecycle triggers, AI — checks one switch on the contact before it fires. When it is on, the contact gets no bot replies, Flow steps, Sequence messages or AI replies, while your team can still reply normally. That switch is the handover.
**Pausing the bot does not silence everything.** Broadcasts still reach a paused contact, and so do transactional notifications — appointment confirmations, reschedule and cancellation notices, and review requests. Appointment reminders are the exception: those do check the pause before sending.
To take over by hand, open the conversation and select **Pause bot (human takeover)** in the details panel. The button becomes **Resume bot**. That is the whole thing: no confirmation, no separate status, nothing sent to the contact.
### What pauses the bot
| What happens | Pauses the bot? |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| You select **Pause bot (human takeover)** | Yes |
| You select **Pause bot reply** on the contact's profile page | Yes |
| A Flow reaches a human-handover step | Only if that step is set to pause the bot |
| An AI agent decides it needs a human | Yes, always |
| You select **Block contact** | Yes — the panel then reads **Blocked — replies are disabled and the bot is paused.** |
| A WhatsApp cart order can't be processed automatically | Yes |
| You reply to the contact | **No** |
| You select **Mark as done** | **No** |
A cart lands in the "can't be processed automatically" row when the cart is empty, has no currency or a zero total, uses a currency you do not sell in, contains an item that is out of stock or a product DMLY does not recognise, or when you have no cart automation set up. It writes its own line into the thread: `🙋 WhatsApp cart needs a human () — bot paused.`
When a Flow or an AI agent hands over, it also drops a line in, so whoever picks the conversation up can see why it landed with them. The two are worded differently:
* A Flow writes `🙋 Handed over to a human — (bot paused)`, naming the assignee. The ` — ` part appears only when the step sets an assignee, and ` (bot paused)` only when the step pauses the bot.
* An AI agent writes `🙋 AI handed over to a human — (bot paused)`, giving its reason rather than a name.
Resuming writes `▶️ Bot replies resumed`, and only when the bot was actually paused.
### What un-pauses the bot
This is where people get caught out. **Three things** turn the bot back on:
1. Selecting **Resume bot** in the details panel.
2. Selecting **Resume bot reply** on the contact's profile page.
3. A Flow reaching a resume-bot step.
Nothing else does. In particular, none of these bring the bot back:
* Marking the conversation done. A paused conversation that you close stays paused.
* The contact writing back later. Their message reopens the conversation, but it does not resume the bot — so a contact you helped last month can message again and get silence from your automations.
* Time passing. The pause never expires on its own.
**Unblocking a contact does not resume the bot.** Blocking sets both things — blocked *and* bot paused — but **Unblock contact** only clears the block. The contact stays bot-paused with nothing in the interface pointing at it. If you block and later unblock someone, select **Resume bot** as well.
A paused contact blocks every Flow except one that contains a resume-bot step — otherwise that step could never run and the pause could never be lifted automatically. So a Flow built purely to resume the bot still works on a paused contact.
Open that conversation and look at the details panel. If it reads **Resume bot**, the bot is paused for this contact — select it and automations start firing again. The contact's profile page shows the same state as a **Bot paused** / **Bot active** label, and its **Resume bot reply** button does the same job.
The usual causes, in order of how often they bite:
1. Someone took over by hand and never resumed.
2. The contact was blocked at some point and then unblocked — unblocking leaves the pause in place.
3. A Flow or an AI agent handed the conversation to a human. Scroll the thread for the handover line.
If the panel reads **Pause bot (human takeover)**, the bot is not paused and the problem is elsewhere — start at [No inbound messages](/channels/no-inbound-messages) or [Automation overview](/automation/overview).
## Related
Who owns a conversation, and why replying changes it.
Open, done, archive — and what reopens a conversation.
Where mentions and assignments show up.
Saved replies your whole team can insert.