Conversation Presence

Presence indicators show you who else on your team is looking at the same conversation as you — and what they’re doing. This helps your team avoid duplicated effort, like two people drafting the same reply at once.

Conversation presence is currently in beta and not yet available to all teams. We’re rolling it out gradually — if you don’t see presence indicators in your conversations, they haven’t been enabled for your team yet.

If you’re interested in trying it out, get in touch and we’ll see about adding you to the beta.

The presence indicators area, showing two teammates and their current activity
The presence indicators area, showing two teammates and their current activity

What You’ll See

When you open a conversation, a presence bar appears below the comment form. It shows avatars and activity for any other teammates who currently have the same conversation open.

Each teammate’s activity is shown with a small icon and label:

Status Meaning
Viewing Teammate has the conversation open
Replying Teammate is writing an email reply
Commenting Teammate is writing an internal comment
Has a draft Teammate has a saved draft reply

The presence bar updates in real time — you don’t need to refresh the page.

Avoiding Reply Conflicts

The most useful signal is knowing when someone else is replying to the same conversation you are. If you start composing a reply while a teammate is also replying, the presence bar highlights this with a warning:

The presence bar showing a clash warning when two people are replying at the same time
The presence bar showing a clash warning when two people are replying at the same time

This helps you coordinate before sending — one of you might want to stop and let the other handle it, or you can leave a comment to decide who should reply.

How It Works

Presence is automatic. When you open a conversation, your teammates see you. When you click into the reply editor, your status changes to “replying”. When you click into the comment box, it changes to “commenting”. When you navigate away, you disappear from the presence bar.

If a teammate has a saved draft reply on a conversation but isn’t currently viewing it, you’ll still see a “has a draft” indicator so you know someone has started work on a response.

You never see your own avatar in the presence bar — it only shows other teammates.

Tips

  • Check before replying — A quick glance at the presence bar can save you from writing a reply that someone else is already handling
  • Use comments to coordinate — If you see a teammate is replying, drop a comment to ask if they need help or to share useful context
  • Draft indicators persist — Even after a teammate closes the conversation, their draft indicator remains until they delete or send the draft