Set up auto-archiving
Auto-archiving is what moves a conversation from Done to Archived after a configurable delay. Done conversations can still reopen if the customer replies; Archived conversations are locked. The timer controls how long that follow-up window stays open.
Before you start
- A role with the Conversation resolution permission (Owner has it by default; other roles need it granted).
- A sense of how long your customers typically need to come back with a follow-up after you’ve resolved their conversation. Most teams set this in days, not minutes.
Steps
- Open Settings → Conversation resolution.
- Tick Enable auto-archiving to turn the timer on. When this is off, Done conversations sit in Done indefinitely.
- Set the archive delay:
Days — counted as business days against your team’s opening hours.
Hours — additional business hours on top of the days.
Minutes — additional business minutes for fine-tuning. - Click Save.
Auto-archiving applies tenant-wide. There isn’t a per-team or per-channel override on this setting today.
How the timing is actually measured
This is the part that catches people out: auto-archiving uses business hours, not wall-clock time.
When Atender checks whether a Done conversation is ready to archive, it counts:
- Business days based on the team’s opening hours (the team that owns the conversation, paired with the conversation’s channel).
- Plus the additional hours and minutes from your setting, also measured in business time.
- Skipping public holidays for the relevant team.
For example, if your team’s opening hours are Monday–Friday 9 to 5 and you set the delay to 2 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, a conversation marked Done at 3pm on a Tuesday will be archived around 3pm on the Thursday — not 3pm on the Thursday calendar day, but after two full business days of your team’s time. A conversation marked Done on a Friday afternoon won’t be archived over the weekend; the timer pauses outside business hours.
If a conversation has no team assigned, or its channel doesn’t have specific opening hours, the timer falls back to treating the conversation as always-open (24/7) and uses wall-clock time.
What happens when the timer expires
- The conversation’s status flips to Archived.
- Any active AI handling on the conversation is deactivated as a belt-and-suspenders measure.
- An Archived banner appears in the conversation view; new replies aren’t accepted on this conversation.
- The Conversation archived automation trigger fires, so any rule you’ve wired to that trigger runs.
A new message from the customer after this point does not reopen the archived conversation. It creates a fresh conversation. See What happens when a customer replies to a Done conversation?.
How often Atender checks
The auto-archive job runs every 5 minutes. It scans for Done conversations that are ready to archive, applies the business-hours math, and flips eligible ones over. You may see a small delay between the timer “expiring” and the status flipping — that’s the scan interval, not a setting you can tighten.
Coordinating with CSAT surveys
If you have a CSAT survey that fires on resolution, set the auto-archive delay long enough that the customer has time to respond. A survey that arrives 30 minutes after Done with a 1-hour archive window will lock the conversation before most customers click through. A 1–3 business-day window is a sensible starting point; tune from there.
Verify it worked
- Settings → Conversation resolution shows the toggle as Enabled and your configured timing.
- A test conversation marked Done with a short timing (a few minutes during business hours) flips to Archived after the delay.
- The conversation header shows the Archived banner once the flip happens.
Troubleshooting
-
Symptom: Done conversations are never archiving. Fix: Confirm auto-archiving is Enabled and that at least one of Days/Hours/Minutes is greater than zero. A delay of 0/0/0 disables the timer effectively.
-
Symptom: A conversation marked Done yesterday hasn’t archived yet, but the delay is supposed to be 24 hours. Fix: “24 hours” in this setting means 24 business hours per the team’s opening hours, not 24 wall-clock hours. If your team works 9-to-5, 24 business hours is roughly three working days.
-
Symptom: A specific conversation isn’t archiving even though plenty of business time has passed. Fix: Check the conversation’s team assignment and channel — if the team’s opening hours are misconfigured or the channel has unusual hours, the timer math may not be progressing. The team and channel opening hours are resolved together to determine “business time” for that conversation.
-
Symptom: I want to manually archive a specific conversation right now. Fix: Open the conversation and use the Archive action in the conversation action bar (the archive-box icon, keyboard shortcut
E). This bypasses the timer for that single conversation. The tenant-wide auto-archive setting handles the rest in bulk.