Link a conversation to an incident from the Sidekick panel

When a customer describes a problem that matches an ongoing incident — Investigating, Identified, or Monitoring status — Sidekick surfaces a hint card above the panel. Two clicks get the conversation linked, the customer subscribed to updates, and a reply drafted.

This is one of Sidekick’s highest-leverage features for service teams. Instead of agents handling the same outage individually across dozens of conversations, every agent recognizes the pattern at the moment of contact and responds consistently.

Before you start

• An active incident in Investigating, Identified, or Monitoring status (created in Incidents)
• Sidekick’s incident discovery toggle on (Settings → Sidekick → General)
• A conversation where the customer is describing the problem the incident covers

What the hint card shows

When Sidekick matches a conversation to an active incident, the card displays:

• Incident title — the same title agents see in the incidents view
• Severity — Low / Medium / High / Critical
• Status — Investigating / Identified / Monitoring
• Confidence score — Sidekick’s confidence that this conversation is about this incident

The card sits above the regular Sidekick modules so the agent can’t miss it.

Steps — link the conversation

1. Open the conversation. The Sidekick panel should be visible (toggle it open if needed).
2. The incident-match card appears at the top. Read the incident title and severity to confirm it’s actually a match — Sidekick is conservative but not infallible.
3. Click Link & subscribe.

What happens:

• The conversation is attached to the incident in the incidents view (admins can see the full list of linked conversations)
• The customer is subscribed to incident updates — when the incident transitions to Resolved, they get a notification automatically
• The conversation gets an internal note recording the link, with the incident ID for traceability

Steps — send a templated reply

For a fast acknowledgment that doesn’t require thinking about the wording:

1. Click Insert reply on the hint card.
2. Sidekick generates a templated response that:
   Acknowledges the customer’s experience
   Names the incident (avoiding implying it’s the customer’s fault)
   Sets expectations for status updates
3. Edit the draft as needed — adjust tone, add context, personalize.
4. Send.

You can do Link & subscribe without sending a reply, or Insert reply without subscribing. Most agents do both.

When to NOT click

The card is conservative but worth verifying. Don’t link when:

• The customer is describing a different problem that happens to share keywords. (E.g., the incident is about email delivery delays; the customer is asking about email templates — different topic, similar words.)
• The customer’s issue predates the incident — they reported it before the incident started, even if the incident now affects similar customers.
• The match confidence is low (below ~70%) — the card surfaces all matches, but low-confidence ones often aren’t right.

If you’re unsure, ignore the card and reply normally. False-positive incident links can confuse downstream reporting and customer notifications.

Verifying the subscription worked

After clicking Link & subscribe:

• Open the conversation’s internal notes — there should be an entry like Linked to incident <ID>: <title>
• Open the incident in the incidents view — your conversation should appear in the linked-conversations list
• When the incident resolves, the customer receives an automatic notification

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Card appears but I’m sure the customer’s issue isn’t related. Fix: Ignore the card. Sidekick learns from agent ignore-rates over time, but the immediate signal is just to skip it for this conversation.
• Symptom: I clicked Link by mistake. Fix: Open the incident, find the linked conversation, and unlink it. The customer’s subscription gets cleared at the same time.
• Symptom: No card appears even though I know there’s a relevant incident. Fix: Either incident discovery is off (Settings → Sidekick → General), the incident isn’t in Investigating/Identified/Monitoring status, or the customer’s wording is far enough from the incident description that Sidekick didn’t connect them. The agent can manually link the conversation from the incident view if needed.

See also

• What is Sidekick?
• Panel modules reference
• Incidents