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 handling 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 handling.
- Tick Enable auto-archive 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 shortly after 3pm on the Thursday. The day it was marked Done doesn’t count, so Wednesday and Thursday are the two business days — and Atender also never archives before the same delay has passed in wall-clock time (48 hours here), which is what holds it until 3pm. A conversation marked Done at 3pm on a Friday won’t be archived over the weekend: Saturday and Sunday aren’t business days, so Monday and Tuesday are the two counted days and it is archived early on the Tuesday, once the day has started in the opening hours rule’s time zone (the 48 wall-clock hours ran out on the Sunday).
If a conversation has no team assigned, or no opening hours rule applies to its team and channel (no assignment and no default rule, or an assignment set to always open or always closed), 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 (except on Amazon, where a buyer’s reply reopens the thread). 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 handling shows Enable auto-archive ticked 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
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Symptom: Done conversations are never archiving. Fix: Confirm Enable auto-archive is ticked and that at least one of Days/Hours/Minutes is greater than zero. A delay of 0/0/0 disables the timer effectively.
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Symptom: A conversation marked Done yesterday hasn’t archived yet, but the delay is 1 day. Fix: Days are business days after the day the conversation was marked Done, so a 1-day delay archives on the next day your team is open — and never before a full 24 wall-clock hours have passed as well. The Hours field accepts 0–23, so a delay can’t be entered as 24 hours; use Days for that.
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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.
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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). This bypasses the timer for that single conversation. Atender refuses to archive a phone conversation while the caller is still in the phone menu or waiting to be answered; finish the call first, then archive. The tenant-wide auto-archive setting handles the rest in bulk.