Organizing your Intercom inbox with views
Set up custom views to monitor key escalations in real time.
While team inboxes define where conversations land, views define what you can see across them.
Views are a set of filters, including conversation attributes, that show all conversations matching those filters in real time.
In a traditional helpdesk setup, the default views (All Open, Assigned to Me, Unassigned) are as useful as they get. In an AI-first inbox, where the majority of conversations are already classified by Fin, your views can now answer questions like:
- Which urgent conversations haven’t been picked up yet?
- Which Billing escalations are approaching SLA?
- Which customers are frustrated and still waiting?
Let’s explore how to set up the views that work for you.
This lesson is part of the Setting up your AI-first helpdesk course.
Prerequisites
This lesson builds on earlier setup steps.
- Team inboxes: Your team inboxes should be configured.
- Fin Attributes: Several view filters in this lesson use Fin Attributes. If you haven’t configured them yet, you can still create basic views and add attribute-based filters later.
Views vs. team inboxes
Before building views, it’s worth being clear on the terminology, especially if you’re coming from Zendesk (where Zendesk Views are closer to what Intercom calls team inboxes).
| Team inboxes | Views | |
|---|---|---|
| What they do | Receive conversations for the right team | Surface any conversations that match the criteria |
| How conversations arrive | Via workflow assignment | Views don’t move conversations, they filter them |
| Who sees them | The assigned team | Any teammate (but each pins their own) |
| What they’re for | Workload delivery | Real-time oversight |
| Configured in | Settings > Inbox > Team Inboxes | Inbox sidebar > Views |
A view doesn’t change where a conversation lives. It just makes a specific set of conversations easy to find and watch.
Default Fin AI Agent folder
There are five views available in the default Fin AI Agent folder:
- All conversations: Conversations where Fin was involved.
- Resolved: Conversations where the customer confirmed Fin’s answer was helpful, or left without asking for a teammate’s help.
- Escalated & Handoff: Conversations where the customer asked to talk to a teammate or where Fin chose to hand off the conversation based on your configuration.
- Pending: In-progress conversations that are not resolved or escalated yet.
- Negative CX Score: Resolved conversations that received a negative CX Score rating.
These views are a useful starting point. You can add more custom views that suit your processes.
Default inbox views: All and Unassigned
The All view shows all conversations and tickets, regardless of teammate or team assignment.
The Unassigned view shows all conversations and tickets that don’t have a teammate or team assignment. If you are assigning conversations automatically via Workflows, or manually via the Inbox, those conversations will be removed from the Unassigned view immediately.
Your AI-first starter set
In AI-first support, it’s useful to set up views that correspond to how conversations are escalated, which will usually rely on filters you create using Fin Attributes.
Here are some common use cases you can use for inspiration. Consider which views will be useful to you and your team to ensure you have the oversight you need.
| View name | Filters | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent - unassigned | Fin Attribute: Urgency = High + unassigned | Catches high-urgency Fin handoffs that no one has picked up yet, the highest-risk gap in any AI-first inbox |
| Negative sentiment - open | Fin Attribute: Sentiment = Negative + not closed | Surfaces frustrated customers before they escalate further; lets you or a senior agent intervene early |
| Billing escalations | Fin Attribute: Issue = Billing + assigned to Billing team | Gives your Billing team (and you) a single view of their live queue, without opening every conversation |
| Technical - SLA at risk | Fin Attribute: Issue = Technical + SLA due in < 30 min | Prevents SLA breaches before they happen; acts as an early warning system for your Technical team |
| Fin handoffs - all open | Fin involvement = true + open state | The complete picture of what Fin has passed on, useful for calibrating handoff volume and spotting patterns |
| Note: SLA-based filters (like “SLA due in < 30 min”) require SLAs to be configured on your team inboxes. If you haven’t set those up yet, set this view aside and return to it after configuring SLAs. |
How to create a view
Navigate to Inbox sidebar > Views > + New view.
- Hover over Views in your sidebar and select + New view.
- Give the view a clear name.
- Add your first filter. For AI-first views, start with a Fin Attribute filter (e.g., Urgency = High).
- Add a second filter to narrow the result: assignment status, SLA due date, or team.
- Choose your filter logic: AND (matches all conditions) or OR (matches any condition). Most views work best with AND.
- Save.
| Note: You need the Can manage views permission to create views. If you don’t see the option, ask your Super Admin to confirm your role. |
Your new view will be available to all teammates. Each teammate who needs the view must pin it to their own sidebar.
Setup tips
- Keep filter complexity low: For most monitoring needs, 2–3 filters with AND logic is enough.
- Duplicate before you iterate: If a view is working well for one team and you want a version for another, hover over it and use the duplicate icon, then edit from there.
- Use custom folders: If you’re creating a lot of views, group them using custom folders. Go to Manage > Edit sidebar > Create custom folder. Custom folders are for personally organizing your sidebar and won’t affect how views display for your team.
- Name views for the teammates using them: A view called Billing - assigned to me is more useful to a teammate than Billing escalations - current.
How views work operationally
As a manager, use views for team oversight and SLA monitoring. Views like Urgent - unassigned and SLA at risk should be your first stops when checking in. You’re not reading every conversation, you’re scanning for gaps.
For your team, recommend a few crucial views to pin that are relevant to them. They should keep an eye on these outside their regular assigned conversations. When you onboard your team, this is one of the things to walk them through.
A view like Fin handoffs - all open can be extremely useful early on. It shows you the volume and distribution of what Fin is sending your team in real time, which helps you calibrate whether your team inboxes and assignment limits are set correctly.
Build views around Fin Attributes and escalation types to surface critical conversations. A view that shows you all open conversations is just a less effective version of your inbox. A view that shows you Urgent + unassigned is an indispensable early-warning system.
Resources
- Organize your inbox with custom views and folders – How to build custom views and folders to monitor the conversations most important to you.
- View Fin AI Agent’s conversations from the inbox – How to view Fin’s active, resolved, escalated, and pending conversations from the inbox.
