Agent Presence
See when teammates are viewing or replying to the same ticket — prevents duplicate replies and surprise overwrites.
When two agents open the same ticket, the work can collide: both type a reply, both hit Send, the customer gets two emails, the second comment lands on top of stale state. Agent presence stops that by showing — in real time — who else is on the ticket.
You don't configure presence. It's always on for any ticket detail page.
What You See
The Collision Banner
When at least one other agent has the ticket open, a slim banner appears at the top of the ticket detail page:
- Avatars of every other agent currently viewing
- Names when you hover an avatar
- "+N more" chip when more than three agents are viewing
The banner uses Workestra's neutral palette — informative, not alarming. It disappears as soon as you're alone on the ticket.
The Typing Indicator
When another agent is composing a reply, a small chip appears just above the comments composer:
Sarah is typing…
The chip stays visible while their cursor is in the composer and clears 5 seconds after their last keystroke. If two agents are typing at the same time, the chip lists both ("Sarah and Diego are typing…").
When Presence Does and Doesn't Show
| Situation | Banner | Typing chip |
|---|---|---|
| You're the only agent on the ticket | Hidden | Hidden |
| One teammate is viewing | Visible | Only when they type |
| Multiple teammates are viewing | Visible | Per-typer |
| Customer is viewing the portal | Hidden — customer presence isn't surfaced | Hidden |
| Realtime is unreachable (network issue) | Hidden — fails silently | Hidden |
| You're viewing the ticket in two browser tabs yourself | Banner shows your second session | Yes |
Presence does not survive a refresh — closing the tab clears your presence within ~30 seconds.
Etiquette
- Don't reply over a teammate. If you see the typing chip, wait. Open an internal note or @-mention them in chat instead.
- Don't change status under a teammate. If you both edit, the second write wins silently — surprising your teammate.
- Use internal notes for hand-off. If you've been working on a ticket and need to pass it on, leave an internal note with context before changing the assignee.
Privacy
- Presence data is ephemeral — never written to the database
- It uses Supabase Realtime presence channels scoped to a single ticket
- No customer ever sees presence (it's an internal feature, not a portal feature)
- Disabling presence isn't possible per workspace today; if you need it, raise a support request
Presence respects workspace member visibility. Agents not in the same workspace as you never appear in the banner, even if they happen to view the ticket.
When Presence Doesn't Help
Presence prevents visual collisions. It doesn't prevent logical ones — for example, an automation that fires while you're editing the ticket, or an inbound customer email that arrives mid-reply. Workestra's API uses optimistic concurrency to detect those conflicts at write time, but the surface for conflict resolution is still minimal.
If you find yourself frequently collision-recovering, consider:
- Splitting the queue by saved views so two agents don't naturally land on the same ticket
- Using auto-assignment to give every ticket a single owner
- Talking to your team about who picks up unassigned tickets
Next Steps
- Tickets — Ticket detail and reply workflow
- Auto-Assignment — Reduce contention with clear ownership
- Saved Views — Split work into per-agent queues