Summary: The Conversations preview list doesn't sort purely by time. It sorts by priority first, then recency. This article explains what controls that priority and why a conversation's position and its displayed timestamp can sometimes seem out of sync.
Permissions Required: Converser to view the conversations preview list. Location Admins or Brand Admins to check / configure the Departments' escalation rules.
How sorting works
Conversations in the preview list are ordered by priority tier first, and by recency second:
Escalated conversations (highlighted in red)
Soft-escalated conversations (highlighted in amber) — only applies if your account has the Allin enabled and Allin soft escalation setting feature enabled
Requires attention conversations (highlighted in yellow)
Normal conversations, sorted by most recent activity
A conversation in a higher tier will always sit above a conversation in a lower tier, no matter how old it is. This is why replying to other conversations doesn't reshuffle a red, amber, or yellow one out of the way — it isn't competing on time, it's competing on priority.
🗒️ Note: These flags are not read/unread markers. They're recalculated live from the conversation's message and event history — nothing is set once and stored, so they update automatically as the conversation changes.
Escalated conversations (red)
A conversation turns red when it breaches your department's Escalation Rule — the time limit your admin sets for how long a conversation can go unhandled before it's escalated (for example, "escalate after 15 minutes with no reply").
Escalation rules are configured in Settings > Departments by Location Admins or Brand Admins. When that time limit passes, the conversation is flagged as escalated, which may also trigger an email alert or forward the conversation to a backup department, depending on how the escalation rules in are set up.
Escalated conversations sit at the very top of the list, above every other tier.
How it clears: Automatically, the moment someone on your team sends a real reply (not a holding message).
Soft-escalated conversations (amber)
ℹ️ Info: Skip this section if your location doesn't have Allin turned on, or doesn't have Allin soft escalation setting enabled. Please check with your admin if your property has these two feature. They can check from Settings > Locations > AI Settings.
This tier only applies if your account has the Allin soft escalation setting enabled — this is a specific setting your account team can turn on, separate from having Allin auto-response itself switched on.
It's flagged when Allin genuinely can't answer a guest's question — as opposed to a technical error. Rather than going silent, Allin keeps responding to the guest's future messages as normal. The amber flag simply lets your team know that one specific message needs a human answer.
How it clears: Unlike the other tiers, this doesn't clear just by replying. A staff member needs to acknowledge (dismiss) the flag directly on that message. Once acknowledged, the conversation drops out of the amber tier.
Requires attention conversations (yellow)
A conversation is flagged yellow for either of these reasons:
The guest is waiting on a reply — the last message in the conversation was sent by the guest, and no one on your team has replied yet.
A department was added to the conversation — including scheduled department forwarding. Adding a department flags the conversation as requiring attention for anyone in that newly added department, even if the conversation's last message is old.
Because this is checked per staff member, the same conversation can show as "requires attention" for one person's departments but not another's.
How it clears: Automatically, the moment someone sends a reply — this moves the conversation past the point that triggered the flag. Opening or viewing the conversation does not clear it, since viewing doesn't write anything the sort relies on.
⚠️ Important: ONLY replying an unhandled message will move these conversations to normal ones.
Why the timestamp shown looks "wrong"
The timestamp on a conversation card always shows the time of the last actual message sent in that conversation.
It does not update when a conversation is escalated, forwarded, or flagged in any other way.
So when a conversation jumps up the list because it was escalated or forwarded, the timestamp shown can still reflect an earlier message — making the position and the timestamp look out of sync.
This is expected: the timestamp reflects last message activity, while the position reflects the conversation's priority tier.
Common Questions
Q: Why is a conversation at the top of my list even though it's old?
A: The list sorts by priority first, then by time. If a conversation is escalated (red), soft-escalated (amber), or requires attention (yellow), it sits above normal conversations regardless of how old it is.
Q: What's the difference between an escalated (red) and a requires attention (yellow) conversation?
A: Escalated (red) means the conversation breached your department's Escalation Rule time limit with no reply. Requires attention (yellow) means either the guest is waiting on a reply, or a department was just added to the conversation (including scheduled forwarding). Escalated always sits above requires attention.
Q: What does a soft-escalated (amber) conversation mean?
A: This only appears if your account has the Allin soft escalation setting enabled — a separate setting from Allin auto-response itself, which your account team can turn on. It means Allin couldn't answer a specific guest question and is flagging it for a human to step in — Allin keeps responding to the guest's other messages as normal in the meantime.
Q: Why does a forwarded conversation move to the top of the list?
A: Adding a department to a conversation (including scheduled department forwarding) flags it as requiring attention for anyone in that department. This moves it above normal conversations, even if its last message is old.
Q: Why does the timestamp on a conversation not match its position in the list?
A: The timestamp always shows the time of the last actual message. It does not update when a conversation is escalated or forwarded, so a conversation can appear near the top of the list with an older timestamp. This is expected behaviour.
Q: I opened a yellow (requires attention) conversation — why hasn't it gone back to normal order?
A: Opening or viewing a conversation doesn't clear the flag. You need to reply to the conversation. Once you reply, it drops out of the priority tier and sorts back into normal chronological order.
Q: I replied to an amber (soft-escalated) conversation — why is it still flagged?
A: Soft-escalated conversations don't clear by replying. A staff member needs to acknowledge the flag directly on the flagged message for it to clear.
⚠️ Important: Don't rely on timestamps alone to judge how urgent a conversation is. A conversation near the top of the list may have an older-looking timestamp simply because it was recently escalated or forwarded, not because a new message just arrived.