# Turn Channels On and Off

Every way an employee can be reached, in one place: see what's on, what's off, and what's coming, then flip a switch or just ask.

## TL;DR

Every channel your employees can be reached through, from Web Chat to Slack to the API, comes from one catalog and shows up on one screen. Turn a channel on or off from **Settings > Technical > Channels**, or tell an employee to do it for you in chat. These channel switches apply to the workspace, not one individual employee. A few core channels stay on always, a few are still being built and stay locked, and every change applies starting with the very next message.

## How It Works

Every channel the platform knows about, whether it's live today or still coming, is defined once and shared by the Channels page, the agent's own channel tool, and the system that decides whether a message gets through. There's no separate list to keep in sync.

Channel controls answer whether the workspace accepts messages on a route. Each employee also has an external-contact setting in their Profile. **Private** rejects unauthenticated contacts. **Public, zero workspace access** accepts them, but never grants workspace data, memory, tools, or action authority. A channel setup may select the employee who handles that channel, such as choosing the employee behind a Telegram bot, but that is routing, not a per-channel permission.

Each channel falls into one of four groups:

| Group | Channels |
|---|---|
| **In-App** | In-App Chat, In-App Voice, In-App Video |
| **Chat Apps** | Mailbox, Slack, Discord, SMS, Microsoft Teams Chat, Telegram, WhatsApp |
| **Telephony** | Live Meeting, Phone Call |
| **Programmatic** | Auto Schedule, API Access, MCP Server, A2A Protocol, Webhook, Email Webhook, Calendar, Chat Widget, SDK |

A channel is either **routable**, meaning it has a real inbound path an employee can be messaged through and can be turned on or off, or **display-only**, meaning it shows up on the page so you know it exists but there is nothing to switch. Every gate check for an inbound message runs through the same single enforcement point, so what you see on the Channels page is exactly what decides whether a message reaches your employee.

## Where to Find It

Open **Settings > Technical > Channels** in the workspace. Every channel appears as a tile, grouped into In-App, Chat Apps, Telephony, and Programmatic, each showing its current state and a **Manage** button for its setup panel.

You can also skip the screen entirely and ask an employee directly, for example "turn on Slack" or "what channels do I have enabled." The employee uses the same underlying tool the Channels page uses, so the result is identical either way.

## Choose a Channel Guide

This page is the starting point for every inbound channel. Use the route that matches how you want to reach an employee:

| You want to                                                | Start here                                                                                                                              |
| ---------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Work directly in the workspace                             | [Web Chat](/guide/channels/web-chat)                                                                                                    |
| Speak to an employee or bring one into a live call         | [Voice](/guide/channels/voice) or [Live Meeting](/guide/channels/meeting)                                                               |
| Give an employee a personal inbox or send calendar invites | [Mailbox](/guide/channels/mailbox) or [Calendar Invites](/guide/channels/calendar)                                                      |
| Message an employee from a team chat app                   | [Slack](/guide/channels/slack) or [Telegram](/guide/channels/telegram)                                                                  |
| Send work from your app or another AI system               | [REST API](/guide/channels/api), [MCP](/guide/channels/mcp-server), [A2A](/guide/channels/a2a), or [Webhooks](/guide/channels/webhooks) |

Each tile on the Channels page shows whether that route is live, needs setup, is locked by your plan, or is coming soon. Select the tile first when you need the exact setup instructions for a channel not listed above.

## What You Can Do

| Action | From the Channels page | From chat |
|---|---|---|
| **See every channel and its state** | Open the page, read each tile | Ask an employee to list your channels |
| **Turn a channel on** | Toggle the switch on its tile | Tell an employee to enable it by name |
| **Turn a channel off** | Toggle the switch on its tile | Tell an employee to disable it by name |
| **Finish setup for a connected channel** | Click **Manage** on the tile | Ask an employee for setup steps; it hands back the same link |
| **Check usage for a channel** | Read the numbers on its tile | Ask an employee how much traffic a channel has seen |
| **Choose the employee for a connected bot or endpoint** | Use that channel's setup panel when it offers an employee picker | Ask for the channel's setup link |

An employee can enable or disable a channel, and it can hand back the setup link a channel needs to finish connecting, such as Slack's authorization link or the panel for generating an API key or webhook endpoint. It only acts on a channel when you ask it to.

Today, the available controls are workspace-wide channel on/off, employee selection where a connected channel offers it, and an employee-wide Private or Public external-contact setting. There is no per-channel employee rule such as "only this employee may use Telegram" and no per-employee allowlist such as "only these contacts may email this employee."

## Always-On Channels

Four channels are core to the product and can't be turned off:

| Channel | Why it's always on |
|---|---|
| **In-App Chat** | The default web surface. Disabling it would lock you out of the product. |
| **Live Meeting** | Served by the meeting bot, not a toggleable inbound route. |
| **Auto Schedule** | Runs your scheduled and recurring work. |
| **Calendar** | Auto-joins calls from Google, Outlook, and Apple invites you're added to. |

Trying to turn one of these off, from the page or by asking an employee, is refused with an explanation that it's a core surface every employer needs.

## Coming Soon Channels

A channel marked **coming soon** is locked: it appears on the page so you can see what's ahead, but it cannot be enabled, disabled, or configured yet. Currently coming soon: In-App Voice, In-App Video, Discord, SMS, Microsoft Teams Chat, WhatsApp, Phone Call, Chat Widget, and SDK. Asking an employee to turn one on returns a plain "not available yet" instead of pretending it worked.

## How to Set It Up

1. Open **Settings > Technical > Channels**.
2. Find the channel you want in its group (In-App, Chat Apps, Telephony, or Programmatic).
3. Use the toggle on the tile to turn it on or off. Always-on and coming-soon channels don't show a toggle.
4. If the channel needs a connection step, such as Slack's OAuth authorization or a generated API key, click **Manage** to open its setup panel and finish there.
5. Once connected, the channel is live. There's no delay: the very next message it receives is evaluated against the new state.

To do the same thing from chat, just tell any employee what you want, for example "enable Telegram" or "disable Discord" (though Discord being coming soon means that request is refused). The employee reads and writes the same channel configuration the page does.

## Tips

- Ask an employee for setup steps instead of hunting for the right panel. It hands back the same link the Channels page would show you.
- A newly connected channel with no traffic yet is normal. Its usage numbers fill in once the first message arrives.
- If a channel needs a plan upgrade, both the page and the employee will tell you that directly rather than silently failing.

## Usage Analytics

Each channel tile shows real activity, computed live from your message history, never a separate counter that can drift out of sync:

| Metric | What it shows |
|---|---|
| **Requests, last 30 days** | Count of inbound messages on that channel in the trailing 30-day window |
| **All-time total** | Count of every inbound message the channel has ever received |
| **Last used** | Timestamp of the most recent inbound message on that channel |
| **Daily sparkline** | One bar per day across the last 30 days, so you can see whether traffic is steady, bursty, or quiet |

A channel with zero messages in the last 30 days shows a quiet state instead of an empty chart. These numbers only count messages you or your contacts sent in; they don't include the employee's replies.

## Good to Know

- Turning a channel off doesn't delete anything. Conversation history on that channel stays exactly as it was; the channel simply stops accepting new inbound messages.
- A plan-gated channel, such as Slack, Telegram, API Access, MCP Server, A2A Protocol, Webhook, or Email Webhook, needs the right plan before it can be turned on, whether you do it from the page or ask an employee.
- Setup steps differ by channel. Some need nothing beyond flipping the toggle, some need you to authorize a workspace (Slack), and some need a key or endpoint generated (API, webhook, Telegram, and similar).
- Changes take effect on the next message, not retroactively. A message already in flight when you disable a channel is not affected.
- A connection can route a channel to a chosen employee, but the master channel toggle remains workspace-wide.
- Mailbox, Slack, Telegram, and live meeting speech identify unauthenticated contacts as external and give them no workspace authority. A verified API, webhook, MCP, A2A, or Email Webhook connection uses its authenticated workspace identity instead.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Q: Can I turn off In-App Chat if I only use Slack?**
A: No. In-App Chat is always on because it's the default surface for the product; disabling it would lock you out entirely. You can still rely mainly on Slack for day-to-day messages.

**Q: What happens if I ask an employee to enable a coming-soon channel?**
A: It tells you plainly that the channel isn't available yet instead of pretending to turn it on.

**Q: Does disabling a channel delete past conversations on it?**
A: No. Disabling only stops new inbound messages from that channel. Existing conversation history is untouched.

**Q: How fast does a channel change take effect?**
A: On the very next message. There's no waiting period once the toggle or the employee's action completes.

**Q: Can I see how much traffic a channel gets without opening the page?**
A: Yes. Ask any employee how much traffic a specific channel has seen and it reports the same numbers shown on that channel's tile.

**Q: Why can't I toggle Live Meeting or Calendar?**
A: Both are always-on core surfaces. Live Meeting is served by the meeting bot rather than a toggleable route, and Calendar auto-joins invites you're added to, so there's nothing to switch off.

**Q: Can I make one employee private and another employee public?**
A: Yes. In each employee's Profile, choose Private or **Public, zero workspace access**. This setting applies across public channels. You cannot yet give one employee Telegram access but block only that employee on Mailbox, and approved-contact rules are not available yet.