Channels overview
How email, chat, and Slack Connect feed into a single Ochre inbox, and how to decide which channels to turn on first.
What a channel is
A channel is a way customers reach you. Ochre treats channels as inputs into one shared inbox: an email lands, a widget message pings, a Slack Connect thread starts, and they all show up in the same list of conversations with the same statuses, the same assignment, the same AI drafts, and the same reporting.
This matters because most help desks split your team's brain. Email lives in one tool, chat in another, Slack in a third. Ochre's design assumption is that the customer doesn't care which channel they used, and your team shouldn't have to either.
Channels available today
- Email. Send and receive on your own domain, with DKIM and SPF aligned for deliverability and an MX record for inbound. See Email channel and Custom domain email.
- Live chat widget. A drop-in script tag on your site or app. Same-origin iframe, lazy-loaded launcher. See Chat widget and Embedding the widget.
- Slack Connect. Shared channels with your customers show up in the inbox. Replies from Ochre land back in the original Slack thread. See Slack Connect channel.
That's it for v1. WhatsApp, SMS, and voice are not shipped — the channel enums exist in the schema but no UI, inbound provider, or send path is wired up.
How channels relate to conversations
Every conversation has exactly one source channel. Status, assignment, tags, and SLAs all work the same way regardless of channel. The only thing that varies is the reply mechanics: an email reply goes out as email, a chat reply goes out as a chat message, a Slack reply lands back in the Slack thread.
Master toggles
Every channel has an on/off switch in Settings → Channels. Off means the channel is silenced: no new conversations are created on it. Existing conversations are not deleted, and you can still send outbound replies. Use this when you're staging a launch, debugging a misconfigured domain, or pausing a channel temporarily. Details in Channel master toggles.
Picking your first channel
If you're just starting out, set up email first. It's the lowest-friction channel for customers and gives the AI agent the most material to learn from. Once email is humming, drop the widget on your marketing site or product, then layer Slack Connect for your top accounts.
A common rollout looks like:
- Day 1: connect a domain, point an MX record, send and receive your first email.
- Day 2-3: embed the widget on your help center and product.
- Week 2: invite your top accounts to a Slack Connect channel and link it.
Routing across channels
Routing rules are channel-aware. You can write a rule like "if channel is email and from-domain is acme.com, set priority urgent" or "if channel is chat and the custom field plan equals Enterprise, assign to the senior team." See Routing overview and Routing rules.
The AI agent runs across all channels. It will draft on email, suggest in the widget, and reply in Slack threads with the same voice settings. See AI overview.
What's next
Pick the channel you want to set up first and follow its setup guide.
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