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Where drafts go
Every draft lands in your help desk unsent, on the conversation it answers. You choose its shape: an internal note beside the conversation, or a draft reply sitting in the composer ready to edit and send. Either way the customer sees nothing until someone on your team sends a reply, with one FreeScout exception explained below.
The two choices
Internal note is the default and works on every help desk. Your team sees the answer along with the model that wrote it and a count of what it drew on. Nothing can reach the customer from a note, so an agent copies what they want into their reply.
Draft reply, ready to edit and send puts the answer in the reply box, so your team edits and sends with no copying and no note to delete. Nothing is sent until a person sends it. This choice works on Help Scout and FreeScout only, and on FreeScout it needs a recent module (see below).
The choice also changes how often a conversation is drafted. With notes, Overdesk drafts each conversation once. With draft replies, each new message from the customer gets a fresh draft, unless an unsent reply is already waiting in the composer. See Drafts.
What each help desk supports
| Help desk | Internal note | Draft reply in the composer | Editing or discarding in Overdesk updates the help desk copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Help Scout | Yes | Yes | Yes for a draft reply nobody has changed in the composer, otherwise Overdesk adds a note |
| FreeScout | Yes | Yes, with a recent API and Webhooks module (see below) | No, Overdesk adds a note recording the change |
| Zendesk | Yes | No, drafts always arrive as a note | No, Overdesk adds a note recording the change |
| Intercom | Yes | No, drafts always arrive as a note | No, Overdesk adds a note recording the change |
Zendesk and Intercom give Overdesk no way to place an unsent reply, so on those help desks Overdesk posts a note whatever this setting says. See Reviewing drafts for what editing and discarding do.
Change where drafts go
- Open Guardrails. The Send mode tab opens first.
- Under Draft assist, find Where drafts go.
- Pick Internal note or Draft reply, ready to edit and send. The choice saves as soon as you click it.
Only an admin can change this setting. If the workspace is paused, the change takes effect when you resume drafting. The draft reply option stays greyed out until Help Scout or FreeScout is connected.
When a draft reply arrives as a note instead
With Draft reply, ready to edit and send chosen, Overdesk still posts an internal note when:
- the conversation is on Zendesk or Intercom;
- the conversation has no customer email address to address the reply to;
- the answer still contains one of the placeholders Overdesk uses to mask personal details, which it could not swap back. In the composer that placeholder would be one click from a customer, so the answer goes to a note where it is harmless.
FreeScout needs module 1.0.103 or newer
On FreeScout, draft replies need the API and Webhooks module 1.0.103 or newer. Older versions may not recognise the reply as a draft, and FreeScout sends a reply it does not recognise, so it could reach your customer unread. Until your module is updated, choose Internal note: notes work on every version. The dashboard shows this warning beside the draft reply option whenever FreeScout is connected. See FreeScout.
Escalations on draft replies
A draft reply holds only the answer, because anything else in the composer would go to the customer when an agent presses send. So when a rule hands a conversation to someone, Overdesk first posts a short internal note headed "Overdesk escalation" naming who should take it and why, then assigns the conversation. With note delivery, that line sits at the top of the draft note instead. See Escalation.
Follow-up nudges
Follow-up nudges arrive the same way as reply drafts: as a note, or as a draft reply where this setting and the help desk allow it.
What this setting never does
It never sends. Both choices leave the answer unsent, and no value of this setting can make Overdesk reply to a customer; it only decides where your team finds the answer. The one exception is FreeScout's, above: with an API and Webhooks module older than 1.0.103, FreeScout itself may send a draft reply, so choose Internal note there until the module is updated.