Conversation distribution defines how Nuvia picks the agent when a conversation is sent to a team. Instead of someone grabbing conversations by hand, you set a routing rule and the platform automatically selects the right agent on that team.
Available on: All plans.
Who can do it: Administrator or manager.
Open Conversation distribution
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In the side menu, click your profile icon and select Settings
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In the side menu, select Conversation distribution
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The screen shows the current distribution rule in a central card
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Choose where the rule applies (the whole company or a specific team), select the rule and click Save (or Cancel to go back to the last saved setup)
Where the rule applies: company or team
At the top of the card there's the Apply to: selector, with two options.
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Whole company — this is the global rule. It applies to all teams that don't have their own rule.
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Specific team — you choose a team from the list and decide whether it follows the company rule or has its own.
When you select a team, the Use own rule for this team toggle appears:
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Off — the team follows the company rule. The screen shows the global rule in read-only mode, with the Set by company label and the Edit at company level shortcut.
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On — the team has its own rule, which overrides the global one for conversations sent to it.
In the team list, the Own rule or Company rule label shows where each team's rule comes from.
Who is included in the distribution
Before any rule runs, the platform builds the candidate pool for that team. Only these are included:
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Team members who are not supervisors; a supervisor is on the team to monitor, not to operate, and stays out of the rotation in every rule.
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Members with an active account. Deactivated or removed users no longer receive conversations, even if they still show up listed on the team.
Before the rules: presence statuses
The platform automatically tracks each agent's presence status, based on their activity in Nuvia:
The 3 presence statuses
| Status | Color | Meaning |
| Online | Green | Connected and active (activity in the last 5 min) |
| Away | Yellow | Connected but inactive (idle for 5+ min) |
| Offline | Red | Disconnected |
Impact on automatic distribution
Conversation distribution changes based on presence status and the rule chosen for the team.
The distribution rules
There are five rules, organized in two groups on the screen: Presence and Workload. Each one uses a different criterion to decide which agent gets the next conversation.
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By availability: distributes randomly, prioritizing those who are Online; if no one is online, it considers those who are Away and, finally, the rest of the team (including those who are Offline). It always assigns to someone.
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Active only: distributes only among Online agents. If no one is online, the conversation waits for manual assignment (it doesn't go to Away or Offline agents).
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Active and away: picks randomly among those who are Online or Away, without prioritizing one over the other. Offline agents never receive: if no one is online or away, the conversation stays unassigned, waiting for someone to pick it up by hand.
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Least active: sends the conversation to the agent with the fewest active conversations at the moment, balancing the team's workload. It doesn't look at presence: every agent on the team counts, including those who are Away or Offline.
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Equal per stage: runs a balanced rotation based on the funnel stage, keeping similar volumes per person within each stage. It doesn't look at presence: every agent on the team is in the rotation, including those who are Away or Offline.
Which statuses each rule considers
| Rule | Uses presence? | Who can receive the conversation | If there's no “ideal” candidate |
|---|---|---|---|
| By availability | Yes | Online (priority) → Away → anyone on the team (includes Offline) | Always assigns — as a last resort, falls back to any agent on the team |
| Active only | Yes | Online only | The conversation waits for manual assignment |
| Active and away | Yes | Online or Away, with no priority between them. Offline never receives | The conversation waits for manual assignment |
| Least active | No | Any agent on the team: Online, Away or Offline | Always assigns (to the one with the lowest load) |
| Equal per stage | No | Any agent on the team: Online, Away or Offline | Always assigns (to the next one in the rotation) |
In all of them, the pool is already filtered: supervisors and deactivated or removed users are left out before the rule runs.
Away period (only in the “Least active” rule)
The Away period field appears and applies only to the “Least active” rule. It sets the time window used to count each agent's active conversations: only open conversations with activity within that period count. Conversations older than the window don't count as current workload.
The value is configurable: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4, 6 or 12 hours (default: 30 minutes).
When the rule is applied
The rule picks the agent every time a conversation is sent to a team — the platform chooses who on that team receives it. This happens when:
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A conversation is routed to a team, for example, when the Smart Funnel sends the conversation to a team (“Assign team” skill /
assign_team) or when an automation/integration directs the conversation to a team. This is the typical case of a new lead that the AI hands over to human agents. -
You assign a team manually inside the conversation.
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A user leaves the account (is deactivated or removed): the open conversations they had are reassigned by the same rule. This is the only situation where the platform redistributes conversations that already had an owner. See How to deactivate and reactivate a user.
It does not go through the rule when the destination is already a specific person: the “Assign agent” skill (assign_user) or manual assignment to an agent sends it straight to that user, with no rotation.