> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://wiredesk.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Request a human

> Let chat and email visitors ask for a person, get your team notified, and take the conversation over from the dashboard.

**Request a human** lets website chat and email visitors ask for a person. The agent flags the conversation, you are notified, and whoever on your team opens it can reply as themselves. While a person is in the conversation, the agent stays out of it.

It is for chat and email. On phone calls, the equivalent is a live transfer — see [Hand calls to you](/docs/actions/hand-calls-to-you).

## Why it is off by default

Switching this on is a promise. It tells visitors a person is coming, and that is only true if somebody is watching the dashboard. So every new agent starts with it off. Without it, the agent still handles requests for a person honestly: it says it cannot put them through right now and offers to take a message.

## Turn it on

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open Actions">
    Go to **Agents → your agent → Actions**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Switch on Request a human">
    Under **Built in**, turn on **Request a human**. It takes effect on the next message.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Limit it to business hours (optional)">
    Once it is on, **Only during business hours** appears underneath. Turn it on, set your days, times and timezone, and click **Save hours**. See [Business hours](/docs/actions/business-hours).
  </Step>
</Steps>

Changing this needs the Admin or Owner role.

## What the visitor sees

When a visitor asks for a person, or has something the agent cannot handle, the agent flags the conversation. It tells them the team has been notified and may take a little while, and asks for their name and contact details so nothing is lost.

* **While they wait**, the agent keeps answering — a request is not a pause. In the chat widget, a line above the message box reads "Asking someone to join — they'll reply right here."
* **When someone joins**, the widget header shows "*Name* joined this conversation" (or "Someone from the team joined"), and replies from your team appear in the same chat. The agent stops replying.
* **By email**, your team's replies are sent from the agent's address, in the same thread.

## What your team does

A new request sends a **Someone wants a human** notification — by email to the workspace owner by default. You can change it to a text or turn it off under **Settings → Notifications**. If the visitor asks again, the notification says how many times they have asked. A single conversation notifies at most once every five minutes, so an impatient visitor does not become a stream of alerts.

Waiting chats also appear under **Needs attention** on the [dashboard](/docs/workspace/dashboard), with a **Needs human** badge.

To take it over, open the conversation from the notification, the dashboard or [Conversations](/docs/workspace/conversations). The **Reply as owner** card has:

| Control                    | What it does                                                                                                                             |
| -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Reply box                  | Sends your reply to the visitor and pauses the agent for this conversation.                                                              |
| **I'll take this one**     | Claims the request without replying yet, so teammates can see someone is on it. Shows as **Take over from the agent** when nobody asked. |
| **Hand back to the agent** | Lets the agent answer again.                                                                                                             |

Any member of the workspace can reply and take over, including the Agent role. Replies record who wrote them, so the transcript shows which teammate answered. See [Team and roles](/docs/account/team-and-roles).

You can also take over a chat or email conversation where nobody asked for a person.

## Handing back

Click **Hand back to the agent** when you are done. If you forget, the conversation is handed back on its own after half an hour with no reply from your team.

A conversation that ended and is reopened by the visitor always starts with the agent again. If they ask for a person again, it is a new request.

## If nobody answers

If nobody joins within about ten minutes, the request times out. The check runs every 15 minutes, so it can take up to 25.

* The conversation is marked **No answer**.
* In chat, the agent posts: "Nobody's free to join right now, sorry. Leave a way to reach you and someone will follow up." It then carries on answering.
* By email, nothing extra is sent to the customer.
* For chats, the dashboard reads "Nobody reached *them* in time" and keeps it under **Needs attention** for 24 hours.

If the visitor asks again after a timeout, it is a fresh request with a fresh ten minutes. A lot of timeouts is a sign to look at who is watching for requests, or to set [business hours](/docs/actions/business-hours).

## Outside business hours

With **Only during business hours** on, the agent can only request a person during the hours you set. Outside them, it tells the visitor it cannot put them through right now and offers to take a message instead of promising a person who is not there.

## Related

* [Business hours](/docs/actions/business-hours)
* [Conversations](/docs/workspace/conversations)
* [Handover](/docs/concepts/handover)
* [Notifications](/docs/workspace/notifications)