Transfer
Category: Routing
Overview
The Transfer node hands the conversation to a human agent. The bot session ends, an assignment record is written, and the chat enters the supervisor inbox queue. Transfer just nominates the destination — either a specific department or a specific agent — and lets the assignment surface pick up from there.
When to use
- Customer requested a human (“Talk to agent”).
- Recipe escaped its intended scope (intent route fell through, condition Else, retry exhausted).
- Sensitive flows that should never auto-resolve (refund disputes, complaints).
Ports
| Port | Direction | Description |
|---|---|---|
in | input | Receives the flow from the previous node. This is a terminal node — no output ports. |
Configuration
Target department (optional)
The department that should receive the conversation. Leave blank to target a specific agent instead. The two target fields are mutually exclusive — set one, not both.
Target agent (optional)
A dropdown of every active agent, with their current presence status and open-conversation count, useful for “back to the same agent who handled the last chat” or VIP routing. Leave blank to let the assignment service pick from the target department.
Priority
Three choices — Normal, High, or Urgent — set as a chip group. Priority is mirrored onto the bot flow session and is surfaced in the supervisor queue for sorting.
Message to customer (optional)
A bilingual message sent to the customer right before the handoff. Leave blank for a silent transfer (no customer-facing message). Supports {{variables}}.
Common patterns
Always-escalate flow
Start → Message (“Connecting you to an agent…”) → Transfer. Useful for high-touch lines.
Bot-then-handoff
Bot collects identity + reason via Question nodes, sets a “summary” variable, then Transfer with that summary interpolated into the customer-facing message (Connecting you to {{department.name}} — here's a recap: {{summary}}).
Limits & validation
- Terminal node — the bot session ends here. Anything wired downstream will never run.
- Exactly one of Target department or Target agent must be set. If both or neither are set, the runtime escalates instead of transferring.
- Outside business hours, the assignment service may queue the chat for the next shift.
Troubleshooting
Conversation shows as transferred but no agent picks it up.
Check the destination department has at least one online agent and the supervisor inbox tab shows the chat in the queue. If you targeted a specific agent, confirm they’re not Away or on Break.
Transfer node escalates instead of handing off.
Almost always because both Target department and Target agent are filled, or neither is. The runtime requires exactly one.
See also
Use Business Hours node upstream to choose between a Transfer and a Close-with-callback path.