Intercom
This page is for org admins. It shows you how to connect an Intercom workspace to By Dawn and set it up. Once it’s connected, support teammates can file and link By Dawn tickets from a conversation’s sidebar, and By Dawn adds an internal note to the conversation, and reopens it, when the work is done. How teammates use it is on The By Dawn sidebar in Intercom.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”- You need to be an org admin or owner in By Dawn.
- Your organization’s By Dawn plan needs to include Intercom. Without it, there’s no Intercom card in the settings.
- You need to be able to install apps in the Intercom workspace, and its Intercom plan needs API access.
Connect
Section titled “Connect”-
In By Dawn, open Organization settings › Chat integrations. The Intercom card comes after Slack, Discord and Microsoft Teams.
-
Pick where your Intercom workspace is hosted: Hosted in United States, Hosted in Europe or Hosted in Australia. If you’re not sure, look at the address you sign in to Intercom at. app.eu.intercom.com is Europe, app.au.intercom.com is Australia, and app.intercom.com is the United States.
-
Choose Connect. Intercom shows what By Dawn asks for (listed below). Pick the workspace and authorize By Dawn.
-
You’re back in By Dawn, and the workspace is listed as Connected, with where it’s hosted and who connected it.
The install is tied to your By Dawn session, so it can’t be attached to a different organization, and it has to be finished within 10 minutes. A workspace connects to one By Dawn organization at a time. If you pick the wrong region, Intercom won’t find your workspace there, so start again and pick the other one.
Next, grant the projects the workspace may file into. Until you do, the sidebar can’t file or link anything.
What By Dawn asks Intercom for
Section titled “What By Dawn asks Intercom for”By Dawn asks for these four permissions and no others. Intercom shows them when you authorize, and they’re the same for every workspace.
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Read conversations | Draft a ticket from the conversation, add it to a ticket as a comment when a teammate asks, and title a manual ticket. |
| Write conversations | Add the internal note, and reopen the conversation. |
| Read admins | Confirm which workspace and region you connected, list the teammates a note can come from, and notice when one leaves. |
| Read one user and one company | Show the customer’s name and company in the sidebar and on the ticket. |
By Dawn never assigns a conversation, sends the customer a message, or changes a contact.
Choose the projects
Section titled “Choose the projects”Under the connection, open Settings:
- Projects: tick each project teammates may file into, link and search from the Intercom inbox. Restricted projects can’t be granted, so the sidebar never shows a restricted project’s tickets.
- Default project: the project picked first when a teammate files a ticket from the sidebar.
The sidebar shows only tickets in the granted projects, including the customer’s other requests, so a teammate never sees more through it than these projects hold.
Choose what By Dawn posts back
Section titled “Choose what By Dawn posts back”By Dawn posts an internal note, which customers never see, to every conversation linked to a ticket. It has the ticket’s id, title, new status and a link to By Dawn, and never any code or anything from the agent’s work.
Post an internal note when:
| Switch | Starts |
|---|---|
| A ticket is created from the conversation | on |
| The ticket is completed | on |
| The ticket is canceled | on |
| The ticket changes status | off |
| A worker opens a PR or ships | off |
Reopen the conversation when, so it’s back in your team’s queue to tell the customer. A snoozed or closed conversation opens again, after the note:
| Switch | Starts |
|---|---|
| The ticket is completed | on |
| The ticket is canceled | on |
| Someone adds a public comment | off |
A ticket is created from the conversation also posts when a teammate links a ticket that already exists. A switch you’ve changed from where it started shows · default on or · default off beside it.
Notes are from is the Intercom teammate the notes are posted as. It starts as The admin who connected Intercom, and you can pick any admin of the workspace instead. If the teammate you picked leaves the workspace, notes come from the admin who connected it again.
Offer templates
Section titled “Offer templates”Templates are offered in the sidebar, in the order you set, when a teammate files a ticket by hand. Add up to 10 with Add a template…, and use the arrows to order them. With none, the sidebar opens a blank form.
Turn on AI quick-file
Section titled “Turn on AI quick-file”Quick-file with AI puts ✨ Quick-file with AI first in the sidebar. Claude drafts the ticket from the conversation and suggests up to three likely duplicates, and the teammate reviews it before anything is created. It’s off until you turn it on.
Once it’s on, you can give it instructions for the draft, such as “Label billing questions Billing”, and choose Save instructions. If AI create isn’t set up on your By Dawn deployment, the switch can’t be turned on.
What By Dawn stores, and for how long
Section titled “What By Dawn stores, and for how long”- In By Dawn’s Intercom service: ids only. That covers the connection, which conversation is linked to which ticket, and a short-lived record of each note it queued. Those records are deleted after 7 days, or 30 days if a note couldn’t be sent.
- On the ticket: a link to the conversation, with the customer’s name and company, and the name of the teammate who filed or linked it. The conversation’s text is added only when a teammate ticks Add conversation as comment.
- Intercom’s access token is kept encrypted, and only By Dawn’s Intercom service can use it.
- AI quick-file, when it’s on, sends the conversation’s text, and the ids and titles of tickets in the granted projects, to the model that drafts the ticket. Nothing is kept beyond the ticket a teammate creates.
- Nothing from Intercom is used to train a model, by By Dawn or anyone else.
When a conversation is deleted in Intercom, By Dawn deletes its links. The ticket keeps its attachment, which now points to a conversation that no longer exists.
Customers
Section titled “Customers”When your organization uses Customers, each conversation a teammate links records a request from the conversation’s company, and a company By Dawn doesn’t know yet becomes a customer (see Customers and the quote). Turning Customers on, or connecting Intercom while it’s on, also goes back over the conversations already linked and records them, without quotes, because only the teammate linking a conversation can choose to quote it.
In Settings, then Organization, then Customers an admin can stop Intercom creating customers, and can fill customers’ revenue, size and tier from their Intercom company (see Customers settings and privacy). Disconnecting keeps your customers and their requests.
When the connection needs you
Section titled “When the connection needs you”The card shows a notice when something needs an admin:
- Needs reconnecting: Intercom stopped accepting By Dawn’s access, so nothing posts or syncs until you choose Reconnect. It reconnects in the same region, and keeps the settings and links.
- This Intercom plan has no API access: Intercom refused By Dawn’s calls, so notes stopped. Upgrade the plan in Intercom, then reconnect.
- The admin who connected Intercom left the workspace: notes have no author until you choose one under Notes are from. Until then, the notes that come due aren’t sent.
If your organization’s By Dawn plan stops including Intercom, the card is hidden, the sidebar tells teammates By Dawn isn’t available, and no notes are posted. The connection, its settings and its links stay, and everything works again once the plan includes Intercom.
Disconnect
Section titled “Disconnect”Choose Disconnect next to the workspace. By Dawn stops working in it straight away, and also:
- removes the By Dawn app from the Intercom workspace, so the inbox sidebar goes away;
- unlinks every conversation from its tickets, so no more notes are posted and nothing is reopened;
- deletes the access Intercom gave By Dawn, and its settings.
Conversation links and comments already on tickets stay there, marked No longer synced. Connecting the workspace again starts from scratch.
Removing the By Dawn app in Intercom does the same, once By Dawn has confirmed with Intercom that its access is gone.
Linked conversations on a ticket
Section titled “Linked conversations on a ticket”A ticket with linked conversations shows them under Linked conversations in its details: the customer’s name and company, and who linked it, in which workspace and when. Choose a row to open the conversation in Intercom. To unlink one, choose ✕ on it, then Unlink: By Dawn stops posting notes to that conversation and won’t reopen it.
On the board, + Filter has Has Intercom link, with Yes or No, to find the tickets customers asked for.
Do teammates need a By Dawn account?
No. Anyone with access to the Intercom inbox can use the sidebar, within the projects you granted. By Dawn records their name on what they file, and never signs them in as a By Dawn member or matches them to one.
Can we connect workspaces in Europe or Australia?
Yes. Pick the region when you connect, and By Dawn calls Intercom’s hosts in that region from then on.
Can a customer stop By Dawn using their data?
Yes. Disconnecting, or removing the app in Intercom, revokes By Dawn’s access and deletes its links straight away.
- The By Dawn sidebar in Intercom: what teammates see and do.
- Chat integrations: By Dawn in Slack, Discord and Microsoft Teams.