## Overview

A **participant** (or collaborator) is an agent who **follows** a conversation and **receives its
notifications**, without being its **assignee**. This is different from **assignment**: the assignee is a
single person who owns the conversation; participants are extra teammates who join in to collaborate — to
ask for help, supervise, or prepare a handoff — while ownership of the conversation stays with the assignee.

A conversation can have **several participants** at once, and adding or removing someone does not change
who the assignee is.

## Prerequisites

- An **agent** or **administrator** profile.
- An **open conversation** in an inbox you have access to.
- The teammates you want to add must have **access to the same inbox/account** to appear in the list.

## Step by step

1. Open the conversation and find the **context panel** (right-hand column).
2. Locate the **Participants** (Conversation participants) section.
3. To **add**, click add participant and pick one or more **agents** from the list. They start following
   the conversation immediately.
4. To **remove**, open the participants list and remove the agent — they stop receiving notifications for
   that conversation.
5. Changes take effect right away, without changing the assignee or the conversation status.

## Settings & options

- **Notifications without being the assignee**: participants receive the conversation's notifications (new
  messages and updates) **without** being assigned to it.
- **Relationship with mentions (@)**: when you **mention** a teammate with **@** in a **private note**, they
  are **automatically added as a participant** — the mention is the natural shortcut to pull someone into the
  conversation.
- **Multiple participants**: the list accepts as many teammates as needed; each one joins and leaves
  independently.

## Use cases

- **Ask a specialist for help**: add (or mention) the person who knows the topic to assist without taking
  over the conversation.
- **Supervisor following along**: a lead joins as a participant to watch the handling without removing it
  from the current assignee.
- **Collaborative handoff**: before passing the conversation on, keep the agent who will take over as a
  participant so they follow the context from the start.

## Tips, limits & best practices

- **Participant ≠ assignment**: adding someone as a participant does **not** make them the assignee — use
  assignment for that.
- **Keep the list lean**: every participant gets notifications, so too many people clutters everyone's
  notifications. Add only those who really need to follow, and remove them when no longer needed.
- Use **mentions in notes** to bring someone in quickly — it already adds them as a participant and records
  the request in the history.

## Troubleshooting

- **A teammate didn't get a notification**: confirm they were actually **added as a participant** (and not
  just mentioned in a reply to the customer) and that they have **access to the inbox** of that conversation.
  Also check the teammate's own notification preferences.
- **The agent doesn't appear in the list to add**: they probably **don't have access to the inbox** — ask an
  administrator to add them to the inbox/team.

## See also

- [Assignment, status, priority and labels](/hc/ajuda/articles/conversations-atribuicao-status-prioridade-labels-en)
- [Replies, private notes and mentioning teammates](/hc/ajuda/articles/conversations-responder-notas-mencoes-en)