Core Concepts

Understanding Relay's core concepts will help you get the most out of the platform. This guide explains the fundamental building blocks.

Organizations

An Organization is your workspace in Relay. It contains all your tickets, customers, team members, and settings.

Key Points

• Each organization is completely isolated from others
• You can be a member of multiple organizations
• Settings, integrations, and data are organization-specific
• Your organization has a unique slug used in URLs

Organization Settings Include

• Name and branding
• Business hours
• Default timezone
• Custom domain (optional)

Users & Roles

Users are team members who access Relay to handle support.

Roles

User Properties

• Name and email
• Avatar
• Role
• Organization membership

Customers

Customers are the people you support. Relay creates and maintains customer profiles automatically.

Customer Sources

• Email senders
• Widget chat visitors
• Shopify customers (synced)
• SMS contacts
• Social media contacts

Customer Profile Includes

• Contact information (name, email, phone)
• All tickets and conversations
• Order history (via Shopify)
• Payment history (via Stripe)
• Timeline of all interactions

Customer Matching

Relay automatically matches customers across channels using:

1. Email address (primary)
2. Phone number
3. Shopify customer ID
4. Other integration IDs

Tickets

A Ticket is a customer support request. Tickets are the primary work item in Relay.

Ticket Properties

Ticket Lifecycle

Created → Open → Pending → Resolved → Closed
              ↑           ↓
              └───────────┘

1. Created: Ticket enters the system
2. Open: Awaiting agent response
3. Pending: Awaiting customer response
4. Resolved: Issue addressed
5. Closed: Ticket archived

AI-Enhanced Properties

• Summary: AI-generated 2-3 sentence overview
• Sentiment: Positive, Neutral, or Negative
• Suggested Priority: AI-recommended urgency
• Suggested Tags: AI-recommended labels

Conversations

Conversations are the messages within a ticket. They form a threaded discussion.

Conversation Types

Conversation Properties

• Author (agent or customer)
• Timestamp
• Content (rich text)
• Attachments
• Channel source

Channels

Channels are the communication methods customers use to reach you.

Supported Channels

Channel Routing

All channels route to the same unified inbox. Each ticket shows its source channel, and replies go back through the same channel.

Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base (KB) is your self-service help content.

Components

Article Workflow

Draft → In Review → Published

How KB Helps

1. Customers find answers themselves
2. AI suggests relevant articles to agents
3. Reduces repetitive ticket volume

Integrations

Integrations connect Relay to your other business tools.

Integration Types

Automations

Automations are rules that perform actions automatically.

Automation Components

1. Trigger: What starts the automation

   • Ticket created
   • Ticket updated
   • Time elapsed

2. Conditions: When the automation should run

   • Priority equals "Urgent"
   • Tags contain "billing"

3. Actions: What happens

   • Assign to agent
   • Add tag
   • Send notification

SLAs

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) define response time expectations.

SLA Components

SLA Status

• On Track: Within target time
• Warning: Approaching deadline
• Breached: Exceeded target time

Key Relationships

Organization
├── Users (team members)
├── Customers (people you support)
├── Tickets (support requests)
│   └── Conversations (messages)
├── Articles (help content)
│   └── Collections (article groups)
├── Integrations (connected tools)
├── Automations (workflow rules)
└── SLA Policies (response targets)

Next Steps

Now that you understand the core concepts:

• Set up your first integration
• Learn about AI features
• Configure your workflow

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