Columns and objectives
Columns are steps
A column is a step with a condition, not a folder. Quoted is a step: a conversation
belongs there once a price has gone out and the customer's questions have been answered.
Misc is a folder, and a board full of folders is an inbox again.
Order them left to right toward the outcome:
New → Qualified → Quoted → Booked
Give each column its own short objective — the condition for leaving it:
| Column | Objective |
|---|---|
| New | Reply within a minute and learn what they need. |
| Qualified | Know the product, the quantity, and the date. |
| Quoted | Price sent and every question answered. |
| Booked | Invoice sent and delivery date confirmed. |
Write conditions you could check by reading the thread. That is the test.
The board objective
One block, set in the board's settings:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Goal | What done looks like for the whole board, in a sentence. |
| Success column | Which column counts as reaching it. |
| Target rate | The share of conversations you expect to get there. |
| Attribution window | How long after a touch an outcome still counts. |
The success column must be one of the board's own columns. If you rename or delete columns and the success column no longer exists, the objective quietly stands down rather than pointing at nothing — set it again after restructuring.
What the objective drives today
Be precise about this, because the language around objectives promises more than is currently switched on.
Live today: the objective is configuration you set per board, and every board is created with it off. Columns, their order and their conditions are live — they are how your team and the agent read the state of a conversation.
Not live yet: proactive follow-ups — the agent re-engaging a stalled conversation on its own to push it toward the success column. That engine is built but dormant, and a board whose objective is switched on still produces no follow-ups until it is enabled platform-side.
So: an enabled objective is a statement of intent, not proof the agent is chasing it. What the agent does live is answer on the boards where its switch is on, from that board's knowledge. See On and off.
Editing columns
Columns can be renamed, reordered, added and removed from the board's settings. Existing conversations are not lost when a column goes — but decide where they should sit before removing one, because a card has to be somewhere.