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Intercom messenger and Access Digital Assistant internal troubleshooting playbook

Diagnose and resolve visibility and access issues with the Access Digital Assistant.

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Written by Charlotte Alderson

This playbook is the internal, in‑depth companion to the stakeholder‑facing article Intercom messenger and Access Digital Assistant troubleshooting guide.

Internal stakeholders can use that guide to complete the initial triage and rule out the most common visibility issues before escalating to our team. Once a request reaches us, it typically means:

  • The issue is not explained by basic configuration errors.

  • The stakeholder has already completed the required checks.

  • The customer is still unable to see the Intercom messenger or use the Access Digital Assistant as expected.

This internal playbook provides the deeper diagnostic steps, system checks, and investigative workflows that only internal team members can perform.

⚠️ Important: Permission sets vary across internal team members depending on role. If you're unable to complete any of the actions outlined due to missing permissions, contact your Digital Content Lead.

Further troubleshooting

Check the messenger's qualifying conditions

To check the qualifying conditions for messenger visibility, follow the steps below.

  1. Click Settings then click Messenger.

  2. Click Show the Messenger launcher.

  3. Check both the Visitors and Users tab.

From here, you can identify whether the user in question should be able to see the messenger or not. If they should be able to, you should continue troubleshooting. If they shouldn't be able to, you should feed back to the person who raised the request that this is the expected behaviour and there's no further action needed.

You can also check for additional qualifying conditions in the following areas of the Messenger Settings:

  • Click Web, click Customize Home with apps, then check for audience rules under the New conversation app.
    ​

  • Click General then, in both the Visitors and Users tabs, check for display conditions under Let users start a conversation.
    ​

Troubleshoot tool

If a user has successfully started a conversation but hasn't received a response from the Access Digital Assistant and isn't assigned to a support inbox, this means they're included in the audience rules for the messenger but aren't included in the audience rules for any workflow.

To understand why they didn't meet the audience rules for a workflow, you can use Intercom's Troubleshoot tool. To do this, follow the steps below.

  1. Click Fin AI Agent then click Workflows.

  2. In the top-right, click Troubleshoot.

  3. In the bar, enter the conversation URL or ID.

From here, you can see the audience rules against workflows and which ones the user did or didn't match, to understand why a workflow didn't trigger for them.

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Solutions

Once you've completed troubleshooting and understand why the Intercom messenger or Access Digital Assistant isn't working as expected for a user, follow the steps in the relevant section below, based on the scenarios described in the Intercom messenger and Access Digital Assistant troubleshooting guide.

Scenario

Solution

Steps

1: The product does support non-named contacts viewing the messenger, and the user isn't a named contact.

The user should be able to see the messenger but not speak to the Access Digital Assistant, so you need to remove the Ask a question option from their view.

  1. Click Settings then click Messenger.

  2. Click Customize Home with apps then click Users.

  3. User New conversation, click + Add audience rule.

  4. Enter the relevant rule for your product. For example, Named contact contains YES.

2: The product does support non-named contacts, the user is a named contact in Salesforce but isn't showing as a named contact in Intercom.

The user's CSP details aren't correctly pulling into Intercom from Salesforce. In this case, you need to manually enter their details in Intercom.

  1. In Intercom, click Contacts then search the user's email address.

  2. Click their name then scroll to the Qualifications section.
    ​
    📌Note: This is sometimes under the Details section instead.
    ​

  3. In the CSP Type field, enter the relevant CSP type.

  4. In the Named Contact field, enter YES.

3: The product doesn't support non-named contact, and this user isn't a named contact in Salesforce.

In this case, the user shouldn't see the messenger at all and you need to remove it from their view.

  1. Click Settings then click Messenger.

  2. Click Show the Messenger launcher.

  3. Check both the Visitors and Users tab to ensure the audience rules only allow named contacts.

4: The product doesn't support named contacts, the user is a named contact in Salesforce but isn't showing as a named contact in Intercom.

The user's CSP details aren't correctly pulling into Intercom from Salesforce. In this case, you need to manually enter their details in Intercom.

Follow the steps as per scenario 2.

5: The user is a named contact in Salesforce, is showing as a named contact in Intercom, can see the messenger, but isn't being routed to a workflow.

You need to check the audience rules of the workflow to make sure they're included.

  1. Click Fin AI Agent then click Workflows.

  2. Under When customer opens a new conversation in the Messenger, click the relevant workflow. This is usually the one ending in Digital Assistant (Support).

  3. In the top-right, click Edit then click the first box in the workflow:

  4. Ensure the audience rules include named contacts.

Escalating further

If you've tried all of the above but are unable to get the messenger or Access Digital Assistant to work as expected for the user, you need to escalate this to the Automation Delivery and Admin team.

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