# Work as groups, like Billing or Support EU

Name a set of teammates once, then give the group an inbox, hand it a conversation, @mention it in a note, or have a rule take turns among its members.

Getting started · Updated October 17, 2026 · https://userookery.com/help/groups/

A group is a named set of teammates, like **Billing**, **Support EU** or **Night shift**. Name it once, and use it wherever you'd otherwise list the same people again and again:

- **Inbox access:** give the group a level on a team inbox, and everyone in it has that level.
- **A queue:** hand a conversation to the group. It's **Up for grabs in Billing** until someone in it takes it.
- **@mentions:** write `@billing` in a note, and everyone in Billing who can see the conversation is told.
- **Rules:** have new mail take turns among the group's members.

Groups are flat (no groups inside groups), for people only, and everyone on the team can see who's in each one. A team of three rarely needs one; they help once the same few people keep coming up.

## Make a group

1. Open **Settings → Team** and find **Groups**. Only the workspace owner and admins can change groups.
2. Type a name under **New group**, like "Billing", and click **Create group**. The hint shows how to mention it: `@billing`. "Support EU" becomes `@support-eu`.
3. Under the group, pick someone in **Add someone…** and click **Add**. Click the **×** beside a name to take them out.
4. **Rename** and **Delete** are beside the group's name.

A group's name can't be another group's, Rookery's, or a teammate's first or full name, so `@Sam` always means one thing.

## Give a group an inbox

1. Open **Settings → Inboxes** and find a team inbox.
2. Under **Who can use it**, pick the group in **Add a group…**, choose what its members can do (**Can read**, **Can draft**, **Can reply** or **Can manage**), and click **Add**.

Each member gets the highest of everyone's level, their own and their groups'. "Only people I choose" with Billing at **Can reply** keeps `billing@` to the Billing group. See [choose who can use an inbox](https://userookery.com/help/who-can-use-an-inbox/).

**Joining and leaving count at once.** Someone you add to Billing can open `billing@` straight away, and finds its mail in search, Today and Ask Rookery. Take them out, or delete the group, and the inbox is gone from all of those on their next look. Conversations assigned to them there go back to nobody's, as when anyone loses an inbox.

**A private inbox is never a group's.** Only its owner can see it, so no group can be given one.

## Hand a conversation to a group

1. Open the conversation and click **Assign**.
2. Pick the group. It's listed after your teammates, with "up for grabs there".

The conversation shows **Up for grabs in Billing** on its row and above the thread, and everyone in Billing who can see it gets a notification (and an email if they don't see it in Rookery within a few minutes). The first one to click **Take it**, or anyone who assigns it, makes it theirs, and it stops being up for grabs in the group.

Or use **Hand to…** (`⇧H`, or `⋯` → **Hand to…**) and pick the group, with a note for its members: they get it in their notification. See [Hand to a teammate](https://userookery.com/help/hand-to/).

You can also hand it over from a note: hover or tap `@Billing` and click **Hand to Billing**.

To see what the people in a group have open, pick the group at the top of **Who has what**.

Only groups with someone in them who can see the inbox are offered.

## Mention a group in a note

Type `@` and the group's name, like `@billing` or `@support-eu`, in a note. Everyone in the group who can see the conversation is mentioned, as if you'd named each of them: it's their turn until they've seen it. Anyone in the group who can't see this inbox isn't told; the group's card says how many.

## Take turns in a group

In a rule's **Who gets it**, choose **A group**, pick it, then **Take turns** or **Least busy first**. Rookery takes turns among the group's members as they are when each email arrives: someone who joins is in the rotation from their next email, and someone who leaves is out. People who are away are always skipped, and so is anyone who can't see the inbox. See [decide who takes new mail with rules](https://userookery.com/help/routing-rules/).

## Groups in Reports

On **Reports**, pick a group beside the inbox to see only its members under **People**, with the group's replies, conversations closed and first reply added up. See [team reports](https://userookery.com/help/reports/).

## Good to know

- Every change to a group (made, renamed, deleted, someone added or taken out, given an inbox) is in **Settings → Activity**.
- Deleting a group doesn't touch its conversations: anything up for grabs in it stays up for grabs for everyone. A rule that took turns in it leaves new mail up for grabs and tells whoever wrote the rule.
- Rookery's assistant is never in a group. What it may do in an inbox is set per inbox, so a group can't quietly widen what it sees.
- A group has no email address of its own. To have mail to `billing@` go to Billing, make `billing@` an inbox (or an alias of one), add a rule that takes turns in the group, and give the group the inbox.
- Developers: `GET /groups` lists groups, `assign_conversation` takes `group:grp_…`, and conversations carry a `queue` while they're up for grabs in a group. See [the API reference](https://userookery.com/developers/reference/#list_groups).