# Reply on time with reply targets

Each team inbox promises a reply within so many working hours by priority. Rows say when it's due, and the right people hear before and after it's late.

Getting started · Updated October 17, 2026 · https://userookery.com/help/reply-targets/

A reply target is how long a conversation has for your reply, in working time. Every team inbox has them, by [priority](https://userookery.com/help/priority/):

| Priority | Default target |
|---|---|
| **⇈ Urgent** | 1 working hour |
| **↑ High** | 4 working hours |
| **Normal** | 1 working day |
| **↓ Low** | 3 working days |

A conversation gets a due time as soon as it's waiting on you: their first email, or their reply after yours. Mail that needs no answer (a receipt, a sign-in code, anything marked Nothing to answer), held mail, newsletters and mail waiting in New senders don't get one.

## Where it shows

- **On the row:** a quiet **Due 3:40 pm**. With a quarter of the time left it turns amber: **! At risk · 3:40 pm**. Once it has passed: **Overdue**, in ink. At risk is never red: red is for possible scams.
- **In the conversation:** beside the priority, **Reply due by 3:40 pm (4 working hours, High)**, so you can see what the target is and where it comes from. Its **Why?** says who set the priority (a person, a [routing rule](https://userookery.com/help/routing-rules/) or Rookery's suggestion), the inbox's target for it, and the business hours the clock counts in.
- **In [Reports](https://userookery.com/help/reports/):** the share of replies sent within target, for each inbox and each teammate.
- **The order:** **Your turn** keeps anything **Overdue**, then **At risk**, in a small band at the top, then goes by priority, newest first. **Up for grabs** goes by priority, then whoever has waited longest, and each row says how long in working time (**waiting 3h**). Pick **Due soonest** in a list's sort menu to order it by due time within each priority. See [How the inbox is sorted](https://userookery.com/help/sort-the-inbox/).

Times are in your own time zone and clock style.

## How the clock counts

- **Working time only.** The clock runs in the inbox's [business hours](#business-hours). Mail that arrives on Friday at 16:00 with a 4-hour target is due on Monday at 12:00 (open 9:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday). A working day is the inbox's longest open day: 8 hours for 9:00 to 17:00, a whole day for an inbox open all the time.
- **It starts at the first email you haven't answered.** If they write twice, the clock doesn't start again.
- **Snoozing pauses it.** The time it's snoozed (in working hours) is added on. If they write while it's snoozed, it wakes and the clock carries on from there.
- **Your reply stops it.** So does a Send later, or Done. When they write back, a new clock starts.
- **It moves with the conversation.** Change the priority and the due time changes at once (counted from when the clock started, so raising it to Urgent can make it overdue straight away). A rule that moves it to another inbox, or a change to the inbox's targets or hours, moves it too.
- Rookery's unanswered **High?** suggestion counts, as it does for the order.

## Who hears

- **At risk** (a quarter of the time left): whoever has the conversation, else whoever approves Rookery's drafts there (see [who approves](https://userookery.com/help/assigning/)).
- **Overdue:** that same person and the inbox's admins (the workspace's owners and admins, and anyone the inbox gives **Can manage**).
- **Nobody who's away** is told. If that person is away, at risk goes to the inbox's admins instead.
- Each stage is told **once per clock**, by email, if you haven't seen the conversation in Rookery in the few minutes before it goes. Turn each one off in **Settings → Notifications** ("A reply that waits on you is due soon", "A reply you answer for is overdue"). Quiet hours hold them, and nobody ever hears about mail they can't see.
- Your [daily digest](https://userookery.com/help/notifications/) lists anything of yours that's overdue.

## Change an inbox's targets

1. Open **Settings → Inboxes**, find the inbox, and click **Edit targets** beside **Reply targets**.
2. For each priority, choose **Within** and a number of working minutes, hours or days, or **Off** for no clock at that priority.
3. Click **Save targets**. Every conversation waiting in that inbox moves to the new times at once. **Back to the defaults** puts the table above back.

Owners and admins change a team inbox's targets. A private inbox has no reply targets.

## Business hours

The same page has the inbox's **Business hours** (also on its [rules](https://userookery.com/help/routing-rules/) page): the time zone, each day open or closed with its hours, **Open all the time** for a desk that never closes, and **Closed on public holidays** in a country you pick. Holidays then don't count as working time, and rules see them as outside business hours. Until you set them, hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00, in the workspace owner's time zone. Days the clocks change are counted as they really are.

## For developers

`list_conversations` and `get_conversation` return `dueAt` (when the reply is due, or null) and `targetState` (`on_track`, `at_risk`, `overdue` or `none`), and `list_conversations` takes `targetState` to list only one. See the [API reference](https://userookery.com/developers/).