Why invite a teammate
As your ticket volume grows, invite teammates into your workspace so more than one person can see and answer customer tickets. Only the account owner and admins can invite new agents. Every new teammate is added with the base Agent role — promote them to Admin afterward if they need to manage agents, ticket types, or routing (see Agent roles explained).
Before you add someone
You need owner or admin access yourself — Settings → Agents isn’t visible to teammates with the base Agent role. If your workspace is on the Team plan, check your seat count first: the Team plan includes 5 agent seats (1 owner + 4), and adding a teammate past your included or purchased seats is blocked until you add more seats in Settings → Billing. On the Free plan only 1 agent (the owner) is included — you must upgrade to Team before you can add any teammates.
Add the teammate
- Click the gear icon (labelled Settings) in the top navigation bar.
- Select Agents from the menu. This opens the Settings window directly on the Agents section. If Settings is already open on a different section, click Agents in the left-hand navigation list instead.
- Make sure the Agents sub-tab at the top of the section is selected — it’s the default view; click it if you’re currently viewing Routing.
- In the Full name field, enter the teammate’s full name (up to 120 characters). This becomes their name on the account and is also used to generate their default handle.
- In the Email field, enter the address they’ll sign in with. It must be unique within your workspace — you can’t add a second agent using an email another active agent already has.
- Click Add agent.
What happens after you click Add agent
The teammate appears immediately in the Agents list with the role Agent and status Active. Their customer-facing handle — the name customers see on their replies — is generated automatically from the first word of the Full name you entered (for example, “Priya Shah” becomes the handle “Priya”). You can change the handle, their name, email, or role afterward — see Change an agent’s role or details.
Adding an agent does not send them a welcome or invite email, and there’s no password to set. To get them in, share your workspace’s address with them directly — https://yourslug.essential.support (using your own workspace subdomain). On that sign-in screen they enter the same email address you just added, and Essential Support emails them a one-time sign-in link; clicking it signs them in, no password required. If your workspace requires two-factor authentication for every agent (a policy the owner can turn on under Settings → Profile → Security), they’ll be prompted to set up 2FA the first time they sign in.
If Add agent is disabled or fails
- “All agent seats are in use.” — your Team plan is at its seat cap. Add seats in Settings → Billing (owner), or ask the workspace owner to (admins don’t see the seat controls themselves).
- “You’re on the Free plan (1 agent). Upgrade to Team to add teammates.” — shown above the Add agent form on a Free workspace; click Go to Billing to upgrade.
- “An agent with that email already exists.” — the address belongs to another active agent already. Check the Agents list, or use a different address — an email freed up by deleting a former teammate (see Deactivate or remove an agent) can be reused.
- Add agent stays disabled until both Full name and Email are filled in.