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Connecting an Intercom Workspace

Connecting Intercom links your Octopods account to one Intercom workspace so channels can route messages into the Intercom Inbox.

Written by Tarek Khalil

Before you begin

To connect an Intercom workspace you need:

  • Octopods admin role. Only admins can connect workspaces. If you aren’t an admin, ask an admin teammate to connect the workspace or to upgrade your role.

  • Intercom admin access. Intercom requires admin permissions to approve a third-party app’s authorization. You should be able to sign in to Intercom and approve apps for the workspace you’re connecting.

  • The right Intercom workspace open. If your Intercom account has multiple workspaces, sign in to Intercom first and confirm the right one is selected before you start.

Each Intercom workspace can be connected to one Octopods account at a time. If the workspace is already connected to a different Octopods account, you’ll see an error and the new connection will not complete.

Step 1: Open the Connected Workspaces page

Sign in to Octopods. You land on the Connected Workspaces page automatically.

  • If you haven’t connected anything yet, the page is in its welcome state with “Thanks for signing up!” and a “Step 1 of 2” badge.

  • If you already have other workspaces, find the option to add another from the same page.

Step 2: Start the Intercom connection

Locate the Connect Intercom card with the message “Link your Intercom workspace” and click Connect. Octopods redirects you to Intercom.

Step 3: Approve access in Intercom

On Intercom’s side:

  1. Sign in to Intercom if you aren’t already signed in.

  2. Pick the Intercom workspace you want to link.

  3. Review the access Octopods is requesting and click the approval button. Octopods asks for the access it needs to read and write conversations and contacts, and to identify your team’s admins so the right people can use the connection.

  4. Intercom redirects you back to Octopods.

Step 4: Confirm the workspace appears

After Intercom redirects you back to Octopods, the new workspace appears on the Connected Workspaces page. Each row shows:

  • The Intercom workspace name (the app name shown in Intercom).

  • The provider — Intercom.

  • The admin who connected it under Added by.

  • A green Active badge confirming the connection.

The workspace is now ready. Click into it to add your first messaging channel.

What Octopods needs from Intercom

Intercom’s authorization screen shows you the exact access Octopods is requesting before you approve. At a high level, Octopods needs to:

  • Read and write conversations. So inbound messages from connected channels can become Intercom conversations and your replies in Intercom can be sent back out to the customer.

  • Read and write contacts. So Octopods can match incoming messages to existing Intercom contacts (or create new contacts when no match exists), and keep contact details aligned.

  • Read your admin list. So Octopods can identify the team members who should be able to use the connection and so replies are attributed to the right Intercom admin.

You’re approving Octopods at the Intercom-workspace level, not your personal Intercom user. Once approved, anyone on your team who uses Octopods works through the same connection.

Common things that go wrong

  • “This Intercom Workspace has been activated under a different account.” The Intercom workspace is already connected to another Octopods account. Each Intercom workspace can be in one Octopods account at a time. Contact Octopods support if you need to move it.

  • You can’t approve the Intercom authorization. Your Intercom user doesn’t have admin permissions on that workspace. Ask a teammate with Intercom admin access to complete the connection.

  • You connected the wrong Intercom workspace. Sign in to Intercom, switch to the correct workspace, then start the connection again from Octopods.

  • An unknown error appeared. Octopods shows “It looks like an unknown error occurred. Please contact us to help you fix this problem.” Reach out to Octopods support so we can investigate.

After connecting

With the workspace in place you can:

  • Add your first channel (WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, Messenger, and others) from inside the workspace.

  • Test the round trip — send a message on a connected channel and confirm it appears in your Intercom Inbox.

  • Install the Octopods extension inside Intercom so your team can send proactive messages from the Intercom sidebar.

What’s next

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