Empowered Desking gives salespeople a customer-facing view of the desk so they can present offers directly to the customer. As a manager, you control what salespeople can access and respond to their requests in real time without needing to be physically present at the desk.
Permissions
Before a salesperson can use Empowered Desking, Sales Desking access needs to be enabled for them.
Go to Store Settings > Permission Groups and toggle on Sales Desking for the appropriate users.
Configuring Access Settings
Access Settings control what each salesperson can view, edit, or interact with during a customer-facing desk session.
To get there: Store Settings > Desking 2.0 > Global Settings > Access Settings tab
Each field and button in the Desking screen can be set to one of three states:
Active: Fully functional and editable by the salesperson
Read Only: Visible to the salesperson but cannot be edited
Hidden: Not shown at all
Some items are hidden by default and cannot be changed. Those will appear greyed out in Access Settings.
Custom Profiles can be created to apply different Access Settings to different groups of salespeople. Custom Profiles inherit settings from the Global Default Profile as a starting point.
Locking the Desk
If you need to work on the desk without the customer seeing it, you can lock the View Offer screen.
When the desk is locked:
The salesperson's view is blurred with the message: "The deal is currently being worked on by a Manager."
The salesperson cannot make changes to the desk.
A lock icon appears next to the customer name in the Desk List.
Both you and the salesperson will see a lock indicator in the Desking header.
Unlock the desk when you are ready for the salesperson to continue.
Accepting and Retracting an Offer
Both managers and salespeople can accept or retract an offer from the Offer Screen. The desk will automatically retract if the deal is marked Dead. Transparent recalculations that do not affect core financial terms or deal structure will not trigger an automatic retraction.
Receiving and Responding to Desk Notifications
When a salesperson sends a message from Desking Chat, you will receive a notification in the Desk Notifications drawer in your sidebar. The badge on the sidebar icon shows the count of unread Inbox items.
The drawer is organized into three buckets:
Inbox: Notifications assigned to your team
Outbox: Notifications you have sent
All: All desk notifications across the store
If you are unavailable, another manager can view and handle open notifications from the All bucket. The stock number is displayed in the Inbox and Outbox notification detail so you can quickly identify which deal the message is about. For company-type customers, the company name displays in place of a personal name.
To respond, open the notification and reply with a message, or click Done to resolve it quickly. The salesperson will see your response and any changes instantly.
Monitoring the Desk
If you open a desk that a salesperson is currently in, your avatar will appear in the upper right corner of their screen so they know you are present.
Desking Chat is a group chat between the salesperson and all managers on the desk. Your messages appear on the left side of the chat. Salesperson messages appear on the right.
Important: Desking Chat is customer-facing. Do not write anything in the chat that a customer should not see.
Automated Chat Messages
The system automatically generates chat messages for the following events:
Offer Accepted
Offer Retracted
Proposal Printed (includes a thumbnail of the proposal; clicking it opens a preview)
Chat History and Deal Status
Desking Chat stays active until the deal is marked Sold, Delivered, or Dead. At that point the chat becomes read-only and can still be viewed on the Deal Mini Card.
If a deal is retracted (Unsold, Undelivered, or Rescued), the chat reactivates and the full message history returns.
Need Assistance?
For assistance, reach out to your Customer Success Team using the Support Icon in the bottom-right corner of DriveCentric!