Inbox

The Inbox features a lot of functionality, with the ability to read and reply to inbound messages, create new messages from scratch, create new contacts, use templates, close messages, unsubscribe and re-subscribe contacts, and assign messages to users. 

Here's an overview:

1. "Open" conversations - this is where you will find all new/unread messages and "open" conversations (i.e. conversations you are still dealing with

2. "Closed" conversations - this is where you will find all conversations you have marked as "closed" (i.e. you have finished dealing with them)

3. New message - click this to create a new message from scratch (i.e. not part of an existing conversation)

4. Assignee filter - here you can filter your inbox to show conversations assigned to specific users (including yourself)

5. Actions and filters:

    i. Click on the three dots to see options to mark all messages as read or unread

    ii. Click on the filter icon to see either all messages, or only unread messages

    iii. Click the search icon to search for messages from specific numbers or contacts

6. Inbox - click on any message to open the conversation. When a new message is received, a circle will appear on the conversation item, containing a number indicating how many new messages there are in the conversation.

7. Search conversation - enter a word of phrase that you wish to search for within the current conversation

8. Conversation Assignment - assign ownership of the conversation to yourself or other users on the account 

9. Close conversation - clicking on this will close the current conversation and move it to the "closed" bucket (Note - if you are viewing a closed conversation, this option changes to "open" allowing you to re-open the message)

10. Unsubscribe - click this button if you want to unsubscribe the contact and prevent them from receiving any more messages (Note - if the contact is already unsubscribed, this option changes to "Subscribe" allowing you to re-subscribe the contact)

11. Contact information panel - here you will see all of the contact information. Clicking "Edit" in the top right of the panel will allow you to edit or add information to the contact profile. If you are sending a message to an unsaved contact, this panel will appear blank and in "edit" mode so you can choose to save the contact if desired

12. Conversation window - inbound messages appear on the left, outbound messages on the right. Each message is accompanied by a time stamp, and outbound messages include a delivery status

13. Templates menu - when composing a message, you can use a saved template by clicking this item and selecting one of your saved templates from the resulting drop-down menu

14. Message composer - this is where you write your message

15. Click Send once you are ready to send your message

Assigning Conversations

When multiple users on an account are utilising the same inbox to manage conversations, it's important to keep track of who is dealing with which conversation in order to avoid double-handling and general customer confusion. You can do this by using the user assignment function.

Whenever a reply is sent to an inbound message, the conversation is automatically assigned to the user that sent it; however, you can also manually assign/re-assign conversations to users.

By clicking in the "Assigned" box, you will be presented with a list of all users on the account, as well as yourself ("Me") at the top of the list. Simply click on the name of the user to whom the conversation is to me assigned, and their initials will appear next to the conversation in the inbox:

Unassigned conversations display a contact icon:

You can also click on the initials/icon in the conversation object to assign/re-assign the conversation:

As outlined in item 4 of the overview list, you can filter the inbox to show conversations assigned to a specific user.

Typing Indicator

When multiple users are managing the same inbox, there may be a scenario where more than one user responds to the same conversation at the same time. For this reason, we have included a typing indicator which will appear when another user is writing a reply to the same conversation you are viewing: