Working with My Inbox

This article talks about the actions your can perform while working with My Inbox. Let’s take a look!

If you are new to My Inbox, have a look in Understanding My Inbox first for a better understanding of the main concepts first.

What is My Inbox?

My Inbox is your main working area. This is where you see all the conversations and updates that are relevant to you. It helps you stay focused and be on top of everything you need to be involved in, in one place.

You can see it as your main “to-do list”, where only you can dismiss (remove) a conversation from your own inbox when you are done working on it.

Conversations in your inbox may be assigned to you or assigned to someone else, in case you are just following the conversation, or being asked for advice.

Working with My Inbox

Once a conversation reaches your inbox (i.e. it’s displayed under the My Inbox view), it becomes a part of the list of conversations you need to take care of. You work on the conversations from your inbox, in order to handle them and eventually close them.
You can work on a conversation from its detailed conversation view, or, for quick actions, directly from the list view, using the toolbar.

Working on a conversation means:

• View new updates and new conversations and mark as read/unread.
• Post internal notes to conversations you want to discuss with other users.
• Post Public replies to customers when you have an answer for them.
• Set priority, labels or team if needed.
• Reassign the conversation to another user if you want them to handle it.
• Snooze the conversation to another time.
• Dismiss the conversation from your inbox when done handling it.
• Close the conversation when done handling it.
• Add or remove yourself as a follower.
• Delete a conversation.
• Mark a conversation as spam.

Working from the list view. When working from the My Inbox view, only conversations that you select, and that fit the action you want to perform, will be affected. For example, if you choose a few conversations, some are unread and some are not – and then use “Mark as Read” – this will affect only the unread conversations.

Mark as Read or Unread

When a conversation reaches your inbox because someone else has created it or posted to it, it will appear bold , indicating you haven’t read them yet.

Once you read the conversation by entering the conversation’s details, they will automatically be marked as read. Any conversation in your inbox can be set as read or unread by selecting it and then activating the read/unread action from the toolbar.

For more details see Mark as Read/Unread.

Post a message to a conversation

Part of handling a conversation usually includes discussing with another team member or posting a message to the customer. Posting to a conversation sends an email notification to the relevant people and also pushes the conversation to My Inbox of users who are involved in the conversation.

Posting a message to a conversation includes one of the following:

• Send a public reply.
• Send an internal note.

Set priority, labels or team

When going over conversation in your inbox, you may want to set their team, configure their priority or set a label to them.

All these options are available from the toolbar:

• Set Team – Changes the conversation’s team.
• Set Label – Sets the labels you select to the conversation.
• Set Priority – Sets a priority conversation. Priority conversations appear with a red arrow next to the subject.
For more details see Conversation priority.

Reassign the conversation

While going over conversations in your inbox you may see a conversation that needs to be reassigned:

• Perhaps it is assigned to you, but you think it should be handled by some other user.
• Perhaps this is a conversation you are following but you think you should handle it – in Replypad this is called “Take it”, meaning you are taking the conversation to yourself. The original assigned user will be notified, and you will become the conversation’s assignee.

To reassign a conversation to another user, or take it to yourself, see Assign or Take It.

Snooze a conversation

While going over conversations you may encounter a conversation that you want to take care of later. Perhaps you are too busy at the moment, or you want to be reminded of the conversation later. Snoozing a conversation will push it to your inbox when time is due.

The conversation doesn’t have to be assigned to you in order to snooze it. Snoozing a conversation will hide it from your inbox and will push it back to your inbox when time it dues.

To snooze a conversation, see Snooze conversations.

Dismiss conversation

Dismissing a conversation removes it from your own inbox. This is useful when you finish handling the conversation, or if you do not have any action items for it.

A quick way to remove conversations from your inbox is using the X button at the right end of the conversation line. Note that only closed conversations, or conversations that are not assigned to you can be removed from your inbox this way.

Dismiss while posting a reply

Posting a public reply usually means the work on this conversation is completed and the reply is being sent to the customer. By default, the conversation will be closed and dismissed while posting a public reply, unless you choose otherwise.

See more details in Public reply.

Dismiss explicitly

To dismiss a conversation explicitly:

1. Select the conversation in the inbox view or open the conversation details.
2. From the toolbar, select the Dismiss option:
   • If the conversation is not assigned to you, you will have the option Dismiss without closing it first.
   • If the conversation is assigned to you, you must close it first (Close+Dismiss).

Close conversation

Close – Just closes the conversation. No action is performed on the inbox.

Change Status – Using the drop-down menu, you can change the conversation status. Options vary according to the current status and your role in the conversation. Refer to conversation status for further information on status flow.

Open – If the conversation is closed, this will reopen the conversation.

Add or remove yourself as a follower

A conversation may reach your inbox because you are following it. Being a Follower means you appear in the “followers” which makes you involved in the conversation, without being the assigned user.

Using the Follow / Unfollow conversations option, will add you or remove you as a follower from the conversations you select in the list. You can become a Follower and remove yourself as a follower as you wish. Other users may add or remove you as a follower as well, if they want to discuss something with you or have you review their discussion.

Conversations may reach your inbox because you added them explicitly using the Show in inbox option (see below), or because you are the assignee of this conversation. In both cases, you may want to start following the conversation using the Follow option.

Show conversations in My inbox explicitly

In some cases, you may stumble upon a conversation you want to show in your inbox, even without following it or being assigned. Perhaps there is something in this discussion you want to review again later, or you want to remind yourself to send an internal note about this conversation. Following will only show the conversation in your inbox next time it will have a new message posted to it, and you may want to show it in your inbox now, and not only when something new will be posted to it.

You can show a conversation in your inbox by using the Show in my inbox option from the conversation’s toolbar. This will add the conversation to your inbox without adding you as a follower.

Delete a conversation and report spam.

Delete – Will move the conversation to the Trash.

Delete & Report Spam – Will move the conversation to the Trash and mark it as Spam.

Search for conversations

Searching for conversations can be done using predefined filters, or searching free text in all fields.

See Search conversations for search options.