Work a shared inbox as a team

A shared inbox lets a team work one address together, for example support@ or billing@. There is one shared list of conversations, and each can be assigned to a person, given a status and annotated with internal notes.

Turn a group into a shared inbox (administrators)

1. Open Admin and choose Groups.
2. Create a New group or forwarder if the address does not exist yet, and list the recipients.
3. Tick Shared inbox on that group.
4. Choose a Response target: how quickly a new message should get a first reply. Conversations waiting longer are flagged.

Only recipients who have a mailbox in this workspace can use the shared inbox. Mail still arrives in everyone's own inbox as before, and replies go from each person's own mailbox. Turning the shared inbox off keeps the history in case you turn it back on.

Open it

Members see a Shared inboxes section in the Mail sidebar. Click the address to open its page. A red number shows how many conversations are past the response target.

Triage conversations

• Use the filter to show Everyone, Assigned to me or Unassigned. Search by subject or sender.
• Open a conversation and set who it is assigned to and its status: Open, Waiting on customer or Closed.
• A badge shows the time left to answer, or Past the response target.
• Choose Read & reply in my mailbox to answer. The reply goes from your own mailbox, and replies are tracked on the shared page automatically.

Internal notes

Each conversation has Internal notes. Write one in the box and choose Add note. Only members of the group see these; the customer never does. Use them for hand-over details such as "refund approved, waiting on finance".

Tips

• Assign every new conversation to someone so nothing is answered twice.
• Move conversations to Waiting on customer when you have replied, to keep the response clock honest.
• Pick a response target that your team can actually meet.

Common problems

• "This conversation isn't in your mailbox." It arrived before you joined the group. You can see it but not reply from your own mailbox.
• I cannot see Shared inboxes. You may not be a recipient of the group, or the feature is switched off. Ask your administrator.