Inbox

The Inbox is one place for every conversation your team relies on — internal chats between colleagues, customer threads, and WhatsApp messages — organised, searchable, and assigned to the right person. An AI assistant can also answer customer threads automatically and step aside the moment a human replies. This guide walks every part of it: what each control is, why it matters, exactly how to use it, and what it changes elsewhere in the platform.

What this page is for

What it is — a single view that brings together the conversations your team relies on so they don't end up scattered across separate apps: internal discussions between colleagues, customer threads, and WhatsApp messages you can read and reply to. Why it matters — when conversations live in one searchable, assigned place, nothing falls through the cracks and the right person always picks up the right thread. The Inbox is multi-tenant aware: by default it shows the conversations for the workspace you're working in, and — where you're permitted — it can show conversations across all the workspaces you belong to.

Layout & the header controls

What it is — the conversation list on the left and the open conversation on the right; the header holds everything you need to find and start conversations. Selecting a conversation opens it on the right, where you read the message history and reply. Why it matters — these controls are how you cut a long list down to exactly the thread you need, and how you decide whether you're looking at one workspace or all of them.

• Conversation list with count — every conversation you can see, with the total shown so you know how many are in the current view.
• Search conversations — a search box to filter the list by what you're looking for.
• Filters: All / Internal / WhatsApp — narrow the list to everything, to internal team threads only, or to WhatsApp threads only. All is the default catch-all; Internal isolates colleague-to-colleague threads; WhatsApp isolates customer threads on a connected number.
• All workspaces — a toggle to switch between a single workspace and a combined view across the workspaces you're allowed to see. If you only belong to one workspace, this has no effect.
• New conversation — start a fresh thread.

What it affects: the filters and search only change what's shown to you — they don't move or hide anything for teammates. The All workspaces toggle changes the scope of the whole list, so a thread you can't find in one workspace may simply be in another.

The three conversation types

What it is — every thread in the Inbox is one of three kinds. Why it matters — knowing the type tells you who can see it and how to reach the other party.

Starting an internal conversation

What it is — a private thread between members of your team that stays inside the workspace. Why it matters — it keeps questions, hand-offs and notes alongside your customer and WhatsApp threads instead of in a separate chat app, so context isn't lost.

How to start one

1. Open the /inbox and click New conversation — this opens the New internal conversation dialog.
2. Give the conversation a subject so colleagues can recognise it in the list.
3. Pick the participants — the team members who should take part.
4. Send your first message to start the thread; it appears in the conversation list under the Internal filter.

What it affects: the new thread shows up for the participants you chose, under the Internal filter, in this workspace.

WhatsApp conversations

What it is — customer messages on a connected WhatsApp number, read and answered without leaving the Inbox. When your workspace has a WhatsApp number connected, its conversations appear here alongside everything else. Why it matters — customers increasingly expect to reach a business on WhatsApp, and handling those threads in the same place as the rest of your conversations means replies are fast and nothing is missed.

• Connected numbers show up automatically — once a number is set up, its threads flow into the Inbox without any extra step.
• Customer replies become conversations — when a customer messages or replies, a conversation is created (or updated) and assigned to the right owner so the correct person picks it up. This is the assign-on-reply behaviour: you don't have to manually route an incoming message; it lands with the person responsible.
• Outbound & marketing sends use approved templates — to start or re-open a conversation outside the active reply window, WhatsApp requires a pre-approved message template. Day-to-day replies inside the 24-hour window can be free-form; messages sent outside that window must use one of the approved templates.

Why marketing sends need an approved template and a 24-hour window

WhatsApp draws a clear line between answering a customer who contacted you and reaching out to a customer first. The rule exists to protect people from unsolicited business messages:

• Inside the 24-hour window — the customer has messaged you recently, so they're expecting a conversation. You can reply free-form: any text, in your own words, for 24 hours after their last message.
• Outside the 24-hour window — the conversation has gone quiet, so a new message from you is effectively an unsolicited approach. WhatsApp only allows it if the wording was reviewed and approved in advance as a template. This is what stops the channel becoming a spam firehose, and it's why a marketing or "just checking in" send always has to go through an approved template — there's no recent customer message to open a free-form window.

How to handle a WhatsApp reply

1. Open the WhatsApp filter to narrow the list to WhatsApp threads only.
2. Open the incoming conversation — on the customer's first reply it is created (or updated) and assigned to the right owner, so it lands with the correct person.
3. Reply from the Inbox. Inside the 24-hour window you can reply free-form; outside it, outbound marketing sends use an approved template.
4. Optionally share a public thread link (/i/:token) so an outside party can take part without a MaterialsHub account — see Public & Shared Pages.

What it affects: connecting a number makes its threads appear under the WhatsApp filter; incoming replies are assigned automatically, and whether a send goes free-form or via template depends entirely on the 24-hour window above.

The AI assistant in the Inbox (auto-replies)

What it is — an AI assistant that can answer customer threads for you automatically. When a customer message comes in (in-app customer thread or WhatsApp), the assistant replies first — grounded in that customer's own data (their statement, invoices and quotes, scoped to the thread's customer) — so routine questions are handled instantly, day or night. Why it matters — it covers first response when no one's at the desk, but is built to step aside the moment a human steps in, so it never talks over your team.

Human takeover — the assistant gets out of the way

• A staff reply pauses the bot. The instant a team member sends a text reply in a conversation, the assistant is paused for that thread — it stops auto-replying so it won't talk over the human who just took over.
• Private notes don't pause it. Internal notes are private and don't count as taking over, so jotting a note won't switch the bot off.
• Resume with the Bot toggle. When you're done and want the assistant to handle the thread again, flip the conversation's Bot toggle back on.
• No double-replies, no loops. The assistant only fires when the most recent message is a fresh inbound customer message — never in response to itself, a teammate, or a system event — and it's only charged when it actually replies (skipped turns cost nothing).
• Audit trail. When the assistant auto-engages it posts a system note (“The AI assistant is responding…”) into the thread, so the transcript shows the hand-off just like a manual one — on both the in-app and WhatsApp paths.

Settings — control what the assistant does owner / admin / operator

Open the gear (Settings) in the Inbox header for two live switches (any member can read them; owners/admins/operators can change them):

Sharing a customer / public thread

What it is — a way to open a conversation up to someone outside your team. When a thread is shared, the platform creates a token link (/i/:token Public) that the outside party can open in a browser to read and reply — no MaterialsHub account required. Why it matters — it lets a customer, supplier or contractor take part in the exact thread you're already working in, instead of starting a separate email chain. This is the same approach used for other shared customer-facing pages, so the experience is familiar to recipients.

What it affects: anyone holding the link can read and reply to that one thread — so treat it like any shared customer-facing link. For more about how these links are shared and revoked, see Public & Shared Pages.

A typical workflow

Putting the parts together, a normal day in the Inbox looks like this:

1. Open /inbox and use the filters or search to find the conversation you need.
2. Pick a thread to read its history; reply directly — internal note, customer message, or WhatsApp.
3. When a customer replies on WhatsApp, the conversation is assigned to the right owner so it lands with the correct person.
4. To involve an outside party, share the thread and send them the /i/:token link.
5. Switch All workspaces on or off depending on whether you want one workspace or the combined view.

Access & availability