Once you've connected your inbox (see Personal Inbox Connections), PortaPro turns every lead and deal into a place you can write, send, and manage real email conversations all from *your* address, threading back into your inbox, and logged onto the customer's timeline automatically.
This article covers the CRM email surfaces: the composer, the AI draft assistant, replying from the activity timeline, and multi-step email sequences.
Sending an email from a lead or deal
Open any lead or deal profile and click Send Email in the actions header (or from the activity timeline). A composer opens with:
The email sends from your real inbox, lands in the recipient's inbox exactly like a hand-written one, and appears in your Sent folder. It's also logged onto the lead's activity timeline automatically so your team has a shared history of the conversation.
No connected inbox? The composer shows a "Connect your inbox to send email" state with a link to Email Accounts. PortaPro deliberately does *not* fall back to sending from the shared platform address here 1-to-1 CRM outreach from a `no-reply@` address defeats the purpose. If you need to send something anyway, connect an inbox first (takes about 30 seconds for Gmail).
Broken connection? If your inbox needs reauth, the composer shows a "Your inbox needs to be reconnected" state instead. Reconnect on Email Accounts, then come back.
The composer
Standard email composer with the pieces you'd expect from any modern email client:
Everything you write is composed live in the browser and only sent when you click Send email. There's no auto-save (yet) if you close the modal mid-draft, the content is lost. Copy long drafts to a scratch buffer if you're worried.
Attachments
Click Add files to attach documents, images, or PDFs. Rules:
If you need to send something larger (say, a big photo bundle), upload to a shared drive and paste the link into the message body instead of attaching. Everyone's mail server thanks you.
Draft with AI
Click Draft with AI at the top of the message area to have PortaPro generate a first-draft subject and body based on the current record's context.
The AI panel opens with two fields:
Click Generate. Within a few seconds, the subject and message fields are populated with a draft that uses this record's actual details (customer name, company, quote details if any, deal stage, notes on file). Review, edit, then send.
AI drafts always require your review. They're a first pass, not a send-and-forget. The recipient sees whatever you send after your edits.
Cost: AI drafts use OpenAI under the hood. Usage is included in your plan; there's no per-draft cost. If AI drafting is unavailable (misconfigured on the account, budget hit, service down), the button falls back to a normal composer.
Replying from the activity timeline
Outbound emails you (or your teammates) sent from PortaPro appear on the customer's activity timeline. Every one of those `email_sent` events has a Reply button.
Click Reply to open the composer prefilled with:
Write your reply, hit send. The customer sees a natural back-and-forth conversation, and your team sees the whole exchange on the timeline.
One nuance: the Reply button on the timeline sends from *your* default inbox, not necessarily the same inbox the original was sent from. If Matt sent the first email and you click Reply on it, the reply goes from *your* inbox the customer will see two different senders in the thread. This is intentional for team accounts, but if you want continuity, coordinate with the teammate who originally sent it (or use your shared team inbox).
Email sequences (cadences)
For structured multi-step outreach introductory email, then a follow-up in 3 days, then a nudge in 7 more days, etc. PortaPro has a sequences engine. Sequences are part of the Growth plan.
Build a sequence
- Delay days after the previous step (or after enrollment for the first step).
- Subject line.
- Body (HTML or plain-text, same editor as the composer).
You can pause a sequence any time enrollments stop advancing, but no data is lost.
To remove a sequence entirely, click Delete on it and confirm Delete sequence. If anyone is still enrolled, the confirmation tells you how many: deleting stops their remaining emails and removes the sequence's send history. Emails already sent aren't affected, and a delete can't be undone.
Enroll a lead or deal
From a lead or deal profile, click Sequence. The Sequences dialog lists your active sequences; click Enroll next to the one you want. PortaPro:
What sequences do NOT do (by design)
Where to see who's enrolled
On each lead/deal profile, the Sequence panel lists any active enrollments which sequence, which step is next, when it's scheduled. Click Stop next to any enrollment to remove that record from the sequence.
Unsubscribe links on sales email
Anyone who receives sales email from your company through PortaPro can opt out themselves.
After someone unsubscribes:
Invoices, receipts, quotes and service reports are not affected. An unsubscribe stops sales and marketing email, review requests and greeting cards, never email about service the customer has ordered.
Marking a customer Do Not Contact blocks the same sales email from your side, and it works the same way.
How sends appear on the timeline
Every email you send through PortaPro (composer, reply, sequence step) writes an `email_sent` activity event onto the customer's timeline with:
The timeline is shared across your team, so any teammate can see the full conversation history for a customer without needing access to your inbox.
What the timeline does NOT show: the full body of the message. Only the subject, recipient, and metadata are stored. If you or a teammate needs the body, look in your Sent folder the email is right there.
Daily send limits
Rate limits are per-user (they follow you across all your connected inboxes and across all send paths composer, replies, sequences, and any invoice sends going through your inbox as the company sender):
A typical small-business user sends 5–20 emails a day, so even hitting the soft warning is unusual. The limits exist as a guardrail against runaway automation better to hit a wall than to have a runaway sequence spam every prospect on your list because of a script error.
If you hit the hard cap, wait until midnight UTC (that's the reset). If you legitimately need more, contact support to raise your caps.