What the Inbox is
The Inbox (sidebar → Inbox) is where your company talks with its own
customers. Portal messages, text messages, emails and phone calls all show up
here as conversations, and every request a customer sends from the portal
lands here too.
It is not the place to contact PortaPro. Questions for PortaPro go through
Help → PortaPro Support, which is a separate system (see
The Inbox has two tabs:
the customer portal. See Customer Requests.
The Requests tab shows a count of requests still waiting on the office.
Who can use it and which plan
The Inbox is for office staff: owners, admins and dispatchers. Drivers and
mechanics don't see it.
| Part of the Inbox | Plan |
|---|---|
| Requests tab | Every plan (the Supplies section needs Growth) |
| Messages tab and conversation pages | Growth |
| The Inbox tab on a customer profile | Growth |
Below Growth, the Inbox still appears in the sidebar because customer requests
arrive on every plan. It opens on Requests, and the Messages tab shows
an upgrade card.
The four channels
Every conversation belongs to one channel, shown as a colored icon and label
on the row:
| Badge | What it is |
|---|---|
| Portal | A conversation inside the customer's portal (the portal calls it Messages). |
| Text | Two-way texting with your business number. Needs SMS set up in Settings → SMS. |
| Two-way email. Customer replies come back into the conversation. | |
| Call | Calls on your business phone line: missed calls, voicemails and logged calls. |
A customer who uses several channels has one row per channel. A text
conversation and an email conversation with the same customer stay separate,
and a reply always goes out on the conversation's own channel. Customers only
ever see Portal conversations in their portal.
How text and email conversations work in detail (opt-outs, reply capture,
which messages start a new conversation) is in
Text and Email Conversations. Calls are
covered in Call Logging & Outcomes.
The conversation list
Messages lists every conversation, newest activity first. Each row shows:
customer's name or phone number).
one.
Unknown • followed by the phone number or email address.
The heading shows the total unread count, for example 3 unread.
Filters and search
On a computer, three rows of filter pills sit above the list:
shows how many conversations in it have unread messages.
On a phone, the same three groups are in one sheet: tap the filter button
beside the search field.
Search conversations... matches the subject, the category, the last
message, the customer's name, the phone number or email address of an unknown
sender, and the ticket number.
Open hides snoozed conversations. They come back to Open when the
snooze time arrives, or earlier when the customer texts or replies by
email.
Status: open, snoozed, closed
conversation and choose Snooze → Tomorrow 9 AM, In 3 days or
Next Monday. Unsnooze brings it back now. A text or email reply
from the customer wakes it early.
A closed conversation reopens by itself when the customer sends a new message
on that channel. There is no manual reopen button. Sending a reply yourself
doesn't reopen a closed conversation.
Assigning conversations
Open a conversation and choose Assign to give it to an admin or
dispatcher, or Unassigned to clear it. On a phone it's in the ⋮ menu
as Assign to a teammate.
Assigning is for sorting work: the Mine filter shows conversations
assigned to you. It doesn't send the teammate a notification, and new
customer messages still notify everyone who gets Inbox notifications.
Support emails can be assigned automatically as they arrive. See
Categories
A customer starting a conversation from the portal can pick a category:
Service Issue, Billing Question, Equipment Problem, Schedule
Change, General Inquiry or Other. The category shows as a label on
the conversation page and is included in search. It isn't shown on the list
row and can't be changed from the office.
The "Customer sees you as" line
Above the list, Customer sees you as: shows the name portal customers see
on your replies: your own name, or your company name followed by Admin
when Hide Employee Names in Customer Portal is on. On a computer, Your
online status: shows whether portal customers can see when staff are
online. Both are set in Settings → Customer Portal. The ⓘ button
explains them and links there.
Unmatched captured emails
When PortaPro captures an email it can't file under a customer, an amber bar
appears above the list: N captured emails couldn't be matched to a
customer. Review opens Unmatched emails, where each one can be
assigned to a customer or dismissed. See
Where else unread messages show
channel.
Lists and counts refresh about every 15 seconds. Opening a conversation marks
it read for you.