Inbox lets your institution respond to emails and text messages directly in Slate.

For example, you might set up your [email protected] address to forward messages to your Slate Inbox. There, you can:

• Assign conversations to staff and leave comments

• Automate responses with chat bots

• Respond human responses quickly with pre-configured Snippets

• Mark conversations as complete, or escalate for further review

Inbox setup 🏗️

First thing’s first: to manage your communications in Inbox, you’ll need to set up email forwarding, text messaging, or, for best results, both.

➡️ Inbox Setup

Once you’ve got an external email source integrated with Slate, you can meaningfully explore the Inbox interface.

The Inbox interface 📥

Once you’ve set up email forwarding, you can view your conversations in Inbox:

When you hover over the Inbox icon in the main navigation, a number appears representing unresolved emails and text messages assigned to the current user and assigned to roles the user has been granted:

Filtering

Filter conversations with the search bar or by selecting filter criteria from the sidebar.

You can filter by:

Assignment

• Your Assignments: Only messages assigned to the current user.

• Assigned: All messages that are assigned to a user, including those that are not assigned to the current user.

• Unassigned: All messages that are not currently assigned to a specific user.

Resolution status

• Open: Messages that have not been marked as resolved.

• Resolved: Messages that were marked as resolved within the past 7 days.

• Junk: Messages that have been marked as junk within the past 7 days.

• Deleted: Messages that have been deleted within the past 7 days.

Starred

Shows messages that have been starred.

Tags

Filter messages based on their tags. You can add tags in the conversation view.

Roles

• Your Roles: Messages that are associated with any of the current user's Inbox-enabled roles.

• Specific Role: Messages that are associated with the selected role only.

Searching Inbox

Enter terms in the Search Inbox field to perform a partial match search of message subjects bodies.

Respond to messages 🖊️

Messages can also be managed in batch, forwarded, starred, routed to junk folders, and otherwise manipulated to handle and resolve incoming mail.

This gives staff members a wide range of options to manage their inboxes effectively and efficiently.

You can forward messages, and email attachments can be sent.

📖 Further reading: Responding to Inbox Messages

Assign conversations ✅

Inbox automatically associates incoming messages with existing person records when matched to an email address or mobile number on record. This eliminates the need for manually matching emails and reduces error.

In addition, you can create inbox groups and roles to control which messages are displayed to specific groups of users. This ensures that only relevant messages are visible to the admissions staff members and reduces clutter. Communication history is visible on the interactions section of the person record.

The system also allows for automation in assigning messages to staff members. Messages can be automatically assigned to an individual staff member or a group based on predefined criteria. This helps distribute the workload evenly and ensures no messages are left unanswered. Independent of any automation, a user can re-route a message to a specific destination or role and review messages exchanged with the recipient recently.

📖 Further reading: Assigning Inbox Conversations

Reuse content with Inbox Snippets 📦

You can add snippets (predefined content blocks) to your messages with a click.

📖 Further reading: Create a new Inbox Snippet

Automate conversations 🤖

With bots

You can create a bot for every occasion in Slate. Bots are configurable AI assistants that you can give as much or as little agency as you want, with as much or as little AI involvement as you want.

📖 Further reading: Bots Overview

With rules

You can also use rules to automate aspects of Inbox, like assignment, notifications, and replies.

📖 Further reading: Inbox rules