Messages

Conversations with your clients and between your team, behind the messages feature flag (Console → Flags; a Beta badge shows while it is in beta). Admin → Messages lists them newest first, with the unread count in the sidebar and on Home.

A conversation per client#

Every contact has one conversation, and every member sees it. It holds what the client sees, plus what stays inside:

• Emails in and out: everything on the contact's timeline that was an email: the emails you write from Messages, replies from the timeline, follow-ups, proposals, payment requests, confirmations, and the client's own replies (with guest replies on, docs/contacts.md).
• What they wrote when booking: the notes from the booking page.
• Internal notes (Team plan): for the team only, never sent. Type @ to mention a teammate; they get a notification.

Write to the client sends an email from you with the same signed Reply-To as a timeline reply, so their answer comes back into the conversation (and onto the timeline). Leave the subject empty to answer their latest email in the same thread; give a subject to start a new one. Files can go with it from the drive, as attachments up to 10 MB and as 7-day links after that (docs/files.md). If guest replies are off, the email still goes out and their reply reaches your own inbox instead.

A conversation starts by itself with the first email; New message → A client or Open in Messages on a contact's page opens one for anyone. Automatic emails (confirmations, reminders) move a conversation up the list but never make it unread; a client's email, or a teammate's email or note, does.

Team threads#

New message → Team thread (Team plan) starts a thread between members: a subject, the people in it, and optionally the contact it is about. Only the people in a thread see it; anyone @-mentioned joins it, and Add people brings more in. Everyone in the thread is notified of new messages (Team message on the Notifications page; mentions are Mentioned in Messages). Files attached to a message can be opened by everyone in the thread.

Inbox, unread and closing#

• Inbox: open conversations and threads. Unread: someone else wrote since you last opened it. Clients and Team filter by kind. Closed: what was closed.
• Opening a conversation marks it read for you only.
• Close thread takes it out of the inbox; a client writing again reopens it.
• Search finds conversations by the contact's name or email and threads by subject.
• With notifications on, the sidebar count and an open Messages page update live (the same stream as the bell, docs/notifications.md).

Plans#

Gates are checked on the server. Every write (opening a conversation, sending, notes, team messages, people added, closing and reopening) is in the activity log; read marks are not. Conversations, notes and team threads are part of the workspace export; the emails themselves are on the contacts' timelines. WhatsApp and text messages join the conversation once texting is reliable; the client's own view of it comes with the guest portal.