Communications: email, text, conversations
In this chapter - Your email accounts (Settings ▸ Email) - Sending an email from a client record — and where it is filed - Sending a text (SMS) — through the cloud - Conversations on the web portal - Messages (texts) and notifications - Notifications - The Email module and the live mailbox
Your email accounts
Setup ▸ Settings ▸ Email: add your accounts (address, display name, provider — IMAP, POP3, Gmail, Outlook…, IMAP/POP host/port for reading, SMTP host/port for sending, username, password — stored encrypted). Mark one Default for sending and one Default for receiving; you can add several (personal, role, shared). The Password column shows — missing until a password is entered. - Import from Mail.app… (macOS): copies every account macOS Mail already knows — servers, ports, SSL, user names, SMTP — in one click (the first time macOS asks you to allow TechieCRM to control Mail — allow it). Mail never gives out passwords, so open each imported account with Edit… and type its password (Gmail / Yahoo require an app password), then set your defaults. POP accounts read the newest messages of the single mailbox (no folders); nothing is ever deleted from a server. - Sync to Cloud: mirrors the accounts (credentials stay encrypted with the shared key) to your TechieCRM cloud tenant so the web CRM can send/read on your behalf; also happens automatically after every save when the cloud is connected.
Send Email…
Clients / Related ▸ right-click ▸ Send Email… (or ribbon Compose Email, or Interactions ▸ right-click ▸ Add ▸ Email, for the current client): the dialog prefills the client's addresses, offers a From picker when you have several send accounts, subject, and a rich-text body. Send goes out through your own account (not the cloud). Afterwards TechieCRM: 1. files the email on the client's record the way your source CRM does — it appears in the client's Documents as an Email Message with a paired note ("An email has been sent to …") — so classic users of the source CRM see it too; 2. keeps a copy in the client's Interactions (type Communications), which syncs to the cloud. If no send account is set up, the dialog says so and offers to open Settings ▸ Email.
Send Text…
Clients / Related ▸ right-click ▸ Send Text… opens the client's thread in the Messages window (Chapter 24) — texts go through the TechieCRM cloud (Twilio; needs an active subscription with the SMS add-on) and every text is filed on the client as a Text Message note. Replies come back through sync into the same thread (and the Messages badge / notifications).
Conversations on the web portal
The web portal keeps the same two halves in two places: sidebar ▸ Messages is your user-to-user
chat, and Conversations (/conversations/) is the client texts and emails — every thread, newest
first, with All / SMS / Email filters and an Unread toggle.
- All / SMS / Email choose the channel; Unread narrows to the conversations that still have a
message nobody has read. The two work together — pick SMS, then Unread, and you get the
texts waiting on you. The button matching your view stays highlighted, so you can always see which
view you are in; click Unread again to bring the read ones back.
- The ribbon's View ▸ All / Clients (texts) / Unread open exactly these three views, and
View ▸ Users opens the internal chat list instead.
- When a filter hides everything, the page says which filter did it ("no unread texts") and offers
Show all conversations — it never tells you there are no conversations when there are.
- New conversation starts one with a client who has never written in. Type part of the client's
name and choose Text or Email on the matching row: the client's own composer opens with
their numbers / address already filled in, exactly as it does from the client record. Whether the
message actually goes out depends on the workspace's SMS provider and sending address — if neither
is set up the composer says so and links to the setting, and nothing is sent.
- Opening a thread marks it read; the box at the bottom replies on the channel the conversation is
already on.
Unread is yours alone
Unread means "unread by you". Everyone in the workspace sees the same conversations, but each person has their own unread list and their own count. A colleague opening a client's text no longer clears your badge, and your reading it does not clear theirs — so nobody can assume "someone must have seen that". - The red count beside the Conversations heading is the number of conversations waiting on you. - Unread filters to your own, not the workspace's. - Mark as unread (right-click a row, or the button on the conversation) puts it back on your list after you have opened it. It changes nothing for anybody else. - Conversations that existed before this feature behave exactly as they did: unread for everyone who has not opened them.
Taking responsibility for a conversation
A shared inbox works when it is clear who has picked something up. Every conversation is either Unassigned or Assigned to somebody, and the chip on the row says which.
Assignment changes prominence, never access. An assigned conversation is still listed for everybody, still opens for everybody, and can still be answered by anybody. All that changes is that it stops counting toward other people's unread badge, so the rest of the team can see at a glance what is genuinely still waiting.
Right-click a conversation in the inbox, or use the buttons at the top of the conversation itself:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Assign to me | Puts it on your list. Refused, with a message naming the owner, if somebody already has it. |
| Assign to user… | Hands it to a colleague. Managers only — see below. |
| Take over | Moves it from its current owner onto you, deliberately. Both names are recorded and the previous owner keeps full access. |
| Release | Gives it back to the whole team. It becomes unread again for everyone who has not read it, rather than quietly disappearing. |
| Mark as unread | Puts it back on your unread list only. |
Two more rules worth knowing: - Replying to an unassigned conversation assigns it to you. Answering is picking it up, and being made to say so twice is how a shared inbox ends up with nothing assigned. - Replying to somebody else's does not take it from them. The page shows a notice saying who owns it and that your reply will still be sent — it is a warning, not a block. Only Take over moves the conversation.
You can also narrow the list with Mine (conversations assigned to you) and Unassigned (nobody has picked these up), and both combine with the channel and unread filters.
"Assign to user…" — who can hand work to somebody else
Claiming, taking over and releasing your own are open to everyone. Directing somebody else's work is not. You get Assign to user… if you are either:
- a team leader — you lead at least one team in Settings ▸ Teams. Your picker offers the members of the teams you lead; or
- a workspace administrator, or a member of a security group with Administration ▸ Modify ticked in Settings ▸ Security Groups. Your picker offers every member of the workspace.
Anyone else still sees the menu item, greyed out, with the reason on hover — so it is clear the function exists and who to ask, rather than one person's screen quietly having an extra option.
The picker never reaches outside your own workspace, and never offers a client-portal login: a customer must not become the owner of their own message. A manager may also Release a conversation held by somebody in their scope — otherwise a conversation claimed by a colleague who is away would be stuck until they came back.
Not yet on the desktop. Per-person unread, assignment, Take over and Release are web-portal features today. The desktop still shows a single workspace-wide unread count and does not display the assignment chip, so a workspace running both will see the two disagree about "unread".
Notifications
The bell (Messages toolbar) lists your cloud notifications (new replies etc.); opening one marks it read; Mark all read; deep links open the conversation or the portal page.
On the web portal the sidebar's Messages entry carries a red count of the internal messages waiting for you — the same badge the desktop icon bar shows. It is on every page, counts only messages sent to you (never your own, never anyone else's), and clears the moment you open the conversation.
Email module / live mailbox
The Email icon-bar module lists the emails filed in the database (the source CRM's Email Message documents, decoded and rendered) for the current client (toggle Current Client to see all), with a subject filter and a preview pane; double-click opens the email. Its toolbar has 📧 New Email and 📫 Live Mailbox, with 🔄 Refresh / ⚙️ Settings / ❌ Close pinned at the right edge. - With Current Client on and no client selected yet, the list shows "Select a client to see their email (or turn off Current Client to see all)" and the count reads 0 — it does not fall back to showing every client's email. Note that the module picks up the selected client when it is first opened in a session; if you opened Email before choosing a client, switch Current Client off to browse everything. - If the subject filter matches nothing, the list says No emails match "…" underneath, naming what you typed — that is different from No emails found, which means there is no email at all for the current selection. - Opening an email that has no stored message text (for example a queued outgoing message rather than a filed one) shows "No additional detail available for this message" with the header fields it does have, instead of a blank pane. Filed emails with their full content are the ones under Documents.
The Email list on the web portal
The web list shows the same filed emails across the whole workspace, newest first, with the message body in a preview pane on the bottom right rather than in a window of its own. Columns: (icon), Subject, From, To, Client, Date — where Subject falls back to the record's description, because mail imported from the source CRM was brought over as metadata only and has no subject stored yet. One count sits under the toolbar (All), which is the workspace total and does not move when you search.
The search box matches the subject, From, To, description and message body — so a search can find a message by something the columns do not show, and the preview pane is where you then see it. From, To and Date sort; Subject and Client cannot, and the footer says why (Chapter 20). The gear opens the workspace preferences page: there are no Email-specific settings today, and the three that used to be offered were removed because nothing read them.
Live Mailbox — your real mail, read live from the account picked at the top (IMAP folders or the POP mailbox, newest 50), with a preview pane. Under the toolbar a Client match line names the Clients entries whose e-mail address matches the sender / recipients of the selected message. Buttons: - New… — compose from any of your send accounts (From picker). On macOS Send via Mail.app hands the message to Mail (its own account sends it — no password needed in TechieCRM); it is ticked automatically when you have no send password set up yet. - Reply… — quoted, threaded reply from the account the message was received on (falls back to your default). If the message matches exactly one client, the reply is filed on that client after sending (Documents + Notes, plus the synced copy). - File to Client… — files the selected message on a client entry the way the source CRM files email: an Email Message document plus a paired note ("An email has been received from …"), and a synced copy in Interactions. Matches by e-mail are offered first; search by name for anything else. Filing the same message twice is refused (Message-ID / same-day-subject check). - Create Client… — opens Create Client pre-filled with the sender's name and e-mail. - Open Client — opens the matched client's record. - Import from Mail.app… (macOS) — pulls the messages currently selected in Mail.app into this list (marked [Mail.app]) so you can preview, match and file them like any other message. - Refresh.
Not yet available
Attachments on archived/live email display; forwarding; marking read/unread on the server; Gmail / Microsoft 365 OAuth sign-in (use an app password for now); reading POP folders other than the inbox; automatic filing of incoming mail (a background poller) — filing is manual today.
Connecting your email program
macOS Mail — "File in TechieCRM" quick action. TechieCRM installs a Services entry automatically: select a message in Mail, then Mail ▸ Services ▸ File in TechieCRM — TechieCRM comes forward with the standard File-to-Client dialog (clients matched by the sender and recipients, search for the rest), the same filing as the Email panel (including the source-CRM copy and duplicate protection). Assign it a keyboard shortcut in System Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts ▸ Services if you use it a lot.
Outlook — the "Save to TechieCRM" add-in (Windows, Mac, and Outlook on the web). Add it once from Outlook ▸ Get Add-ins ▸ My add-ins ▸ Add from URL using the manifest link on the download page (your IT can deploy it organisation-wide from the Microsoft 365 admin centre). It puts a Save to TechieCRM button on every open email: the pane shows the matched clients, you pick, and the email lands in the client's Interactions timeline. Sign in with your TechieCRM web account the first time.