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Mail and shared inboxes

Connect your own Google, Microsoft or IMAP account, keep it private or share it with your team, and work a shared inbox together, with or without tickets.

Mail reads and answers your own email accounts in opendesk, like a mail client: every folder and label, read and unread, stars, archive, move, trash and spam, with each change made at your provider too. An account is private, seen by you alone, or shared with the whole workspace or the teams and people you choose, so a team can answer a sales or support address together.

A mail account is not a ticket mailbox: its mail never becomes tickets. Use a mailbox when every email should be a ticket with a status, an SLA and reports, and a mail account when the team should read and answer the address as it is.

Use opendesk as a shared inbox only

Section titled “Use opendesk as a shared inbox only”

A workspace that only needs Mail can turn Tickets off. Admins open Settings, General and, under Products, turn off Tickets, then click Save changes. Ticket folders and views, live chat, the help center, reports and the ticket settings are hidden; Mail stays. Nothing is deleted: turn Tickets back on in the same place at any time.

Connect an account

Section titled “Connect an account”

  1. Open Connect a mail account

    Click Connect an account in the sidebar’s Mail section, or open Settings, Mail accounts (under Channels) and click Connect an account.

  2. Choose where the account is

    Under Where is the account?, pick Google for Gmail and Google Workspace, Microsoft for Outlook and Microsoft 365, or Other (IMAP) for any server with IMAP and SMTP. An IMAP account needs the address and its password, or an app password where the host asks for one.

  3. Choose who sees it

    Under Who sees it?:

    • Private: only you. Admins cannot see it either.
    • Shared with Everyone in the workspace, or Choose teams and people to share it with only those.

  4. Sign in

    Click Continue with Google or Continue with Microsoft and approve access at the provider, or click Connect account for IMAP. The last 30 days of mail arrive first, and older mail follows in the background.

Change who sees an account

Section titled “Change who sees an account”

Open Settings, Mail accounts, the account, then Sharing. Whoever connected an account manages it; for a shared account, workspace admins can too. A private account can become shared, and a shared one private, at any time. An account shared with Everyone is seen by every member, including people who join later; one shared with teams and people is seen by those teams’ members and those people.

You can also share a single conversation from a private account, or assign it, so a teammate can help with one email without seeing the rest of the account.

Work a shared inbox together

Section titled “Work a shared inbox together”

On a shared account, turn on Handling in the account’s settings (Track conversations needing action). New incoming mail then needs action until someone answers it or marks it done, separately from read and unread, and without changing mail at your provider.

  • Needs action lists the conversations nobody has finished.
  • Assign a conversation to teammates: assignees can see and answer it, and find it under Assigned to me.
  • Snooze a conversation until a time: it leaves Needs action and comes back on its own, or sooner when new mail arrives.
  • Shared with me lists conversations others shared with you.
  • Comments under a conversation stay inside the team.

Turning Handling on applies to mail that arrives from then on.

AI drafts

Section titled “AI drafts”

An AI client, with whatever model you run, can draft replies for a person to send. Create an API key with the collab:draft scope (see Change a key’s scopes): it acts as the member who created it and sees only what they see. It can read conversations, take the longest-waiting Needs action conversation from a shared account with Handling on, and save a reply draft; it never sends, archives, assigns or marks anything. Its drafts show as AI draft by the key’s name, and the conversation stays in Needs action until a person sends or discards the draft.

Section titled “Related”

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