Your infoodle Inbox is where email replies sent back to your site arrive so you can read and act on them. Every infoodle user gets their own email address for this (shown on the Inbox Settings tab), and only replies sent to your address land in your Inbox. This article covers the Inbox screen itself: reading, replying to, forwarding, and managing the emails that arrive there. For how outgoing email is addressed and who can reply to it, see From, Reply To and To addresses.
Role Permissions
- Has infoodle inbox
For a full list of role permissions and what they mean, see People role permissions.
Without this permission, the Inbox link does not appear under Email in the Contact area. Ask an administrator to turn it on under Settings, Roles if you expect to see it and don't.
Opening your Inbox
Click or hover on Contact on the main menu on the left, then click Inbox under the Email section.
The Inbox list
The Inbox list shows every reply currently in your Inbox, most recent first. Each row has:
- Read/unread status: a teal dot marks a row you have not opened yet. Unread rows also show in bolder text.
- From: the sender's name, linked to their profile, if infoodle can match the sending address to a contact you have on file. If infoodle can't find a match, the row shows the raw email address instead, labelled Unknown email address, and there is no Reply button for that row, only Forward.
- Subject: the email's subject line.
- Reply and Forward buttons: open the message in the compose window. Forward shows a paperclip icon when the original email had attachments.
- Received: the date and time the email arrived.
Reading an email
Click anywhere on a row (other than the Reply or Forward buttons) to open the email. This opens a window showing when the email was received, its subject, and the full message, along with Reply, Unread, and Remove from Inbox buttons.
Opening a row marks it as read. Use the Unread button here, or the bulk action described below, if you want to mark it as unread again for follow-up later.
Replying or forwarding
Click Reply to open the compose window with the sender already added as the recipient, the subject prefixed with "Re: ", and the original message quoted below your reply. Click Forward to open the compose window with the subject prefixed with "Fwd: ", the original message quoted, and any attachments carried across, but with the recipient left blank for you to fill in.
If you already have an email in progress in the compose window, replying or forwarding from the Inbox replaces it. infoodle asks you to confirm before doing so, so you don't lose an email you were partway through writing.
Managing multiple emails at once
Tick the checkbox next to one or more rows, then choose an action from the Select bulk action list above the Inbox. The list shows 30 emails per page, so a bulk action only applies to the rows loaded on that page. Work through one page at a time if you are cleaning up a large Inbox.
- Remove from the inbox: hides the selected emails from your active Inbox list. They stay in the database and remain visible on the sender's profile History tab. Use List Removed emails to see and restore them.
- Mark as read and Mark as unread: switch the selected emails between these two states.
- Delete permanently: removes the selected emails from the database entirely. This takes them out of your Inbox and off the sender's profile History tab, and cannot be undone. infoodle asks you to confirm before the delete goes ahead, since this is your last chance to cancel.
Removed emails
Click List Removed emails, above the Inbox list, to see the emails you have removed. From here you can select one or more and choose Return to the inbox from the bulk action list to bring them back to your active Inbox. Click List Active emails to return to your normal Inbox view.
Common questions
Can other people see the emails in my Inbox?
No. Your Inbox only shows replies sent to your own infoodle inbox address. You can, however, choose to have copies of your inbox replies sent to someone else, or receive copies of someone else's, from the Inbox Settings tab. See What Is "On Behalf of"? for how that sharing works.
Does a reply in my Inbox also show on the person's profile?
Yes, if infoodle matched the reply to a person, it also appears on their History tab. If the reply is to an email you sent out, the privacy setting you chose when sending, for example Anyone or Me, carries over to who can see the reply there too.
I don't see Inbox under Email. Why not?
Your role needs the Has infoodle inbox permission. Ask an administrator to add it under Settings, Roles.
What is the difference between Remove from the inbox and Delete permanently?
Remove from the inbox only hides the email from your active list. It's still in the database and still visible on the person's profile. Delete permanently removes the record completely, from your Inbox and from their profile, with no way to bring it back.
Why is there no Reply button on some rows?
infoodle could not match the sending address to a contact in your database. You can still Forward the email, but add the correct contact's email address to their profile first if you want to Reply to them directly through infoodle from then on.
Next steps
To control notifications, out of office replies, and who else can see copies of your Inbox activity, see the Inbox Settings tab, covered in Configuring your infoodle Email.