Single conversation in multiple inboxes?

Hi there! Cat here from the Front support team 🌻

Would you mind providing a bit more detail about the workflow you want to set up? Typically, a conversation becomes shared across multiple inboxes when smart-merge steps in to reduce duplicates where an identical conversation exists in multiple inboxes: https://help.front.com/en/articles/2238

It can also occur if the channel from another inbox is added as a recipient/sender on a conversation which was previously active in another inbox, however as far as I know, this is rarely done intentionally!

Normally if your team need to collaborate on a particular conversation you would use the comments section of the conversation to @mention other teammates to discuss the next steps. Another option is to create a Linked Conversation - this would create a new conversation which you can locate elsewhere but which would retain a link to the original. The last option I can think of off the top of my head is to use Discussions - you can embed references to conversations by including the conversation ID in a comment.

If none of these options sound suitable, please let us know and we’ll look into other options!

Cheers,
Cat

Hi Cat,

Sorry for a late reply, but here’s a situation: we have multiple teams with different access to inboxes. Let’s say team A has access to inbox A, and team B to inbox B. Usually they work separately, however sometimes (rarely) there is a need to collaborate on a conversation. And hence it’d be great for teammate A, seeing this, to be able to add (not move to) inbox B and call out (@-mention) folks from team B for help. And vice versa. This would foster collaboration, without cluttering the individual inboxes with items outside of the scope of interest…
We do not work on premises of assignments, mind you - each conversation remains in the inbox and is a matter of potential input from each of the teammate until deemed resolved. By being able to promote conv to a second inbox we would expand this across more people for the time needed.

Thanks! 

Hi,

We currently do just what you describe by use of comment. We have a team that does not have access to our shared in box but if we @mention an individual they then have access to the email and only that email not the shared in box. Original ownership of the email stays with the subscriber from our shared in box. 

Harry

Yeah, that sounds like something we could use, if it wasn’t for the fact that there is no single responsibility in teams. Many people can work on a single conversation, and also we can work in multiple ways:

• When team no 1 sees, that something should be handled by team no 2, they drag it to respective inbox
• Similarly, but when something is important enough for team 1 to still be monitoring what is going on in the conversation, having it in two inboxes would be great!

Thanks!