At Aloware, we believe great communication starts with great teamwork. That’s why we built Team Inbox, a centralized workspace for all calls, texts, and voicemails. It gives teams clarity and ownership by making it easy to see who owns a conversation, what needs attention, and where communications are located.
How team inbox works
Conversations are routed through lines, and how a line is assigned (to a user or a team) determines which inbox they land in. Team Inbox then organizes them into Personal, Connected, Watching, and All Inboxes—helping both individuals and teams manage their responsibilities effectively.
Personal Inbox
This inbox is unique to each user and contains conversations that are either assigned directly to the agent or sent and received through their personal line.
Agents don't need to create this inbox. It is automatically available once a line is assinged to them. Personal inboxes help agents focus on the conversations that are exclusively theirs. Learn more about setting up a personal inbox here.
Connected inbox
The Connected Inbox is shared by members of a ring group (such as sales or support) and contains conversations that come through group phone numbers or lines. Any team member can view, manage, or reassign these conversations, ensuring the right people see them and preventing missed opportunities or duplicate responses. Learn how to set up a connected inbox here.
Watching inbox
The Watching Inbox is mainly used by supervisors and managers to monitor conversations across teams, review interactions for quality assurance, and track communication without directly participating. It’s especially useful for training, auditing, or providing management oversight.
All Inboxes
The All Inboxes view combines conversations from Personal, Connected, and Watching Inboxes into a single place. Each conversation is labeled with its original inbox type, so agents know where it belongs.
Navigating the inbox panel
The inbox panel on the left side of Aloware is your control center for managing conversations. You can quickly switch between inboxes, search for messages, and track updates.
The Inbox Panel and the main conversation view offer several tools to help you quickly find and manage communications:
Inbox search - quickly locate inboxes using the search bar at the top of the panel, especially helpful for users managing multiple inboxes.
Communication search - within a selected inbox, use the main search bar to find communications by keywords, contact names, or phone numbers.
Unread badges - look for red dots next to inbox names or contact cards; these visually indicate messages or conversations that require your attention.
Refresh icon - click the circular sync icon to manually update the inbox list and ensure you are viewing the most recent communications.
Collapse/Expand panel - use the arrow icon on the left to collapse or expand the navigation panel, adjusting the interface layout to suit your workspace preference.
Managing conversations in Team Inbox
Within any selected inbox, you can manage large volumes of communication efficiently using filters, sorting, and search tools:
Using filters - refine the conversation list by selecting filters like "All Conversations" or "Unread Only" to focus specifically on unresolved tasks.
Sort conversations - rearrange the order of conversations by choosing "Newest to Oldest" (the default setting) or "Oldest to Newest."
Inside a conversation thread
Clicking on a contact opens the full conversation thread, where you can:
Send text messages, emails, or faxes.
Add internal notes to document details or tag team members with @mentions.
Switch caller IDs when managing multiple lines.
These features help keep information centralized and ensure smooth communication workflows.
Viewing communications: Threaded vs Unthreaded
Aloware offers users two different ways to view their communications, each designed to help organize and locate specific conversations based on different needs.
The Threaded View groups all communications (calls, messages) with a single contact together. This view is ideal for managing ongoing conversations and quickly reviewing the complete history of interactions with a specific person within a particular inbox.
Clicking on a contact's name consolidates everything exchanged with them, keeping related activities together.
The Unthreaded View, in contrast, displays each communication event as a separate item in a simple chronological list. It doesn't group interactions by contact. This view is useful for seeing a feed of all recent activity across different contacts or for reviewing individual interactions one by one.
Think of it like the recent calls or message list on your phone, where the same contact might appear multiple times if you've had multiple interactions with them.
Advanced tools: The contact panel
Clicking on a contact opens the Contact Panel on the right side of the screen, where you can:
Review the full interaction history, including past messages, calls, and notes.
Enroll contacts in workflows or assign tasks using integrations like HubSpot.
Add dispositions or tags to categorize and track leads effectively.
Best practices for Team Inbox
Use Threaded views with filters to manage ongoing conversations efficiently.
Collaborate via @mentions to keep teammates informed of urgent tasks.
Regularly refresh your inbox to stay updated.
Supervisors can utilize Watching Inbox and analytics for team performance tracking.
Troubleshooting common issues
Frequent issues like missing Team Inboxes or repeated line selections can occur. For missing Team Inboxes, ensure proper line or Ring Group assignments. If you encounter defaults requiring repeated line selection in the Team Inbox, adjust outbound line configurations to align with your preferences.
Filters in Team Inbox
The Team Inbox allows users to create more specific views of their communications using several filter types accessed through a single filter icon in Aloware Talk.
These filters let you refine what you see in the inbox by selecting from date ranges (such as "7 days", "last month", or "all time"), channels (calls, messages, voicemails, mentions), direction (inbound, outbound), contact (my contacts), read status (all, unread), and task status (open, pending, closed).
To enable the contact task status filter, turn on Inbox settings from the account menu.
Team inbox smart filtering
Users can open a dedicated filter modal that offers advanced filter combination like filtering by last engagement date or connected lines. It also introduces the ability to save filter sets for quick reuse, and Admins can create company-wide filters that are shared across teams.
Use cases for filters
The enhanced filters in Team Inbox can be incredibly useful for various scenarios, helping you quickly pinpoint the information you need:
Team collaboration filtering example
By using the “Mentions” channel filter and selecting a date range (like “Last Month”), managers or team leads can review every instance where team members were @mentioned. This helps in tracking collaboration, making sure follow-ups are addressed, and identifying where multiple team members contributed to an interaction.
Last engagement date filtering example
By selecting the “Last engagement date” filter and setting it to “Last 7 days,” users can instantly surface the most recent conversations. This is especially useful for following up after a marketing campaign or making sure time-sensitive support requests didn’t go cold.
Line-based filtering example
Using the “Line” filter, a manager can view conversations that came in through specific lines, like “Sales Hotline” or “Customer Support.” For example, filtering by the Sales line lets the sales team focus on qualified leads while support handles general inquiries.
Unassigned inbound filtering example
By combining ” “Direction = Inbound,” “Unread = On,” and "Channels = Calls, Messages," agents can surface all new, untouched messages. This ensures quick triage and reduces delays in initial response.
