The inbox is the first screen you see when you open Gruvi. It is where every message from every customer arrives, no matter which channel they used to reach you.
What the inbox is
Think of the inbox as one shared list for your whole team. A customer might message you on live chat, email, WhatsApp or Telegram. All four land in the same place. You do not need to open four different apps.
The inbox is shared, not personal. Your colleagues see the same list you do. That is on purpose: it means nothing gets missed because one person is off sick.
What a thread is
A thread is one conversation with one customer. It holds every message in that conversation, in order, oldest at the top.
If Maria emails you about a late delivery and you reply, and she replies again, that is one thread with three messages in it. If Maria emails you a week later about a refund, that is a new thread. One thread, one topic.
Every thread has its own number, like #1000. You can use that number to refer to a conversation when you talk to a colleague.
The three columns
The inbox screen is split into three columns. Each one has a job.
- Left: the thread list.
- Every conversation waiting for you, shown as a stack of cards. This is the column you scan.
- Middle: the conversation.
- The messages in the thread you have opened, with a box at the bottom for writing your reply.
- Right: the context panel.
- Everything Gruvi knows about the person you are talking to: how their mood has moved, a short summary of what is going on, and a live feed of what has happened in the thread.
The context panel holds three cards, and each has its own article: Customer sentiment, What's going on? and the Feed.
Before you open anything, the middle column says "This is where the magic happens". That is normal. It fills up when you click a thread.
What a thread card tells you
Each conversation in the left column appears as a card. A card is a summary, not the conversation itself. You read the cards to decide what to open first.
Every card carries these:
- The circle.
- The customer's initials, or their photo if you have one. A small badge on its corner shows which channel they used.
- The subject.
- What the conversation is about, for example "Free plan document limit". Chloe names threads automatically from the customer's first message.
- The thread number.
- For example #1070.
- The time.
- How long ago the last message arrived. 15m means fifteen minutes ago, and now means it has just landed.
- The preview.
- The first line or so of the most recent message, so you can guess what is needed without opening it.
- The status pill.
- A small coloured label showing where the conversation has got to. Open in green means nobody has finished with it yet.
The badges that only appear sometimes
Four more markers appear on a card only when they apply. These are the ones that tell you where to look first.
- A priority badge beside the subject.
- Urgent shows in red and High in orange. No badge means nobody has judged it yet.
- An overdue warning
- Shown in red, such as 13d 15h overdue. The conversation has passed its response-time target.
- A blue number at the end of the row.
- How many messages nobody on your team has read yet.
- A headphones icon
- Chloe handed this conversation over to the team, because she could not deal with it herself. Hovering it says so.
- A small photo where the headphones would be.
- The thread is assigned, and that is the person responsible.
How to open a thread
- 1In the left-hand sidebar, click Inbox.
- 2Look at the list of cards in the left column.
- 3Click any card once.
- 4The conversation opens in the middle column and the context panel on the right fills in.
- 5To read a different conversation, click a different card. You do not need to close anything first.
The card you are reading stays highlighted in the list, so you never lose your place.
You can also move through the list without the mouse: J and K step to the next and previous conversation. ---