Gruvi uses three words constantly: channel, thread and inbox. They are simple ideas, but the rest of Gruvi makes no sense until they are clear.

Why these three words matter

They describe three different things: how a message reached you, what the conversation is, and where you find it.

What a channel is

A channel is a way for customers to reach you. Gruvi supports four:

Live Chat: The chat widget on your website. Usually the fastest, and customers expect a quick answer.
Email: Messages to your support address. Slower, and often longer.
WhatsApp: Messages to your business WhatsApp number.
Telegram: Messages to your Telegram bot.

You turn each one on in Settings, under Channels. You do not need all four. Most teams start with one.

The channel a customer used is remembered, and your reply goes back the same way. Somebody who wrote to you on WhatsApp gets your answer on WhatsApp.

What a thread is

A thread is one conversation with one customer, holding every message in it, oldest at the top.

A thread is not a single message. If a customer writes, you reply, and they write back, that is one thread with three messages. A separate question next month is a new thread.

Every thread has a number, such as #1000, which is a convenient way to refer to it when talking to a colleague.

What the inbox is

The inbox is the shared list of threads. It is not your personal list. Your whole team sees the same one.

That is the point. If a colleague is off sick, their conversations are still visible to everyone else, so nothing sits unanswered.

How the three fit together

In one sentence: a customer reaches you through a channel, the conversation becomes a thread, and the thread appears in your shared inbox.

Because all four channels feed the same inbox, you work the same way regardless of where a message came from. The channel changes how quickly people expect an answer, not how you write one.

The words that hang off a thread

Four more terms describe the state of a thread. You will meet them within minutes of opening the inbox.

Assignee: The person responsible for it. With nobody responsible, it is Unassigned.
Status: Where it has got to: Open, Pending, Resolved, Closed or Spam.
Priority: How urgent it is: Urgent, High, Normal, Low, or no priority at all.
Labels: Your own tags describing what it is about, such as "refund" or "delivery".

Understanding threads, channels, and the inbox