Using the inbox

The inbox is where your team handles conversations. It has three panes:

1. Conversation list (left) — every conversation in your workspace, grouped into status folders you pick from a dropdown, with a search box to find a specific conversation. Each row shows the title, current status, and the channel the conversation came from. See Status folders, search & blocking below.
2. Conversation view (center) — the message thread for the selected conversation, plus a composer to write a reply. Messages render plain text and rich message blocks (buttons, cards, images, files…).
3. Contact panel (right) — who you are talking to: name, email, phone and contact type (visitor / lead / customer) — plus the tools for organizing the open conversation (see Organizing the open conversation). Use the panel toggle in the conversation header to hide the contact panel and give the message thread more room, then show it again when you need it. (The choice applies for the current session.)

When a conversation has no title, its list row and header are labelled with the contact's name instead — falling back to their email or phone — so conversations are easy to recognize at a glance.

Day separators: how long ago, and exactly when

Both the conversation list and the message thread are broken up by a thin line that says which day the rows under it belong to. It has two halves: how long ago on the left, and the exact date on the right — "Today · Oct 2, 2026", "12 days ago · Sep 20, 2026".

The left half reads as the distance grows:

How far back	What the line says
The same day	Today
The day before	Yesterday
2 to 6 days	the weekday — Tuesday, Saturday
7 to 29 days	12 days ago
30 days to 11 months	3 months ago
A year or more	2 years ago

Months are counted as whole months: 45 days back is still "1 month ago", because the second month has not finished. Twelve months is "1 year ago", never "12 months ago".

In the message thread the two halves sit together on one line in the middle of the thread; in the list they sit at the two ends of the line.

The day is your day. A separator changes at midnight in your own time zone — the one set in your profile — which is the same clock the message times underneath it are shown in. The wording follows your panel language, including the calendar your language uses.

Day separators appear in the list only when the list is actually in time order (Latest activity and Oldest activity). Under Priority or Waiting longest the list is a ranking, not a diary, so no day lines are drawn.

Setting the column widths

Drag the line between any two columns to make one wider and its neighbour narrower — the sidebar, the conversation list and the contact panel can all be resized.

Your widths are saved to your account, so you set them once: they are still there tomorrow, after signing out, and on the other computer you work from. Nothing changes for your colleagues — everyone has their own.

• Double-click a divider to put that one column back to its normal width.
• To put them all back, open the display options (the sliders icon above the conversation list) and choose Reset the column widths.
• Prefer the keyboard? Tab to the divider and use the arrow keys (hold Shift for larger steps, Home to reset that column).
• The message thread always keeps enough room to stay readable: on a narrow window the side columns give way, and they come back to the widths you chose as soon as there is room again.

Real-time updates

The inbox is live. When a new message arrives — or a conversation's status or assignment changes — the thread and the list update automatically, without a refresh. This is powered by a secure per-conversation realtime channel; you only ever receive events for your own workspace.

Status folders, search & blocking

Status folders

The top of the conversation list is a folder dropdown. It shows the folder you are in and how many conversations it holds — e.g. Open (39) — and lets you switch between:

• Open — conversations waiting for a reply (the default).
• Pending — conversations you (or the bot) replied to, waiting on the contact.
• On hold — conversations you parked for later.
• Archive — closed-out conversations.
• Blocked — conversations you locked (see Blocking).
• Trash — deleted conversations.
• All — every conversation, regardless of status.

Each folder in the dropdown shows its own count, so you can see at a glance where the work is. The inbox opens in the Open folder and remembers the folder you last chose — it follows you across page reloads, navigation and devices, so you always come back to where you were working.

Searching the list

Click the search icon in the list header to reveal a search box. It matches the conversation title, the contact's name, email or phone, and the text of any message in the thread — so you can find a conversation by something the contact said, not just by their name. Clear the box (or press Esc) to close the search and return to the folder.

Filtering the list

Next to the search icon is a filter button (the sliders icon). It opens a filter panel that narrows the list — it combines with the status folder and the search box, so you can, for example, see only the Open conversations on WhatsApp that are tagged "VIP" and have been active today.

The panel is tabbed: the categories run down the left-hand side and you work one at a time, so the panel stays the same size whether your workspace has three tags or three hundred. Each tab shows how many of its options you have picked, the number next to Filters at the top is the total, and Clear sits beside it — both stay in view whatever you are scrolling. The filter button itself carries the same total, so you can see at a glance how much is filtered without opening anything.

A category with more than eight options gets a search box above its list, and every list of your own data (tags, departments, agents) is sorted by name, so finding one in a long list means typing a few letters rather than scrolling.

• Read state — Unread keeps the conversations that still hold at least one message you have not read; Read keeps the ones that hold none. Read state is yours: a teammate reading a thread does not make it read for you. Ticking both says the same thing as ticking neither — show everything.

• Channel — the channels conversations arrive on (Web chat, Email, WhatsApp, and so on).

• Tag — your conversation tags (shown with their colour).

• Department — your departments. Hidden if you belong to one department or none — there is nothing to narrow by.

• Agent — the staff a conversation is assigned to. Hidden for agents (the lowest-level role); supervisors and admins see it.

• Date — how far back to look, counted by when the conversation was last active. It offers both shapes of the question in one tab:

  • the shortcuts Today, Last 7 days and Last 30 days, for the common case. They are single-choice: picking another replaces the current one, and picking the current one again removes the limit;
  • a date range with a start date and an end date, for everything else. Either one on its own works: a start alone means "since then", an end alone means "up to then".

  A shortcut and a range are one setting, not two — picking a shortcut clears a range you typed, and typing a date clears the shortcut, so the list is never narrowed by something you cannot see. The end date includes the whole of that day, down to its last second in your own timezone, and a start and end on the same day give you exactly that one day.

Each facet is multi-select and defaults to all (nothing ticked = no filter). Selecting several options within a facet widens that facet (an any-of match); selecting across facets narrows the result. Clear resets every facet — and the date window — at once.

Your facet choices are saved to your account, so they survive reloads, navigation between screens, and signing in on another device — just like the status folder. The Date window is deliberately not saved: it is a look, not a view, and a "Today" left on overnight would greet you the next morning with a short list and no clue why. It clears when you reload or sign in again.

Today means your today. The window starts at midnight in your own timezone — the one on your profile (Settings → Profile), falling back to your browser's — so an early-morning conversation counts as today's even though the clock in London says otherwise. The same goes for a range you type: it starts at midnight on your start date and ends at 23:59:59 on your end date, both read on your clock.

On the mobile app the date filter is the three shortcuts only. A start/end range needs two calendar fields, and in a phone's filter sheet those push the rest of the filters off the screen; the shortcuts mean exactly the same days on both.

The status-folder counts reflect the active filters, so "Open (12)" means twelve conversations within your current filter, the date window included.

Quick actions on a conversation row

You do not have to open a conversation to act on it. Every row in the list carries a quick menu:

• On a computer — hover the row and choose the ⋯ button at its top-right corner, or right-click anywhere on the row. Both open the same menu.
• On the mobile app — press and hold the row.

The menu offers:

• Status ▸ — move the conversation to Open, Pending, On hold, Completed or Junk without leaving the list. Moves that are not possible from where the conversation is now are shown greyed out rather than hidden, so you can see why. Completing a conversation needs the Complete conversations permission; without it the option is visible but disabled, so you know to ask for it.
• Mark read / Mark unread — for the whole conversation, and for you alone.
• Assign to me — shown when you are allowed to assign conversations.
• Tags ▸ — attach or remove the workspace's tags without opening the thread. Filter the list by typing, pick as many as you like (the menu stays open), and a tick marks the ones already on the conversation. Editing tags needs the same permission as assigning; without it you still see which tags are on the thread.
• Start a flow — send this customer through one of your flows.
• Download transcript ▸ — the formats your workspace has switched on. Emailing the transcript to the customer is offered inside the conversation instead, because it opens a dialog of its own.
• Open in a new tab (computer) — put the conversation in its own browser tab, which is handy when you are working two threads at once. Middle-click or "copy link address" work on it like any other link.
• Select (mobile) — start the multi-select mode for bulk actions. On the phone, press-and-hold used to start the selection directly; it now opens this menu, and Select is the first entry in it. While a selection is already running, press-and-hold goes back to picking rows.

Blocking, deleting and merging are deliberately not here. Blocking sends a notice to a person, deleting cannot be undone, and merging asks which of two threads survives — a question nobody can answer from a list row. All three live inside the open conversation, where the dialog can state the consequence before you agree to it.

Unread badges, and when they clear

A red badge counts the messages your customers sent that you have not read yet. The same number is shown in three places, and all three are counted the same way and for you personally — a teammate opening a thread never clears your badge:

• on the conversation row in the list;
• on All chats and on each channel in the left-hand menu, including Web chat, which is where the widget's own conversations are counted;
• on the Chats heading, as the sum of the rows beneath it.

Badges over 99 are shown as 99+.

Opening a conversation clears its badge immediately — the number drops as the thread opens, without waiting for the server to answer. In the rare case the server refuses (for example while you are being rate-limited by very fast browsing), the badge comes back rather than lying to you.

Only active conversations are counted: Open, Pending and On hold. An unread message in a Completed, Blocked or Trash conversation is not work waiting for you, so it is not badged.

Leaving a message for later

Inside a conversation, the ⋯ menu on any message the customer sent offers Mark unread from here. The conversation then counts as unread from that message onward: everything you had already worked through stays read, and the badge comes back with the number of messages left.

This is the precise version of the row's Mark unread, which returns the whole conversation. Both are yours alone — neither touches a teammate's badge.

Blocking a conversation

Three actions live in the conversation header, next to the transcript download:

• Archive — move the conversation to the Archive folder.
• On hold — park it in the On hold folder.
• Block — lock the conversation so the contact can no longer write.

Choosing Block opens a small panel with an editable closing message, prefilled from your workspace's default (see the inbox setting below). Edit it if you like, or clear it to send nothing, then choose Block and send. The message is sent to the contact, the conversation moves to the Blocked folder, and the contact can no longer post. You can optionally block the contact entirely, which locks all of their conversations at once.

A blocked conversation shows an Unblock action in the same place — choosing it reopens the conversation (moving it to On hold).

These actions follow your role: the assigned agent can archive, hold or block the conversation they handle; supervisors and admins can act on any conversation. An action you are not allowed to take is refused with a short notice.

The default block message (admins)

Admins can set the default block message under Settings → Inbox. It is the message prefilled in the block panel whenever anyone blocks a conversation; agents can still edit it per conversation before sending.

Starting a new conversation

To write to someone first — a new number, an e-mail address, or a contact you have not talked to yet — use New conversation: the pencil button in the inbox list header on the web panel, or the round button at the bottom of Chats in the mobile app. You do not need to create a contact first.

Type into the To: box whatever you have:

You type	What you get
A phone number, in any format (0532 123 45 67, +90 532…, 905321234567)	The number in international form with its flag, the contact who already has it (if any), and Write on WhatsApp, Send SMS and Call where your channels allow
An e-mail address	Write an e-mail, one row per mailbox you can use
@username	The contact you already know by that username, if any
A name	Matching contacts — including ones that came in through a message and were never saved
A pasted link	wa.me/…, api.whatsapp.com, tel:, sms: and t.me/+… are read as numbers, mailto: as an address, t.me/…, instagram.com/…, x.com/…, tiktok.com/@… and m.me/… as usernames

One box, no tabs. The moment what you type looks like a number (digits, spaces, + ( ) -, no letters), a flag and dial code appear in front of it — that is the country the number is read in. Type a letter and the flag goes away: the box is a name or e-mail search again.

• 0532 123 45 67 loses its leading zero as you type and shows as 🇹🇷 +90 532 123 45 67 — the flag already says +90.
• Typing or pasting +44… or 0049… switches the flag by itself.
• Click (or tap) the flag to pick another country: search by its name in your language or in English, its code (de) or its dial code (49, +49). Your default country and the last few you picked are at the top.

Which country the flag starts on: your own choice (Profile on the web, Settings → Country for numbers in the app), else your workspace's country (Settings → Company — set automatically when the workspace was created), else your device's or browser's region. Several numbers or addresses separated by commas are a campaign, not a conversation — use Campaigns for that.

The same field is the search on the Calls tab (app), the number on the keypad (where the flag is always shown) and the phone field on contact and other forms: a number is read the same way everywhere. In the app, the keyboard button beside the field switches between the number pad and letters.

What happens when you pick an action

• Write on WhatsApp · with a template — WhatsApp delivers only an approved template to someone who has not written to you in the last 24 hours (a new number never has). The conversation opens with the template picker already open. If the customer wrote within 24 hours, you write freely.
• Send SMS — appears only when an SMS gateway is set up.
• Call — on the phone: from your own phone or a ConnectWiz line, as you chose before; on the web: the keypad opens with the number.
• Write an e-mail — the mail composer opens with the address filled in.
• Continue the conversation — if you already have an open conversation with this person on that channel, you go to it; a second one is never opened.

Things that cannot be done are listed under Not possible here with the reason — for example "the customer has to write first" for Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and other platforms where a business cannot start the conversation, or "SMS is not set up yet".

Good to know

• No duplicate contacts. If the number already belongs to a contact — including one known only from WhatsApp — that contact is used. If the number might belong to someone (for example two people share a landline), they are shown first and you choose.
• The contact is kept only if you write. A new number becomes a contact (not added to your Contacts list until you save it) when you open the conversation. If you leave without sending anything, the empty conversation and the new contact are removed.
• Opted out / blocked. If the person has opted out of marketing messages or is blocked, you are told before you write.
• The conversation is yours. A conversation you start is assigned to you when your workspace assigns outgoing conversations to whoever starts them — and always when you could not reply in it otherwise.
• Recent recipients and the channel you used last are remembered.
• Is the number on WhatsApp? WhatsApp only tells us after sending: if the number has no WhatsApp account the message shows as failed in the conversation.
• Free alternative to a template: send or show your business's WhatsApp link (and QR code on the web). When the customer writes to you through it, you can reply without a template.

Sharing a link to a conversation

Every conversation has an address in the web panel. To send it to a colleague, open the conversation's menu — Tools → Share link or Copy link in the app, the ⋯ → Link menu (or the row menu in the list) on the web.

• The link names the conversation and its workspace, nothing else. Opening it needs a signed-in account with access to that conversation; anybody else sees "You don't have access to this conversation".
• On a phone with the ConnectWiz app installed, the link opens in the app, straight on the conversation. If you are signed out you sign in first and land on it afterwards; if it belongs to another of your workspaces you are offered the switch.
• Contacts, e-mail threads, calls, comments and support tickets open the same way from their panel links.

Sending a reply

Select a conversation, type in the composer at the bottom of the thread, and press Send. Your message appears immediately and is delivered in real time to anyone else viewing the conversation.

How long a message can be

Most channels cap how much text one message may carry, and the composer shows that cap as a counter under the reply box — for example 312/2000 on Messenger. Instagram counts bytes, not letters, so the counter there says bytes: Turkish letters such as ş, ğ or ı take two bytes and an emoji four, so a reply can reach Instagram's 1000 well before it reaches 1000 letters. Text sent together with a file is the file's caption and has a smaller cap on WhatsApp (1024); the counter switches to it as soon as a file is attached. Channels without a published cap (the website chat, email) show no counter.

The counter turns amber at 90% of the cap. Past it, it turns red, Send is switched off and a line says how far over the message is. Shorten it, or press Split into N messages and send: the text is cut at paragraph breaks first, then at the end of a sentence, then between words — never in the middle of a word unless one word is longer than the cap — and the parts go out one after another, each only once the one before it has been accepted. If a part is not accepted, sending stops, the line under the box says which part failed and why, and the text that was not sent is put back in the box.

When a reply is refused for any other reason, the reason is shown under the box and your text stays there — on the web panel and in the mobile app alike.

Inserting a saved reply

To answer a common question without retyping it, use the saved reply button (the speech-bubble icon to the left of the composer). It opens a searchable list of your workspace's saved replies; pick one and its text is added to your draft. Inserting a reply never sends — it only fills the composer, so you can edit or add to it before pressing Send. If you already have text in the draft, the reply is appended on a new line.

If the reply has files attached to it — images, documents, video or audio — every one is added to your draft as its own attachment alongside the text, in the order the reply lists them. You can review them — or remove any of them — before sending, exactly like files you attached yourself. If one has since been removed from your workspace's media library, the rest still go and that attachment is quietly left out.

Each file is checked against this conversation's channel the moment the reply is inserted. A file the channel cannot carry — a PDF on Threads, or a video over the channel's size limit — appears as a red chip marked Won't be sent, and a line above the composer says why. That file is left out of the message; the text and the other files still go. If the server refuses a file for another reason, its chip turns red with the server's reason (hover to read it) and the rest are still sent.

Several files leave the way the channel carries them: on WhatsApp each one is its own message, sent one after the other in your order, so the customer's phone shows them in sequence. Messenger and Instagram group consecutive pictures into a single message instead. Either way nothing is reordered.

Inserting emoji

The smiley button in the composer opens an emoji picker with category tabs (smileys, people, animals, food, travel, activities, objects, symbols, flags) and a search box. Pick one and it is inserted at your cursor position in the draft — not just appended — so you can drop an emoji anywhere in the sentence. The picker follows your light/dark theme and closes when you choose an emoji, press Escape, or click outside it.

Attaching files and images

To send a file with your reply, use the paperclip button in the composer. It opens your device's file picker; choose one or several files and they begin uploading right away. Each selected file appears as a chip above the composer:

• An image shows a small thumbnail in its chip.
• A voice note or audio file shows a small inline audio player so you can listen back before sending.
• Any other file shows a paperclip with its name and size.

The rest of the flow is the same for every type:

• While a file uploads, its chip shows a spinner. The Send button stays disabled until every upload has finished.
• Select the × on a chip to remove a file. Removing one that is still uploading cancels the upload.
• If a file is rejected (an unsupported type, or larger than the allowed size) the chip is marked Upload failed; remove it and try a different file.

When you press Send, the finished attachments are bound to your message and appear in the thread. You can send attachments on their own (with an empty message) or together with text. See File attachments for the allowed types and size limits.

Recording a voice message

The microphone button records a voice note straight from the composer. Select it to start recording — a bar appears with an elapsed timer, a stop (✓, keep) and a discard (🗑) control. Selecting stop turns the recording into an audio attachment that joins the same upload flow as a file; you can preview it in its chip before sending. Discard throws the recording away.

The first time you record, your browser asks for microphone permission. If you deny it, the composer shows a short message explaining how to allow it. On a browser that cannot record audio, the microphone button is hidden.

WhatsApp's richer message types

On WhatsApp a reply does not have to be plain text. The composer's WhatsApp menu offers the message types Meta supports inside an open conversation:

Type	What the customer sees	Worth knowing
Buttons	Up to 3 tappable quick replies, with an optional text, image, video or document header	Labels must be different from each other and at most 20 characters
List	A "menu" button that opens sections of options	At most 10 rows in total across all sections — not 10 per section. Row title 24 characters, description 72
Carousel	2–10 swipeable cards, each with an image or video	Every card must carry the same kind of button; card text is 160 characters and at most 2 line breaks
Link button	A button that opens a URL	Better than pasting a link when you want one obvious action
Ask for location	A button that returns the customer's location	The reply arrives as a location pin in the thread
Flow	One of your published WhatsApp Flows	Set up under the channel's templates

Two things apply to all of them:

• They only work inside the 24-hour window. Outside it, WhatsApp accepts nothing but an approved template, so these are refused for the same reason free text is.
• The customer's tap comes back as a normal message in the thread, so you reply as usual and the AI assistant sees it like any other answer.

One limit is ours, not Meta's

Meta does not publish a maximum number of quick replies per carousel card. We cap it at 3, matching the button message. If you ever wonder where that number came from: it is our rule, not a WhatsApp one.

Files in the thread

Messages that carry files — whether you sent them or the contact did — render each file inline by its type:

• Images appear inline; select one to open the full-size file in a new tab. Several images in one message are laid out in a small grid.
• Voice notes and audio show an inline player you can play in place, with the file name (and length, when known).
• Video clips show an inline player.
• Documents and other files appear as a small download card with the name and size.

Every file opens through a secure, short-lived link; the file's storage location is never exposed, and you can only open files on conversations you may view.

Keeping a conversation open while you work elsewhere

A conversation normally lives inside the inbox, so reading it costs you the page you were on. Docking takes it out of the page: the conversation becomes a small window pinned to the bottom of the panel, and it stays there while you open a contact, a report, the catalogue, or anything else.

To dock a conversation, use the Dock this conversation button (the panel icon) in the conversation header. The window appears in the bottom-right corner — bottom-left in right-to-left languages.

In a docked window you can:

• read the recent messages and watch new ones arrive live,
• write and send a plain-text reply,
• minimise it to its title bar (click the title bar or the chevron). A minimised window shows a badge with the number of unread messages, and it does not mark the conversation as read — an open one does, just like the inbox,
• close it with the ×, or by pressing Escape while typing in it,
• open it in the inbox with the arrow button, when you need the full composer.

Up to three conversations can be docked at once. Docking a fourth closes the oldest window.

What a docked window does not do

The docked composer sends plain text only. Attachments, voice notes, emoji, saved replies, templates, internal notes and the AI writing tools all live in the full composer — use Open in the inbox to get to them. If the channel's messaging window has closed (see Sending a reply), the docked composer locks and points you at the inbox, where the template pickers and the note mode are.

Calls

A call already floats above every page on its own: the call card and the mini call bar follow you around the panel, so a call never disappears because you changed page. The mini call bar carries the same Dock this conversation button, so you can pin the customer's written thread while you are talking to them and type without leaving the page you opened the call about.

What is remembered

Which conversations are docked, and whether each is minimised, is remembered in this browser — a reload brings the windows back. It is not part of your profile, so it does not follow you to another computer, and your colleagues never see it.

The dock needs room. On a screen narrower than about 1024px (a phone, or a narrow window) it is hidden, because a floating window would cover the page it is meant to sit beside. Nothing is lost: the conversations stay docked and the windows come back on a wide screen.

Assigning a conversation

Supervisors and admins see an Assign dropdown in the conversation header. It is one control with three kinds of action:

• Auto-assign (best fit) — hands the conversation to the workspace's automatic routing: assigned to an available agent by the chosen strategy, or held in the queue if none is free.
• Pick an agent — choose a specific teammate from the list. Each row shows the agent's avatar, a presence dot (online / away / busy / offline) and their current number of active conversations, so you can pick someone who is available and not overloaded. When the conversation has a department, the list is filtered to that department's agents; changing the department re-filters the list. You can still assign across departments — the filter is a convenience, not a restriction.
• Unassign — clear the current owner (shown only when assigned).

The dropdown appears for supervisors and admins on still-active conversations (Open, Pending, or On hold). Agents do not see it. The department itself is set with the separate department selector in the contact panel.

The conversation header always shows the current assignment status:

• Assigned: name — an agent now owns the conversation.
• Queued — no agent was free, so the conversation is waiting in the routing queue and will be assigned once one becomes available.
• Unassigned — nobody owns it yet.

Assigning a teammate also clears a Queued marker, so a conversation that was waiting in the queue stops showing as queued the moment you assign it. Auto-assign runs in the background; the assignment chip updates on its own when it finishes.

Organizing the open conversation

The contact panel also holds the tools for keeping the selected conversation organized. The concepts behind each one — and who manages the underlying lists — are described in Organizing conversations.

Setting the department

The Department section shows which team the conversation belongs to, or Unassigned. Supervisors and admins can open the picker to assign it to a department or clear it again. Agents see the current department but cannot change it. Reassigning routes the conversation to the chosen team.

Tagging the conversation

The Tags section lists the labels currently on the conversation as colored chips. Supervisors and admins can:

• Add a tag — use Add tag to open the picker, search by name, and select one of your workspace's tags. Tags already on the conversation are left out of the list.
• Remove a tag — select the × on a chip.

Agents see the chips but cannot add or remove them.

Internal notes

The Internal notes section is a private, staff-only log on the conversation — the contact never sees it. Use it to leave context for a colleague. Notes are shown newest first; your own notes are marked You.

• Add a note — type in the note box and press Add note.
• Delete a note — select the trash icon on a note and confirm. You can delete your own notes; supervisors and admins can delete any note. (If you do not have permission, the deletion is rejected.)

For the full permission matrix, see Organizing conversations → Who can do what.

Arranging the contact panel

The gear icon at the top of the contact panel opens Customize profile card. Drag a section to move it, or use its switch to turn it off. The layout is yours alone — it is saved to your account, so it follows you to another browser or machine and changes nothing for your colleagues.

If your workspace has a CRM connected, its blocks are sections like any other: the CRM record, the differences between your copy and the CRM's, the linked records, the appointments, the documents drawer, and the CRM actions. Put the appointment list above your notes, switch off the parts this team never uses, or leave it as it comes.

Four things in the CRM card are deliberately not on that list and cannot be moved or hidden: which CRM answered, when it was last read, the button that reads it again, and the search that matches a contact to a CRM record. The read time has to stay above everything it describes, and the matching search is the only way to link a contact that is not matched yet.

Choosing which CRM fields you see

The same dialog has a second list, CRM fields — the fields your CRM actually sends for the contact you have open: phone, created date, gender, national ID, sales representative, whatever that system keeps. Each has its own switch, and they drag into the order you want.

Two things worth knowing:

• A new field appears on its own. If your CRM starts sending something it did not send before, it shows up in the card. Nothing you have switched off is reconsidered, and nothing new arrives invisible.
• A field your CRM stops sending just disappears, and your choice is kept. If it comes back, it comes back the way you left it.

The list is empty — and the whole block is absent — when there is no CRM, when this contact is not matched to a CRM record yet, or when the CRM sent no detail.

Folding the long lists

Appointments and the documents drawer have a heading you can press to fold them, and ConnectWiz remembers each choice for you.

• Appointments starts open. It is usually why the card is open at all — a slot tomorrow is not something to find behind a click.
• The documents drawer starts folded. Its tabs (offers, sales, balance, notes, files) fetch nothing from your CRM until you press one, so a folded heading costs you nothing.

Leads & contacts

Everyone who chats in is a contact with a lifecycle stage: a new anonymous web-chat visitor starts as a lead, and becomes a customer once you qualify them. There is no separate "leads" list — leads and customers are the same kind of record at different stages.

Every contact gets a small, per-workspace reference number. An unnamed lead is shown in the inbox as "Lead #N" (the conversation list, the thread header, and the contact panel) until you add a name, email, or phone — those take over the label as soon as they exist.

One person, every conversation

A single person can have several conversations across different channels and departments. The contact panel's Conversations section lists all of that contact's threads (any status), newest first, with the channel and status of each. Select one to switch to it — the cross-channel history of one person in a single place.

Converting a lead

When a lead becomes a real customer, open the contact panel and choose Convert to contact. Fill in their name / email / phone and save — the contact moves to the customer stage.

Merging duplicate contacts

If the same person was captured twice (e.g. once on web chat and once on WhatsApp), a supervisor or admin can merge them. In the contact panel of the lead, choose Merge into existing contact, search for the surviving contact, and confirm. Merging:

• moves all of the lead's conversations onto the target contact,
• combines their channel identifiers and custom attributes (the target's values win on a conflict),
• fills any empty name / email / phone on the target from the lead, and
• deletes the lead.

This cannot be undone, so it asks you to confirm. Agents do not see the merge action — it is supervisor / admin only.

Who can do what

What you can do in the inbox depends on your role:

• Agents can view conversations and reply to the ones assigned to them.
• Supervisors can view and act on every conversation, and reassign them.
• Admins have full access, including deleting conversations.

See Roles & permissions for the complete matrix, and Routing for how conversations are assigned to agents.