Messages

Messages, under Studio, gives each client and each lead a single thread. It holds the chats between you, and a line for every email Forge has sent that person, so the whole conversation is in one place.

Two ways to send

When you write a message, choose how it goes under Send as:

• Chat goes to the client's portal. They read and answer it there.
• Email is sent straight away to their email address, with a Subject. Their reply goes to your own inbox, not back into Forge.

Leads do not have a portal, so messages to a lead go by Email.

Start a conversation

1. Open Messages and choose New message.
2. Search for the client or lead by name or email.
3. Write your message, choose Chat or Email, and choose Send.

A thread also appears on its own when you email a client from Forge, or when they write to you from their portal.

If a chat goes unread

A client is not always in their portal. So that a chat is never missed:

• If your chat is still unread after 10 minutes, Forge emails it to the client. Before you send, the composer tells you whether that will happen.
• Forge sends at most one of these emails per conversation every 30 minutes.
• Clients can opt out of these emails from a link in each one.

The same works the other way. If a client's message sits unread for 10 minutes, Forge emails you. Switch this off with Client replies in Settings → Notifications.

What your client sees

In their portal, under Messages, the client sees the chat in both directions and one line for each email Forge has sent them. See Clients for the portal.

Find the thread you need

Filter the list by Unread, Waiting on you, Waiting on them, Delivery problems, Clients, Leads or Archived.

A thread marked Email bouncing means emails to that address are not getting through. Check the address on the client's record.

The count beside Messages in the sidebar is your unread threads.

Quieten one conversation

Open the conversation and use the mute control in its header to choose Mute notifications, or to snooze for an hour, until tomorrow morning or for a week. A muted thread carries a small mark in the list. See Notifications for exactly what a mute stops.

The Forge team

At the top of your list is a thread called The Forge team. It is your direct line to us.

• Write there to tell us what is confusing, broken or missing.
• We read everything, and we reply by email, not in the thread.
• If you have the Tell Forge button, anything you send with it shows there too, so you have a record of what you told us.

It is not a client conversation, so it cannot be archived or muted.