Message Replies & Shared Inbox¶
[Draft — pending review]
When attendees reply to messages sent from Ordinate, their responses are collected in a shared inbox that administrators and receptionists can manage together.
How Replies Work¶
The reply experience differs depending on the method:
App messages — users see their messages in the Ordinate native app and can tap to reply directly. Replies are threaded with the original message.
SMS messages — recipients reply via standard SMS. Ordinate matches the incoming phone number to the most recent outbound message to that number, and routes the reply to the correct inbox.
Info
System-generated notifications (such as check-in alerts and meeting reminders) appear in a separate Alerts list in the app. These do not allow replies.
The Shared Inbox¶
The shared inbox is a top-level menu item in the web application (Inbox). It shows all incoming replies from attendees across all methods.
For each message, you can see:
- Who the message is from
- When it was received
- Status — whether it has been dealt with or is still pending
- Context — what original message it was in reply to (if known)
Actions¶
From the inbox, you can:
- View the message — opens the conversation showing the original message and any replies
- Reply — send a response back to the person
- Mark as noted — mark the message as dealt with / read
- Mark unread — undo the noted status if further action is needed
Reply and Mark Noted are also available from within the message detail view.
How It Fits Together¶
The shared inbox is designed so that any administrator or receptionist can pick up and respond to incoming messages. A reply from an attendee may be handled by a different person than the one who sent the original message. This ensures messages are dealt with promptly, even if the original sender is unavailable.
Tip
You can filter the inbox to show only messages that are still pending — this helps during busy event days when the inbox may have high volume.
Notifications for Incoming Messages¶
The inbox icon shows a badge count for unread messages. Users can also enable a popup notification for incoming messages in their personal settings.