Overview

The Messages App makes client communication seamless, secure, and integrated. Clients can send messages in your portal or respond directly to messaging email notifications, leading to a seamless experience even if your clients are used to an email workflow.

App setup

Welcome messages

Welcome messages are sent to clients the first time they log in. It’s important to customize your welcome message because they are a critical part of the onboarding experience for your clients.

The best welcome messages introduce your firm, and tell your clients how they should use the portal. You can customize your welcome message in the Messaging App settings (App Setup > Messaging App > Edit).

You can also disable automatic welcome messages in the Messaging App settings (App Setup > Messaging App > Edit).

Default messaging channel

If you have companies enabled you can select a default channel on the Settings > General page. The default channel works as follows:

Key workflows

There are 3 common workflows for internal users.

App view

To see a list of all conversations sorted by recency, navigate to the Messages App by clicking on Messages in your sidebar. Here you’ll see a messaging channel for every conversation you have access to. To see a particular conversation and send messages, select the messaging channel. Once you’ve selected a message channel, you will be able to read the message thread and send messages.

Client Details view

To dive into a particular client’s message channel, you can click on a client on the Clients page and then navigate to the Messages tab. This will only surface the messaging channel associated with that particular client.

Reply via email

If you receive an email notification for a message, you can reply via email and your response will automatically surface in the Messaging App.

Creating messaging channels

After you create a client, they will always get a new messaging channel or be assigned to an existing messaging channel which will be either client-level or company-level.

In addition, there are group-level messaging channels. These are useful if you want to send messages to multiple clients associated with a company, but not everyone assigned to the company.

Note: Clients must belong to the same company when creating a group message channel.

Creating a messaging channel

1. Click on the + on the messaging channels sidebar.

2. Select one or more clients, or select a company. Note that you cannot create a messaging channel that already exists.

Mass messages

If you want to send one message to all of your clients or all of your companies, you can create a mass message.

Mass messages work similarly to BCC in email, clients will not be able to see responses from other clients.

If a mass message is sent to companies, all members of a company channel will be able to see the message, but it will only populate in the company-level message channel.

Sending a mass message

1. Click on the + on the messaging channels sidebar.

2. Select Mass Message.

3. Choose between mass messaging companies, or mass messaging clients. If companies are not enabled, you will only have the option to mass message clients.

   1. You cannot select both companies and clients at the same time. You can only choose multiple companies or multiple clients in a single mass message.

4. Select the clients or companies you want to mass message. You can search for specific clients or companies in the Search input. You can select all clients or companies, or you can select specific clients or companies.

   1. You can see the selected clients or companies in the Selected tab.

5. Enter your message in the Message input.

   1. Markdown formatting is supported for mass messages, see the FAQ below for reference.

   2. Attachments are not currently supported for mass messages.

6. Once you’ve selected your recipients and drafted your message, click Send to send your mass message.

Client experience

There are 2 common workflows for clients.

Seeing and responding to email notifications

If clients receive a messaging email notification, they can reply via email and their response will automatically surface in the Messages App.

Portal notifications

Clients can see messages by clicking on Messages on the portal sidebar. In most cases, clients will only have one messaging channel, so they will not see a messaging channel sidebar.