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.

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, 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. Note that currently mass messages only work for client-level messaging channels.

Sending a mass message

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

2. Select Mass Message.

3. Enter your recipients and click Send.

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.