Uptick Inbox helps your team manage a shared mailbox in Uptick. Each email thread becomes a ticket that can be assigned to someone, given a status and connected to the relevant client and property.

If your team has managed the same shared mailbox in Outlook or Gmail for years, moving it into Uptick will take a little getting used to. This guide covers what changes, what stays the same and how to get your team started.

Your customers keep emailing the same address. They don't need to do anything differently. Your team still reads and replies to email; the difference is that you do it from Uptick, where each conversation can be assigned, tracked and connected to the relevant customer and property.

We recommend trying Inbox with a small group before moving the whole team across.

Send a test email to your mailbox from a personal or external address - an internal test can succeed while external mail is still blocked by your IT policies, so testing from outside checks the whole path - and check that you can:

Once those basics feel familiar, start using Inbox with real email. You don't need to have every folder or workflow worked out before you begin.

Assignment is ownership. An assigned ticket has a named owner; an unassigned ticket is nobody's job - and unowned email is how things get dropped in a shared mailbox. The simplest health check your team can run: keep unassigned at zero. If every ticket has an owner, nothing is waiting on "someone".

If someone else needs to deal with an email, assign the ticket to them rather than forwarding it. The ticket stays visible to the team, so everyone can see who owns it and what has happened.

Some teams run the day by folder instead - each folder has an owner who works everything in it (all of Scheduling is Sarah's, all of Accounts is Tom's). That works well too: assign tickets as you pick them up, so the owner is still recorded on each one.

If the same types of email always go to the same person, you can set up auto-assignment - a plain-English rule that assigns new tickets for you (for example, "accounts emails go to Tom, everything about scheduling goes to Sarah"). Most teams start by assigning manually and turn this on once the patterns are clear - ask us and we'll help set it up.

If you need someone's input without handing the ticket over, add an internal note and @mention them.

For example, a customer emails asking whether an engineer can attend on Friday. You could add an internal note:

@Sarah Can we fit this into Friday's schedule?

Sarah can see the ticket and respond internally. The customer won't see the note. Once you have the answer, you can reply to the customer from the ticket.

Statuses show where a ticket is up to and whether your team still needs to do something.

If something needs urgent attention, use the urgent flag. It will appear red to the team until someone clears it.

Folders tell Inbox what type of email it is dealing with. Inbox uses the folder description to decide where new email should go.

For example:

Use the language that appears in real customer emails. For example, if your customers tend to ask to "move an engineer visit" rather than "reschedule an appointment", include that wording in the folder description.

You don't need to anticipate every possible email before you start. Check Unclassified regularly and adjust your descriptions based on what actually comes in.

For example, a customer emails:

Can we move Tuesday's extinguisher inspection to Thursday?

If Inbox puts that email into the wrong folder rather than Scheduling, move it to Scheduling and check the Scheduling folder description. If it doesn't cover requests to move existing visits, update the description.

Moving the email corrects that ticket. Updating the folder description helps Inbox classify similar emails in future.

A favourite is a saved search - run any search (a folder, a status, a person, a client, or any combination) and save it, and it becomes a view you can reopen with one click instead of recreating the search each time.

Depending on how your team works, useful favourites could include work assigned to you, tickets awaiting a customer reply, open urgent work, or everything for a key client.

Favourites aren't just for the Inbox sidebar - you can also add a favourite to your Uptick dashboard, so the tickets that matter are visible the moment you log in, and add it to your inbox so it sits alongside your folders where you work.

Inbox automatically matches email to relevant Uptick records, including clients, properties, tasks, quotes and purchase orders.

For example, if a customer calls about an inspection completed several months ago, you don't need to search through a manually maintained customer folder. Open the relevant Uptick record and check Correspondence, search Inbox, or save the search as a favourite if it's one you'll come back to.

When you first start using Inbox, agree who is responsible for checking the shared mailbox each day and who covers when they're away.

Your team may develop a slightly different routine once you've used Inbox for a while. What matters is that work has an owner and everyone can see what still needs attention.

Inbox works differently from a traditional mailbox, so some things will feel unfamiliar at first. You don't need to get everything right before moving the team across.

A few things will make the transition easier:

Start with a manageable Inbox. Before bringing the wider team in, use bulk actions in Search to close old tickets that no longer need attention.

Show everyone the basics. Each person should know how to assign a ticket, change its status, add an internal note and find previous correspondence.

Set up signatures. You can use one company signature for the whole Inbox or let people set their own.

Reply from Inbox - this is the one that decides it. Because Inbox and Outlook or Gmail don't sync, pick the day the team starts replying from Inbox and stick to it. Teams that read and sort in Inbox but keep replying from Outlook never really make the switch; teams that moved their replies over were comfortable within a couple of weeks.

Review the setup as you use it. Check Unclassified and improve folder descriptions when you see recurring classification problems. There's no need to get every possible folder right before you start.

Give the team a little time to adjust. If they've worked from Outlook or Gmail for years, some actions will be less familiar for the first few days.

If something doesn't behave as you expected, don't spend ages trying to work it out. Check the common issues below, and if you're still stuck, get in touch with us.

A few things to be aware of:

For example, if a customer asks for a copy of an existing fire alarm inspection report, Inbox can help you find and attach the document you already hold. If they ask you to create a new report, Inbox can't generate one.

For step-by-step instructions, see How to use the Uptick Inbox, or for getting your mail flowing see Sending your email into Uptick. If you're still stuck, just get in touch for help.