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People & messages widgets

Keep the people, mail and conversations behind a piece of work on its desk with the Contacts, Inbox, Chat and Email widgets.

All plansUpdated

Most work involves other people: the colleagues doing it with you, and the clients, suppliers and advisers outside your organisation. The People & messages widgets keep them on the desk the work lives on, so who is involved, what they have emailed and what you are saying to each other are all in view while you work.

There are four of them:

  • Contacts lists the people this desk is about. See Contacts widget.
  • Inbox shows the mail about this desk, picked from your mailbox by a rule you can see and change. See Inbox widget.
  • Chat pins one chat conversation to the desk, so you can read and reply without leaving it. See Chat widget.
  • Email keeps one email, or its whole thread, on the desk to read like a document. You make it from Mail. See Email widget: keep an email on a desk.

Which widget to use

Widget What it shows Use it when
Contacts The people on this desk, colleagues and guests, with their role, company and contact details You want everyone involved in one list, in the place you do the work
Inbox Your mailbox, narrowed to this desk by a rule such as "from the client, in the last 30 days" You want new mail about this work to show up on the desk as it arrives
Chat One conversation from Chat, with a message box to reply You want to talk about the work without leaving the desk
Email One email, or its whole thread, that you chose to keep One message matters to the work and should stay with it

Inbox or Email?

The two mail widgets do different jobs, and many desks use both.

  • Inbox is a live view. It shows whatever currently matches its rule, so messages come and go as mail arrives and the rule changes.
  • Email is one message you chose. It stays on the desk even after you archive it in Mail or it stops matching any rule. Use it for the message the work depends on, such as a quote, a brief or a signed agreement.

Before you start

  • Contacts works on every plan with nothing to set up. Its suggestions draw on your connected mailbox, the tasks on the desk, the calendars you have added and your organisation, so the more of those you use, the more it can suggest. To invite someone into your organisation from it, you need to be signed in to an organisation where you are an admin.
  • Inbox and Email need a mailbox connected in Mail, which runs in the PlexiDesk desktop app. See Connect your email account Coming soon.
  • Chat needs you to be signed in. See Sign in to PlexiDesk Coming soon.

All four widgets are part of every plan. Drafting a reply with AI from the Inbox widget is part of the Pro and Team plans. See Plans and pricing Coming soon.

Add them to a desk

Contacts, Inbox and Chat

  1. Open the desk.
  2. Click Add widget in the header.
  3. Click Contacts, Inbox or Chat. The widget appears on the desk.

In the Add widget menu, these three sit together in the People & messages column, in that order. You can also type a name, such as "inbox", into the search box at the top of the menu and press Enter to add the first match.

You can also press ⌘ K on a Mac or Ctrl K on Windows, type Add Contacts, Add Inbox or Add Chat, and press Enter. See The command palette and Add a widget to a desk.

Two more ways to add Chat

  • From the desk. Click Chat in the desk's quick actions in the header. PlexiDesk opens this desk's own conversation and adds it to the desk as a Chat widget. See Desk quick actions.
  • From Chat. In Office, open Chat, open a conversation and click its pin button to pin it to your current desk.

Both are explained step by step in Chat widget.

Email, from Mail

The Email widget is not in the Add widget menu, because it always starts from a message. In Mail, open the message, click Send to desk and pick the desk. See Email widget: keep an email on a desk.

Keep a whole client's correspondence together

The widgets work best side by side. On a desk for a client, a deal or a project:

  1. Add Contacts and add the people involved. Pick them from the suggestions where you can.
  2. Add Inbox and set its rule to the client's email address or company domain.
  3. Send the one email that matters to the desk from Mail, so it stays there.
  4. Click Chat in the desk's quick actions to put the desk's own conversation beside them.

For the full walkthrough, see Keep a client's people, mail and chat on their desk.

When you share a live view of the desk

When you share a live web view of a desk, these four widgets appear to viewers as placeholders. The people, mail and messages on them are not shown. See Share a live web view of a desk.

Still need help? Contact support at [email protected].