Centralize customer communication and manage help requests as a team
A Shared Inbox in Aptly is designed for customer-facing communication where multiple team members need visibility and accountability. These inboxes are typically used for support, help, or general inquiries, which is why Aptly treats shared inboxes as Help Desks.
Common examples include:
- support@
- help@
- leasing@
- maintenance@
- info@
Why Use a Shared Inbox in Aptly
Connecting a shared inbox allows your team to:
- Manage customer help requests in one centralized place
- Collaborate on conversations without forwarding emails or duplicating work
- Ensure no messages are missed, forgotten, or answered twice
- Tie inbound requests directly to contacts, properties, and workflows
- Track response history and accountability across your team
Because shared inboxes are primarily used when customers are asking for help or support, Aptly classifies them as Help Desks and applies help-desk style workflows and visibility.
What You’ll Do
1. Authorize the shared inbox
Grant Aptly access to connect your shared Gmail or Microsoft Outlook inbox.
2. Sync inbound messages
Aptly will pull recent messages so your team can view, reply, and manage conversations directly inside the platform.
3. Work from a shared help desk
Messages sent to the shared inbox will:
- Appear in a centralized inbox view
- Be visible to permitted team members
- Automatically associate with the correct contacts and records when possible
This allows your team to collaborate and resolve customer requests efficiently without leaving Aptly.
How Shared Inbox Visibility Works
- All permitted users can see messages sent to the shared inbox
- Replies are sent from the shared inbox email address
- Additional controls will allow you the ability to send the message from the sender’s name or the inbox name.
This ensures a consistent, professional customer experience and clear ownership of support communication.
⚠️ Compatibility Note
Only Google-hosted (Gmail) or Microsoft-hosted (Outlook 365) inboxes can be connected to Aptly at this time.
If your shared inbox is self-hosted or managed by another provider (such as GoDaddy), inbox syncing is not currently supported.
Aptly can only connect to Google-hosted (Gmail) or Microsoft-hosted (Outlook 365) inboxes that are true mailboxes with a username and password.
The following are not supported because they are not actual inboxes:
- Google Groups / Collaborative Inboxes
- Microsoft Teams inboxes or shared channels
These tools act as message distribution layers rather than real mailboxes, which prevents Aptly from securely authenticating and syncing messages.
If your shared email address is currently set up as a Google Group or Microsoft Team, you’ll need to convert it to a shared mailbox (or standard inbox) before connecting it to Aptly.
How to Connect Your Shared Inbox to Aptly
- Access your Settings by clicking on your Avatar and selecting My Profile, or clicking the Settings icon.
- Select Help Desk.
- Click Add Inbox and choose the Email Provider that you use. Aptly only supports Microsoft and Gmail. Follow the authentication steps for your provider and accept.
- Your Shared Inbox will appear above the Help Desk table below.
Managing Your Shared Inbox Settings in Aptly
When you connect your Shared inbox in Aptly, you’ll have several options to customize and manage how your inbox behaves. These settings help you personalize your experience and take advantage of Aptly’s AI-powered tools.
Customizing Your Inbox
Once your shared inbox is synced, you can configure the following settings:
Inbox Name
You can rename your inbox to make it easier to identify in any inbox picker throughout Aptly.
For example, you might name it “Leasing Inbox” or “Team Inbox”
Inbox Color
Choose a color to help visually organize your inboxes.
The color will display as a small accent around the inbox name.
Inbox Features
Depending on your account’s subscription plan, you may have access to additional AI and automation features.
AI Features (available with Premium)
If your account includes the Premium add-on, you’ll see several AI-powered options to streamline your inbox management:
- AI Summarization: Automatically generates a summary of long email threads so you can get the key points quickly.
- AI Categorization: Tags emails with topics based on keywords in the message body.
- AI Auto-drafts: Suggests draft responses based on the content of the previous email in the thread.
- AI Sentiment: Detects and displays the overall tone or mood of the sender’s message.
Auto-Categorization
All inboxes include Auto-Categorization, which uses your Topics to help organize incoming messages.
Emails can be automatically tagged using either Shared Topics (used across your team) or Personal Topics (specific to you).
Exclude from Auto-Sharing
Enable this setting if you do not want conversations from this inbox to appear on related cards or contacts.
This option is especially helpful for teams handling sensitive communication in an HR shared inbox or Billing inbox.
Exclude from Work Order Processing
This setting is relevant only for Propertyware customers.
If you don’t want emails from this inbox to be processed as work orders, check this box to exclude it.
Leaderboard
The Leaderboard shows inbox activity and task performance across your team, helping you understand workload and responsiveness at a glance.
When enabled on a shared inbox, the leaderboard displays all related inbox tasks on the Team Performance Dashboard. This is useful for monitoring team-wide queues, collaboration, and response volume.
Inbox Signature
When enabled, an Inbox Signature is automatically added to all outgoing messages sent from this inbox.
This is useful for:
- Ensuring consistent, professional messaging
- Including contact details, branding, or disclaimers
- Standardizing responses across shared inboxes
Click Edit to customize the signature content.
Send Emails From Inbox Name
When enabled, emails sent from this inbox will display the inbox name as the sender (for example, Leasing Team or Support).
The email address itself does not change.
This is useful when:
- Messages are handled by multiple team members
- You want to maintain anonymity for a dispersed or rotating team
- You prefer a consistent, brand-forward sender name
When disabled, emails will display the individual team member’s name instead.
The email address remains the same, but the sender name becomes more personal, which can be helpful for relationship-building and one-to-one communication.
Sharing and Access Options
Convert to Private Inbox
You can convert any shared inbox back into a private inbox.
This is helpful if you were temporarily assisting with a team member’s inbox and they have since returned, allowing you to restore the inbox to their ownership.
Permissions & Auto Assignment
Access (Permissions)
The Access section controls who has permission to read and respond to emails from this inbox.
You can grant access to:
- Individual team members
- Entire teams
Only users or teams with access enabled will be able to view conversations and send replies from this inbox.
Auto Assignment Rules
Auto assignment rules determine how conversations are assigned when they are first created.
Choose one of the following options:
- Manual
Conversations are created as unassigned and must be manually assigned by a team member.
- Specific User
All new conversations are automatically assigned to a selected user.
- Round Robin (All Users)
Conversations are evenly distributed across all users who have access to this inbox.
- Round Robin (By Team)
Conversations are distributed evenly across users within the selected team(s).
Assignment rules help ensure conversations are routed quickly, prevent overload on individual team members, and support consistent response times. Learn more about assignment rules here.
Connection Settings
Disconnect / Reconnect
- Reconnect: Use this option if you’ve recently changed your email password or notice that messages aren’t syncing. Reconnecting reestablishes the link between Aptly and your email provider.
- Disconnect: Only use this if you no longer plan to use this inbox within Aptly.
Delete
Deleting an inbox is irreversible. When an inbox is deleted, it is permanently removed from Aptly, including all associated assignments and comments on conversations.
Only users with the Delete permission enabled on their role can delete an inbox.
Saving Changes
After making any updates to your inbox settings, click Save to apply your changes.
This ensures that all your new preferences are active and ready to use.
✅ Tip: If you ever notice your inbox not syncing properly, try reconnecting first. This quick step often resolves most connection issues without needing to contact Support (help@getaptly.com).