The conversation pane is where you view and manage a conversation itself, whether it's an email or SMS thread. Switch your Inbox to Preview view (from the toggle in the top right) to see it alongside your conversation list, or open a conversation from Table view and it slides over the list instead.
This is where all the communication details come together: read the thread, take action, collaborate with your team, and keep everything organized.
Viewing the Conversation Thread
When you open a conversation, you'll see the full thread in this pane; every reply and internal comment tied to that conversation, in order.
Older versions of this pane showed AI Insights and Sentiment at the top of every thread automatically. That's changed:
- Sentiment now lives on the contact record instead of on each conversation. You won't see a sentiment indicator in the thread itself anymore.
- There's no more automatic summary sitting at the top of the thread. Instead, you can generate one on demand any time from the AI Assistant (see below).
- The reply suggestions at the bottom of a conversation aren't automatic either. If your inbox has AI features enabled, you'll see a row with a sparkle button and a few suggested-reply chips; click one to generate suggestions, then click a suggestion to drop it into your reply box. Nothing sends on its own, you still review and hit send.
Conversation Details
Just beneath the subject line, you'll still see tags showing the inbox and folder(s) a message belongs to (for example, the inbox name plus labels like your email provider's categories). These make it easy to tell where a message is being managed, especially if you work across multiple inboxes.
Click the chevron next to the contact's avatar to expand a quick-details row right in the conversation: Inbox, Assigned, Topic, Linked Card, and Messages (the message count). This is also where you'll find the conversation's status badge (like "Waiting"), the share icon, and the assignee avatar.
For the full picture, click the Details tab next to Conversation. It has its own set of sections you can expand or collapse: who's in the conversation, Locations, Topics, Attachments, Tasks, Cards, Events, a full History log of everything that's happened on the conversation, and a Knowledge section showing any knowledge base articles linked to it.
Conversation Actions
In the top-right corner of every conversation, you'll find a row of action icons:
✅ Archive (Done) — marks the conversation as done and archives it. Archiving is recommended over deleting: it keeps your inbox clean while preserving the conversation's history for that contact, location, or card.
🚩 Flag — highlights a message that needs follow-up or special attention. Flagged conversations are easy to find again from Mine > Flagged.
🪄 Create Card — creates a card directly from the conversation and links it back for context. Handy when, say, a resident emails about a maintenance issue that didn't come through the portal.
🕒 Snooze — temporarily removes the conversation from your inbox until a time or date you choose. It reappears automatically once that time passes.
🗑️ Delete — use only when you intend to remove a conversation. Prefer Archive (Done) when you want to clear the inbox while keeping the conversation available.
🚫 Mark as Spam — flags the message as unwanted and helps filter out similar messages going forward.
👁️ Mark as Unread — puts the conversation back into an unread state, useful as a visual reminder to revisit it.
☑️ Create Task — creates a task linked to this conversation without leaving the thread. New since the redesign; tasks you create this way show up under the Tasks section of the Details tab.
✨ AI Assistant — opens the AI Assistant panel for this conversation (see below). This replaces the old inline "Regenerate AI Summary" icon; summarizing is now one of several things you can ask the Assistant to do, on demand, rather than something that refreshes automatically.
⋮ Additional Options — the three-dot menu opens a few more tools:
- Reminder — schedule a follow-up reminder for yourself or your team.
- Move To — move the thread to a different folder.
- Extract to Knowledge Base — new option that turns the conversation into a knowledge base article for you to review before it's created.
- Print — print the thread.
- Print with comments — print the thread including internal comments.
- Sync conversation — manually refresh the thread if messages aren't updating properly.
AI Assistant
Click the sparkle icon (or press Option+Shift+A) to open the AI Assistant panel alongside the conversation. If it is unavailable, ask your administrator or Aptly Support to check feature availability, configuration, and permissions.
From the panel you can:
- Write a first draft, Draft a follow-up, Write a polite decline, or Make it professional to get help writing your reply.
- Create page to turn the conversation into a knowledge base page.
- Summarize this email, pull out Action items needed, Extract key dates, or Create task, all on demand.
- Or just type a question into Ask me anything at the bottom of the panel.
There's also a Knowledge tab in the same panel, so you can ask questions against your knowledge base without leaving the conversation.
Sharing and Collaborating
Instead of forwarding an email, use the share icon next to the assignee avatar. It opens a Conversation Shared With panel where you can invite a teammate to the conversation.
When you share a conversation:
- The recipient is notified and the conversation shows up under Following in their Mine section (this used to be called "Shared with Me"), with its full history and context intact.
- You can remove someone's access from that same panel at any time.
- A teammate who no longer needs updates can stop following the conversation from their end.
Assignments and Comments
Click the assignee avatar (or the empty assignee slot) to open the Assign panel, search for a teammate, and assign the conversation to them. Conversations can also be assigned automatically based on your Help Desk inbox's auto-assignment rules.
Click Comment at the bottom of the conversation to add an internal note. It opens a highlighted comment box with its own formatting toolbar (bold, italic, underline, emoji, links, attachments), so you can loop in a teammate without sending anything to the customer. Comments are visible only to your team.
Summary
The conversation pane is where the real work happens: reading, replying, assigning, sharing, and now asking the AI Assistant to help draft, summarize, or organize. Whether you're closing out a conversation, snoozing it for later, or creating a task or card from it, this pane keeps the full context and history in one place.
Related Articles
- Collaborating in the Inbox — share a conversation and add internal comments.
- Inbox Assignment & Ownership — assign ownership manually or automatically.
- Pop-Out Panel: Conversation Details & Related Cards — review contacts, history, tasks, and related cards.