Inbox

The inbox shows direct messages sent to your connected Instagram and Facebook accounts, and what your automations sent back.

Your first reply, step by step

1. Connect an Instagram or Facebook account under Channels.
2. Open Inbox in the menu. New conversations show up under Open.
3. Press a conversation to open the thread.
4. Look at the badge at the top: 14 h left to reply means you can answer. Reply window closed means you have to wait until the person writes again.
5. Type in Write a reply, or press the bookmark button for a saved reply, and press Send. It goes out as your account.
6. Press Close when the conversation is done. A new message from the person opens it again.

When you reply, automations in that thread wait for 30 minutes, so the person does not get a bot answer in the middle of your talk.

Conversations and replies

Each person has a thread, named after them. When someone writes and the thread has no name yet, Postfjord asks Instagram for their name and username, or Facebook for their name. Until Meta has approved Postfjord, it only answers for people with a role on our app, so other threads show a number for now. Postfjord asks again at most once a week, the next time the person writes.

Messages your automation sent are marked automated, so you always know what was automatic and what a person wrote. When someone taps a button, the thread shows Tapped: and the button's text.

The list has four views, each with a count:

• Open: every conversation that is not closed.
• Mine: open conversations assigned to you.
• Unassigned: open conversations nobody has taken.
• Closed: conversations someone closed.

The 24 hour window

Meta allows a free reply only within 24 hours of the person's last message. The thread shows how many hours are left, like 14 h left to reply. When the time is up, it shows Reply window closed, and the reply box and saved replies lock until the person writes again.

Someone who only commented, and got a DM from an automation, has not written to you yet, so no window has opened. The thread says Waiting for their reply, and you can answer as soon as they write.

Assigning and closing

Assign a thread from the menu in the thread header: Assign to me, a member of the workspace, or Unassigned. The first person who replies in an unassigned thread gets it by itself.

Close a thread when it is done. Any new message from the person opens it again, and it stays with the same person on the team. Reopen brings it back by hand. In Chat settings, at the top of the Inbox, Close all conversations assigned to me clears your list in one click.

Automation pause

When a person on the team replies in a thread, automated messages in that thread wait for a while, so two voices never talk at once. The thread shows Automation paused until 14:32 with a Resume now button. Press it to let automations go on at once. Otherwise they go on by themselves when the time is up.

The length is set in Chat settings under Pause automation after a human reply: Off, 15, 30, 60, 120 or 240 minutes. The default is 30 minutes, and only the owner can change it. A button the automation already showed still works during the pause, because the person is pressing it on purpose.

Automation per conversation

The Automation on button in the thread header switches automations off for this one conversation. It then says Automation off. Use it when a person on the team takes over for good. Press it again to switch automations back on.

If the person asked you to stop, by writing STOP for example, the thread shows Opted out of automation, and automations cannot be switched back on for them. You can still reply yourself.

Tags

Tag a thread from the chips under the header: search, pick, or type a new name and pick Create with that name to make a tag on the spot. Tags are set up in Chat settings under Tags, with a Folder and a Color. The Contacts screen filters by them, and automations can add, remove and check them.

Contact panel

The Contact button in the thread opens a panel about the person:

• Email, collected by an automation, entered by the team or from a signup form. The panel says which.
• Fields: the contact fields you set up in Chat settings (text, number, date, date and time, yes or no, or a list). Type a value and press Save. A birthday can be written like 14 March or 1990-03-14.
• Tags.
• Last automation: the automation they went through last.
• Clicked links: the links from your automations they opened.
• Open in Contacts opens the person on the Contacts screen.

In workspaces with postmail (in testing), Email list shows if the person joined your list: Not asked, Waiting for confirmation, Confirmed or Unsubscribed. Ask to confirm sends them a confirmation email. Mark as agreed is for an address the team typed in, and only when the person said yes to your emails, for example in person. Save the email first: the list status is for the saved address.

Delete contact is for when a person asks you to delete their data. Press it, read what goes, and press Delete for good. It deletes the whole conversation, the person's comments on this channel, planned automation steps and their email details. When Mailchimp is connected, the address is deleted there too and cannot be imported again. It cannot be undone. If the person writes again, they come back as a new contact.

A contact that came in with an import and never wrote to you shows Imported, no messages. They can get your emails, and you can message them once they write to one of your accounts.

Saved replies

Saved replies are written in Chat settings under Saved replies, each with a Title and a Text. In a thread, open them with the bookmark button next to the reply box, or type / in the empty box. Pick one and it lands in the box for you to change and send. {name} in a saved reply is replaced with the person's first name.

Badges

Next to the reply window badge a thread can show:

• Opted out of automation: the person wrote STOP or similar.
• Automation paused until ...: a person replied here, and automation goes on by itself.
• Needs a human: Claude was answering, and the person asked for a person or asked something Claude could not answer.
• Waiting for email: an automation asked for the email and is waiting for the reply.
• Waiting for an answer: an automation asked a question and is waiting for the reply.
• Claude answering: an automation's Claude step is answering in this thread.
• Last automation skipped: ...: why the most recent automated message did not go out, until the next one does.

System lines

When an automation would have answered but did not, the thread gets a small grey line saying why: the 24 hour window had closed, a person was replying, the person opted out, the hourly send cap, Meta asked us to slow down, the default reply's hours, and more. The full list is under Automation, "Why did it not send".

A message that was a reply to your story shows Replied to your story with a link to the story. A mention shows Mentioned you in a story. A person who came through an ig.me or m.me link shows Opened your link with the code.

Unread messages

A small dot next to Inbox in the menu, and on the Inbox icon on a phone, shows that a conversation has a message nobody on the team has opened or answered yet. It goes away when an owner or editor opens the conversation, when you or a teammate answer it, when a keyword automation answers it, or when it is closed. It stays after your default reply ("we will get back to you") and after a Claude answer that hands the conversation to a person, because those still need you. It is the same for the whole team: once one person has opened a conversation, the dot goes away for everyone.

New message sound

The bell in the inbox header plays a short tone when a new message arrives while the tab is open. It is set per device and off by default.

Notifications

Postfjord emails you from hello [at] postfjord.com when a new conversation is waiting and nobody has picked it up (to the owners and editors of the workspace, at most once an hour per conversation), when someone assigns a conversation to you, and when an automation collects an email address (to owners and editors). Each email links straight to the conversation. Turn them off under Account > Emails from Postfjord > Inbox.

FAQ