> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tied.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Inbox settings

> Every setting on an existing inbox, what it changes, and which channels show it.

Connecting a channel creates an inbox. Everything about how that inbox *behaves* afterwards lives here.

Open **Settings → Inboxes**, click an inbox, and you get a row of tabs. Which tabs appear depends on the channel — a web chat inbox has seven, eight once your account's agent-bots flag is on, and it can never reach nine. An SMS inbox has four tabs on a native number and five once it is connected through Twilio. This page covers all of them.

## Which tabs you see

| Tab | Appears on |
| - | - |
| **Settings** | Every inbox |
| **Collaborators** | Every inbox |
| **Business Hours** | Every inbox except voice |
| **CSAT** | Every inbox except voice |
| **Pre Chat Form** | Web chat only |
| **Widget Builder** | Web chat only |
| **Configuration** | Web chat, email (your own IMAP/SMTP), SMS and WhatsApp via Twilio, WhatsApp Cloud, LINE, API, voice |
| **Bot Configuration** | When agent bots are enabled on your account |
| **Account Health** | WhatsApp Cloud API only |

<Note>
  An inbox connected to **email through Google or Microsoft** has no Configuration tab. The provider
  holds the mail settings, so there is nothing here to configure — reconnect the account instead if
  something is wrong.
</Note>

***

## Settings

The general tab. Some fields are on every channel; most are not.

### On every inbox

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Inbox Name" icon="tag">
    What your team sees in the sidebar and in the conversation header. On web chat this is labelled
    **Website Name**.

    **This is internal, with one exception.** Your customers do not see it — *unless* you turn on
    **Use inbox name and avatar for the bot** below, in which case it becomes the name your bot
    replies under on web chat.

    Name inboxes after the route in, not the team: `Support — Apple Messages` ages better than
    `Tier 1`, because teams get reorganised and channels do not.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Channel Icon" icon="image">
    Read-only on this tab — there is no uploader, despite the name suggesting one.

    The image shown beside the inbox in the dashboard — the sidebar, the inbox list and the
    conversation header.

    <Warning>
      **On most channels your customer never sees this image.** It reaches a customer in exactly
      three places: the **web chat widget**, the **CSAT survey page**, and — where **Use inbox name
      and avatar for the bot** is on — as the bot's avatar on web chat.
    </Warning>

    Everywhere else the brand image your customer sees belongs to the platform, and is set there:

    | Channel | Where the customer-visible image comes from |
    | - | - |
    | **Web chat** | This field |
    | **Apple Messages** | The brand assets you submit to Apple during [registration](/channels/apple-messages/registration) — Apple applies them to the conversation |
    | **WhatsApp** | Your WhatsApp Business profile in Meta. Nothing in Tied sets it |
    | **Facebook, Instagram** | Your Page or account picture. On connect Tied copies it *in* to fill this field — the flow runs inwards, not outwards |
    | **SMS, MMS, email, Telegram, LINE** | There is no business avatar on the channel to set |

    Use your real brand mark at a square aspect ratio regardless: it is what your team looks at all
    day, it is what web chat and the CSAT page show, and it is the fallback your bot replies under.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Enable channel greeting" icon="hand">
    *"Auto-send greeting messages when customers start a conversation and send their first message."*

    Note the second half of that sentence. The greeting fires **after the customer's first message**,
    not when they open the widget — so it never talks to an empty room.

    With it on, you also set **Channel greeting message** (placeholder: *"Acme Inc typically replies
    in a few hours."*).

    A greeting-only conversation is [never billable](/pricing/resolutions), whatever happens next.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Help Center" icon="book-open">
    Attach a [portal](/help-center/portals) to this inbox — every inbox except voice. Once attached,
    agents can [insert an article](/inbox/insert-article) into a reply from the composer, and on web
    chat, the widget can also surface articles to the customer directly.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

### Web chat only

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Website Domain" icon="globe">
    The domain the widget runs on. Used for display and for the help-center link; it does **not**
    restrict where the widget can load — that is **Allowed Domains**, on the Configuration tab.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Welcome Heading and Welcome Tagline" icon="message-square">
    The two lines at the top of the widget before a conversation starts. Defaults are
    *"Hi there !"* and *"We make it simple to connect with us…"*.

    Rewrite both. The heading is the single most-read string in your widget, and the default reads
    like a default.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Widget Color" icon="palette">
    Drives the launcher and the customer's own message bubbles. Pick the colour your site already
    uses for primary actions, not your logo colour — the widget should look like part of the page.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Set Reply time" icon="clock">
    *"This reply time will be displayed on the live chat widget."* Three choices, and only three:

    * **In a few minutes**
    * **In a few hours**
    * **In a day**

    This is a **displayed promise, not a measured one** — nothing enforces it and nothing checks it
    against your actual response time. Set it to what you can honour on your worst day, not your
    best. If you want the real thing measured and escalated on, that is an
    [SLA policy](/automation/sla).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Enable email collect box" icon="mail">
    *"Enable or disable email collect box on new conversation."*

    Asks an anonymous visitor for an email address at the start of the conversation so you can reply
    later if they leave. Distinct from the [pre-chat form](/channels/web-chat/pre-chat-form), which
    is a fuller form shown before the conversation opens at all — turn on one or the other, not both.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Allow messages after conversation resolved" icon="rotate-ccw">
    *"Allow the end-users to send messages even after the conversation is resolved."*

    On: the customer can reply to a resolved thread and it reopens. Off: they must start a new one.

    **Leave it on.** Forcing a new conversation loses the context of what was just discussed, and a
    reopen inside 30 days
    [voids the resolution and credits you](/pricing/resolutions) — which is the honest outcome when
    the problem was not actually solved.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Enable conversation continuity via email" icon="mails">
    *"Conversations will continue over email if the contact email address is available."*

    The customer closes the tab; your reply reaches them by email; their email reply lands back in
    the same thread. Needs an email address on the contact — so it works with the email collect box
    or a pre-chat form, and does nothing without one.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Features" icon="toggle-right">
    Four independent toggles:

    | Toggle | Effect |
    | - | - |
    | **Display file picker on the widget** | Customers can attach files |
    | **Display emoji picker on the widget** | Emoji keyboard in the composer |
    | **Allow users to end conversation from the widget** | Adds an explicit end-conversation control |
    | **Use inbox name and avatar for the bot** | Bot replies under the inbox identity instead of the bot's own |

    Turn off the file picker if you are in a regulated industry and do not want unsolicited documents
    arriving in a support queue.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

### SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram and API

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Lock to single conversation" icon="lock">
    *"Enable or disable multiple conversations for the same contact in this inbox."*

    On: one contact has exactly one thread, forever — new messages always land in it. Off: a new
    message after a resolution starts a fresh conversation.

    **On matches how these channels feel to the customer.** A phone number is one continuous thread
    in their Messages app; splitting it into six conversations on your side is an internal artefact
    they never see and cannot understand when you reference it.

    The trade-off is reporting: with it on, one very long thread is a single conversation, so
    per-conversation metrics get coarser.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

### Email and web chat

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Sender name" icon="user-round">
    *"Select the name shown to your customer when they receive emails from your agents."*

    A **Friendly** / **Professional** radio group, with a live preview of what the customer sees as
    you switch between them. Friendly sends as the person: *Priya from Northwind*. Professional sends
    as the company: *Northwind Supply*. An optional business-name input sets what the company side
    reads, if you want it to differ from the account name.

    Use Friendly when you want replies to feel personal and you are happy for customers to learn who
    handled it. Use Professional when your team rotates, agents use pseudonyms, or you do not want a
    customer replying directly to one person.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Collaborators

Who works this inbox, and how conversations reach them.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Agents" icon="users">
    *"Add or remove agents from this inbox."*

    **This is an access control, not a preference.** An agent who is not on an inbox cannot see its
    conversations at all. Adding someone here is how you grant access to a channel; removing them
    revokes it.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Enable auto assignment" icon="shuffle">
    *"Enable or disable the automatic assignment of new conversations to the agents added to this
    inbox."*

    On: a new conversation is handed to an available agent immediately. Off: it lands unassigned and
    someone has to claim it.

    Off is the right choice when a specialist queue needs a human to triage before work is handed
    out. On is right almost everywhere else — an unassigned conversation has no owner, and the
    thing with no owner is the thing that ages.

    See [Assignment policies](/automation/assignment) for how the agent is chosen.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Auto assignment limit" icon="gauge">
    *"Limit the maximum number of conversations from this inbox that can be auto assigned to an
    agent."*

    The ceiling on concurrent auto-assigned conversations per agent. Once an agent is at the limit,
    new conversations go to someone else — or wait, if everyone is at their limit.

    Set it deliberately. Too high and one agent silently accumulates a queue nobody can see; too low
    and conversations sit unassigned while agents idle. Start near what your team actually handles at
    once and adjust from the numbers rather than from intuition.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Business Hours

Every channel except voice. Covered in full on [Business hours](/channels/business-hours) —
it is a bigger surface than one tab suggests, and it feeds SLA measurement and campaign timing as
well as the widget.

***

## CSAT

*"Automatically trigger CSAT surveys at the end of conversations to understand how customers feel
about their support experience. Track satisfaction trends and identify areas for improvement over
time."*

| Setting | What it does |
| - | - |
| **Enable CSAT** | Turns the survey on for this inbox |
| **Display type** | How the survey renders in the thread |
| **Message** | The prompt shown with the form. Placeholder: *"Please enter a message to show users with the form"* |
| **Survey rule** | Send the survey only when the conversation **contains** / **does not contain** any of the labels you pick |

<Warning>
  **CSAT surveys are sent only once per conversation.** So on an inbox with
  **Lock to single conversation** on, a contact with one permanent thread is surveyed once, ever.
  If you want recurring feedback on those channels, turn the lock off or drive the survey from a
  [campaign](/campaigns) instead.

  **Resolving outside the channel's messaging window sends nothing.** On WhatsApp, Instagram and
  Messenger, resolving a conversation after its 24-hour window has lapsed does not send a survey at
  all — Tied logs an internal activity note instead, silently, with no error to flag it.
</Warning>

The survey rule is how you avoid surveying people you should not. Exclude conversations labelled
`spam`, `billing-dispute` or `outage` and your score measures support quality rather than the
weather.

A negative CSAT response
[voids a billed resolution retroactively and credits you automatically](/pricing/resolutions), with
no time limit and no claim to file. See [CSAT](/inbox/csat).

***

## Pre Chat Form

Web chat only. Covered in full on
[Pre-chat form](/channels/web-chat/pre-chat-form).

***

## Widget Builder

Web chat only. Covered in full on
[Widget builder](/channels/web-chat/widget-builder).

***

## Configuration

The credentials and connection details. What is here depends entirely on the channel.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Web chat — Messenger Script" icon="code">
    *"Place this button inside your body tag."*

    The script tag carrying **your own website token and base URL**. Copy it from here rather than
    from documentation — the one in the docs is an illustration and will not connect to your account.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Web chat — Allowed Domains" icon="shield">
    *"Add wildcard or regular domains separated by commas (leave blank to allow all), e.g.
    \*.tied.dev, tied.com."*

    **Blank means the widget iframe can be embedded on any site.** This sets the browser's
    Content-Security-Policy `frame-ancestors` directive — it controls where the widget can be
    *embedded as a page*, not who can call the widget API with your token. Anyone who views your page
    source can still read the website token and call the API directly from elsewhere;
    [identity verification](/channels/web-chat#identity-verification), not this field, is what
    protects account data. Fill it in to stop casual embedding, but do not treat it as an access
    control.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Web chat — User Identity Validation" icon="shield-check">
    Two separate toggles, and the difference matters:

    * **Enable User Identity Validation** — *"With this key you can generate a secret token that can
      be used to verify the identity of your users."* Turns the mechanism on and gives you the key.
      Verified and unverified visitors are both still accepted.
    * **Enforce User Identity Validation** — *"If enabled, requests that cannot be verified will be
      rejected."* Unverified visitors are turned away.

    **Enable first, verify your signing works, then enforce.** Enforcing before your server is
    signing correctly locks out every customer at once.

    Without verification, a visitor can claim to be anyone — so the agent correctly refuses to
    discuss an account. See [Identity verification](/channels/web-chat#identity-verification).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="API — Inbox Identifier" icon="key-round">
    *"Use the `inbox_identifier` token shown here to authentication your API clients."*

    The identifier your server presents when it creates contacts and conversations on this inbox.
    See [API channel](/channels/api).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="API — Webhook URL" icon="webhook">
    Where Tied calls you when something happens on this inbox. **API-inbox only** — web chat's
    Configuration tab has no webhook field; its equivalents are Messenger Script, Allowed Domains and
    User Identity Validation, above. Distinct from
    [account-level webhooks](/api-reference/webhooks/events), which fire for the whole account, and
    distinct from the callback URL on Twilio and LINE inboxes below — that one runs the other way, a
    URL you paste *into* the provider rather than one Tied calls.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Email — Forward to Email" icon="forward">
    *"Start forwarding your emails to the following email address."*

    The address to forward your support mailbox to. Set the forwarding rule at your mail provider;
    Tied cannot create it for you.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Email — IMAP and SMTP" icon="server">
    For mailboxes not connected through Google or Microsoft. See
    [IMAP and SMTP](/channels/email/imap-smtp) — including the ordering constraint that catches
    people out: *"To enable SMTP, please configure IMAP."*
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="WhatsApp — API Key and webhook token" icon="message-circle">
    **API Key** — *"This API Key is used for the integration with the WhatsApp APIs."*

    **Webhook Verification Token** — *"This token is used to verify the authenticity of the webhook
    endpoint."*

    **Sync Templates** — *"Manually sync message templates from WhatsApp to update your available
    templates."* Templates sync on their own; use this after approving a template at Meta when you
    do not want to wait. *"It may take a couple of minutes to update."*

    An inbox connected by embedded signup shows **Reconfigure** instead, which reopens Meta's flow.
    See [WhatsApp](/channels/whatsapp) and [Templates](/channels/templates).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Twilio, LINE" icon="plug">
    A **read-only** callback URL — the address to paste into the provider's own console (the Twilio
    console for a Twilio number, the LINE Developers console for a LINE Official Account) so it can
    reach Tied. It runs the opposite direction from the Webhook URL above: this is a URL *you* hand to
    the provider, not one Tied calls.

    It is not a credentials panel. The Account SID and Auth Token, or the Channel ID, secret and
    token, you supplied when connecting are not shown or editable here — this tab has nothing to
    rotate a credential with.

    **Telegram has no Configuration tab at all.** Its bot token is set once, at connection time, and
    there is nothing further to view or change on this page afterwards.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Bot Configuration

Appears when agent bots are enabled on your account. Attaches a bot to this inbox and sets how it
hands over. See [Agent bots](/automation/agent-bots).

***

## Account Health

WhatsApp Cloud API inboxes only, and read-only — not WhatsApp connected through Twilio or 360dialog.
Meta's own view of your number:

| Field | Why you care |
| - | - |
| **Display phone number** | The number customers see |
| **Business name** and **verified** status | Whether the green verified badge shows |
| **Display name status** | A rejected display name blocks sending |
| **Quality rating** | Meta's assessment from blocks and reports. A fall here precedes a limit cut |
| **Messaging limit tier** | How many unique customers you can message in 24 hours |
| **Account mode** | Sandbox or live |

<Warning>
  **Check this tab before you blame Tied for WhatsApp delivery problems.** A dropped quality rating
  or a reduced messaging tier is imposed by Meta, shows here first, and no setting on the Tied side
  will work around it. See [WhatsApp](/channels/whatsapp).
</Warning>

***

## Deleting an inbox

Deleting an inbox deletes **its conversations and its messages** along with it. Contacts survive,
because they belong to the account rather than the inbox.

<Warning>
  **There is no undo.** If you are disconnecting a channel temporarily, remove the credentials or
  take every agent off it instead — the history stays and you can reconnect.
</Warning>

## Next

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Business hours" icon="clock" href="/channels/business-hours">
    Availability, the out-of-hours message, and what it feeds.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Pre-chat form" icon="clipboard-list" href="/channels/web-chat/pre-chat-form">
    What to ask before a conversation opens, and what it costs you.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Widget builder" icon="palette" href="/channels/web-chat/widget-builder">
    Appearance, position and launcher for the web chat widget.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Channels" icon="radio-tower" href="/channels">
    Connecting a new one.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>


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