# How TeamEmail works

The path a message takes, from arriving in a shared address to being closed out by the person who answered it.

TeamEmail sits on top of real Outlook mailboxes and adds the one thing a mailbox has never had: a way of saying who is dealing with what. Learn that idea and the rest of the app follows from it.

## Highlights

- **A mailbox is the container, a conversation is the unit of work.** You act on conversations, not on individual messages.
- **Nothing is anybody's until it is assigned.** An unassigned conversation in a shared address is the queue everyone assumes somebody else is working.
- **My work is a view, not a folder.** The mail still lives in its mailbox; My work only gathers what concerns you.
- **Done is not deleted.** Marking a conversation Done clears it from the working lists and leaves the mail where it was.
- **Notes stay inside the team.** A note sits in the conversation beside the emails, and the customer never sees it.

![The Open list, where every row carries the name of the person it is assigned to alongside its tags: a pinned quote reply assigned to Eleanor Whitfield tagged Quote, a compressor breakdown assigned to Callum Aitken tagged Urgent, a Sulzer pump callout assigned to Nadia Osei tagged Urgent, and a Hattersley warranty claim assigned to Sian Pritchard tagged Warranty and Urgent.](https://www.neuracrm.com/help/teamemail/getting-started/assignment-cropped.png)

*Every row says who has it. That name is what a plain shared mailbox cannot give you.*

## The path a message takes

1. **Arrives**: Mail lands in a shared inbox's Unassigned tab, or in your own mailbox.
2. **Assigned**: Someone takes it, or gives it to the person who should answer.
3. **Worked**: Notes for the team, replies from the shared address.
4. **Waiting**: Parked while the customer or a supplier has the next move.
5. **Done**: Off the working lists, kept on the Resolved tab.

A new message from the customer brings a Waiting or Done conversation straight back to Open, so nothing slips through while it's parked.

## Two ways of looking at the same mail

The sidebar is split for a reason. The lower half lists mailboxes, which is where mail physically sits. The upper half lists views, which are questions asked across those mailboxes.

| What you want | Where to look | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Everything waiting on me | My work | Gathers what is assigned to you or that you follow, across every mailbox |
| Anything you haven't read | Unread | Spans every mailbox you can see, assigned or not, leaving out archived and junk mail |
| What this address has received | a mailbox's Inbox | The real folder, in arrival order |
| What we have said | a mailbox's Sent Items | One record per address, whoever on the team sent it |

> **Note:**
>
> A conversation can appear in several of these at once. There is only ever one copy of the mail, so reading it in one place marks it read in the others.