Communications overview

Communications is your firm’s one inbox for everything a client touches — email, text message, the client portal, and internal team notes. One screen, one history per client, with Assure Pro doing the triage and drafting.

Open Communications from the sidebar to get there.

[Screenshot: Communications inbox with the three-column layout]

How to stop juggling channels

In most firms, client conversation history is scattered across Outlook, a personal phone, ticket emails inside another tool, sticky notes on a desk, and a team chat. Communications folds all of that into one client-centered stream:

Email you send or receive through your connected Gmail or Outlook account
Text messages sent and received from your firm’s business number
Portal messages from clients
Internal team notes that clients never see

Anything you say to a client — or anything they say to you — sits in their thread, no matter which channel carried the message.

How to pick a channel

Every message goes through one of four channels. Each shares the same thread but reaches the client a different way.

Channel	When to use	What clients see
Email	Most outside messages — letters, document requests, formal replies	Branded email from your firm; their reply arrives in their inbox
SMS	Quick nudges, “your refund just hit”, deadline reminders	A text from your firm’s business phone number
Portal	Document back-and-forth and secure messaging	A message inside their portal with a notification
Internal	Team-only notes — “Sarah said she’ll review on Friday”	Nothing. Clients never see internal messages.

Pick the channel for each message from the dropdown at the bottom of the thread. SMS only appears if your firm has set up a business phone number in Settings → SMS.

How to triage with the filter rail

Every message that comes in is automatically sorted into a bucket. The left rail lets you focus on one bucket at a time.

Bucket	Meaning
All	Everything, no filter.
Needs Action	A client is waiting on something from you.
Awaiting Reply	You sent something and the client hasn’t responded yet.
FYI	No action required — receipt confirmations, “thanks”, routing copies.
Internal	Internal-only conversations.
Unlinked (team view only)	Conversations not tied to a specific client yet — for example, an unknown sender.

Click a filter and the list reloads to show only matching threads.

How to switch between your inbox and the team’s

Above the filter rail, owners, admins, and partners see a Mine | Team toggle:

Mine — conversations where you’re the assignee or a participant.
Team — every conversation across the firm. Adds the Unlinked filter.

Staff users only see Mine. Owners, admins, and partners see both.

How threads are grouped by client

Threads aren’t listed individually — they’re grouped by client. The middle column shows:

One row per client with active conversations
A preview of the latest message (sender + snippet)
Colored dots for each channel that’s been used
An unread count badge
The triage bucket pill for the latest message

Pick a client to open their unified stream in the right pane — every message across every channel, in order.

Below the client groups, an Unlinked section (team view) shows conversations not yet attached to a client. Open one and tag it to a client from the context panel.

How the conversation pane is laid out

The right pane is the conversation. From top to bottom:

Element	Purpose
Header	Client name, entity type, intent badge, and the context toggle
Thread summary	A one-paragraph recap of the whole thread
Message stream	Color-coded bubbles, date dividers, and a “new messages” divider
Suggested actions	Dashed chips above compose — “Send template”, “Mark resolved”, and more
Compose form	Channel picker, body, AI Draft button, template picker, and attachments

Messages from your firm appear on the right. Messages from the client appear on the left. Internal notes have their own color and a “Team only” tag.

[Screenshot: Unified stream with header, summary, messages, and compose form]

How AI helps you in the inbox

Surface	What it does
Intent badge	Sorts incoming messages into a category — Document, Question, Payment, Scheduling, Urgent, FYI, Follow-up
Suggested actions	Click a chip to request a document, schedule a call, create a task, send a template, or mark the thread resolved
AI Draft	Click the sparkle button to draft a reply from the thread context — then Insert, Refine (Shorter / More formal), or Regenerate
Thread summary	A short recap of the whole thread — handy when picking up a months-old client mid-season

The AI only suggests. Nothing sends without you clicking Send.

See AI drafts & intent for the full AI workflow.

How live updates work

The inbox updates on its own. New incoming messages arrive without a refresh:

The client list re-orders so the freshly-active client jumps to the top.
If you’re already viewing that client, the new message appears in the stream.
A “N new” pill at the top of the client list lets you pull in new groups manually.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
`j`	Next client in the list
`k`	Previous client in the list
`i`	Toggle the client context drawer
`Esc`	Blur the current input
`⌘ K`	Command palette — search clients, start a new conversation
`⌘ Enter`	Send the compose form

Keyboard shortcuts are paused while you’re typing in any input. Press Esc first to step out, then use the shortcuts.

Permissions

Action	Who can do it
Open Communications	Anyone with permission to view communications
Send a message on any channel	Anyone with permission to send communications
Edit, archive, or manage templates	Anyone with permission to send communications
See the Team view	Owners, admins, and partners

Staff users always see the Mine view. They can’t see other team members’ inboxes.

Inbox & triage — layout, filters, scope, and keyboard nav.
Channels — when to use email, SMS, portal, or internal.
AI drafts & intent — the sparkle workflow and intent badges.
Templates — reusable message bodies.
Attachments & context — attaching documents and using the client drawer.