Guest messages: one Inbox

Why	Keep every guest inquiry — emails and Guest Portal questions — in one window, so nothing gets lost.
Who	Administrators, front desk staff, and everyone who answers guests.
What you’ll get	You know your way around the Messages section: where conversations come from, how to filter the list, where an overdue response deadline shows up, and why the guest’s bookings sit right next to the conversation.
Limitations	This is a section overview, not a walkthrough: connecting the mailbox, the pipeline, and Portal questions each have their own article (see “See also”). The Inbox has no separate messengers — only the hotel mailbox and the Guest Portal.

The Inbox is the “Messages” section in the left menu of the PMS. Two streams meet in one window: guest emails to the hotel mailbox and questions guests send through the Guest Portal. Both arrive in the list on their own — there is nothing to copy across programs.

What lands in the Inbox

Two kinds of conversations:

• Guest emails — mail arriving at the hotel mailbox: a late check-in question, a request about breakfast, documents attached.
• Guest Portal questions — messages a guest sends about their booking through the portal.

Both kinds appear in the list on their own: a guest’s Portal question lands in the hotel’s Inbox with no extra steps.

Every conversation is a thread: the whole exchange on one question stays in one place. Guest messages carry their name and date; replies from the hotel are marked “YOU” with a “Sent” note. Attachments open right in the thread: a clickable image or a list of files to download — photos and PDFs, up to 25 MB per file. Alongside the exchange, the team keeps a journal: the thread was created, the stage changed, an owner was assigned. Internal notes live there too — the guest never sees them.

Where conversations come from

• The hotel mailbox. The Inbox receives mail from a mailbox you connect yourself. Connecting is a separate setup: the mailbox address, the IMAP and SMTP servers. How to connect it — in Connect the hotel mailbox. Until a mailbox is connected, a yellow banner — “Mail not connected” — hangs above the list with a “Set up mail receiving” button that leads to the “Mail and messengers” settings screen.
• The Guest Portal. A question about a booking, sent through the portal, arrives in the Inbox by itself — nothing to connect. This kind of conversation is covered in Questions from the Guest Portal.

The source is visible right in the thread — as an icon in the header: one for an email, a different one for a Portal question.

What the Inbox is not

• Not a messenger hub. Conversations arrive only from the hotel mailbox and the Guest Portal — messenger threads do not appear in the list.
• Not a live conversation. The Inbox works as a question → answer exchange: the guest writes, the hotel replies, the history stays in the thread. But it is not a second-by-second back-and-forth — a reply goes out once it is ready.

The list and its filters

The section screen has three columns: the conversation list on the left, the selected thread in the middle, the contact card on the right. With nothing selected, the middle shows a hint: “Select a conversation on the left”.

A list row carries the guest’s name, the date, the subject, a preview of the last message, and the stage — for example “New” or “In progress”. When a response deadline is missed, the deadline turns red in the row — with a clock icon and the number of days overdue.

To work through the list:

• Search — the “Search by subject, name, or email…” field.
• The “Channel” and “Active” dropdown filters above the conversations.
• Stage-group segments — “All / Active / Completed / Lost”. These are the groups of the six-stage pipeline: “Active” holds the working stages, “Completed” — conversations that ended in a booking, “Lost” — those without an outcome.
• Ownership segments — “All / Mine / Unassigned”: who is handling the conversation.
• The “Overdue SLA only” toggle. Every conversation has a response deadline — an SLA; 8 hours by default. Overdue conversations are marked in red in the list, and the toggle keeps only those on screen.
• The “Show OTA notifications” toggle — service notifications from channels.

The guest’s bookings next to the conversation

To the right of the thread sits the contact card: who is writing, and a “Recent bookings” block with dates, room type, status, and total. You answer with the context in view — who the guest is, when they arrive, what they booked — without opening the Planner. A guest asks about breakfast, and you answer from their booking, not in general terms.

A conversation can be linked to the guest profile — the “Linked to guest” block in the same column. What lives inside a booking is covered in Inside the booking card.

See also

• Connect the hotel mailbox — hook up the mailbox so guest emails land in the Inbox.
• Pipeline and owner: see every question through — the six stages, the owner, and the response deadline.
• Questions from the Guest Portal — how booking questions arrive and how to answer them.