The team inbox
Read and answer your centre's shared emails, texts, calls, voicemails and portal messages together in one list.
Updated 18 October 2026
Why this exists
The front desk usually juggles a shared mailbox, a phone, texts and portal messages, and it is easy for a family to fall between them. The team inbox brings all of them into one list per inbox, so you can see a family's whole conversation in time order and reply from the right address.
The team inbox brings everything families send your centre into one place: emails to shared addresses such as your contact or accounts mailbox, text messages, calls and voicemails, and portal messages. Your own mailbox stays separate.
Before you start
- The team inbox must be switched on for your centre, and an admin must connect your Microsoft 365 mailboxes (see Setting up the team inbox). Until then the page says "The team inbox isn't switched on yet".
- You need to be allowed to see at least one inbox. Admins can choose which roles and people see each one.
- Open it from Mail > Team inbox.
The folders
- Each inbox you may see, with its unread count.
- Texts, Calls and Portal: those messages in your contact inbox.
- Assigned to me, Mentions, Snoozed and Closed.
Answer a conversation
- Open a conversation. Emails, texts, calls and portal messages show in time order, with your team's comments between them.
- Press Reply, Reply all or Forward. Your reply goes from the shared mailbox and lands in its Sent Items in Outlook.
- You have 10 seconds to Undo after you send.
- Press Close when it is dealt with, or Snooze it until later.
For a text conversation, a text box shows the number of message parts as you type. If the person replied STOP, you cannot text them; call or email them instead.
For a call, you see when it came in, its length and any voicemail to play. Call back puts the number into the dialler if you can place calls.
Good to know
- Up to 25 MB a file, 10 files and 35 MB in all on an email. Programs are refused.
- Sending to more than 5 people asks you to confirm.
- Summarise and Draft with AI work here too, with names hidden from the AI.
- Send to many opens Broadcast, for people who may send broadcasts.
- The keyboard shortcuts match the mailbox; press ? to see them.