Summary
Mail is the shared inbox inside skillSYMS. This guide covers the setup an administrator does once in Mail Settings: adding mailboxes, choosing who works each one and setting response targets. It then shows how to read the counters in Mail each morning.
For working a conversation day to day, see Working a shared mailbox. For the template approval workflow, see Governed mail templates.
Who This Guide Is For
- Administrators and operations managers setting up shared mailboxes such as admissions@ or accounts@
- Academic and quality managers who want a response target on learner and compliance mail
- Team leads who check each morning what is still waiting for a reply
Prerequisites
Before you begin, ensure you have:
- Access to Mail Settings (executives, operations managers, academic managers, administrators and quality officers see it in the menu)
- Permission to manage mailboxes
- The skillSYMS user ID of each person who should work each mailbox
- A plan for getting inbound mail into skillSYMS, agreed with the skillSYMS team (see Step 1)
Tip: Split mailboxes by purpose, such as admissions, learner support, finance and compliance. Each purpose has different people and different urgency.
Step 1: Arrange Inbound Routing
Mail shows messages that reach skillSYMS. An address has to be routed to skillSYMS before its mail appears, so contact the skillSYMS team to arrange routing for the addresses you want to work here.
Until routing is in place, a new mailbox can send but will not receive. The inbox says so: “Nothing here yet. Inbound mail appears once a mailbox address is routed to skillSYMS.”
Google, Microsoft 365 and Zoho connections under Email provider show as Connect (coming soon). They cannot be used yet.
Step 2: Add a Mailbox
- Go to Operate → Mail → Mail Settings (
/sdp/mail/settings). - Under Mailboxes, click Add mailbox.
- Enter the mailbox address, for example your admissions address.
- Enter a display name. This is the name recipients see, such as Admissions Office.
You become a Manager of the new mailbox automatically, so it is never created with nobody able to open it.
Step 3: Choose Who Works the Mailbox
Membership decides which mailboxes a person can open, whatever their role. Someone with every mail permission and no membership sees an empty list.
- On the mailbox row, click Members.
- Under Who works this mailbox, enter the person’s User ID.
- Choose their Access:
| Access | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Viewer | Read only |
| Agent | Read, reply, change status and add notes |
| Manager | Everything an agent can do, plus rules, templates and membership |
- Click Add. Repeat for each person.
Step 4: Set a Response Target
- Under Response targets, enter a Name, for example General enquiries.
- Enter First response (minutes). For example, 240 is four hours and 480 is one working day of eight hours. The minimum is 15.
- Leave Business hours only ticked unless the mailbox is staffed around the clock.
- Click Add.
With business hours on, the clock counts working time only, by default 08:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday. A four-hour target on a message that arrives at 16:30 is due the next working morning, not overnight.
The clock starts when a message arrives and stops at the first reply. Targets you add on this screen apply across your mailboxes. If no target is set, the list shows “No targets set — conversations will have no SLA clock.”
Step 5: Publish the Templates Your Team Sends Most
Go to Operate → Mail → Mail Templates and create the three or four messages sent most often from each mailbox. Submit each for review, have a colleague approve it, then publish it. Staff can only send the published version. The templates guide explains each state.
Step 6: Read the Counters Each Morning
Open Operate → Mail. The counters above the conversation list tell you where to start:
| Counter | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| SLA breached | The response target has passed and nobody has replied yet | Reply first, even if only to acknowledge |
| SLA at risk | The first reply is due within the next hour | Pick these up next |
| Unassigned | Open conversations with no assignee | Check that each one has somebody working it |
| Assigned to me | Conversations assigned to you | Work through your own |
| Unread | Conversations you personally have not opened since the last message | Scan for anything urgent |
Use the View menu to filter the list: Unassigned, Assigned to me, SLA clock running, Snoozed, Starred and more. The Mailbox menu narrows the list to one mailbox.
Step 7: Keep Conversations Moving
- Set the status from the menu on each conversation: New, Open, Awaiting internal, Awaiting customer, Resolved or Closed. Sending a reply moves it to Awaiting customer on its own.
- Ask a colleague in an Internal note, which is never sent to the recipient. @mention them. If the conversation was waiting on the sender, it moves to Awaiting internal.
- Check the banner before replying. “Someone else is viewing this conversation” means a colleague is already there.
- Resolve when the sender has what they need. If they write again, the conversation reopens.
Optional: skillSYMS Support Access
Under skillSYMS support access, you can let skillSYMS support look into a problem. Choose What they may see (connection diagnostics only, message metadata, or mailbox contents) and For how long (1, 4 or 24 hours), then click Grant access. Each grant expires on its own. Without a grant, skillSYMS support cannot read your mail.
What Is Not Built Yet
- Assigning from the inbox. There is no assign button on a conversation yet. The Unassigned and Assigned to me counts reflect assignment made by routing rules, which are configured through the Mail API rather than a settings screen.
- Gmail, Microsoft 365 and Zoho connections, shown as coming soon.
- Automatic scheduled sends and follow-up reminders. Send later and Follow up if no reply appear in the composer but do not yet run on a schedule. Do not rely on them for time-critical mail.
- Separate response targets per mailbox on the settings screen.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- One catch-all mailbox: admissions, finance and learner support mail need different people and different targets.
- Adding a mailbox and expecting mail to arrive: arrange routing with the skillSYMS team first.
- Business hours off by default: a target that counts overnight turns the SLA breached counter red every morning, and people stop looking at it.
- Leaving a mailbox with one member: add at least two agents so it is covered during leave.
- Sending unapproved wording: publish templates for regulated letters instead of relying on drafts.
Verification Checklist
Before moving on, verify:
- Inbound routing is arranged for each mailbox you added
- Every mailbox has at least two members with Agent access
- A response target exists with Business hours only ticked
- The templates your team sends most are published, not just approved
- A member can open Operate → Mail and sees the mailbox in the Mailbox menu
- Your team knows to check SLA breached and SLA at risk first each morning
Next Steps
- Working a shared mailbox: statuses, notes and search operators
- Governed mail templates: the approval workflow in detail
- Shared inbox software: what Mail does, and what it does not do yet