skillSYMS Mail · Shared mailboxes
Every message. A clear status. A deadline.
A shared inbox tells you what arrived. It does not tell you who is dealing with it, or how long the sender has been waiting. Mail puts those answers on the first screen for admissions, learner support, finance and compliance mail.
Live in production. Mail, Mail Templates and Mail Settings sit under Operate → Mail.
Trusted by leading skills development providers
Where enquiries go to wait
Most providers run their front door through a handful of shared addresses. Everyone can see the messages, so everyone assumes someone else has answered them. Unread only means nobody on this computer opened it. Nothing in an ordinary inbox says how long a learner has been waiting, or whether the one reply that went out was the approved wording.
- Two staff members answer the same learner, with two different answers.
- A question that needs finance to confirm something sits with nobody.
- The enquiry that arrived at 16:30 on Friday is found on Tuesday.
- Five versions of the same results letter live in five drafts folders.
- When someone is on leave, their half of the inbox goes quiet.
What Mail shows your team
Unassigned and at risk, first
Counters for Unread, Unassigned, Assigned to me, SLA at risk and SLA breached sit above the list. At risk means the first reply is due within the hour.
Response targets that respect business hours
Set a first-response target in minutes. With business hours on, a four-hour target on a message that arrives at 16:30 is due the next working morning, not overnight.
A status, not just read or unread
New, Open, Awaiting internal, Awaiting customer, Resolved. Sending a reply moves a conversation to Awaiting customer on its own, and each row shows its reply-due clock.
Internal notes before you answer
A note is never sent to the sender. @mention a colleague to ask them to confirm something first, and the conversation shows that it is waiting on your side.
No double replies
When a colleague already has the conversation open, Mail says so: "Someone else is viewing this conversation."
Approved wording for the letters that matter
Mail Templates move from draft to review, approval and publication. The author cannot approve their own wording, and staff can only send the published version.
Set up. Work the queue. Keep the wording straight.
- 1
Add your mailboxes
In Mail Settings, add the addresses your teams work, such as admissions@ or accounts@. Routing their inbound mail into skillSYMS is set up with the skillSYMS team.
- 2
Decide who works each one
Add people to each mailbox as Viewer, Agent or Manager. Membership, not role, decides what someone can open.
- 3
Set response targets
Give a first-response target in minutes, with business hours on. The SLA clock starts when a message arrives and stops at the first reply.
- 4
Publish the templates
Draft the letters you send most, have someone else approve them, and publish. Staff choose from the published versions in the composer.
What this does not do yet
- Assigning a conversation to a named person from the inbox screen is not built 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 are not built. Those options show as "coming soon". Inbound mail reaches Mail once an address is routed to skillSYMS, and sending from your own domain needs that domain set up for sending first.
- "Send later" and "Follow up if no reply" appear in the composer, but they do not yet run on an automatic schedule. Do not rely on them for time-critical mail.
- Response targets set on the Mail Settings screen apply across your mailboxes. Separate targets per mailbox are not configurable on that screen.
- Mail is a shared inbox, not a helpdesk. It does not create tickets or tasks, has no AI triage, and the composer is plain text. Bulk messaging stays in the Communications Hub.
Questions providers ask
What is skillSYMS Mail?
Does it connect to Gmail or Outlook?
Can I assign a conversation to a colleague?
What does "SLA at risk" mean?
Will staff see mailboxes they should not?
Can skillSYMS staff read our mail?
How are templates controlled?
Talk to us about this
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