Reviewing email drafts as a team

On a mailbox set to Drafts for approval, the agent writes every reply and a person sends it. On a mailbox set to Auto-reply, the agent sends on its own until a limit stops it — then it writes a draft and waits. Either way the draft lands in the Inbox, and this page is how a team clears them: who sees them, the four ways to answer one, what happens when two people open the same draft, and what each label means.

Reply modes and auto-reply limits are set per mailbox; see Pick the agent and how it replies.

Where drafts show up #

A conversation with a draft waiting carries Draft waiting in Primary, and the Drafts tab lists every waiting draft as one table, grouped by mailbox, oldest first.

The mailbox select narrows the table to one mailbox when the channel filter is Email. When nothing is waiting you see No drafts waiting.

The draft card #

Open a thread with a draft and the card sits between the header and the transcript, headed Draft waiting for approval.

Top to bottom:

• The chip — AI draft v1, Rewritten v2, Rewritten with note v3 or Edited by {name} v2 — and, on a rewrite, by {name}: who asked for it.
• Held because {reason}. on the right, when an auto-reply was held by a limit rather than by the mailbox's mode.
• Note to the agent: “…” when the current revision was rewritten with a note.
• The draft text.
• Approve & send, Edit, Rewrite, Discard, and the line Sends as {mailbox} to {customer}. so you always know which address will send and to whom.
• Versions (n), when earlier revisions exist.

Below the card, Reply by email lets you write your own reply instead; see Email threads.

Four ways to answer a draft #

Rewrite with a note, or just try again #

Rewrite opens a small panel: Tell the agent what to change. Same knowledge, same voice — your note as the instruction. Tap a chip (Shorter, Warmer, More formal, Offer a call) to add it to the note, or type your own — mention the refund policy and keep it to three lines is the placeholder's example. Rewrite with this note needs a note; Just try again sends none.

The rewrite is written by the same agent that wrote the first draft, with its own instructions and persona, working from the customer's mail and the current draft, with your note as the instruction. It reshapes the reply; it does not go back to the knowledge base to research the answer again. If the facts are wrong rather than the wording, fix the text with Edit, and fix the knowledge for next time.

A rewrite becomes the new current revision: the chip reads Rewritten with note v3 (or Rewritten v2), by {name} names you, and your note shows under the heading. The revision it replaced moves into the version trail, and in the transcript its bubble is marked Replaced by a newer draft.

Edit by hand #

Edit turns the text into a box. Then:

• Send edited reply sends what is in the box, from the mailbox. If you changed nothing, the stored draft goes.
• Save draft stores your wording as a new revision — the chip becomes Edited by {name} v2 — and sends nothing: Draft saved. Nothing was sent. It is only enabled once the text differs from the draft.
• Cancel throws your changes away and shows the stored draft again.

If a rewrite or a colleague's save lands while you are editing, your box keeps your text; the check on send protects you (see When the draft changed under you).

The version trail #

Versions (n) under the buttons opens the earlier revisions, oldest first: the chip label with its number, when it was written, the note it was written from in quotes, and the first two lines of its text. The current revision is not in the list — it is the card. The trail keeps the last ten revisions.

The transcript tells the same story: each replaced draft is a bubble marked Replaced by a newer draft, the current one Draft — not sent, and once something goes out, Sent by email. A draft nobody sent because a person replied instead reads Not sent — a person replied instead; a discarded one, Discarded — not sent.

What the chips mean #

The number is the revision: it goes up by one on every rewrite or saved edit, so v3 means two things have been done to the agent's first draft. by {name} beside a rewrite chip says who asked for it.

Held because… #

On a mailbox set to Auto-reply, a draft exists because something stopped the agent from sending. The card says Held because {reason}., and the Drafts tab shows the same reason under Why it is waiting.

See Limits on auto-reply for what each setting does.

Two people, one draft #

Opening a thread that has a draft takes a short review lock on it. It lasts five minutes, is renewed every two minutes while you have the thread open, and is released when you move to another conversation or leave the page. The lock is what stops two people polishing, and sending, the same reply.

While a colleague holds the lock:

• the row in the list says {name} reviewing on its right edge, and so does Reviewing on the Drafts tab;
• Send on the Drafts tab is greyed out;
• the card shows {name} is reviewing this draft with a Take over button, and Approve & send, Edit, Rewrite and Discard are greyed out.

Take over asks for the lock again. It succeeds once the other person's lock has lapsed — they moved on, or five minutes passed without them keeping it. While theirs is fresh, the banner stays. If an action slips through anyway, the server refuses it with {name} is reviewing this draft.

A lock that cannot be taken for any other reason never blocks you: the card stays usable, because a lock must not also stop the mail going out.

When the draft changed under you #

Every send carries the revision number you were reading. If the draft moved on in between — a colleague rewrote it, saved an edit, or the customer wrote again and the agent drafted a fresh reply — the send is refused and the card reloads with the new revision: This draft changed — review the new version. Nothing is sent until someone approves the version that is actually there. The same check applies to Send on the Drafts tab.

Reviewers per mailbox #

By default every admin is notified when a draft is waiting. A mailbox can name its reviewers instead, on Channels → Email, the mailbox's Automation tab, under Reviewers.

Tick the people who watch that mailbox and choose Save automation. From then on they get the notification when a draft is waiting in that mailbox, and admins who are not ticked do not.

Leave the list empty to go back to notifying every admin. Reviewers can be members, not only admins; being a reviewer does not change what else they can do. Reviewers decide who is told, nothing more: every draft is visible to everyone on the Drafts tab and in Primary, and anyone can send one.

After you send #

• Approve & send and Send edited reply send from the mailbox, and the agent keeps the thread: the customer's next mail gets a new draft (or an automatic reply, on an Auto-reply mailbox). The conversation leaves Primary and the Drafts tab.
• Reply by email — your own words, not the draft — also drops any waiting draft (its bubble reads Not sent — a person replied instead), and the agent steps back on the thread for the mailbox's quiet hours. See Email threads.
• Sent replies sit in the mailbox's own Sent folder, with the mailbox's signature under them.

Troubleshooting #

Related #