This guide is for course providers and their team members using Inbox in the Admin dashboard. Use it to find a customer message or an enquiry from your contact form, reply, assign it to a team member and keep track of conversations that need attention. It also explains where customer replies and enquiries go, and when your team gets an email about them.
A conversation is a thread of messages with one contact. It can be linked to a request, application or another Cademy record. The same person can have several conversations about different matters.
Inbox is not a copy of every email your business sends or receives. It is separate from sent-email history and your own email mailbox. Sending a message does not itself approve a request, confirm a booking or prove email delivery.
Who Can See and Use Inbox Conversations
A System Admin can view the provider’s conversations and start a new conversation.
A Course Owner or Facilitator needs to be directly assigned as an owner of an existing conversation to access it through Inbox. A course assignment alone does not establish access to every related conversation.
If an expected conversation is missing, ask a System Admin to check its owner assignment. Do not rely only on membership of an assigned group to give a Course Owner or Facilitator access.
A conversation owner is a team member assigned to handle the thread. This is different from the customer taking part in it. Owner assignments also feed the notification process; they are not a guarantee that a particular person received an email.
Find a Customer Message or Conversation
Open the Admin dashboard and select Inbox in the main menu.
At the top of the conversation list, open the status filter. Choose Open for active conversations, Closed for closed conversations or All for both. The initial view is Open.
In Search, enter at least three characters from the contact’s name, email address or message text. Press Enter or select the search icon to run the search.
If you used Filter by conversation owner or Filter by starred conversations, clear those filters when you need a broader search. Remove selected owners from the owner filter; select the star filter again to turn it off.
Select Load More at the bottom when more conversations are available. The owner filter checks the conversations already loaded, so continue loading or remove that filter before concluding that nothing matches.
Select the intended conversation in the list. Check the contact’s name, existing messages and any related-record details before replying.
Opening a conversation marks its team-side unread notifications as read, including notifications for other team members. This is not a private, read-only preview. Use the conversation’s details to distinguish separate threads with the same customer.
The conversation shows messages in time order. If a message includes an available attachment, it appears under Attachments:; select its name or image to open it. Do not assume every file from an original email was retained. Inline images, missing files and attachment-processing failures need separate checking.
When Customer Replies and Unread Alerts Reach You
Replies can reach Inbox when an email uses Cademy’s conversation reply address. This is the address selected when you reply to that notification. It is not necessarily the address shown in From.
When replying from your own email service, use Reply on the relevant Cademy message and leave its reply destination unchanged.
Use the email address associated with your team account, or the provider’s configured contact email where appropriate. Customers should reply from the address on their contact record.
After sending, open the corresponding conversation in Cademy and check for the reply. If it is missing, search Inbox using the customer’s name or email address. If someone replied from an unrecognised address, also search for that address to check for a separate conversation.
If a reply comes from an address that does not match the conversation’s customer, a recognised team account or the provider’s contact address, Cademy can create a separate linked conversation for that sender. Forwarding an email to another person is not the same as adding them as a participant to the original thread.
If the received email’s actual reply destination is an external address, replies go there instead of through Cademy’s conversation routing. Some emails use the address in their template’s Send replies to field; conversation notifications supply their own Cademy reply address. Check the destination on the email you are replying to. See Create and Reuse Email Templates. Do not assume all replies to Cademy-sent emails appear in Inbox.
When a customer sends a message or reply, Cademy alerts the conversation’s owners. If the conversation has no owner, every System Admin on the account is alerted. If Cademy delivers the alert to your connected Admin dashboard, it does not email you. Otherwise, it emails you straight away, provided emailing is enabled. No later reminder email follows, so if you had the Admin dashboard open, look for the message in Inbox. The person who sent a message is not alerted about it.
When you reply in Inbox, the customer is emailed your message at the address on their contact record. Alert emails are still subject to email restrictions, and the Inbox success message is not proof that an email was delivered.
A Student Replied to a Reminder Email but You Got No Notification
Booking confirmations, reminders and other emails Cademy sends to customers use Cademy’s conversation reply address unless their template has a Send replies to address, so a reply is saved in Inbox. If you were not alerted, check these in order:
Open Inbox, choose All and search for the customer’s name or email address. The reply can be in a conversation of its own.
Check who owns the conversation. Only its owners are alerted; with no owner, System Admins are. Someone else may also have opened it first, which marks the alert as read for everyone.
If the reply is not in Inbox, check the email template for that reminder. If its Send replies to field has an address, replies go to that mailbox, not to Inbox. See Create and Reuse Email Templates.
If emailing is disabled on your account, alert emails are blocked too. See Why Is Emailing Disabled or Blocked on My Account?
How an Enquiry Message Reaches You, With or Without an Enquiry Type Tag
An enquiry is a message a customer sends from the Contact Us form on your public site or from a course page. Cademy saves each enquiry as a conversation in Inbox and alerts the selected team members.
For course-page enquiries, Cademy uses the first non-empty list: the course’s Admin Email Recipients, the account’s Admin Email Recipients, then the selected Enquiry Type’s team members.
Other enquiries use the Enquiry Type’s team members, then the account’s Admin Email Recipients.
If all applicable lists are empty, every System Admin is selected for an alert.
To change these lists, see Choose Who Gets New Booking Notification Emails. The team members chosen for an Enquiry Type, or for the course, become the conversation’s owners in Inbox.
Which Section or Course an Enquiry Email Is About When It Has No Tag
Enquiry alert emails sent to team members start with Re:, followed by the customer’s name and the start of their message. The Enquiry Type the customer chose shows as Subject in the Inbox conversation. The email shows the Contact email, the phone number if given, the Referring course when it was sent from a course page, and the message, with a link to open the conversation in Inbox.
An enquiry has no Enquiry Type when your contact form has no Enquiry Type choices. If it came from a course page, Referring course shows which course it is about. To ask customers to choose a subject, add choices under Contact form dropdown and pick who receives each one. See Update Your Business Profile on Your Minisite.
Reply to a Customer Message in Inbox
In the Admin dashboard, open Inbox, find the intended conversation and open it.
Read the existing messages and check the customer and related record. Treat the message box as customer-facing, not an internal team note.
Type your reply in the message box at the bottom. Review the text and any links before sending.
Select Send only when you intend to send the message.
Wait for the request to finish. When emailing is enabled, the interface reports The message has been sent. Return to the list and reopen the conversation to check that your message is saved.
The reply appears on screen before the sending request has finished. A visible message bubble alone is not proof it was saved. If the request fails or the result is unclear, keep a copy of your text and reopen the conversation before retrying, so you do not send a duplicate.
The saved conversation message and its email notification are separate. If emailing is disabled, the interface reports Message saved and email prepared but blocked. Resolve the restriction with Cademy Support; enabling emailing later does not deliver blocked messages automatically. See Why Is Emailing Disabled or Blocked on My Account?
Replying to a closed conversation reopens it. Closing a thread only tidies Inbox; it is not a way to prevent further replies.
Start a Conversation With an Existing Contact
This procedure requires a System Admin and an existing contact with an email address. It creates a separate conversation; search for an existing relevant thread first if you want to continue that discussion.
Open Inbox in the Admin dashboard.
Select New. The New Message page opens. You can also reach this page from a contact’s record: select Message there and the page opens with that contact selected.
Use Search for a contact... to find and select the existing contact. Check the name and email in the search result before selecting it. After selection, hover over the name to see its email address. Contacts without an email address are excluded from this selector.
Enter your message and review it for the selected contact. This form does not have a separate subject field or a preview step. The editor offers Mail Merge, but Cademy does not replace Mail Merge tags in an Inbox message, so type names and details yourself.
Select Send only when you want to create the conversation and request the notification.
After a successful request, Cademy opens the new conversation. Check its contact and saved message. If it does not open or the result is unclear, check Inbox before retrying.
The new conversation is initially assigned to the System Admin who created it. If another team member will handle it, change the conversation owner after checking the new thread.
The selector also offers Create new contact.... That opens fields for entering contact details, which is outside the existing-contact procedure above. Do not choose it just because a search did not find the person immediately, and do not assume it will always create a separate customer record.
Assign a Conversation or Enquiry to a Team Member or Colleague
Use a System Admin for this handover so access can still be checked after the owner changes. The owner control is not shown when the account has fewer than two users and groups in total.
Open Inbox in the Admin dashboard and select the conversation.
In the conversation header, select the people control labelled Assign owner. Do not use Filter by conversation owner above the conversation list; that only filters your view.
Search for the intended team member and select them. Each selection or removal applies immediately; there is no separate Save button.
Wait for Conversation owners changed. Reopen the conversation and check the selected owners.
Ask the intended team member to confirm that they can find and open the conversation. For a Course Owner or Facilitator, select the person directly rather than relying only on a group assignment.
Changing owners can change who can access the thread and who is considered for notifications. Keep an appropriate owner assigned. A non-System-Admin who removes their own direct assignment can lose access. An archived user shown on an old assignment is not proof they still have access.
Star, Close or Reopen a Conversation
Open the conversation in Inbox.
To mark it for attention, select the star icon labelled Star conversation. Use Un-star conversation to remove it. Check the saved state after the request completes.
To finish handling it, select Close conversation in the conversation header. Wait for Conversation closed.
To find it again, use the list’s Closed or All filter.
Open it and select Reopen conversation to return it to Open. Wait for Conversation open and check the list.
Stars and the open/closed state belong to the conversation, not just your personal view. Closing does not delete its messages, cancel an order, decline an application or remove the customer’s course access. A later reply can reopen it.
If the conversation includes request-handling controls, deciding whether to accept or decline the request is a separate task. Agree the booking details and follow Accept or Decline a Booking Request or Application; do not use Close conversation as a substitute.
If a Conversation or Reply Is Missing
Check that you are in the correct provider account. A System Admin can check whether the thread exists and whether its owners are correct.
In Inbox, choose All, clear owner/star filters, enter at least three relevant characters and run Search. Use Load More when available.
For an email reply, check its actual sender address and reply destination. A reply sent to an external address does not reach Cademy Inbox, and another sender address can create another thread.
If the page indicates that it is not receiving messages, reload the page. Save a separate copy of any unsent text first; do not assume an unsent draft is saved.
If sending was blocked or the result remains unclear, contact Cademy Support with the conversation URL, contact, time, sender and reply destination, plus the displayed error. Do not repeatedly send the same message.
For recorded outgoing emails, use Find Sent Emails and Check Delivery Status. Some conversation notifications are excluded from the contact’s ordinary Emails activity. A missing entry there does not prove that an Inbox message was not sent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Close conversation cancel a booking or decline a request?
No. It changes the conversation’s open/closed state. Use the separate booking or request controls for those decisions.
Can I start a new conversation as a Course Owner or Facilitator?
No. New conversations require a System Admin. You can use an existing conversation that you are directly assigned to and can access.
Where do customer messages go?
Messages and enquiries from customers, and their replies to Cademy emails, are saved as conversations in Inbox. The conversation’s owners, or System Admins if it has none, get an alert. A reply goes to another mailbox only when the email’s template has a Send replies to address.
Are replies in Inbox private notes for my team?
No. Treat the message box as customer-facing. Selecting Send is not an internal-note action.
Why can a customer have more than one conversation?
Each thread is separate. Different requests, records, newly started conversations or replies from a different email address can create separate threads.
Will every unread message also arrive by email after five minutes?
No. If Cademy delivers the alert to your connected Admin dashboard, it does not email you. Otherwise, it emails you straight away, provided emailing is enabled. No later reminder email follows. You are not alerted about a message you sent yourself.
Can a reply reopen a closed conversation?
Yes. Replying through Inbox or receiving an email reply can reopen it. Close is not a block on further communication.