Conversations

Conversations are collections of related messages exchanged between two or more NexJ CRM users.

You can add context to a conversation by associating it with a specific contact, company, household, or opportunity that you want to discuss. Afterwards the conversation history is visible in the Conversations tab for the associated contact, company, household, or opportunity and any replies to a message appear in those places as well. If you make a conversation private, only the conversation participants can view it the Conversations tab.

You can also create a conversation without any context that is just between you and another user as a chat.

When someone starts a new conversation with you or sends a message in a conversation in which you are participating, you receive an email or a pop-up notification, depending on how you configure your conversation alert preferences.

Viewing conversations

You can view all of your conversations, whether you are the sender or receiver, in the Conversations sidebar. To open the Conversations sidebar, click the Conversations button

in the toolbar. When you have unread messages, the Conversations button indicates the number of conversations with unread messages, for example

. To close the Conversations sidebar, click the collapse button

.

Conversations display in the Conversations sidebar according to their latest messages; the conversation with the most recent message is displayed at the top. To view older conversations, scroll down.

If there are more than three messages in a single conversation, only the three most recent messages are displayed. To expand the conversation and reveal older messages, click the More button. For longer conversations, continue clicking the More button until all the messages in the conversation are displayed. To collapse the conversation to its previous state, click the Less button. Expanding the conversation does not mark it as read.

For example, the following screenshot shows a single conversation that has four messages but only three of the messages are displayed. To display all of the messages, the More button must be clicked.

Conversation example with multiple messages

The following screenshot shows the same conversation after the More button has been clicked:

Conversation example after clicking More button

Starting conversations

To start a new conversation:

In the Conversations sidebar, click the Add button
at the top of the sidebar and fill in the required information.
In a contact's, company's, household's, or opportunity's Conversations tab, navigate to a specific contact, company, household, or opportunity and in the Conversations tab, click the Add button.

Starting a new conversation from a contact's, company's, household's, or opportunity's Conversations tab automatically sets the context of the conversation in the About field.

The New Conversation dialog includes the following fields:

Field or checkbox	Description	Required field
About	Associates a conversation with a contact, a company, a household, or an opportunity and makes it visible in the corresponding Conversations tab. The name of the associated contact, company, household, or opportunity displays below the participant names on the conversation message. If private view and edit security is specified for the associated contact, company, household, or opportunity, only the participant with view and edit security can see the name. To associate a conversation with a contact, a company, a household, or an opportunity, select an option from the About drop-down, then click Select to choose a specific contact, company, household, or opportunity to discuss.	No
Message	To send your message, you must enter text in the Message field.	Yes
Private to Participants	Makes a conversation visible only to conversation participants, when the Private to Participants checkbox is selected. If you associate a conversation with a contact, a company, household, or an opportunity and mark it as private, only the participants can see it in a corresponding Conversation tab. If you are added as a participant to an existing private conversation, you can only see messages that are sent after you join the conversation.	No
With	Allows you to select one or more participants for your conversation. To add participants, search for other users by typing in their last name or click the Select button and select one or more participants from the list.	Yes

Replying to conversations

Only participants can reply to messages in a conversation. You can reply to a conversation in the Conversations sidebar or from the Conversations tab for an associated contact, company, household, or opportunity, by entering text in the Send a message field and clicking Reply.

Replying to a conversation marks it as read, sends your message to all the participants in the conversation, and sends a notification to each participant.

Marking conversations as read

When you reply to a conversation it is automatically marked as read. To mark all unread messages within a conversation as read without replying to any of them, click the Mark as Read button

at the top of the conversation. The Mark as Read button is only available when a conversation contains unread messages.

If you have a lot of conversations that you are not replying to and you want to mark them all as read instead of marking them individually, click the More Actions button

at the top of the sidebar and select Mark All Read.

Conversations that you do not reply to, or do not mark as read, will continue to be counted by the Conversations button in the toolbar, for example

.

Filtering conversations

You can filter conversations to show only conversations with a selected participant. In the Search conversations with field at the top of the Conversations sidebar, search for a participant by last name or click the Select button

and select a participant from the list.

Refreshing conversations

You can refresh the Conversations sidebar to display new messages at any time by clicking the Refresh button

.

When you refresh the sidebar, all expanded conversations collapse to display only the three most recent messages. If you apply a filter to the Conversations sidebar, refreshing it does not clear the filter.

Inviting participants to conversations

You can invite additional participants to an existing conversation even if you did not start the conversation. Newly invited participants cannot see messages that were sent before they joined the conversation, but they are able to view and reply to new messages in the conversation.

To invite a new participant, click the Invite button

and search for a user by last name or select one from the list. Current participants are not displayed in the list.

When new participants join the conversation, all current participants are sent a conversation notification.

Leaving conversations

Leave a conversation to keep your copy of the conversation history but stop receiving new messages by clicking the Leave button

at the top of the conversation. You can only leave conversations that you did not start and that have three or more participants. When you leave a conversation, all other participants receive a notification and you cannot reply to, invite others to, or receive new messages from that conversation. After you leave the conversation, you can delete it to remove your copy of the conversation history.

Deleting conversations

Delete a conversation to remove only your copy of the conversation history from your Conversations sidebar by clicking the Delete button

. Other participants continue to see the conversation in their own Conversations sidebar. If you delete a conversation that is associated with a contact, a company, a household, or an opportunity, it remains visible in the associated Conversations tabs. You cannot reply to deleted conversations. If other participants send new messages after you delete a conversation, you will receive the new messages and can reply to them. The previously deleted messages will still be gone.

Managing conversation alerts

You can configure your conversation alert preferences to receive email notifications or pop-up notifications when you receive new messages or conversations.

To manage your alerts, click the More Actions button

, select Manage Alerts, and select or clear the corresponding checkboxes to set your alert preferences.