# How TeamEmail works

The path a message takes, from arriving in a shared address to being closed out by the person who answered it.

TeamEmail sits on top of real Outlook mailboxes and adds the one thing a mailbox has never had: a way of saying who is dealing with what. Learn that idea and the rest of the app follows from it.

## Highlights

- **A mailbox is the container, a conversation is the unit of work.** You act on conversations, not on individual messages.
- **Nothing is anybody's until it is assigned.** An unassigned conversation in a shared address is the queue everyone assumes somebody else is working.
- **My work is a view, not a folder.** The mail still lives in its mailbox; My work only gathers what concerns you.
- **Done is not deleted.** Closing a conversation clears it from your list and leaves the mail where it was.

![The TeamEmail sidebar beside the Open list, where every row carries the name of the person it is assigned to alongside its tags: a compressor breakdown assigned to Callum Aitken tagged Urgent, a Sulzer pump callout assigned to Nadia Osei tagged Urgent, a Hattersley warranty claim assigned to Sian Pritchard tagged Warranty and Urgent, and a Bosch Rexroth cylinder rebuild assigned to Graham Whitfield tagged Quote and Parts.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/teamemail/getting-started/assignment.png)

*Every row says who has it. That name is what a plain shared mailbox cannot give you.*

## The path a message takes

1. **Arrives**: Mail lands in a connected mailbox, personal or shared.
2. **Assigned**: Someone takes it, or gives it to the person who should answer.
3. **Worked**: Replies go out from the shared address, not from a personal one.
4. **Snoozed or answered**: Later parks it until it is due back; a reply moves it forward.
5. **Done**: It leaves the working list and stays in the mailbox.

## Two ways of looking at the same mail

The sidebar is split for a reason. The lower half lists mailboxes, which is where mail physically sits. The upper half lists views, which are questions asked across those mailboxes.

| What you want | Where to look | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Everything waiting on me | My work | Gathers what is assigned to you or that you follow, across every mailbox |
| Anything nobody has read | Unread | Spans every mailbox you can see, assigned or not |
| What this address has received | a mailbox's Inbox | The real folder, in arrival order |
| What we have said | a mailbox's Sent Items | One record per address, whoever on the team sent it |

> **Note:**
>
> A conversation can appear in several of these at once. There is only ever one copy of the mail, so reading it in one place marks it read in the others.