Inbox
  • 31 Jan 2023
  • 6 Minutes to read
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Inbox

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Article Summary

Inbox consolidates conversations inside InVision, creating an easily consumable single source of truth for all design feedback. When it comes to collecting feedback on designs, it can be difficult for a designer to keep their feedback organized, remember where it came from, or know what feedback requires action. Inbox solves that problem.

To receive Inbox notifications for a specific prototype or board, you must be a collaborator on that document.

To launch Inbox, click the notifications bell icon at the top right of your dashboard.

The notifications icon will transition between three states:

Read: Greyed out indicator. This means the user has no unread comments on prototypes or boards.
Unread: White bell. This indicates that there are unread comments on a prototype that you're collaborating on.
Mentions: Badged indicator. The user has been mentioned in one or more comments via an @mention.

Prototypes and Boards in Inbox

Once you’ve launched Inbox, a panel will appear on the left:

At the top of the panel, you’ll see My Notifications, which shows all comments you’ve been @mentioned in, as well as comments on screens from prototypes you own.

Below My Notifications, you’ll see a list of prototypes and boards. Prototypes and boards appear in the list if they have unread comments or have had a comment posted within the last seven days. If there are less than 12 prototypes or boards that meet the above criteria, you’ll see any remaining prototypes or boards (including prototypes with read comments or sample prototypes/boards), if they exist. If a prototype or board has unread comments that are over 30 days old, it will not appear as active in Inbox.

Permissions

Within Inbox, you’ll be able see prototypes and boards that you are on either as an owner or collaborator. If someone @mentions you on a prototype or board and you don’t belong to that prototype or board, we will add you as a subscriber to it and it will then show up in your Inbox.

Inbox for Enterprise accounts

If you are looking at your Inbox inside an Enterprise space, we will only show prototypes and boards that belong to that Enterprise. Enterprise prototypes and boards that you’re subscribed to will only show up in your Enterprise space (not your personal space).

The "more" button in Inbox

The “more” button at the bottom of your Inbox pane (see the "+3 more" example below) displays all prototypes and boards that have not had any activity within the last 7 days. The number on the button will reflect the number of prototypes and boards that are not appearing in your “active” list.

If you click a prototype or board that is not in the active list, Inbox will add that prototype to the active list for the next 7 days. That means that if you then close out of Inbox and reopen it, that specific prototype or board will not appear in the active list unless it has met the proper criteria.

Conversations in Inbox

When you click on a prototype or board, the Conversation panel will slide out to the right, revealing a list of comment threads for the respective prototype or board. Comment threads are ordered by date, with the most recent comments at the top. Users will receive a badge when @mentioned or for any comment on a prototype where they are the screen owner. Prototypes and threads that have multiple mentions will get a badge, with a number indicating the mention count. If a prototype owner deletes the first comment in the thread, it will delete the entire conversation.

On a comment thread card, you’ll be able to see:

  • Commenters' avatars
  • The name of the screen
  • Text from the last comment
  • The first name of the first commenter and last commenter
  • The number of comments in the thread
  • How long ago the comment was made
invision-cloud-v6-inbox-comment-thread-card.gif

After selecting a specific conversation in the Recent Conversations list, you can filter comments by the following types:

  • All Types (default)
  • Comments
  • Notes (previously called Dev Notes)
  • Private Notes
  • Tour Points
invision-cloud-v6-inbox-filter-comment-type.gif
The filter you select will not persist between Inbox sessions and will always default back to All Types.

Viewing resolved comments in Inbox

You have the option to show comment threads that have already been resolved. Once you display resolved comments by clicking the Show Resolved checkbox at the bottom of the comment panel, you’ll see resolved comments inline with other comments, ordered by date.

invision-cloud-v6-inbox-show-resolved-comments.gif

Viewing a screen/board item panel in Inbox

Once you select a conversation, you’ll see a third panel of Inbox that shows the comment, the screen/board item, and the option to reply to or resolve the comment. You can edit or delete your comment, and prototype owners can edit or delete any comment.

If you click the thumbnail of the screen or board item within the third panel, you'll be redirected to the screen or board item in your console.

If the prototype owner deletes the first comment in the thread, it will delete the entire conversation.

Commenting and @mentions in Inbox

You can comment on an existing thread by clicking in the reply box. Notify someone else on the prototype or board by using our @mention feature. Simply enter @ along with their name or email address (or @project to notify everyone on the prototype) in your comment/reply.

Mention types at a glance

The following table serves as a quick-reference guide to who is notified when you use specific mention types:

Mention

Notification

No mention

Sends an email to the active screen owner—the person who last edited the screen—if they are still a member of the prototype

@project

Sends an email to all active collaborators of the prototype, including the Team plan owner.

@name or @email_address

Sends an email to the mentioned user and the person who last edited the screen.

Mention types in more detail

By default, the screen owner is always notified of comments (i.e., they are essentially @mentioned). You will not see @name appear in the reply box for the screen owner, but they will be listed in the “x person will be notified” area.

When you reply to an existing comment, Inbox automatically inserts an @mention for the last person who commented, as well as any other users that have been @mentioned. If you’d rather not notify a user with an @mention, simply delete the @mention before posting the comment.

When you type “@” into the comment field, Inbox will launch a modal containing a quick-access list of users you can mention. The list contents depends on your account type and role, as follows:

  • For Consumer accounts, the list includes your past and current collaborators.
  • For Enterprise users with Contributor role or higher, the list includes all members of the Enterprise.
  • For Enterprise users with the Reviewer role, the list includes only the members of the Enterprise who are collaborating on this document.

You can also enter @project to notify everyone collaborating on the prototype or board of your comment.

When someone is @mentioned, they will receive an email notification. If they reply to that email, they will automatically notify other users based on the previous comment as well as the screen owner.

Commenting on Boards in Inbox

Because Boards only have one comment thread per board item, there are a few differences between managing comments for boards and prototypes. Some of those differences include:

  • When deleting the first comment on a Board, Inbox will notify the user that the action will remove the Board from their Inbox list. This same action on prototypes will delete the entire conversation, even if there are additional comments.
  • Any Collaborator has the ability to delete any comment on a Board.

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