# How do I read and answer the office's messages?

> Messages from the website, email and the customer portal: how to read them, how to reply and what you can do from one.

Last updated: 2026-10-23

**ErgoMail** (the icon in the top bar, or **Applications › ErgoMail**) gathers whatever is written to the office through three channels: the website's form, email and the customer portal.

| Filter | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| New · Awaiting reply | Anything unread or waiting for an answer |
| Assigned to me | What has been given to you |
| Replied · Archived · Spam | What is done, put away, or not meant for you |

The left-hand column starts with **Mailboxes**: **Office email** and, if you have one, **My email**; each box has its own list. ErgoWeb's forms and the customer portal have a section of their own, **From the website & portal**, in the office email only: they do not appear under **New** or **All**. The number in the top bar and on Home counts them together with the emails and takes you to them.

### How do I organise conversations with labels?

Each box has its own **Labels**, in the left-hand column: pressing one shows only its conversations, and pressing it again brings back all of them. You create and delete them under **Edit labels**, with a name and a colour; a label that is deleted leaves the conversations, which stay. In an open conversation, the label icon beside its status puts a label on or takes it off. The office email's labels are shared by everyone who sees it; the labels of your own email are yours alone.

### How do I reply?

A reply to an email goes out from the address of the conversation's box and can carry up to five files: inside the message those that fit, the rest as links with a lifetime. The files come from **From ErgoCloud** or **From the computer**; a file from the computer waits on your draft — only you see it — and with the sending it becomes the email's file; if the email is not sent within a day, it is deleted. A reply to a portal conversation stays in the portal, without files. **New message** writes to one recipient — a customer, a partner or an address. The office's emails have a daily limit, which starts again at midnight on the office's clock.

In **Cc** of an email reply or a new message you add more addresses, separated by commas. **Quote** puts the last email that came in under your reply, quoted. **Forward**, under an email that came in, opens a new message with its subject, its text and its attachments. What you write is kept as a **draft** — one reply per conversation and one new message per box, for you alone — and is waiting when you come back; it goes when it is sent or with **Discard draft**.

### What does «New» mean?

«New» is what **you** have not opened since its last email; when someone else in the office opens it, it stays new for you. A new email in the conversation makes it new again, while a conversation that was answered or archived is new for no one. The count in the top bar and the Home page's **Unread messages** card count the same way.

The **Not opened by anyone** figure above the list counts what nobody has opened yet in the box you are looking at; all the figures above the list are about that box. Inside the conversation, small lines show who opened it, who replied and who it was assigned to.

### What can I do from a message?

| Action | Needs |
| --- | --- |
| New offer from the message · a new version of an offer · saving the attachments to the project's files | the projects permission |
| A new customer from the sender | the contacts permission |
| An appointment from the message | the appointments permission |

Saving an attachment into the project's files makes no copy: the same file also shows in the project, marked **From email**, and counts once in the space. Whoever sees the project's content opens the file — not the email. **Remove from the project** takes the file out of the project only.

How the office's email works — the address, attachments, unwanted mail, emails that were not delivered — is in the article [How does the office's email work?](https://ergothiki.gr/help/office-email).

ErgoMail — emails, and messages from the website and from the portal — is seen by whoever holds the **View office messages** permission; answering also takes **Answer and manage office messages**:

| Permission | Office Owner | Office administrator | Project manager | Technical staff | Secretariat | Accounting | Website manager |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| View office messages | ✓yes | ✓yes | ✓yes | —no | ✓yes | —no | ✓yes |