Manage your shared inbox efficiently with Notion
Many small businesses and startups rely on shared inboxes to manage emails like leads from potential clients visiting their website, support tickets, or even administrative emails such as invoices. It’s a cost-effective and straightforward solution—several team members share access to the same email account, taking turns to respond or dividing tasks based on email type.
While this setup is simple, it’s not without challenges.
The challenges of a traditional shared inbox
Shared inboxes can quickly become chaotic, especially as your team grows or email volume increases. Here are some common issues:
- Lack of accountability: It’s not always clear who is responsible for replying to which email, leading to confusion or duplicate responses.
- Missed emails: Emails marked as read by one person may be overlooked by others, increasing the risk of dropped communication.
- Security risks: Sharing a single email account among multiple people can create vulnerabilities. Double-factor authentication is often not set up for shared inboxes, reducing the security of your email account.
Why use Notion as your shared inbox?
If your team already uses—or plans to use—Notion for collaboration, why not take it a step further and manage your shared inbox there too?
By routing your emails into Notion with Slap, you can build a system that’s simple, budget-friendly, and secure. Slap creates one Notion page per email thread, keeping conversations organized in the same way they appear in your inbox.
Here’s how using Slap to manage your shared inbox in Notion addresses common challenges:
- Clear ownership: Assign emails to specific team members so everyone knows who’s responsible for what.
- Customized organization: Use Notion databases to categorize emails by type, priority, or department, directing each email to the right place.
- Efficient responses: With Slap, specific users from your Notion workspace can reply to emails directly from Notion without needing access to the shared inbox. This allows them to stay focused in Notion and manage their assigned tasks seamlessly.
- Transparent status updates: Track the status of each email (e.g., “In Progress,” “Awaiting Reply,” “Resolved”) with Notion properties.
- Peace of mind: With emails stored in Notion, nothing gets lost—even if someone forgets to follow up.
How to set up Slap for your shared inbox in Notion
Using Slap to manage your shared inbox in Notion is simple. Here’s how to get started:
Connect Slap to your email account
Sign up at Slap and link the email account you want to use as your shared inbox. Slap will automatically forward incoming emails into your chosen Notion database, with one Notion page created for each email thread.
Create a Notion database for your inbox
Design a database in Notion to receive your emails. Use properties like:
- Assignee: To designate the team member responsible for each email.
- Priority: To rank the urgency of the email (e.g., high, medium, low).
- Status: To track progress (e.g., “Unassigned,” “In Progress,” “Resolved”).
- Email type: To categorize emails (e.g., lead inquiry, support ticket, invoice).
Use labels in your inbox to send emails to the right Notion database
With Slap, you can add labels in your email account to automatically send emails to the right Notion database. For instance:
- Assign a “Support” label to route support tickets to your support database.
- Use a “Finance” label to direct administrative emails, like invoices, to your finance database.
- Apply a “Leads” label to incoming inquiries and send them to a database for potential clients.
This simple system ensures that emails are organized as soon as they arrive, reducing manual work and saving time.
Control who can reply to emails
With Slap, you can decide exactly who in your Notion workspace has the ability to reply to emails. Instead of sharing access to the shared inbox, authorized users can respond directly from Notion using their own accounts. This not only simplifies workflows but also enhances security by limiting direct access to the email account.
Benefits of using Slap to manage your shared inbox in Notion
By bringing your shared inbox into Notion, you create a system that’s:
- Organized: Emails are no longer lost or forgotten. Everything is categorized and easy to track.
- Efficient: Assigning responsibilities and tracking progress saves time and reduces duplicate efforts.
- Collaborative: Your team can work together directly in Notion, with tools to assign tasks and add notes to each email.
- Secure: With fewer people accessing the original email account and features like replying from Slap, your setup is far safer.
- Budget-friendly: No need for expensive shared inbox software—Slap lets you leverage tools you already have.
Conclusion
Shared inboxes can be a great way to keep communication simple and accessible for small teams—but they can also create inefficiencies and security risks. By using Slap to manage your shared inbox in Notion, you maintain the budget-friendly simplicity of a shared inbox while solving its biggest pain points.
Ready to simplify and secure your shared inbox? Discover how Slap can help you today.
Got questions or need help getting started? Feel free to reach out at laura@getslap.co.