title: “Contact inbox”

This guide covers the Contact Us module. If your gallery has not switched it on (the Owner does that in Settings → Extensions), this page will not match what you see — skip it for now.

Contact inbox

For gallery staff. When a visitor fills in the message form on your gallery’s website, the message lands here: the Contact screen in the sidebar, headed Messages. This guide covers where those messages come from and what you can do with each one: read it, reply, mark its progress, and delete it.

There are two ways to reply. Reply here writes and sends the reply inside CartonCrew, from your gallery’s name via CartonCrew, and the visitor’s answer comes back to the same message, where everyone with access to the inbox can see the whole conversation. Reply by email opens your own mail program instead; you send it from there, CartonCrew keeps no copy, and that conversation carries on in your own mailbox.

Before you start

The inbox is the Contact Us extension. A gallery has it switched on from the start. If there is no Contact entry in your sidebar, an admin can check Settings → Extensions and turn Contact Us on.

The Contact screen has two tabs. Messages is the inbox this guide covers. Inquiries holds the questions visitors ask about one specific piece (see below).

Owners and admins always see both tabs. Anyone else on staff needs the Contact Inbox permission to see Messages, and the Website Manager permission (with the Studio website) to see Inquiries, which an owner or admin gives under Settings → Organization → Users. The Contact sidebar entry shows if you can see either tab.

Where the messages come from

Messages come from the form on your website’s Contact page. That form only exists once the page is published:

Open Studio Site in the sidebar, then the Pages tab.
Open the Contact card (How to reach you. Shown at /contact.).
Fill in Heading, Text and, if you like, Phone. The phone number is shown on the page; the email address you type in Email is not shown, so it cannot be harvested by spammers. The form is the way in.
Press the card’s save button (it reads Save followed by the page name, here Save Contact), then tick Published.

A published Contact page shows a form headed Send us a message with Name, Email, Phone (optional) and Message, and the same form appears again at the foot of your Visit page. The visitor presses Send message and sees Thank you — your message has been sent.

When a message arrives, the gallery’s owners and admins are also sent an email about it. The message is saved first, so if that email ever fails, the message is still waiting in the inbox.

Spam is held back before anything is saved: a hidden trap field that only bots fill in, a limit on how often one visitor can send, and, when it is set up for your site, an “are you human” check.

Messages about a particular artwork, sent with the Inquire button on a piece, are a different thing. They go to the Inquiries tab of the same Contact screen (Contact → Inquiries), not to Messages.

Reading the inbox

Open Contact in the sidebar. Messages are listed newest first, one card each. With nothing in it yet the screen says No messages yet.

The inbox checks for new messages by itself about once a minute while you have it open, and again as soon as you come back to the tab. You do not need to reload the page.

Each card shows:

The sender’s name and email address, and the date and time it was sent.
The phone number, when the visitor gave one, shown as (503) 555-0142. Press it to call from a phone or a computer set up for calls.
A yellow Notification email not sent. note, when the email telling the gallery about this message did not go. The note gives the reason. The message itself is saved; it is only the alert that is missing, so nobody may have seen it yet.
The message itself, exactly as typed.
When AI is available for your gallery, a few tags (a priority such as high priority, a category such as general or spam, and a sentiment), an AI summary: line, and a Suggested reply. The AI is a convenience: a message it could not read is still saved, just without the tags.

Replying here, inside CartonCrew

On the message, press Reply here. An editor opens inside the message, already holding the Suggested reply when AI wrote one (empty when it did not). Format it with the toolbar as you would an email.
Want it worded differently? Use the AI buttons under the editor: Regenerate (a fresh draft), Shorter, Friendlier or More formal, or type what you want into Ask AI to change… (for example mention we are closed on Mondays) and press Ask AI. The AI reads the whole conversation so far and your current draft, and replaces the draft in the editor. The AI never sends anything: nothing goes until you press Send.
To let colleagues see what you sent, tick them under Send a private copy to. The list is your gallery’s owners and admins; nobody is ticked to start with. Each person you tick gets their own email headed Copy of reply sent to (the visitor). The visitor never sees who was copied: their email is addressed to them alone.
Press Send. A toast says Reply sent. The email goes from your gallery’s name via CartonCrew, with the subject Re: and the visitor’s subject, and below your reply it quotes the visitor’s original message.

When the visitor replies to that email, their answer comes back into the same message (see The conversation below). Each conversation has its own private reply address, so a reply can only ever land in the message it answers.

Replying by email, from your own mail program

On the message, press Reply by email. Your mail program opens with the visitor’s address and the subject Re: your message filled in. If there is a suggested reply, it is already in the body for you to edit.
Read it, change what you like, and send it from your mail program.

To use the suggested reply somewhere else, press Copy under it. A toast says Reply copied.

Reply by email and Reply here are on every message that has a usable sender address, whether or not AI wrote a draft. A reply sent by email is not recorded in CartonCrew, and the visitor’s answer goes to your own mailbox.

The conversation

Once a reply has been sent with Reply here, the message shows Show conversation. It lists, oldest first: the visitor’s original message, every reply sent from CartonCrew (who sent it, who was privately copied, when, and whether it was sent), and every reply the visitor sent back.

When the visitor replies:

their reply is added to the conversation;
the message’s status goes back to In progress, even if it was Resolved;
the message shows a 1 new reply badge (and the top of the inbox shows the total) until someone opens the conversation;
the person who sent the last reply, and everyone copied on it who can still open the inbox, get an email saying New reply from (the visitor). Open Contact → Messages to read it and reply; do not reply to that notification.

A reply that came from a different address than the original message says Sent from a different address than the original message, and one that failed the email sender checks says Unverified sender; treat those with care, as they may have been forwarded or forged. Quoted earlier emails are trimmed from a visitor’s reply where CartonCrew can recognize them, and replies are shown as plain text. Sent replies cannot be edited or deleted afterwards; the conversation is a record. Attachments are not kept: a reply that had one says 1 attachment not shown, so ask the visitor to send it another way if you need it.

Deleting a message deletes its conversation too.

Keeping track: status

Each card has a status menu on the right with three choices: New, In progress and Resolved. Every message starts as New. Change it as you go; the choice is saved straight away and everyone with access to the inbox sees the same status. There is no separate “assigned to” field, so agree among yourselves who picks up what.

Deleting a message

Use this for spam, tests, or a message you do not need to keep.

Press the ✕ on the right of the card.
Your browser asks you to confirm: Delete the message from “name”? This permanently removes the submission. It cannot be undone.
Press OK. A toast says Message deleted.

Deleting cannot be undone. A visitor who sends a message is also added to Patrons, with Inquiry as how they reached you. Deleting the message here does not remove them from Patrons.

The Edit contact form button

Owners and admins see an Edit contact form button at the top of the inbox. It sets up Subject options and a How did you hear about us? question. Those settings belong to a different, older style of contact form. The form on your gallery website does not have a subject or a “how did you hear” question, so changing them has no effect on what your visitors see. Leave them alone.

Other staff with Contact access see Only an admin or owner can change the contact form. in its place, because only an owner or admin can save it.

When it goes wrong

A visitor says they sent a message and it is not here. Check that the Contact page is published: an unpublished page has no form, and the website refuses messages for it. Then check Contact → Inquiries, in case they used the Inquire button on a piece instead.
You use the visual editor on your Contact page. If CartonCrew has switched the visual editor on for your gallery (Studio Site → Pages → Contact → Open visual editor), the converted page includes a Contact form block holding the message form; move it where you want it. If you remove that block, the form still appears after your other blocks, so the Contact page always has one. The Visit page keeps its Get in touch section with the form either way.
A red toast when the inbox opens (Could not load submissions, or the server’s own reason). The inbox could not be read. Reload the page; if it keeps happening, tell support.
A red toast after changing a status (Could not update, or the server’s reason). The change was not saved, and the menu still shows the old status. Try again.
A red toast after deleting (Could not delete, or the server’s reason). The message was not deleted. Try again.
A visitor sees Could not verify you are human — please try again. The human check on your site did not pass. Nothing was saved; they can try again.
You were not emailed about a new message. The email goes to the gallery’s owners and admins. Check that at least one of them has a working email address. The message itself is always in the inbox, and a message whose email did not go carries the Notification email not sent. note with the reason.
A red toast after saving Edit contact form. Only an owner or admin can save it; the toast says Only an organization admin or owner can change the contact form. Nothing was saved.
A red toast after pressing Send (The reply could not be sent. Nothing was sent; your draft is still here.). The mail service did not take the email. Your draft is still in the editor; try again in a moment.
A red toast after ticking someone to copy (You can only copy active owners and admins of this organization. Nothing was sent.). That person is no longer an active owner or admin. Untick them and send again.
An AI button says AI is not available. AI is off for your gallery or not on your plan. Write or edit the reply yourself and press Send.
Too many attempts. Sending and the AI buttons are limited per person (30 sends and 40 AI changes in 15 minutes). Wait the time the toast gives.
The visitor says they replied, and nothing came back. Only replies to an email sent with Reply here come back to the inbox. A reply to an email you sent with Reply by email went to your own mailbox.
There is no Contact entry in the sidebar. Either the Contact Us extension is off (see Before you start) or you do not have the Contact Inbox permission. Ask an owner or admin.