How-toRelay

Use Relay Email and WhatsApp

Triage shared Email, create and queue an Email draft, and use an already connected user-owned WhatsApp inbox within the current safety boundary.

Last updated 2026-08-20 8 min read

These workflows update a shared Email thread, create a durable Email draft and queue it for delivery, or send through the signed-in user’s already connected WhatsApp account. Each action has a real side effect, so confirm the organization, mailbox or connection, recipient, and content before submitting it.

Before you begin

Before either workflow, you need a confirmed, signed-in account and a completed account profile with both first and last name. The platform onboarding gate runs before Relay.

For Email, you need a current organization-administrator membership, access to an active assigned mailbox, and authorization for its messages. Sending also requires the mailbox to have verified outbound status.

For WhatsApp, you need a current non-guest membership and a connection owned by your signed-in account in the selected organization. Use only an already connected inbox. Opening the inbox can resume resumable authentication and synchronize stale avatar or group metadata, so it is not a passive evidence action. Do not pair, reset, retry history sync, or delete data as part of these workflows while IO-11440 remains open.

Triage a shared Email thread

Open the organization’s Relay Email channel and select the intended Mailbox.
Select Inbox, Sent, Failed, Archived, Done, Unread, or With attachments. Do not use Drafts as proof of saved-draft recovery; the current view is forced empty under IO-11441.
Use Search emails… when needed, then open the intended thread. Opening it marks the thread read for your administrator account and records open and view activity.
Choose Mark as read or Mark unread to change only your per-user read state.
Choose Mark as done when the shared work is complete. Choose Reopen to remove that shared done state.
Choose Archive to move the shared thread out of the Inbox workflow. From an archived thread, choose Move to inbox to restore it.
Open Assign to and choose an organization administrator to set the shared assignee. Relay does not offer an ordinary member as an assignee.
Open Label, enter a name under Add a label, and select Add. A custom label and its membership are shared thread state. Remove an existing label with its close action when it no longer applies.

Email triage success check

Relay reports the completed action and refreshes the thread. The thread tags and selected view reflect its shared done, archive, assignee, and label state, while Unread reflects your own read state.

Provider synchronization of archive or folder state is best effort. The local Relay change can remain recorded even when a provider update fails, so inspect the current Relay state before retrying an action.

Compose and queue Email

Select a mailbox whose outbound status is verified, then select Compose. Relay creates the draft immediately for your user in that mailbox.
Review the fixed From mailbox. Enter at least one valid address under To and add CC, BCC, or Reply-to only when required.
Enter Subject and write the content under Message body. Relay shows Drafts autosave while you type and records Draft saved after a successful autosave.
To attach files, select Add attachments. You can add up to 10 files. No individual file may exceed 25 MiB, and all files together must stay within 25 MiB. Relay refuses unsafe files.
Select Save for later to persist the durable draft without queuing a send. In a single-line field, pressing Enter can trigger a browser form submission; Relay uses Save for later as that submission’s default action. Enter in Message body inserts a line break. Only Send queues delivery. Closing the composer also preserves the most recent successful autosave.
Recheck the selected mailbox, every recipient, the subject, body, and attachments. Select Send only when delivery is intended.
Wait for Queued the email for delivery. This means Relay stored or reused a durable outbox item and scheduled a delivery attempt; it does not prove provider delivery or recipient receipt.

To answer an open thread, use Reply, Reply all, or Forward. Those actions create the same actor-owned draft with context from the thread, and the same review, save, attachment, and send boundaries apply.

Email queue success check

The composer closes and Relay reports Queued the email for delivery. A later synchronized delivery can make the outbound message appear under Sent, but Failed is not a guaranteed view of local outbox failures. It filters synchronized EmailMessage error state; local outbox failure or retry status may require support or status confirmation. A provider grant can still fail after the queue accepts the message. If an open thread shows Last send failed, use Retry send only after checking the recipient and content. An eligible retry queues the same outbox item with the same idempotency key, which prevents the retry from becoming an unrelated second logical send.

Work with Email attachments

Open a thread and locate Attachments under the intended message.
Check the customer-facing state: Available, Blocked, or Pending.
For an Available attachment, select View or Download only when you are authorized to receive that file.
Select Save to vehicle documents only when the message has a trusted vehicle context. Relay registers the existing attachment as a source document and schedules document processing; it does not infer a vehicle from the subject or sender.

Attachment success check

A view or download returns the stored available file through Relay’s authenticated attachment route. A successful vehicle save reports Saved the attachment to the vehicle documents. If no vehicle context exists, the control is absent and Relay must not be bypassed with a guessed identifier.

Use an already connected WhatsApp inbox

Open the organization’s WhatsApp channel. Confirm that the connection indicator belongs to the signed-in user’s expected WhatsApp account.
Use All, Unread, and Unmatched to filter your own connection’s conversations. Search conversations… narrows that same set.
To continue an existing conversation, select it in the left rail. Opening the conversation clears its local unread count, activates receipts, and can synchronize avatar or group metadata.
To link an unmatched direct conversation to Contacts, select Link on its row. The action is unavailable for group conversations, the connected account’s self-chat, and a conversation that is already linked. In Link to contact, enter at least two characters from the person’s name or email, then select a person from the current organization. Relay reports Linked NAME, stores the Contacts association, and the conversation leaves Unmatched. Linking the conversation does not send a WhatsApp message or contact the WhatsApp provider.
To open an existing Relay candidate, open New chat, choose New message, select a candidate shown by Relay, and select Open conversation. Relay opens the selected candidate; the picker does not guarantee a direct conversation.
To start a new direct phone-number draft, open New chat, choose New message, enter a valid phone number without selecting an existing candidate, and select Open conversation. The phone-number branch opens a direct draft. The first successfully persisted sent message creates or updates its Relay conversation.
Enter text and send only when WhatsApp reports the connection as connected. The current web composer does not attach a new file.
To reply to one message, open its actions and choose Reply. To add or remove a reaction, choose an emoji; Reactions use the connected WhatsApp account.
To start a group, open New chat, choose New group, and enter a group name. Create group needs at least one candidate that resolves to a valid direct-user JID. The candidate query uses the current user’s owned connections and excludes group conversations and the connected account’s self-chat, but a displayed candidate can still be rejected at submission. Do not assume every remaining conversation kind is a direct chat.

WhatsApp success check

The sent text appears in the selected conversation, the new group opens in the inbox, or the linked conversation shows its Contacts person and leaves Unmatched. Linking changes only the stored Relay-to-Contacts association. A sent message’s local state does not prove delivery to another WhatsApp device. If the connection is disconnected, Relay keeps persisted messages visible but refuses new messages, groups, and reactions.

Do not interpret another administrator’s role as permission to open this inbox. Relay’s normal WhatsApp queries and chat authorization stay restricted to connections owned by the current user.

Troubleshooting

If Compose, Reply, Reply all, or Forward is disabled, confirm the selected mailbox exists, your account is an organization administrator, and the mailbox is verified for outbound email.
If a saved draft is not visible under Drafts, do not compose a duplicate solely to recover it. The draft itself is durable, but IO-11441 tracks the missing list and count.
If Email reports a failed send, review Last send failed and retry only a retryable failed outbox item. Queuing another attempt is not delivery confirmation.
If WhatsApp says Cannot send the message. WhatsApp is not connected., stop the write. Do not use settings recovery as a workaround; follow Troubleshoot Relay.
If Link is absent or a Contacts search returns no person, follow the eligibility and search guidance in Troubleshoot Relay. Do not send a message merely to create a link candidate.
If New group is unavailable, the current user’s connection is not ready. Select participants only from the current picker; its query excludes group conversations and the connected account’s self-chat.
If group submission rejects the participants, picker visibility did not prove that a selected candidate resolved to a valid direct-user JID. Do not retry arbitrary displayed candidates; preserve the non-sensitive error and ask support to confirm the participant type.
If a thread, chat, attachment, or recipient came from an untrusted link, navigate from the current organization and channel instead of editing the URL.