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Getting Started with the Engage Inbox

This article guides you through the Engage inbox — where to find everything on screen and how to take your first steps. Engage brings every conversation your clinic has with clients — text messages, WhatsApp, email, fax, Facebook, Instagram, chatbot chats, and phone calls — into one place.

Opening Engage

Engage has no separate login. You open it from inside your Pabau account, and it signs you in automatically — you will briefly see a Connecting… screen while it loads. If you see a You're not signed in or Your session expired message instead, simply reopen Engage from Pabau to start a new session.

The inbox at a glance

The inbox is arranged in up to four panes, left to right: the navigation rail, the conversation list, the open conversation, and the client panel.

The Engage inbox on desktop: the navigation rail with filters, labels and channels, the conversation list on the Chats tab, an open SMS conversation with the reply composer, and the client panel showing the client's next appointment, contact details and balance

NOTE: On tablets and mobile devices the layout adapts — the navigation rail opens as a drawer from the Menu button, and on mobile a back button returns you from a conversation to the list.

The navigation rail

The navigation rail on the left is how you move around Engage. At the top, the New message button starts a new conversation — we suggest reading our How to Start a New Conversation in Engage article for the full flow.

Below it you will find:

  • Filters: All conversations, Unread, Starred, Mine, and Unassigned, each with a count badge so you can see how many conversations need attention.
  • Labels — your clinic's own colour-coded tags. We suggest reading our How to Organise Conversations with Labels in Engage article to set these up.
  • Channels — filters for SMS, Chatbot, Fax, Email, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Calls, and Voicemail.
  • Archived and Trash at the bottom, for conversations you have tidied away.

The navigation rail with the New message button, the All conversations, Unread, Starred, Mine and Unassigned filters with count badges, three coloured labels, the Channels section, and Archived and Trash at the bottom

NOTE: A channel only appears in the rail once your clinic has set it up. To connect channels, click Channels (or the Settings cog) in the narrow strip on the far left to open the Channel Catalog — we suggest reading our The Channel Catalog: Your Communications Hub article for what each card does.

The conversation list

The middle pane lists your conversations under two tabs: Chats for messages and Calls for your clinic's call log. A red badge on Calls shows how many new missed calls you have.

The toolbar above the list holds Search (⌘K), Sort, Filter, and Refresh. Searching narrows the list as you type, and sorting and filtering let you shape the list to how you work — we suggest reading our How to Filter, Search and Sort Conversations in Engage article for the details.

The conversation list with search open below the Chats and Calls tabs, a name typed into the search field, and the list narrowed to that client's conversation and call

TIP: Press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K on Windows) anywhere in Engage to open search instantly.

Reading and replying

Click any row in the list to open that conversation. The first conversation is selected automatically when the inbox loads, and opening a conversation with unread messages marks it as read for you. The conversation pane shows the full message history across every channel, with phone calls woven in on the timeline.

The buttons in the conversation header let you call the client, assign the conversation to a team member, apply labels, star it, archive it, or move it to Trash — we suggest reading our How to Manage Conversations in Engage (Read, Star, Archive and Trash) and How to Assign Conversations to Team Members in Engage articles for each action.

To reply, type in the composer at the bottom and click Send. You can even answer on a different channel than the message arrived on — see our How to Reply to Messages and Switch Channels in Engage article.

If nothing is selected — or your clinic has no conversations yet — the pane shows Select a conversation. New incoming messages appear in the list automatically while Engage is open.

The Engage inbox before any conversations arrive: the list shows No conversations and the conversation pane shows the Select a conversation empty state

The client panel

Click the Toggle patient panel button at the far right of the conversation header to show or hide the client panel. It displays the linked client's next appointment, contact details, insurance, allergies, and account balance, with shortcuts into Pabau to Book, open their Chart, Bill, or Profile. We suggest reading our Understanding the Client Panel in Engage article for a full walkthrough.

We suggest reading our What Is Pabau Engage? article for an overview of the whole product, and our The Channel Catalog: Your Communications Hub article to connect your first channels.

For more guides, refer to related articles below, select additional guides, or use the search bar at the top of the page. These guides will help you get the most out of your Pabau account.

Additionally, to help you fully utilize and understand your Pabau account, we recommend exploring additional guides and resources offered at the Pabau Academy.