5 Steps to Share an Inbox with your Team in Gmail

Team Inbox is becoming quite popular among businesses. Mostly because it is changing email as we know it – in other words, that same un-collaborative place.

Email was firstly designed to be used as a direct channel, very similar to physical mail. However, as companies have been urging for more collaboration on their business activities, the concept of “Team Inbox” has emerged and rapidly spread across thousands of organizations.

Now it’s your turn to do the same, which is why we prepared five simple steps to turn your Gmail inbox into the perfect Shared Inbox for your team – transforming it into a productivity machine.

Step 1 – Understanding Team Inboxes

Until recently, team inboxes were unknown. Employees used to rely on a single email address, copying and forwarding emails between teammates, or using significant external software to solve communication problems. But did it solve the problem?

Some companies, especially big enterprises, need external, comprehensive tools with enough infrastructure to manage their robust and heavy operations. On the other hand, small teams most times don’t need anything else besides email – yes, email – to solve their business problems.

Still, any business activity people deal with – whether it be a deal close, meeting arrangement, fundraising, or anything else, starts and finishes as emails. For small teams in the G Suite space, the power of a well-designed Gmail Team Inbox in Gmail should be enough to organize the mess in their lives and make them more productive, right from inside their inbox. 

That’s why Shared Inboxes exist. They were made for teams that want to simplify their lives instead of adding complexity. We are launching Drag Team (Shared Trello-like boards in Gmail) so people can work with their teams to organize, comment, and reply to emails, together, without the burden of learning an all-new tool from scratch.

Step 2 – Finding the Best Gmail Team Inbox tools

There are some ways to search and find the proper tool for your team that works in Gmail.

Look into reviews in directories 

Directories are a great place to look for tools. They reunite various tools divided into categories, each tool with its reviews, containing all the pros and cons of using it.

You can search for Gmail team inbox tools in Capterra. There you will find complete reviews, containing the reviewer’s job title, industry, number of employees, and time spent using the software. This can be useful to understand the context of how they are using the software, so you can compare with how your team works and see with the tool would fill your needs. G2 is another useful directory to look for software, and it works similarly to Capterra.

Search your pain point in the web

Try to search literally for your pain points on Google. For example, “share team inbox in Gmail”, if your pain point is the need to have a shared inbox with your team.

Step 3 – Downloading Drag Team Inbox

Now comes the easy part. Just click here to download the best Chrome extension that will help you share your email inbox with your team.

Drag instantly turns Gmail into a Team Inbox. And it doesn’t stop here. It also turns Gmail into a Kanban board, the best way to organize Gmail. 

Now you can start collaborating in your brand new Gmail team inbox with your team. And if you need to get things done, your mailbox gets many other functionalities, such as:

• Drag’ n’ drop;
• Add tasks to your shared mailbox;
• Due dates;
• Notes;
• Checklists;
• Multiple boards;
• You can get all of the above shared with your team.

All of it. Right into your Gmail.

Step 4 – Creating Team Boards

Once you’re logged in and have Drag activated, all you have to do is follow these steps:

• Click on the red, Create Board button on the bottom right
• Select the type of board do you want. Boards can be Empty (so you can drag emails or create tasks into there as you want) OR Shared Inbox (real-time boards to receive emails from shared emails such as sales@ or support@).
• Type a name for your new board;
• Click on Add.

And you’re done! As simple as that.

Step 5 – Inviting teammates

This step is as simple as the last one. All you need to do is:

• Inside the board you want to share, click on the Share button on the top right;
• Type the email addresses of your team members;
• Hit Add button;

And that’s it! Your invitees will receive an email with your invitation, and they’ll be able to access this board.

Conclusion

Setting up and using a Gmail Team Inbox is easier than you expected, right? The whole idea behind it is to make your experience with it as smooth as possible. At the same time, boosting your team’s productivity has to be the big idea behind it all.

It doesn’t matter if you’ll use it just like an email, or turn it into CRM, Help Desk or Projects, shared inboxes can increase productivity and boost your teams work.