Inbox
Inbox is the one screen for everything that needs you — pulled out of every topic and stacked in one queue. Open Inbox from the sidebar.
Zinley handles what it can on its own. What's left over — a decision only you can make, a promise someone hasn't kept — collects here, so you never have to open topics one by one to find out what's waiting.
What lands in the queue
Two kinds of item, and nothing else:
| Item | Means |
|---|---|
| Decision | Zinley is blocked until you choose. It needs an answer, an approval, or a call. |
| Follow-up due | Someone owed you something and the clock ran out. Zinley is ready to chase — or wants you to. |
Decisions come first, then the longest-waiting items. Anything Zinley is still politely waiting on — not yet overdue — stays out of the queue, so the count only ever means "this needs you."
Reading a row
Each row carries enough to decide without opening anything:
- The topic it belongs to, plus that topic's one-line summary.
- What's needed, in plain words.
- Who owes the next move — you, or them.
- A due clock, and how long the item has been sitting.
- Flags where they apply — escalated (Zinley chased them and gave up, so it's your move now), carried (it rolled over from an earlier day), and snoozed (paused until a date you picked).
The counter
The badge on Inbox is the needs you number — decisions plus overdue follow-ups. Alongside it you'll see the supporting tallies:
- Decisions and Follow-ups due — the two halves of the badge.
- Waiting — commitments other people owe you that aren't due yet. A heads-up, not a to-do.
- Handled today — items closed since midnight.
Some open loops sit inside their topics without making the badge — things Zinley noticed but judged too thin to interrupt you over. Your Brief mentions them in its opening lines so nothing is silently swallowed.
New people
Below the queue is a strip of people Zinley has met but you haven't looked at yet — whoever it talked to on a call, an email, or in chat. Each entry shows the name, the email or phone it came in on, and a short line of context.
Acknowledge one and it leaves the strip; the profile stays in People. If a new arrival looks like someone you already know, Zinley flags the likely match right on the entry so you can merge instead of ending up with two profiles for one human.
Acting on an item
The Inbox is a read-only queue — it tells you what's outstanding, and the actual doing happens on the item's topic, where you have the full case file in front of you. Open the row and you land on that topic with the same controls described in Topics: resolve, snooze, suppress, pin, answer, or approve / reject what Zinley proposed.
Because it's all one underlying item, closing it anywhere closes it everywhere — the Inbox, the topic, and tomorrow's Brief all agree.
Recent activity
The Inbox also shows a short log of what Zinley has been doing across your topics, newest first — a quick sanity check that things are moving while you weren't looking. For the full two-way record of every call, email, and message, open Activity.
New account? The queue starts empty. Items appear as Zinley handles work and hits something only you can settle.