A channel you run yourself
An API inbox is a Kommio channel you run yourself: a form, an in-app messenger, a marketplace or a legacy system posts what the customer writes, and it becomes a conversation like any other. Agents' replies come back to you by webhook.
One conversation model, whatever the channel.
API inbox conversations sit in the same list as every other channel, with one owner and one history, so nobody asks the customer to repeat themselves.
What your agent sees
A message posted to the inbox looks like any other conversation: the contact is found or created from an email, a phone number or your own user id, the message is threaded into the right conversation, and tags, assignment and notes work as always.
What your customer sees
Whatever your product shows them. Your system posts their message and renders the agent's reply where they wrote it, in your own interface.
Assignment and automation apply
The message takes the normal inbound path, so rules, assignment, SLA policies, agent bots and the AI agent run exactly as they do for an email or a chat.
Reports count it
API inbox conversations count like every other channel's, and API is its own slice of the channel mix.
The facts that matter for API inbox.
One call in
Post the customer's message to the inbox with who it is from (an email, a phone number or an external id of your own), the content and your own message id. Sending the same id again returns the stored message instead of a duplicate.
Threading you control
Name the message a reply answers and it threads into that conversation; otherwise it joins the contact's open conversation in that inbox, or starts a new one.
Replies out by webhook
Agents' replies reach you as message.created webhooks with the outbound direction, signed, with a delivery ledger and replay for one delivery or every failed one.
Surveys, if you want them
Satisfaction surveys are off by default on API inboxes. Turn them on and the survey link comes to you in the csat.requested event, to show wherever your customer is.
Attachments
Upload files to a conversation with the multipart endpoint; they are checked by type and size, stored under the workspace and served as downloads unless they are images.
Permissions
An API key with inboxes:manage posts messages. Only API inboxes take messages this way; every other channel receives them from its provider.
What you need to connect API inbox.
An administrator does this from Settings. Nothing to install on your side beyond what the channel's own platform asks for.
Create an API inbox
Settings › Inboxes › Add inbox › API. Name it and choose the agents who answer it.
Create an API key
An API key with inboxes:manage, kept with the system that posts the messages. Keys that read conversations or contacts can be created only by people who see everything unmasked.
Subscribe a webhook
Point a webhook at your system for message.created, verify its signature, and render the outbound replies where the customer wrote. A runnable webhook receiver in Node, Python and Go is in the developer center.
Step by step, with the exact fields and what to do when something does not arrive: Customer messages from your own channel: the endpoint, threading and replies.
Coming from another help desk? Kommio as an alternative to Chatwoot, Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk or Help Scout, and what free help desk software really means.
Other channels
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