A conversation is the working record of back-and-forth communication with one person. It is most useful when it is connected to the right person, so anyone on your team can pick it up later and understand the history and context.
A conversation can come from more than one kind of channel:
• Text message (SMS) — a regular text to or from a mobile number.
• Secured message — an encrypted message the contact reads and answers after securely logging in to the client portal. Use this type of message for anything sensitive. See Inbox Overview for when to choose secured over regular text. The invite text clients receive that lets the person log in and read a secured message is a customizable template; see Customizing Intake & Secure Message Templates.
• Voice call — a logged phone call, with notes about what was discussed.
Your organization may use some or all of these options depending on how messaging is set up for your organization.
Every conversation should be connected to the person you are communicating with. That person link is what keeps the history easy to find later.
• In Inbox, you can search by name or phone and open the full thread.
• On a client's record, conversations linked to that client also appear in Activity, alongside other history for that person.
If a conversation is linked to the wrong person, or to no one, fix the link before you reply. A reply on the wrong record is hard to untangle later.
In CoolFocus 5, a conversation is not attached to a specific case, appointment, visit, donation, or event. There is no staff action to "link this thread to this appointment" (or case, visit, or event).
Those other records stay separate. If you need case or appointment context while messaging, open that record on its own, or leave a short internal note on the conversation for your team.
(Sending intake forms for an upcoming appointment is a different workflow — it uses the person's messaging channel to deliver forms. It does not turn the Inbox conversation into a record that "belongs" to that appointment.)
Take two seconds to confirm:
• You are looking at the right person.
• You are in the right conversation (not a duplicate).
• The history makes sense for what you are about to say.
If something looks duplicated or out of place, see Merging & Cleaning Up Conversations before sending another reply.
