Messages
Requires.
- Messages with View to see the list.
- Messages with Create to send new messages.
The Messages tab is the communication log between your company and a customer. It shows every email or SMS that's been sent to or received from them through SecurityTrax — appointment confirmations, payment reminders, customer-service replies, marketing messages, statement emails, and so on. Each message is attributed, timestamped, and searchable, so your team has one authoritative record of every touchpoint.
Messages sent outside SecurityTrax (a rep calling from their personal phone, an email from someone's personal mailbox) don't land here. For that reason, treat this tab as a record of SecurityTrax-originated communication, not a complete customer-contact log.
Getting here
- Click Messages in the customer's header tab bar (envelope icon). The tab shows a count of messages.
- Or navigate directly to
https://portal.securitytrax.com/{your-company}/customers/{id}/customer-messages.
The list
Messages are shown newest first. Each row:
- Date & time — when the message was sent or received.
- Direction — inbound (from the customer) or outbound (from your team). Often shown as an icon.
- Channel — Email or SMS.
- Subject (email only) — the subject line.
- Preview — the first line of the body.
- From / To — the email address or phone number on the other side.
- Sent by — the user who triggered the send (for outbound). For automated messages (triggered by workflows, appointment confirmations, statement emails), this shows "System" or similar.
- Status — Sent, Delivered, Opened, Bounced, Failed. Status depends on your email/SMS provider's tracking capabilities.
- Attachments — a paperclip icon if files were attached.
Click any row to open the full message.
Sending a new message
Click + New Message (quick-action in the header flyout, or the toolbar button on the list).
Message form
| Field | Required? | Type | Validation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Channel | Yes | Select | Email or SMS | Some customers may have only one available (e.g. no email on file). |
| To | Yes | Pre-filled | Valid email or phone | Defaults to the customer's primary email or cell phone based on channel. You can override. |
| CC / BCC (email only) | No | Email list | Valid emails | Optional additional recipients. Separate multiple with commas. |
| Subject (email only) | Yes | Text | 1–200 chars | Shown to the customer in their inbox. |
| Template | No | Select | From your company's message template catalog | Picking a template fills in subject and body. Templates support merge tags ({{customer_name}}, {{rep_name}}, etc.) that resolve at send time. |
| Body | Yes | Rich text (email) or plain text (SMS) | 1 char minimum; SMS limited to your provider's max (usually 160 chars, concatenated for longer) | The message body. |
| Attachments (email only) | No | File upload | Per provider limits (typically 25 MB per email) | Drag or click to attach. |
Click Send to submit. SecurityTrax queues the message with your email or SMS provider and records it on this tab immediately with status Sent. Status updates to Delivered / Opened / Bounced as the provider returns tracking info.
Dispositions and failures
If your email or SMS provider rejects the message (invalid address, unsubscribed recipient, provider outage), the row shows Failed with a short reason. Open the message to see the full provider response. Failed messages can usually be retried from the detail page.
Automated messages
Many messages aren't manually sent — they're generated by SecurityTrax automatically:
- Appointment confirmations when an appointment is scheduled or modified.
- Due date reminders when a ticket's due date approaches.
- Payment receipts when a payment is recorded.
- Statement emails when a Statement is emailed to the customer.
- Workflow-driven messages from active Workflows the customer is enrolled in.
These appear on the list the same as manual messages, attributed to the system or to the user whose action triggered them.
Inbound messages
If your company has two-way email or SMS configured, customer replies come back into this tab. Usually the customer is replying to a specific outbound message — SecurityTrax threads them together so you can see the conversation in order.
If the customer's reply landed on a teammate's personal inbox instead of SecurityTrax, it won't appear here. Have that teammate either forward it into SecurityTrax (if supported) or re-send the original message from here so the customer replies to the right address.
Why this matters
- Audit trail. Every communication sent to the customer is logged. When the customer calls saying "you said X in an email," you can verify.
- Team handoff. A rep picking up a customer from a teammate can read the conversation history here without having to ask what's been said.
- Compliance. Certain industries require retaining communication records for X years.
- Reporting. Which templates get opened? Which types of customers reply? Message data feeds into those reports.
Related
- Notes & Tickets — for internal team notes that aren't customer-facing.
- Statements — emailed statements get logged here.
- Workflows — workflows often trigger automated messages.
- Files — for documents you attach but don't send.