Paperless
On this pageWho Can Write
  1. Who Can Write
  2. Who Receives a Message
  3. When the conversation has participants
  4. When the conversation is still empty
  5. What the student receives
  6. Reading, Editing, and Deleting

Sending Messages on a Request

How the two conversations on a request — the one with the student and the internal one — work and precisely who receives which message.

Messages on a request live in the History tab. There are two separate conversations:

  • Send to student — the conversation with the student. The student sees and replies to these messages in their own view.
  • Send to other staff members — an internal conversation between staff members. Students never see these messages.

To write a message, click New inquiry, enter your text (up to 4,000 characters), and choose the target. If your role does not allow you to send messages in a conversation, the message field shows You cannot send messages instead.

Who Can Write

The message field only shows the send buttons you are permitted to use. Every button you see means you can write in that conversation.

  • The student can only write in the conversation with the student.
  • The staff member the request is assigned to can write in both conversations.
  • Other staff members can write in one or both conversations when their role permits the respective messages.

Who Receives a Message

This depends on whether people are already part of the conversation.

When the conversation has participants

Paperless keeps track of who has already participated in a conversation. As soon as you send a message in a conversation in which you are not yet part, you are added to it automatically.

From that point on, a new message in the conversation reaches exactly the people who are part of it — no one else. If multiple staff members have taken part in the internal conversation, only they (and the student in the case of the student conversation) are notified about new messages in that conversation.

When the conversation is still empty

If no one is part of the conversation yet, Paperless widens the audience so that the message is not lost:

  • The staff member the request is assigned to is notified.
  • All staff members who have access to the request are notified.
  • All users whose role entitles them to be notified about new messages for requests in the respective state are notified — those responsible for the staff state and, if the request has a ZPA state, those responsible for it.

You are never notified about your own messages.

What the student receives

Messages in the student conversation reach the student by e-mail. Messages in the internal conversation never reach the student.

Reading, Editing, and Deleting

  • A message is marked as read when the student views it (for the student conversation). In the conversation with the student, staff can see when the student has read a message.
  • Only the person who wrote a message can edit it. An edited message is marked as edited.
  • Only the person who wrote a message can delete it, and only internal staff messages can be deleted. Messages in the conversation with the student cannot be deleted after they were sent.